Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1943-08-29
Hitler May Seek Red Peace,
Hoping to Keep Nation Intact
By Constantine Brown.

Recent developments such as the re-
placement of Maxim Litvinoff as AM
bassador to Washington by young
routine foreign service officer and the
insistance of the official mouthpieces of
the Kremlin, the newspapers Red Star,
Izvestia and Pravda, that second front
i'll Western Europe should be started at
once, lend credence to the seven-month-
old speculation that Russia may make
peace with Germany.
There is no agreement between this
country and Russia in regard to
separate peace. There is military -polit-
ical treaty between the British and Soviet
governments, but experts who know the
details of the "20-year pact" say there
are .arge loopholes in it. One of them is
clause whereby the high contracting
parties" agree to a timely opening of a
second front.
The clause may explain why the Soviet
press and radio which are reaching the
Russian masses had harped with such
insistence on an immediate second front
in Western Europe when the Soviet high
command knew that the Allies would not
have the necessary force for such an OPP
Grafton until next year. This insistence
of the official Russian propaganda organs
is interpreted in some military quarters
here as indicating that the Moscow gov
eminent may wish to tell its people that
Britain broke its pledges when 1t refused.
to start an offensive against the Nazi
forces when the military situation war
ranted it.
An objective analysis of the situation
on the eastern front leads a number of
Washington military observers to believe
that the possibility of usso-German
peace this year must not be excluded.
Russian Losses Heavy.
The Russians have had enormous
losses. The present offensive which has
taken them back into the Ukraine has
been costly in men and war material.
If the Germans got rid of Hitler and
overthrow Naziism for military de-
mocracy," government led by officers
and high functionaries, and agreed to
return to Russia all the territories she
possessed in 1914, there could be no rea-
son why the Russians should continue to
fight.
Russia went into the war in 1899 to
restore some of her lost frontier at the
expense of Poland for whose territorial
integrity the French and the British had
decided to fight.
Russia became our war associate when
the Nazis attacked her. But it is doubt
full if the ideologies and the high motives
which prompted the Allies to fight the
war ever existed in Premier Stains
mind.
Russia has been fighting the Nazi
forces alone for three years. They only
assistance she obtained from her western
associates, was billions of dollars worth
of war material armament and, food
stuff. She obtained from us the weapons
to fight the Germans, but We did not
open a second front in Western Europe
as had been promised.
1t is conservatively estimated that the
Soviet forces must have suffered some
100000 casualties prisoners, wounded
and killed.. On and above this number
there is vague estimate of an addi-
tional 100000 persons in the occupied
areas who have been killed or died OF
starvation and cold
This is high percentage even for
Russian population. Stain has told us
definitely that Russia is fighting for her
territorial integrity. He was honest when
he told us in speech last November
that he does not wish the destruction of
Germany or her armies, but he is deter