Courier-herald. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1949-1950, 1950-01-28
Ss-.Ss. 50 ~S~...~x w. --&-.s.a
The Area Of Conflict

The Russian empire is our problem not be.
cause the Russian economic system is based
upon MARKHAM dialectics but because the spread
OF Russian power closes an increasingly large
part of the world to intercourse with the United
States except on terms authorized by the Kremlin.
The involuntary isolation of the United States
is not only Russian aim, amply proclaimed, but
it is necessity at the present stage of the
development of the Russian empire. It is a
necessity, because in the building stage of this
empire, outside influences, both material and
intellectual, may be destructive. The crime OF
Titoism, upon which the Krernlin lays such en-
phasis is precisely that - the conflict between
Krenlin and western thought upon the Yugoslav
people. - =" ~~
In the incredibly short period of 10 years, the
Russian empire has increased its population
from 1S0,000O0O to S0O,000,OOO The latter figure
may seem -simplified on the assumption
that all the components of that empire are not
entirely and wholly part of the new universal
state That argument, however, would have held
true of Caesars world or Napoleons world. Even
in the earliest stages of the formation of an en-
pire, resistance appears and continues until the
empire collapses. The British empire, the loosest
and most liberal of empires, always encountered
resistance.
Nevertheless, the components of the Russian
universal state are at this stage, definable.
To state the case in terms of nations that were
free at the end of 1885, this is what Soviet Russia
has been able to incorporate in its empire since
that year: d. -. -,
Eastern Germany, Poland Czechoslavakia,
Albania. Bulgaria Rumania, Hungary, Llthuanla,
Estonia, Latvia, Karelia (part of Finlandl. This
brings the Russian empire in Europe to the Elbe
river on the west; to the Adriatic Sea on the
southwest; close to the Aegean, with only a
narrow strip of Greece as barrier, on the south
The present position of the Russian empire In
Europe makes the Scandinavian peninsula in
defensible
In Central Asia, Russian influence has moved
southwark toward Pakistan, Afghanistan being
weak and unimportant barrier. Both Turkestan
and Mongolia have been separated from China
and China itself has been added to the Russian
universal state. Tibet will in due course be
added and Indo China and Burma are in state
of flux. All that remains of Independent China
is the island of Formosa. Korea is divided at the
3Sth parallel and part of Japan that is, the
Japanese half of Sakhalin and the whole of the
Kuriles have been added to the Russian empire
To get picture of this enormous gain, this
point can be made: in 1888, Russia possessed
port on the sea of Japan, Vladlvostok; today,
Russia possesses the Pacific, all the ports from
Vladivostok to Canton. ~.. s" :. -..-...
To many, these may only be names, but the
names embrace s0O000,00O human beings, third
of the total population of the earth Territorially
it includes, as part of the empire or swiftly con-
querable by it, all the land in the north tenn
perate zone in Europe and Asia. -
mo military authority of standing would
deny that western Europe is incapable of defense
in the initial stages OF war; therefore the extent
of this empire must be calculated not only on
what is included now, but what could reason.
ably be expected to fall to it under the pressure
of war; ri.
Even the smaller worlds of Alexander Caesar
and Genghis Khan could not long survive resist
ance, but it must be recalled also that it took
the Roman Empire about 400 years to die and
that the last remnants of Genghs Khan's world
have only recently been absorbed in the found
ing of India and Pakistan.
The central problem that faces the United
States is not Communism, but Soviet Imperialism
aimed at the isolation of the United States. To
offset this location, the United States has de-
veloped two regional blocs of uncertain unity
One us the loose union of the American countries
from Canada to the Argentine; the other is the
North Atlantic alliance.