Evening star., 1949-03-21
Russia and the Pact

Russia and the Pact
In their strident reaction to the North
Atlantic. Pact, the Russians and their
satellites have cut loose with the kind of
propaganda every one had expected of
them. With typical partyline uniformity,
and with no novelty whatever, they have
branded the whole historic enterprise as
an instrument designed to undermine the
United Nations, promote the aggressive"
aims of "imperialistic" groups in the
United States, and help anglo American
war makers to encircle the Soviet Union
as prelude to tunleashing a new global
| conflict aimed at destroying peoples
democfacies" everywhere. -
The world behind the Iron Curtain being
world of censorship, upended truth, sup
preston and police-State terror, this sort
of propaganda conceivably may sound
convincing to the bulk of the ill-informed
masses living there. But elsewhere,
wherever men and women are at least free
enough to have access to the facts of
history, only a muddled, soft-headed or
fellow-traveling minority is likely to be
impressed by the Soviet line For nothing
That the Atlantic pact, far from being
aggressive in nature or aimed at unleash
ing another war, has been drawn up,
within the framework of the United
Nations, as part of profoundly earnest
effort to preserve the peace by righting
the international balance of power in such
a way as to discourage the Kremlin from
embarking on any further aggression
against the West.
Who can be blind to this in the clear
light of what has happened since We
day? The history of events themselves is
the best and most eloquent possible answer
to the Soviet propagandists. After the
war, the United States, which was then
the mightiest military power on the face
of the earth, almost completely demobilized
itself, in the hope that an enduring peace
could be achieved through cooperation
in the U NJ Britain and the free world
as whole similarly demobilized. Indeed,
as of today the members and prospective
members of the Atlantic Pact have so
few men under arms that the Red Army,
if it were ordered to, probably could over
run the countries of Western Europe and
plant itself firmly on the English Channel
with relative ease. 1t is because of this
danger, because of the fact that the
Kremlin, ever since the downfall of Ger
many, has been consistently pursuing a
policy of chaos breeding obstructionism in
the United Nations and of direct and
indirect aggression calculated to spread
its dominance westward, that the Atlantic
alliance has come into being.
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to attack Russia that virtually diSarmed
countries like Norway or relatively lightly
armed countries like France, Britain and
the Benelux trio have decided to link
themselves with the actual and potential
power of Canada and the United States
in common security arrangement. On
the contrary, they have so decided solely
and simply because Soviet policy Gnclud-
ing the elaborate network of military
alliances in Eastern Europe) has convinced
them that unless they thus pool their
defensive strength and strategic planning
as a single community of nations, they
will be inviting the Kremlin and it's agents
to destroy their independence one by one
"a process which would, if permitted, end
ultimately in leaving our own land stand
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dominated world.
But given the Atlantic Pact in the most
effective form possible, given also con-
tinuing effort of utmost vigor to achieve
recovery under the Marshall Plan, the
West should be able to preserve both its
own freedom and the peace of the world.
For this project-if carried out firmly,
unitedly and without delay-will open the
way to coalition leaving the Russians
so heavily outweighed in the political,
economic and military balance of power
that they will think long and hard, if
they are sane, before undertaking further
aggression, and they may in fact, even be
persuaded to shift to policy of co-opera-
ton. At any rate, the very stridency of
their current propaganda suggests that
they regard the new treaty as a potentially
decisive obstacle to all their dominance
seeking ambitions. That in itself speaks
volumes for it.
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