RUTHLESS PROCESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26677, 24 January 1948, Page 7

RUTHLESS PROCESS

Communist Control of Europe SOVIET EXPANSIONIST POLICY Mr Ernest Kevin’s Vigorous Attack New Zealand Press Association—Copyright JRec. 10 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 23. Opening the Foreign Affairs debate in the House of Commons last night, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Ernest Bevin, vigorously attacked the Soviet Union expansionist policy in Europe. Mr Bevin said that Britain believed the policy of European domination by one Power would in- iFj evitably lead to another war. The police State, an instrument which Hitler and Mussolini evolved, now Wl existed, and was administered with ruthless efficiency. The Soviet apparently intended to use every means to get Communist control of Eastern and Western Europe. Her frontiers were now advanced to Stettin, Trieste, and the river Elbe, yet all the evidence was that she was not satisfied with this tremendous expansion. It had been made quite clear that the Communist process would be continued, no matter how others temporised.

Mr Bevin said: “We have seen the game played out in Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, and from information in our possession other attempts may be made. An attempt is being made in Greece to bring it into the Soviet orbit. This is a dangerous situation—a case of power politics. We have been trying to leave Greece as an independent nation and to get out. Her Balkan neighbours have flouted the United Nations. There is very serious danger that they and their Soviet mentors may make a great blunder over this. * Provocations like this lead sometimes to serious developments, which we and I hope they are anxious to avoid. The matter would better be settled in accordance with the United Nations decision rather than by the promotion of civil war. It is dangerous in international affairs to play with fire.” Mr Bevin said that the Government had striven for the closer consolidation and economic development, and eventually for the spiritual unity of Europe as a whole but in Eastern Europe they were presented with a fait accompli. No one there was free to speak or think or enter into the trade or other arrangements of his own free will and the sovereignty of Eastern European nations was handicapped. Neither Britain, the United States nor France was going to approach Western Europe on that basis. It was not in keeping with the spirit of Western civilisation.

“ if we were to have an organism in the West it would be a spiritual union. While there must be treaties, or at least understandings, the union must be primarily a fusion derived from the basic freedoms, and it must; be on the terms of equality that was the goal the Government was now trying to reach. .• Mr Bevin continued by saying that propaganda and war nerves could not contribute to a settlement of international problems. European unity could not be achieved under the domination or control of any one great Power. The Marshall programme had vividly, brought to light what had been under the surface all the time. Britain would not use smaller Powers as an instrument of policy to produce difficulties between larger Powers, but she could not agree to four-Power co-operation while one of the four Powers continued to impose its political economic system on smaller States. It was madness to- think of anything but the friendliest relations between Russia and every other nation, said Mr Bevin, but Eastern Europe could not be cut off from the rest of the world and turned into an exclusive self-contained bloc under the control of Moscow and the Communist party. Britain would do nothing against the Soviet Union, but she was entitled to “ organise kindred souls in the west just as they organised kindred souls in the east." One of the first interests of the Communists was to prevent the Marshall Plan succeeding but Britain would not be a party to keeping Europe in chaos and starvation.