Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-02-06
Russio and japan

The war lords OF Tokyo must feel
uneasy to the marrow over current
rumors that the Roosevelt Church.
tn-Stalin conference will include a
discussion Of what role, il any, Rus
STA is to play in helping to bring
about the total defeat OF Japan. The
rumors-though they are just that
ana nothing more-must seem par
ticularly ominous to the japanese
because OF a recent tendency on the
part OF the Russians to say blunt
things about our Far Eastern enemy.
Thus, not very long ago, Premier
Marshal Stain referred in an
uncomplimentary way to Japans
aggressive" qualities. and on more
than one occasion since then, i'm
portant Russian publications have
pointedly commented upon our VIC
tories in the Pacific and the steadily
worsening position of Hirohito's
empire. The latest to do this is Red
Star, the Official newspaper of the
Red Army, which has just devoted
ten columns of type to q review of
the empires internal political situa-
ton, asserting significantly that the
Japanese people, now beginning ito
taste the bitterness of defeat" have
been "psychologically" affected by
American superiority and are disap-
pointed in their governments policy
of aggression"
1t is possible to read too much
significance into such Russian state
ments, but the Japanese themselves
are unquestionably disturbed by
them. When Stain first described
Japan as aggressive" for example,
the Koisc government issued an I'M
official response to the effect that
the word might have sensational"
implications and that Moscow's for
eign policy might undergo a basic
change - meaning, of course, that
the Soviet Union, allied with Britain
and America against Germany,
might ally itself similarly in the Far
Eastern theater of war. Certainly,
since Stains remark, the Russians
have done nothing to allay Japanese
suspicious on this score, but have
rather tended to feed them, and the
rumors incident to the Big Three
conference must therefore seem not
at all implausible in Tokyo.
The japanese understand, more
over, that the world security or
ganization envisioned at Dumbarton
Oaks would commit its members to
the idea of joint International action
against aggressors and that If such
an organization should be estab-
lished before the end of the Far
Eastern war, Russia might automat-
ically become full partner of Brit
ain, China and America against
aggressive" Japan. In this connec-
ton the Koiso government probably
finds small comfort in the fact that
Moscow and Tokyo signed . treaty
OF neutrality in 194l, for that treaty
little more than q mutually con-
venient truce between historic en-
emies-expires in April of next year
and under its terms the Soviet Union
has the right to renounce it in April
of this year, less than two months
from now.
Before the attack on Pearl Harbor,
japanese propagandists fed the
japanese people a diet OF lies about
how Japan was menaced by "the
ABCD encirclement," ABCD mean
ing America, Britain, China and the
Dutch East Indies. Today that en-
circlement has become . reality, the
Tokyo war lords having themselves
called it into being by their infamous
aggressions. And before all the
shooting is over another letter may
be added to the line-up-the letter
"R." The current rumors, at any
rate, must be hard on the nerves of
the Koiso government.