By IVOR MONTAGU

(55 HAT is Russia up to? What is she after?”
; The propagandists are at it again,
is really plain.

make a puzzle out of what
' fhere is'no mystery about So-
viet foreign policy and never has
been. Russia wants peace.
Russia wants peace because
there is absolutely nobody in the
entire USSR “who can benefit
frem war. There is in Russia full
employment—no one needs a war

to find a job. There is no man

in Russia who makes a profit
eut of war industry. No man who
Can make a profit out of cap-
turnnge territory, or elbowing ri-
als out of foreign markets, or
exzploitine cheap colonial labor:
We one. Can any other country
say as much?

What Russia wants
Ress is out for (1) peaceful

internal reconstruction; (2)
helpine to build on its frontiers
Strong and friendly neighbors;
@) strengthening the interna-
tional peace organizations; (4)
wiping out fascism, as a poten-
tial focus of new wars.

This is a policy which, achiev-
ed; would obviously make peace

- More stable. It is, moreover, the

pelicey to which all the major
powers were pledged in the days
of Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin col-
laboration. Only it happens to be
the policy, which Byrnes and
Bevin between them are endeay-
oring to thwart at every turn.
They are doing this in several
ways.

With every sort of pretext
Byrnes and Bevin are trying to
cut down or delay the repara-
tions due from the aggressors
to make good the ghastly de-
Struction from which Russia suf-
fered.

fhe more friendly a neighbor
e0vernment is to Russia, the
™more Bevin and Byrnes oppose
it, cuting down UNRRA supplies,
refusing it credit, dispatching
threatenine notes. And they de-
nounce it as “undemocratic” un-
less it gives liberty and) power
precisely to those politicians and

intriguers who are most violent-
ly anti-Soviet.

They continually try to whittle
away those provisions in the con-
Stitution of the UN (like the veto
power), or the methods of de-
cision at the peace conferences,
which require agreement between
the powers.

Finally, they back up, instal,
protect from purge, punishment

or mtervention fascist groupmes

all over the place.

Soviet policy
Sores policy always has been,

and is, in the interest of the
workers. To. demonstrate this it
is worth taking a brief tour
around those points of the com-
pass where Soviet policy clashes
with that of Bevin and Byhnes.

Start with the Far East. Japan:
Russia wants Hirohito to be tried
and punished. Russia wants the
big Japanese trusts to be broken
up. Russia wants labor laws
guaranteeing the Japanese work-
ing people the same rights that
working people have won, for in-
stance, in Britain.

MeArthur calls this Bolshev-
iem. Bevin is silent. Who is
right?

in China the USSR has with-
drawn all its troops and wants
America to do the same, and
stop helping, Chiang with men
and munitions to wage civil war.
Ts this right?

Wearer home—the Middle East.
When Michael Foot, MP, visited
Tran he had to admit that the
USSR was helping the trade
unions and all the progressive
forces, and bewailed that Britain
was backing the wealthy, the re-
actionaries, and the feudal
sheiks. The USSR thinks that
Palestine ought to be an affair
for UN. It describes as a mock
ery the sort of “independence”
Britain has given Iraq and Trans-
jordan, providing for retention

ELEC

@ Feature Section

SEE. .-

TRADES CONGRESS

12

The old ‘enigma’ game is being played.
working overtime to

21TH ARTCKAOURURMHAMERORTEAATARRER RH

What
is
Russia

innit

create confusion and

of huge garrisons in each country
and British control and manage-
ment of the police. Will any
British progressive say that this
is wrong ?

In Greece Russia denounces
the liquidation of the trade
unions that the British Trade
Union Congress helped to ensure
were democratically set up. It
declares that there is something
WORE, and 2 poetential:danger-
point to peace in the circum-
stance that the heroes of resis-
tance against the Nazis are
beaten, murdered and deported
while the government is com-
pried of fadcists and the chiefs
of the Security Battalions who
cooperated with the Gestapo.
What worker will say that Rus-
Sia is mistaken?

In Spain, Russia demands the
ostracism of Franco, and blames
Byrnes and Bevin for supporting
Franco with trade and credits

and obstructing every measure ~

against him. Again what is
wrong with this—it is the policy
cf the USSR not that of Byrnes
and Bevin which happens to be
identical with that supported not
only by the TUC but by the
Labor Party, the Liberal Party
and the Communist Party.

