STALIN'S ACE IN THE HOLE
Howard, Harry Paxton
Stalin's Ace In The Hole By HARRY PAXTON HOWARD IT WAS NO MERE coincidence that brought into the news columns, together with increasingly open conflict between Moscow on the one hand and London...
...The Moscow-Tokyo pact of May 1941 formally partitioned the vast northerly areas of the country shown on the map as China, between the Soviet and Japanese governments...
...Without Russian and Chinese support, we simply do not have the men for such a task...
...In Europe, Moscow had been able to follow up its invasion of Polish territory by invasions of the Baltic states, of Finland, of Bessarabia, of Bukovina...
...The United Nations (i.e., the United States) was called upon to unify the two Chinas "on the high plane of social advance and democratic reform...
...If Russia and China quit, either becoming neutral or joining the other side, the chances for British and American victory in Europe and Asia are immeasurably reduced...
...Russia being much the stronger of the two powers, this pact bound Chungking rather than Moscow...
...During 1942, the largest proportion of our Lend-Lease shipments to Soviet Russia went via Vladivostok...
...If Stalin's terms are not met in Europe, he can act in Asia...
...But the date on which his article appeared was most significant, and it was followed up on Aug...
...Chinese Communists are about as democratic as Stalin is democratic...
...This is Stalin's "Ace in the Hole...
...This did not, however, prevent Moscow from making its own terms with Japan...
...Chiang's governors and militarists there and liquidated them...
...This, at first, was put forth by Moscow's fellow-travelers in this country...
...Moscow formally recognized and "guaranteed" the Japanese-occupied areas of northeastern China, where the invaders had set up their puppet state "Manchukuo...
...This was wholly understandable...
...Fascist-Communist Pact July was a big month...
...These Moscow moves were perfectly timed...
...At present, both Japanese and Kuomintang (Chiang Kai-shek's) forces are blockading the Chinese Communists in the Northwest of China—Japanese from the north and east, Kuomintang from the south and west...
...Unification" would be about as permanent as the Hitler-Stalin pact was permanent...
...The most vital interests and objectives of Tokyo lie to the south and southwest, in southeastern Asia and the southwest Pacific...
...Chungking became, far more fully than ever before, a distinctly American dependency and satellite...
...Japan could have stopped them, but did not...
...I have no evidence that Mr...
...It was the month of the Anglo-American and Russian offensives, of AMG and the "Free Germany" Committee...
...It was at this time that the Survey article, "China's Part in Coalition War," appeared, describing Kuomintang Chiang as "feudal," Communist China as "democratic...
...Italy, Germany, And China Three months ago, when the British and American forces landed in Sicily and set up the Allied Military Government, and Moscow launched its drive against the Germans and set up its "Free Germany" Committee, Stalin was still neutral in China...
...That was what was done in November, 1918, when one of the specific terms of the Armistice was that German troops should remain in Russian territory until they could be replaced by Allied forces...
...But if and when they decide jointly to eliminate Chiang Kai-shek and his group from China, it is the end of the American foothold on the continent of Asia...
...There are, of course, much simpler and more obvious comparisons for the "two Chinas...
...Moscow Gives Way But the treachery and ingratitude of Hitler towards his Moscow partner, launching the Nazi invasion of Soviet territories in June 1941, altered the plans and the picture...
...Moscow did not approve...
...American and British naval and air power, with the aid of our satellites, may inflict serious damage on parts of the continent within striking distance from the coasts, and our armies may land at poorly defended places and push some distance inland, but actual conquest and domination of Europe and Asia can only be made real by actual occupying forces—military forces, on the ground...
...It was the beginning of formal partition...
...Whether they do or not will depend upon circumstances...
...In China, it would have been able to extend and consolidate its domination of interior China south of the Great Wall...
...Stalin is in a position to decide...
...It was not, of course, "official" from the Soviet government—any more than the "Free Germany" group and the "Union of German Officers" at Moscow are "officially" Stalin...
...When the Germans, in December 1937, tried to mediate peace between China and Japan, Gen...
...If Stalin cannot get what he wants from the American and British governments, he can move in China...
...The Tokyo-Moscow pact of 1941 had partitioned the northern areas of China, and enabled the Japanese to prepare for their drive southward...
...It obtained ever-increasing supplies from the United States, great quantities of which traveled via the Pacific...
...But with the alteration of the situation in Europe in recent months, there came an alteration in the "line" regarding China...
...During the year and a half of Moscow's greatest peril, it was American and British support and Japan's friendly neutrality that enabled Stalin's forces to avert disaster, and finally to make headway against the invader...
...And it was no more bluff...
...This was demonstrated a few weeks later, when the Chinese Communist forces in Shantung turned on Gen...
...Last year it concluded a formal alliance with Great Britain—specifically confined to the war against the European Axis, and not applying against Japan...
...Ace In The Hole' So the sudden anxiety of Messrs...
