Thames Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1934. RUSSIA AND THE LEAGUE.

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 19210, 17 September 1934, Page 2

Thames Star

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1934. RUSSIA AND THE LEAGUE.

•‘With mnliss tffiwartfa nomo; with chsflfcy for ad) with firmaeoe In tha rigttv m Qod gives us to 8M fiha rigfek*?—- Lincoln..

The opening of the fifteenth session of the League of Nations Assembly last week took place under curiously mixed auspices. In Europe the political situation is worse than it has been since 1918; in the Far East there is a growing- tension between Japan and Russia; and in South America a peculiarly atrocious and senseless war is now in its second year. Tho deterioration in the international situation has been accompanied by a weakening of the League system, a weakening duo partly to the- defection of Japan and Germany, but more to a growing suspicion, even among those who support the principle of collective action, that tho constitution and methods of the League arc fundamentally defective. But the outlook is not as black as most observers paint it. Though Europe has a, bad attach of nerves, and though the armaments indtfltry is having a bumper year, it may be doubted whether there is any immediate danger of a major war. The European Powers —Germany, Italy, France and Russia —are preoccupied with internal political and economic difficulties; and in Germany at any rate the impact of war upon the social and political structure might have startling results. Indeed, it is significant that the murder of Dr. Dollfuss, an eminently suitable excuse for another European war, seems,to have caused more excitement among foreign correspondents than among foreign Ministers. Similarly, the League has so far handled the matter of the Saar plebiscite, w’hieh is the immediate danger point in Europe, with conspicuous success. The most hopeful international event since the last meeting of the Assembly is, horvever, the decision of the powers to admit Russia to the League and to give her a permanent seat on the Couneil. There need, of course, bo no illusions about Russia’s reason for joining the League. She is joining not because she believes in the kind of internationalism that centres at Geneva, but because she feels safer inside the, League than outside. Nor is it merely chance that her joining coincides with the defection of her two main enemies— Germany and Japan. Moreover, the present members of the League can be excused if they temper their welcome to the new recruit with reservations. Until about a year ago the League was contemptuously dismissed by the Soviet official press as a “capitalistic conspiracy”; while the theory that the Soviet system is the nucleaus of a world revolution, which no Communist would question, seems to preclude friendly co-operation with capitalist States. To what extent is the Soviet Government prepared to renounce or shelve its ambition to promote revolutions in other countries? In other words: What will now be the attitude of the Soviet Government to the Third International? In the past it has argued, not very logically or? sincerely, that it has no connection whatever with the Third International. But in its recent agreement with the United States it gave an undertaking “not to permit the formation or residence on its territory of any organisation or group which has as an aim the overthrow ... of tho political or social order ... of the United States.” This seems at first sight a promise either to' suppress or to curb the Third International; yet a few months later, at the opening of the congress of the Communist party, Molotov declared that the Russian Communists were “the vanguard of the Communist international.” It will very soon be possible to discover

exactly where the Soviet Government stands in the matter. Within a few weeks there will assemble in Moscow the first plenary congress of the International since 1928. Tin attitude of the Russian delegates will show clearly whether or not the Soviet Government means to cooperate wholeheartedly with other Governments. This said, it must still be recognised that the addition of Russia to the League is an important and hopeful event. For one thing, it immensely strengthens the League’s claim to universality. Russia is four times as large as Europe and has a population of more than 160,000,000, a population which is increasing at the, phenomenal rate of 3,500,000 a year. For another, it brings to Geneva a power sincerely, even passionately, anxious to keep the peace and to provide material sanctions for the keeping of the peace. “The Soviet Union, which has no territorial ambitions and is absorbed by the task of economic socialist reconstruction,” said Stalin recently, ‘‘needs peace as one needs air; it needs It for the growth and development of the proletarian state.”