Evening star., 1944-11-19
RUSSO Nay Avoid
War In the Poetic
Practical considerations ~ Shar,
Nlns,uW l'inal Decision
nv Juhn N Cliuc

lpitanl. even more iWtstiHnt ~ Rus
fih than u b. to s Hul II cannot b, us-
.umrd uuiosS secret commitments have
been made that the Suyicts will ioin
forces with ny to that end when the
hghtlng stops m Europe
i Is true. OF course. that various Rus
Slan sources official and otherwise. have
made statements from time to time
which might be taken to mean that the
Soviet government is preparing to re-
nounce its nonaggression treaty with
Japan, as it has a right to do next
April 49, and to follow this with open
warfare against our Far Eastern en-
emy. Some Americans seem to take it
/ for granted that Russia. in due course,
Will go to war with Japan. They reduce
the matter to the proposition that one
good turn deserves another. AS they see
it, We have been helping Russia fight
the Germans. Therefore, when the time
is right Russia will help us fight the
+ japanese. Unfortunately, it is not as
simple as that. The Russians may 90
to war against Japan when the Germans
have been beaten, but if they do so it
will be because Russia's national in
terests can best be served that way.
1t will not be because they feel that
they are indebted to us for the defeat of
Germany.
Russia is an Asiatic as well as a Eu-
ropean power. 1t has been said that her
foreign policy faces in two directions,
east and west. But during the past quar-
ter century the emphasis has been
more and more on the east, on that
huge land mass beyond the UralS which
bears the name of Siberia and which,
for the SovietS, has all the implications
OF the discovery Of vast and rich new
continent. Nearly one-seventh of the
edrth'S land surface is in Siberia. and
even the Cars knew that it was rich in
natural resources and susceptible of in
finite development. But the Cars were
European minded, and they lacked both
the energy and the means to do much
more than knock at the door of their
Siberian treasure land.
This was not true of the SOvietS
however when they seized control of
Russia after the 1917 revolution. The
tranS-Slberlan railroad had been built
Tor them under the Czarist government
-5,7OO miles Of rickety track reaching
from European Russia to Vladivostok.
1t was also under the Cars that
warm-"ater port. fulfilling an ancient
dream, had been established at Port
Arthur, and then lost as a result of
the Russo japanese War But the
Cars had done little or nothing to
develop Siberia in the modern sense.
II was the Sovlets who converted il
from land of endless plains and
magnificent promise mo what has
become one OF the worlds potentially
greatest industrial centers
Siberia today, while still a bountful
farmland, is also a place OF blast fur
naces and Smelters, hydroelectric power
stations and transmission lines. textile
industries and Shipbuilding yards, of
chemical plants and of mines produc-
ing richly of coal. iron and other
minerals. When Vice President Wallace
returned from his trip across Siberia
he reported cities of million people
so recently built that their names are
unknown in other countries He also
reported arfelds amazing in number
and equipment, and men and women
producing to the limit in factories and
on farms. Other travellers have brought
back accounts OF steel plants stretching
across the length and much Of the
breadth of Siberia, busily producing
the steel which is the basic ingredient
of modern industry. either for war or
for peace. These things are cited merely
to illustrate the point that Russia is
|, turning eastward. She will not neglect
the west, but prophecy made at the
turn of the Century-that the center
Of gravity of RuSsia's population event.
ual!y would be in the vicinity of Omsk,
nearly 500 miles east of Moscow-is
beginning to come true.
Japan, at least, did not fail to grasp
the import Of this eastward trend, and
she set herself with every means at her
command to the task of checking it.
At the close of the 18th century, when
China was being deSpoiled by the great
to Liaotung Peninsula and Port Arthur,
which is not only better located geo.
graphically than Vladivostok but is also
free of ice the year around. The Cars
representatives also concluded negotia-
tions with China for the building of the
South Manchurian Railway and OBJ
tanned what amounted to a closed door
policy il Manchuria. Seeing in these
developments threat to her own ex-
I pansionist ambitions, Japan launched a
surprise attack in 1904 The Russians
were beaten, and lost Port Arthur, their
controlling interest in the South Man.
churian Railway and the lower half of
Sakhalin Island.
When the Bolsheviks came to power
| in 1917 they annulled all of the Cars
Far Eastern treaties, but in their push
eastward they were met, and for a time
stopped, at Lake Baikal by the Japa-
nese. Troops of the Western powers
which had been sent into the maritime
provinces were withdrawn but Japan
kept large army in Siberia Russian
cutthroats masquerading as counter
revolutionaries were financed and other
wise encouraged by the Japanese. The
upper half of Sakhalin Island was oc-
cupled and the Russians were pushed
back from almost the entire Siberian
seaboard. Not until 1922, under pressure