It there is one thing which can be said in favour of M. Stalin, it is that he at least possesses some degree of honesty, and while he will continue to be severely condemned for the bombing of open towns in Finland, and the machine-gunning of refugees from aeroplanes, it has to be pointed out that he has never gone on record as promising not to do so. In that respect he stands out in contrast with Herr Hitler, who went out of his way to make such promises only to break them. That, and that alone is all that can be said for him. For the rest the telegrams coming to hand ever since the barbaric invasion of Finland began have told the story of utter brutality, and the callous destruction of civilian life and property, apparently with the idea of cowing the Finns into surrender. That the Russian forces are not likely to succeed in bringing about. More probable is it that they will inspire in the breasts of the Finns that sense of Phocensian despair, which, if it does not lead to victory, will at least ensure that whatever success the Soviet may secure will be gained at a terrible price. There is evidence that this is already the case, and while the Russian forces appear to have gained some small success by reason of their initial momentum, they are now apparently held up while the courageous Finns are exacting a severe toll from the invaders. The case of the town of Petsamo is in point, for here while the R sians did at first succeed in entering and capturing the town, they have since been thrown out. The fate of the port has not yet been decided, but the action of the Finns clearly indicates that M. Stalin's forces are by no means having a walk-over, and that, if they are to succeed, they will only do so at a very heavy price. In this connection it needs to be emphasized that most of the actions which have taken place have been outpost affairs, the Finns still being some eight or ten miles in front of their strong defence, the Mannerheim Line, which has not yet become involved except, perhaps. from the air, and it is a fair deduction that if they can stand up to the Russian advance so well as they are doing in the outposts, they will give an even better account of themselves in their permanent defences.
The publication of the pact reported to have been signed between Soviet Russia and the so-called Revolutionary Finnish Government, a creature of Soviet fashioning, headed by a former secretary of the Komintern, would, on the face of it, appear to be a document of sweet reasonableness, involving what would seem to be equitable exchanges of territory, and the payment of large sums of money for other concessions where the system of land barter would not apply. The two governments pledge themselves fo come io the assistance of each other if attacked, and not to conclude an alliance with any group of nations directed against one of them,—in other words a military alliance for mutual defence. All this would read remarkably well if it were not for the fact that the pact is with a Government which has not yet been established in Finland, which if ever it is will be a Communist Government, and one which can never represent the will of the Finns, who are essentially a democratic race. It amounts in effect to a proposal for the Sovietization of Finland, subsequent admission into the U.S.S.R. and just as complete an annexation as if that had been declared to be Moscow's aim from the very commencement. It must be emphasized that the Soviet proposals even though giving the gloss of an apparent independence to Finland under a Red Government will, if implemented, mean the disappearance of an independent nation into the embrace of the U.S.S.R. from which no subsidiary Soviet has ever dared to speak of seceding. The sole aim of this Russian invasion of Finland,—a totally unprovoked one, be it remembered,—is out and out conquest, as naked a piece of barbarity as any that Herr Hitler has up to the present conceived. This fact is recognized the world over, and the manner in which it has been condemned in the United States is but a measure of the indignation which has been aroused by this latest display of brutishness, and no fiction of an agreement between Moscow and its creation, the revolutionary government of Finland, can avert the judgment which has been so widely and so vigorously expressed.
That the Reich has viewed this Russian adventure, against a nation which was assisted to gain its independence by German arms, with considerable misgiving can be understood. The manifest surrender of German influence, and policy in eastern Europe, which Herr von Ribbentrop succeeded in making in August last, has given Russia a free hand in spheres which the Reich claimed to be exclusively its own. It is credibly reported from Amsterdam that the Reich made strong secret representations to Moscow before the Red Army marched against Finland. M. Stalin chose contemptuously to ignore them, and it is reported that a wave of con-stomation has swept through Nazi government circles at the growing realization of the price which Germany is having to pay for Soviet support. M. Stalin's action clearly shows that he regards Berlin now merely as the bankrupt who went cap in hand to Moscow for accommodation at a price which he alone would decide. Up to the present that price has been the sharing of the Polish spoils, the surrender of German predominance in Eastern Europe, and, it is now becoming apparent, the complete deprivation of whatever advantages there were in German domination over the Baltic. What will happen to Norway and Sweden, what designs Berlin and Moscow have upon those two countries, have not yet been made entirely clear, but if it should prove to be a fact that ultimately Soviet influence will prevail then Herr Hitler will have paid heavily for a bargain, which gives him no.certainty of winning the war with the Allies, and which may be found by history to have contributed to his defeat. That likelihood he foresaw in a prophetic moment when writing "Mein Kampf." There he wrote that a German alliance with Russia would be the signal for another war and the cause of defeat for Germany. This is rendered all the more probable by the dissension which is reported to exist amongst Herr Hitler's lieutenants. The military see a betrayal of what they fought for when they assisted Finland twenty years ago; the Navy fears the loss of its freedom in a Bolshevized Baltic. There can now be no going back; the writing is being inscribed on the wall, and it is bitter reading for those men who believed in Herr Hitler's hatred of Communism, and who fancied themselves a bulwark against it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.