Evening star., 1948-03-10
Russiu and the West

In tnelr latest note to France, Britain
and the United States, the men of the
Krenlin have offered the world another
example of their celebrated talent for
turning the truth upside down and &C
cuSing others of acts that they alone are
guilty of committing.
Directed against the new Anglo-French-
American effort to unity Western Germany
and exploit the industrial Ruhr to speed
European recovery, the note makes these
main points: Cd That France, Britain
and the United States have been para
Lying" the four-power German Control
Council, and (2) that they are bent on
splitting the continent in two and organ
izing western Europe as a strategic base
for American imperialism with the pur-
pose of aggression against the U. S. S. r."
These accusations may sound impressive
to the oppressed peoples behind the iron
curtain, where the censors and secret
police see to it that the truth never in
trudes upon Soviet propaganda. But in
the free world the record is abundantly
clear. 1t Is record proving beyond doubt
that the paralysis in Germany and the
division of Europe stem solely and simply
from the Russian veto-a veto that has
been used repeatedly and deliberately to
Illustrate the desire of the overwhelming
majority to build decent peace.
In the free world, moreover the record
plainly shows that the objective behind
all this is to promote and prolong economic
and political chaos in order to enable the
kremlin to spread its dominance over the
entire continent through direct and in
direct aggression. That is the reason
and the only reason-why America and
the western powers are doing what thev
are doing now. AS the Stain dictatorship
itself must know, they are moving to-
gether toward coalition because they have
learned that they must do so If they are
to save themselves from being knocked
over. each in turn, by the march of Soviet
totalitarianism
Self-preservation Is still the first law of
nature, and its meaning has been made
gr1mly clear by what has happened to
nearly a dozen once-independent lands
Only fortnight ago Czechoslovakia went
the way of Poland, Romania, Bulgaria.
Yugoslavia, Hungary and Albania. They
are all now part of the Soviet empire,
pound hand and foot to it. And the Firms
seem fated to be the next to fall. At any
rate, Generalissimo Stain has ordered
them to enter upon mutual assistance
and friendship pact, and they have bowed
TO the inevitable. Some of them have tried
TO demonstrate against the idea, but Com
munist muscle men and their stooges have
been on hand in Helsinki to smash up the
e11ort, and so Finnish delegation has
been dispatched to the Kremlin to do
what the Kremlin demands. Stain will
get what he wants, and after that, sooner
or later, Finland probably will suffer a.
coup and become as complete q nunnet
as any behind the iron curtain.
1t Is because this sort of thing has
happened to so many countries that
america and free Europe are acting as
they are. They are not working together
to commit aggression against the U. S
s. Il. They are seeking merely to prevent
tne U. s. S. R. from striking down France
and Italy, and then winning control of the
whole continent for a continuing assault
on the non-Communist world. The Soviet
protest Is brazen and monumental in
version OF the truth: to give voice to It
Is as II a murderer were to accuse his
prospective victims of the crime brewing
only in his own heart.