Evening star., 1925-07-26
JAPAN is DISlLLUSIONED
ON TREATY WITH SOVIET
Realizes Concessions Meant Nothing as
Oil Bubble i'm Saghalien Bursts-Ex-
perience Like Other Countries.

advantage might turn up anna tne
ensuing disorders. This government,
which denies naionalism, has been
posing with some success as the pro-
tagonist of any aspiring national
group which seems capable OF making
trouble for the government OF one or
Soviet Russia'S neighbors.
The shift from class to sectional
warfare has been noticeable parucu-
larly in the Balkans and along the
Russian border in Europe. Russian
irredentism was stirred up against the
Polish government among the White
Russians and Ukrantans of East
Galicia and against the Czechosiovak
government among the Russo-Car-
pathians in Ruthenia. The Rumanian
province of Bessarabia, where there
are large Ukranian and Jewish mi
norities, was offered a bait when Mos
COW created next door an autonomous
Moldavian Socialist Soviet Republlc,
the title of which was designed to ap-
peal to the Moldavian q. e., Ru-
manian) population now not alto
gether happy under the rule of Bu-
charest. The radical remnants OF the
late Premier Stambuliski's agrarian
supporters in Bulgaria were taken
under the wing of Moscow, as were
the most extreme and irresponsible
Bulgar revolutionaries in Macedonia.
In Greek Macedonia, especially around
Saloniki, the Soviet government aimed
at taking advantage of the misery ex-
listing among the hordeS of Greek ref
ugees from Asia Minor to play up the
plan for a Macedonian rising which
might topple over the existing gov
ernments alike in Greece, Bulgaria
and Jugoslavia. In Jugoslavia the at
tempt was made to identify the Croat
peasant movement with the Peasant
International as the first step toward
bringing 1t definitely under the inf1u-
ence of the Soviets.
Success Not Likely.
Will these various attempts to ex-
plot nationalist grievances and enmi-
ties succeed? 1t seems increasingly
unlikely. Whatever the success of
such Soviet endeavors in Asia (and no
one can yet say what the result there
will be), the danger point in eastern
Europe seems to be either passing or
past. The attempt of the Soviet gov
ernment to land a body blow at Eu-
rope by means of class uprisings IN
one or more of the principal countries
failed. The subsequent attempt to
weaken the lesser governments of
eastern Europe by means of national
iSt agitation seems also to be failing.
Short of the contingency of a gen.
eral war which might provide Moscow
with exceptional opportunities, and
supposing that the Soviet government
does not for domestic reasons decide
to attempt single-handed military
action against either Poland or Ru-
mania, those two countries seem well
able to cope with possible disagreeable
events within their present frontiers.
Bulgaria, where the reactionary gov
ernment of Premier Zankof has been
goaded to unfortunate reprisals by a
succession of assassinations, at least
some of which have been directly
financed from Moscow, remains a
danger point. But from the parts Of
Macedonia under Jugoslav and Greek
rule come reports that the populations
concerned seem to be settling down to
an acceptance of the present situation
and that they are looking forward to
an era of peaceful farming and COM
merce in a frame of mind that does
not promise much success to the wiles
of MoScow's agents. And in Jugo-
Slavia itself a rapprochement between
the Serbs and Croats seems to have
proved once and for all that the rift
of which Moscow hoped to make so
much was nothing but a brotherly
quarrel which, given common sense
on both sides, will sooner or later be
completely healed; certainly 1t does
not presage the dissolution Of the
Jugoslav union or violent disturbances
that might be profitable to the watch
ers in Moscow.
All in all, it does not seem extrava-
CANT to say that the Soviet drive for
the breakup of the states of eastern
Europe by appeals to racial hatreds
has passed the zero hour and that,
given continuance of general Euro
pean peace, the majority of the new
states are now as immune to infection
as the great powers seem to be.
(Copyright 1921