Will Russia Join a World League?
DALLIN, DAVID J.
Will Russia Join a World League? By David /. Dallin "4*1**T «/ Soviet Rastia't Foreign Policy and fhssi* ami Po$t-War Europe; ex-member of the Uotruw Soviet, at an opposition deputy. % AT...
...Solemn 2"*s of a new world league, with gala decorations ***pempoua declarations cannot by themselves banish ¦p •ny more than the defunct League...
...Policing of the high seas will obviously remain the task of the United States snd Britain in collaboration with the new League...
...Now what about policing Europe...
...The realities of ***Muonal policy have smashed the old primitive ""tsjuaist principle of proud isolation...
...in order to ***** *J aims, it must be atrong enough to crush ^•fgreasion, even the aggression of a great power...
...AT the Moscow Conference of the Allies in October, U43, and then again at Teheran, the Soviet " fowrnment declared its willingness and desire * #¦"¦ a new world organisation after the war...
...The situation is not only difficult, it is almost tragic, and the whole scope of the difficulties will become clesr when the chief aim of the war, the defeat of Germany, has been achieved...
...1 trder to make the new world organization effects* •** * WWkpon »sT»ra"t °ew aggressions, there arose of an independent military force of its own, T***alUd International Police Force...
...Indeed, the world organization may become a still* born child...
...Peoples of Central and Eastern Europe remember the activities of Soviet authorities in the Baltic States, i Eastern Poland and Bessarabia a few years ago, when these countries were annexed by Russia, and are alarmed st the prospect of military "help" from the Red Army...
...Rossis has not been selfless in territorial questions of Central and Eastern Europe...
...the main difficulties do not lie in the field ^Principles, but in realities and political aims...
...Rearmament and military alliances, sometimes even against the Soviet wishes, will occupy the international field...
...n years the Russian government traveled *J|Nrway toward?collaboration with capitalist states, »t one time republican France, then Hitler's ®"*My, then the United Nations...
...Commenting on the Moscow Conference, the .ilHcisI War and the Working Clatt wrote that "it •0*4 be erroneous to minimize the difficulties on the way to the solution of the problem of security and peace...
...With Russia a member, on the other hand, the world organization will be -ble to emerge as a real and powerful organism only after considerable difficulty...
...their it no nation in the world prepared to hand over an important part of her navy, air fleet, or army to an anonymout world organization...
...eld concept—that a League of Nations is a |**§"*«M>f imperialist bandits, as Lenin said, and that ¦•"f purpose is a capitalist war against the Soviet jJJP has-been discarded long ago...
...In fact, if Germany is defeated, there will not exist another great army in Europe for a long time—at least until France is again able to assume the functions of a great power...
...Therefore, Russia's allies, among them America and Britain, will not be prepared to agree to the apparently logical solution of the question...
...When Japan ad-m Manchuria and Germany began to rearm, i jf**** Ru**te Joined the League of Nations...
...A world organization, especially its most important European Council, has no sense without Russia...
...and if an international air force is created—which I doubt—it will be limited in *ize and purpose...
...But this plan of s perfect world police power is not feasible at present...
...The Soviet army will play no other role than that of a military weapon'of Soviet policy...
...Even the Czech government, most friendly towards Moscow, would be unhappy if it were really obliged to invoke Russia's help on its territory against foreign aggression...
...the Soviet government, by its wartime policy, has not at all dissipated apprehensions and suspicions...
...It is logical to entrust Russia with the chief function of the world organization "in Europe, but this solution will arouse fears, doubts, protests on the part of the other European nations...
...A lot of blood, and sweat, ar<\ tears sre still ahead of us...
...The Soviet government, on the other hsnd, will certainly reject the subordination of its army to a "World Council" or to a "European Council" with a non-Soriel, possibly an anti-Soviet, majority...
...As a consequence of this situation, the emergence of new military forces in postwar Europe will become inevitable...
...If the great navies of the Anglo-Saxon nations are entrusted by the world organization with the policing ef seas and oceans, is it not natural that the policing of the old restless continent will have to be entrusted to the victorious army and government ef Russia...
...T*HIS is the core of the problem...
Vol. 27 • June 1944 • No. 26
