Evening star., 1941-10-20
Conquest Of Russia
Held Impossible
Author Contends Bolsheviks
Could Continue Struggle
With Hitler Indefinitely

Hitler Cannot Conquer Russia, by Maui
rice Hindus. Doubleday, Doran: New
York
At moment when Adolf Hitlers
legions are deep in the heart OF the
Ukraine, beSieging Leningrad and Mos
COW and conquering vast expanses OF the
Russian soil, it is, to say the least, cou-
rageous-and some would say foolhardy-
for writer of standing to predict that
Hitler cannot conquer Russia.
Mr.. Hindus has not undertaken that
task with the idea that Hitler cannot
triumph over the Russian armies, that
the Soviet is invincible, but with the idea
that the Soviet system, now nearly
quarter century old, has unified Rus
slams everywhere in a resistance which
will rob the Germans of any real profit
from the lands they are winning. He
thus summarizes his thesis: Il must re-
peat that even if Hitler occupies Moscow.
Kiev, Leningrad, all of European Russia,
and pushes eastward to the Urals, he will
never conquer Russia, because he will
never be able to hold the Russians. The
formal front may collapse. The Red
Army in Europe may break up into sepa-
rate disconnected units. That will not
end the hostilities. All occupied Russia
will become a front. Fighting will go
on anywhere, everywhere. Not a weapon
the human imagination can invent but
will be put to use by both sides. Treach-
cry and deceit, the knife and the ak,
poison and the torch, hunger and dis
ease, will supplement the rifle and shot
gun, the hand grenade and the machine
gun, in the guerrilla fray that is to
follow"
Mr.. Hindus has written his book, it
should be explained, out of vast ex-
perience with and knowledge of not only
the Russian people but the Soviet system
as well. He always has been a careful
critic of Communist Russia-Where, he
insists, no Communism exists-admitting
with facile readiness the shortcomings
of the Bolsheviks, but giving them the
balance of credit. This book is written
in just that vein.
The burden of his theme is that Rus
sion people Of all classes never can SUBJ
NIT to the NaA new order" because out
of the Communist revolution they each
have acquired national consciousness
and stake in the preservation of the
Soviet Union.
He rests his argument for ultimate
Soviet victory on the success of the Bol-
sheviks in remaking the Russian earth
and Russian humanity in the knowledge
that one day they would have to go TO
war to preserve their system. The goal
was set to ''remake the Russian earth so
it would supply them tthe Soviet leaders,
with the sinews of war" and to 'remake
Russian humanity so 1t could COM
petently handle the sinews of war that
forging"
Stain has provided sinews of war for
the Russian Army by the drive first for
increased productivity and second, re-
distribution of production centers to re-
Ieve reliance on any single region.
Great new plants have been established
in the Urals and the regions to the east,
where the Soviet government allegedly
is prepared. if Hitler wins all European
Russia, to take defensive stand. With
the Siberian hinterland for support. Mr..
Hindus contends, the Ural industrial re-
gion could support a large army in
definitely.
Increase in industrial productivity was
wrung from the Russian worker by harsh
regulations, new hardships and viola
tion of all those liberal principles which
were supposed to lead to a better life for
the Russian masses. Likewise the Rus
sian peasant has paid for the new sineWs
of war with the almost complete refor-
nation of Russian agriculture. Collec-
tivization, Mr.. Hindus notes, makes easy
a unified national discipline of people.
Now what are the elements which
unity the many diverse groups of the
Soviet Union for finish fight against
Hitler's new order?
For the peasant the social and eco
nomic benefits of modern life and
new consciousness which solidifies his
national and racial antagonism to Nazi-
ism and make him impossible of sub
jugation.
For the new intelligentsia a fiery be-
lief in the Soviet system and the oppor-
tunlty to fight for the new society.
For women. equality and self-expres-
sion which would be denied them under
Hitler.
For the Cossacks, for many years stig-
matized in Soviet society, rehabilitation
in their old form and measure of free
dom on their own lands, which they love
intensely.
For the factory workers who COM
prise Russia's proletariat all that the
Soviet system provides him in theory,
usage and promise. position as the
elite of Russia's millions, and the pros
pect of slavery under Hitler.
For the Ukrainians, preservation of
their language and customs within the
Soviet Union and the well-founded ap-
prehension that Hitler would dspossess
them to provide Lebansraum for his
Germans.
What will these people do if they
fall under Hitlers dominion? Mr..
Hindus expects them, of course, to en-
gage in the same kind of sabotage-but
to greater and more effective degree
that now is going on in other occupied
lands. One has only to remember the
four-year civil war which followed the
Bolshevik revolution to realize that Hit
Ter would have long fight on his hands.
Mr. Hindus has written his appraisal
very, very close to war events as they