Evening star., 1939-10-09
And Now Finland?

WIZ s>SV
Finland, which has strong claim
on the esteem of the United States
because OF the lonely eminence she
occupies among our World War
debtors, seems to be earmarked as
the next victim of Soviet Russia's
march toward Baltic domination.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, hav-
ing in succession agreed to military,
naval and economic concessions
which virtually turn them into vas
sails of Stain, Finland, northermost
OF the Baltic states, has now been
summoned to the Moscow throne
The Helsinki government has ap-
pointed a delegation to confer" at
Moscow, headed by NJ Passikivi, Fin
nish Minister at Stockholm.
Coincident with the announced in
tention to respond to the Soviet's ''in-
vitation" to appear in Moscow, there
are reports that Finland'S govern
ment has sent troops to the Russian
frontier as a gesture that she does
not propose meekly to surrender to
Red pressure, but the Helsinki au-
thorities cannot be blind to the fact
that successful resistance to Stains
pressure is difficult. Earlier Russo
Finnish trade talks proved abortive
because Moscow insisted upon COM
bining political claims with them.
The U. S. R. R. notoriously covets a
group of Finnish islands in the east
ern area of the Gulf of Finland, not
far from Estonia. Now that Moscow
controls that region, it apparently
believes 1t can impose Russian de-
mands on the Firms. Once fortified,
: the islands would become important
strongholds, like the Estonian, Lat
Wan and Lithuanian bases of which
the Soviet has just laid hold.
With Finland under Russian in
fuence, Sweden would feel herself
directly menaced. The Firms and
the SwedeS have common frontier
at the far north of the Scandinavian
peninsula and the Swedish east coast
lies directly across the Baltic from
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. King
Gustav Adolphus' people realize that
with the Soviet's relentless advance
into the Baltic, their country comes
within the range of the Red Army's
air force. Even Denmark is now in
easy reach of Russian bombing craft,
as is also Memel, the Lithuanian port
Hitler seized last March.
Apart from the fate to which the
small Baltic states are now con-
demned by the westward drive Of
the Communist juggernaut, the sig
nif1cance of Stalin's bloodless con-
quest lies in the fact that Hitler has
surrendered the Baltic, long mapped
in Berlin as German lake, to his
new bedfellow at Moscow. That con-
cession, plus the simultaneous hand
ing over of Eastern Poland, whereby
Russia becomes a barrier to the
Reich's program of expansion across
Hungary and Rumania to the Black
Sea, reveals the high price Hitler
has paid to protect Germanys east
ern flank, in order to concentrate on
war in the west.
Though the Nazis have proclaimed
that if Britain and France spurn Hit
ler's "outstretched hand" for peace,
the Reich and Russia will consult
over measures next to be TAKEN"
concrete evidence is still lacking of
q formal Nazi-Communist military
alliance. If Stain can continue to
mop up on the Baltic and in South
eastern Europe by mere exploitation
Of Hitler's necessities in the west, the
chances are that the Communist
czar will go on making Red hay while
the Russo-German sun shines, al
ways in the hope that "capitalist-
bourgeois" Europe will devastate it
self for the eventual benefit of Com
munist imperialism and world revo-
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