Evening star., 1950-03-13
No Good Without the Deeds

The only thing interesting about the Soviet
Unions weekend "elections"-a quadrennial
party-line ritual in which the Russian people go
through the propaganda routine of casting a
practically 100 per cent vote in favor of COM
pletely unopposed candidates-is that Premier
Stain failed to deliver his traditional Campaign"
speech just prior to the opening of the polls.
Undoubtedly particularly because pre-elec-
tion news dispatches from Moscow had led the
world to believe that such a speech would be
made, there now will be much speculation in
the West over the why's and wherefores of it's
omission. Whatever the reason for his silence,
however, everybody can be reasonably sure that
even if the Soviet dictator had deigned to speak,
his views would have been essentially the same
as those set forth by every other member of the
Politburo during the course Of the Campaign"
That is to say, if he had spoken, Stain, as
was done by Molotov, Malenkov, Beria and the
other key members of the Soviet high command,
would have made the following major points:
I'd The Russian government believes in "the
possibility of the peaceful coexistence of capital
ism and communism; 90 but it also believes
that as long as capitalism exists-eventually, of
course, 1t will succumb to the superiorities of
Marxisn-the danger of war will be ever present;
CD hence, the u S. S. R.-whieh now has it's
own A-weapons and which cannot be frightened
by Western "backmailers" brandishing the
atomic bomb or the still theoretical hydrogen
bomo-must be constantly on guard with a great
deal of armed force; and "a nevertheless, be-
cause its only objective is to promote the hap
piness and freedom of mankind everywhere, the
kremlin is not abandoning efforts to reach agree
ment with the 'imperialists" and is as ready as
ever to cooperate in preserving the peace of
the world
Though Stain himself has remained silent,
the fact that the rest of the Politburo has given
voice to all this at this time-a time when many
people in the West are calling for new ap-
proaches" to end the cold war-has led some
observers to believe that another Russian peace
offensive is in the making. If So the whole busi-
ness had better be taken with much more than
few grains of salt. For actually the points made
by the Soviet "electioneerng" orators are old stuff
"a kind of double talk that has been heard
frequently in the past and that can mean nothing
today unless the men of the Kremln besides
wanting to quiet fear and discomfort among the
masses under their control, have reached point
wnere they are prepared to make basic policy
change. Certainly, without such a change
change under which they would have to shift
from obstructionism and aggression to co-opera-
ton-no good can come of any overtures they
may make for agreement with the free world
In short, until the Soviet Union offers con-
crete evidence OF a fundamental improvement
In It's international conduct and of genuine
desire to negotiate honestly and live up to it's
pledges chow many has it lived up to?), its
proners OF peace will be too phony to be taken
seriously. The Western nations have had their
fill OF fair words from the Kremlin. What they
want now are fair deeds. Lacking that, there
obviously can be no firm and friendly settlement
worthy OF the name