German question
Goss Ee the key question of

Germany. The lies about Rus-
sia starving, raping, looting the
Germans and stealing away their
livelihood behind an iron curtain
are already debunked as the li-
bels they always were.

it is now apparent that in the
Soviet-occupied zone of Germany
there is growing prosperity,
plenty of work, reasonable food,
breaking up of large estates, dis-
solution of trusts, through de-
nazification and responsible Ger-
man self-administration under
the leadership of a united Ger-
man working class.

In the Western zones there is
hunger, idleness, conomic chaos;
a flourishing black market link-
ed to corruption in the Allied
administration; the persistance
in authority of countless Nazis,
big estate-owners andi big busi-
ness men; democratic parties and
trade unions restricted to the
farce of debating societies, and
an active Nazi underground:

So what? Soe should not the
policy of the Western zones be
adapted to follow the success-
ful methods in the Soviet zone?

Interests of peace

d ae fact is Soviet policy follows
the interest of peace, the
working class and the progres-
sive movement of the entire
world.
There are two attitudes one

can take up with regard to it.

One is that adopted by Roose-

velt as the war proceeded. To
cooperate with it, discussing with
the Soviet Union a detailed map
of the world settlement in which
all countries could play their
part, respect each other’s sov-
ereignty and avoid treading on
each other’s toes.

‘Literature’

By FRED JOHNSTON

| eee the war the Nazis

hurled American-made propa-
ganda at our troops. Writers
like W. IL. White and Hugene
Lyons rolled ammunition for
the German mind muddlers. To-
day the American book market
is being flooded with exactly
the same stuff the Nazis found
so useful and the filthy mess is

overflowing into the Canadian
market as well.
if you doubt this, look at

§

some of the facts.

Last week G. P. Putnam’s
Sons published a book by Hoff-
man Nickerson called ‘Arms and
Policy, 1939-1944.” This book,
ostensibly a military study, is
actually a manual of fascist
ideas.

What does Nickerson say in
this book? He sneers at Jews.
He never misses a chance to
write “Mordecai-Marx”’ and
“Litvinoff-Finkelstein.”

Nickerson attributes the fall
of France not to Petain, Laval,
and the men of the trusts, but
to the Popular Front. He is so
resentful of Hitler’s defeat. that
he calls our army pilots “baby
killers.”

And, naturally, like any good
fascist, he hates Communism
and the Soviet Union. “Soviet
Russia,” he says, “exists to deny
the normal and immemorial
right of ownership.”

The picture is complete: anti-
Soviet, anti-Semitic, anti-demo-
eratic: pro-slavery, pro-monar-
chy, pro-big business, :

cI ATAU

Or one can oppose it remorse—
lessly.

But, make no mistake about
that, there is no way of opposing
Soviet foreign policy without

forming an alliance with all the

fascist and reactionary forces
throughout the world, helping
them to power, trying _te hold
them there, and backing them to
the- point of civil war:and inter—
national war.

And it is precisely what Bevin
and Byrnes are doing at the mo-
ment,

The question is not: “What is
Russia after?” But: Where are
we allowing Byrnes and Bevin
te take us in their opposition to
Russia?

of fascism

ANd this is the man that
G. BP. Putnam’s Sons presents
as a “military expert.”

Scribner’s also recently pub-
lished a book called, “I Chose
Freedom,” by Victor Kraychen-
ko. This character never chose
freedom. Hie chose to
from the Red Army.

Here is what the Soviet Em-
bassy had to say about Kray-
chenko when he
post in the spring of 1944:

“Keravehenko lies in stating
that he was in charge of the
division of metals in the Soviet
Purchasing Commission. Siig o

“Being on military service
sent for temporary work at the
disposal of the Purchasing Com-
mission in the United States in
the capaciyt of one of the in-
spectors of pipes. Kravchentko
had to return to the Soviet
Union to continue his military
service. -

“Two weeks before the date
of his forthcoming departure to
the USSR to serve in the Red
army, Krayvchenko betrayed his
military° duty and became a de-
serter having refused to return
to his motherhood for the mili-
tary service, and to cover his
desertion he made slanderous
statements about the USSR in
the pages of certain New York

newspapers.”

Another book is N. S. Tima-
shefi's “Great Retreat: The
Growth and Decline of Com-

munism,” which Dutton has just
printed.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1946

desert ~

deserted his