RUSSIA'S YEAR
WELVE months ago next Monday Hitler, being bound by a I treaty of nearly two years' standing to refrain from any act of force or aggression against Russia, invaded Russia without warning or provocation, and Ribbentrop assembled the correspondents of countries still neutral, primarily the Americans, in Berlin, to hand out justifications of the crime. That day Russia and Britain became in all but technical form allies. Before the day ended the Prime Minister had put the relationship beyond all doubt. Past tensions between the two countries—there were many of them, and neither government could escape responsibility for their exist- ence—ceased to count. Hitler had created a new situation, and as Mr. Churchill declared in his broadcast to the world, all possible help would be given by Britain to the great country assailed by Hitler, and, therefore, ranged with Britain against the common foe. All possible help has, in fact, been given. There has been no defaulting on our pledges. Lord Beaverbrook, when he visited Moscow as Minister of Supply, in September, made great commitments, undertaking to deliver to the Russian front aircraft, tanks and munitions which British forces urgently needed in other theatres. There was no haggling. What was 'asked for was promised up to the limit of practical possibilities. And all of it punctually left these shores on its perilous voyage by the north-east passage. The percentage lost has been sur- prisingly small.
It is no particular discredit to the British intelligence service that estimates of Russia's power of resistance should have been so pessimistic. If in military and political circles in Whitehall a six weeks' war was talked of, it was talked of with equal con- fidence in Berlin, and the Germans in the months preceding might have been expected to have access to better information about Russia's military capacity than any Briton. But Russia had, in fact, required all foreigners to keep their distance. Stalin had few illusions about Hitler's real intentions. When Molotov signed the treaty of August, 1939, he was in effect buying time while military preparations went forward. Hence the indomitable re- sistance which, maintained for twelve months with incomparable courage and inflexible tenacity, has branded Hitler's decision as one of the cardinal blunders of all history. In every department, in the quality of both officers and men, in strategy, tactics, pro- duction, Russia has astonished the world. Admiration has been awakened successively by the grim resolution of the scorched-earth policy, by the considered surrender of territory up to the lalls of Leningrad and Moscow and Sevastopol, with only Kiev of the great bastions ceded, by the gigantic transference of industry from threatened cities to centres further east, by the half-organised, half-improvised, but always brilliantly successful guerilla warfare, by the winter-offensive which frustrated Hitler's intention to pre- pare new strokes at his leisure, and last of all, today, by the sublimity of sacrifice with which Russian armies are resisting shock-attack behind Kharkov and round Sevastopol. Russians are dying in their thousands primarily that their fatherland may live, but their death ensures survival and victory for their allies equally.
By her achievements through the ordeal of a year Russia has involved us in a debt which we cannot hesitate to honour. Her demands on us are three—that we shall go on sending all, and if possible more than all, the war material we have promised ; that we shall make it a matter of urgency to create in Europe a second front that will, by diverting German forces, relieve some of the almost intolerable pressure on her ; and that we give some guarantee that the comradeship cemented during war . will not be abandoned after peace, with Russia left to face a still menacing Germany unsupported. Two of the demands have been fulfilled already, and the third unquestionably will be. The material stipulated for is being sent, and it is no bad thing that M. Molotov, during his recent visit here, should have been enabled to realise from hour-by-hour reports at what cost British seamen were fighting their convoys through to Russian ports under German attack. The second front will be created. Both the British and American communiqués have emphasised that, and both have spoken of its creation in 1942. The difficulties are immense, but so are the resources of men and material and ships which will enable the difficulties to be surmounted. Detailed discussion of the possibilities could serve no good purpose, but new German dispositions make it manifest that the enemy regards the second front as a development definitely impending. Meanwhile, a be- • ginning is being made, though impeded unfortunately by incle- ment weather, with intensified attack on Germany by air.
The third demand, that two countries fighting side by side in war shall stand together as indissolubly in peace, is met to the full by last week's treaty. In the credit due for the conclusion of that great instrument we need not seek to discriminate between M. Molotov and Mr. Eden, though the Foreign Secretary's countrymen may be permitted to pay him a special tribute for his part in the achievement. The stipulations of the treaty are familiar, and need not be recapitulated. It is enough to know that the two countries are pledged to fight together to the vic- torious end, and to maintain their partnership for twenty years at least in the tasks of reconstruction and the building of a system of security which shall eliminate, if possible for ever, the danger of German or any other aggression. What form that system shall take remains to be decided. Its nucleus must be the United Nations now fighting for survival against Hitler, and of these four—Great Britain, the United States, Russia and China—are the essential corner-stones on which the fabric of world-peace must rest. The ties, formal and informal, to bind them are various. The President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain promulgated the Atlantic Charter, and Russia's unqualified acceptance of that far-reaching instrument is embodied in the preamble of the new treaty. Britain and Russia alone have negotiated and signed that treaty, but in the course of his visit to the United States M. Molotov assured himself that the President and Secretary of State associated themselves un- reservedly with its spirit and purpose. And Britain, America and Russia have all severally maintained for over a decade relations of close co-operation and friendship with China.
Here then are the forces that must mould the post-war world. The signatories of the Anglo-Russian Treaty specifically invite like-minded nations to join them in adopting proposals for com- mon action to preserve peace and resist aggression in the post- war period. The invitation may be regarded as accepted in advance by the nations fighting in alliance with one another against the aggressors by whom four continents have been blasted.
Their forces are still gathering strength, as air-squadrons and infantry divisions trained on British and American soil are com- ing into action in one theatre or another. That comprehensive alliance in arms must be preserved, for a nation which, like Ger- many, has three times in seventy years resorted to force for its own aggrandisement can only be held in check by superior force, and even when Germany is disarmed there must be power- ful sentinels on her frontiers, and for a time within them, to assure the world against a repetition of the repudiation, at first surreptitious and then defiantly flagrant, of disarmament obliga- tions which marked the early years of Hitler's dictatorship. From that essential proviso a good deal flows. An international army or air-force engaged in guarding peace must be under some supreme direction, and the nature and constitution of that body needs careful thought. Neither the world nor Europe is ready for anything like federation, but a system which finds material reflection and application m an international force must be both efficient and compact.
But that lies in the future. What concerns the immediate future is the relationship between Britain and Russia. There can be no question that the treaty has created a new atmosphere of mutual confidence, rather more necessary on the Russian side than ours, for popular enthusiasm for Russia here has been whole- hearted, while among the Russians old suspicions have died hard. But dead or dying they unquestionably are, and if only sufficien effort and intelligence are devoted to inculcating British ideas and British achievement among the Russian people—which means a great change from anything that is happening now—the gro in sympathy and comradeship will be progressive. We cann tell what Russia will emerge from the war. The Crimean W was followed by the emancipation of the serfs, the Japanese W by the creation of the Duma, the Great War precipitated Revolution. What this war will bring forth may depend in n small measure on the relations existing between Russia Britain at the end of it.
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