...7—following the Anglo-American proposal to Italy for what was evidently a "separate peace" by a significant blast from Moscow direct, quoting a Soviet agent returned from China in bitter criticism of the Chungking regime, and warning Gen...
...Every intelligent and informed person, familiar with the situation in China, knew exactly what they meant...
...The Soviet government has a Non-Aggression Pact with the Japanese government, which has been of enormous benefit to both powers during the past two years...
...If we "lose" Russia, we "lose" China...
...Tokyo similarly "guaranteed" the Moscow-dominated "Outer Mongolian" regime, where the Russians had their puppet "Mongolian Republic"—with no diplomatic relations except with Moscow...
...Chiang of civil war if he does not "clean house...
...It was American military advisers and air forces and military supplies that replaced the Russian...
...American imperialism in the Far East is doomed to impotence with interior China neutralized or tied to Moscow or Japan, with the great coastal areas of China in the hands of the Japanese and their Chinese "allies" and collaborators...
...Non-Aggression' In China . The Soviet government had a "non-aggression pact" with the Chinese government, binding "both countries" not to make peace with any country termed an "aggressor," nor to enter into any combination of powers hostile to the other...
...For Stalin's Communists and fellow travelers in China, and the ease with which they can be supplied and armed from Russia, give Moscow a decisive part in developments in that country...
...This was open warning...
...But this also meant giving way to the United States in China...
...It was Soviet and not American planes that were flying over Chinese soil, with Russian instead of American pilots as the "defenders of China...
...During this period, however, Moscow had been forced to abandon the ascendancy it was gaining in the interior of China prior to the Nazi invasion of Russia...
...In effect Chungking could not make peace with Japan except upon terms approved by Moscow...
...Stalin's Ace In The Hole By HARRY PAXTON HOWARD IT WAS NO MERE coincidence that brought into the news columns, together with increasingly open conflict between Moscow on the one hand and London and Washington on the other, a revival of Moscow criticism of the Chiang Kai-shek government in China, a campaign by Moscow's American fellow-travelers demanding an increased share by Chinese Communists in the Chungking government, and outright military conflict between Communist and Kuomintang (Kai-shek) forces in C h i n a, in which Chinese Communists in Shantung Province are reported to have wiped out the Kuomin-t a n g "interior" government there...
...But this is not 1918...
...He is a complete realist...
...Harry Hopkins might assure us that we can win the war even if we "lose" Russia, some naval leaders might tell us that we can defeat Japan even if we "lose" China, but more intelligent men, with a clear vision of the entire "global" war before them, cannot share this Pollyanish optimism...
...Friendly neutrality corresponded to the requirements of both powers...
...Moscow gave way to Japan in China, withdrawing its military advisers and its air forces, stopping the shipments of military supplies to Chungking...
...The most vital interests and objectives of Moscow lie to the west, in Europe...
...In previous articles in The Progressive, I have dealt with Japan's diplomatic moves in China during the past year...
...They were not fooling...
...During most of this period, Moscow has been formally neutral...
...Chiang perforce notified Premier Stalin of the terms—which included alliance with Japan...
...The United States, indeed, had supplied Chungking with the major portion of its funds even during the period of Moscow ascendancy...
...Neither of them has ever violated any treaty which it was to its interest to observe...
...But if Moscow's followers turn upon Chiang Kai-shek, with adequate arms, with Japan "neutral," it means the end of the Soong Dynasty at Chungking...
...Roosevelt and Churchill to appease Stalin, and find some basis of general agreement, is not due merely to the European situation, and the military and political advances Moscow has made against Hitler's Germany...
...Some persons familiar with Europe, but not with Asia, have thought that if Stalin got too "tough," the American and British governments could make peace with the German militarists at the expense of Russia...
...The vast Eurasiatic continent includes some 1,700,-000,000 inhabitants—three-fourths of the population of the entire world...
...He will get the best terms for Russia he can, from whomever he can...
...Both are party dictatorships, one ruled by the Kuomintang, the other by the Communist Party...
...On July 14, for instance, an article appeared in the Far Eastern Survey, written by T. A. Bisson, calling for "unification" of Kuomintang and Communist China...
...The Berlin-Moscow pact of 1939 had partitioned Poland, and enabled Hitler to launch his drive westward...
...The real aim of this proposal, and the attacks on the Kuomintang regime, were seen by the well-informed Rodney Gilbert (a journalist and author who spent many years in China), in the New York Herald-Tribune, as having the purpose "to undermine the - moral credit of China's leadership in this country and to build up the credit of the Chinese Communists, so that when the time comes for the latter to seize the fruits of victory over Japan, after the war, such an achievement, whether by coup or by revolution, will not alienate American sympathy from China, vis-a-vis Japan, or elicit a revulsion of feeling against By HARRY PAXTON HOWARD the Red 'democrats' and with it armed support for their suppression...
...On the other hand, the Soviet government has been urgently in need of support and supplies from the United States and Great Britain, in order to carry on effectively the war against Germany...
...In the Spring of 1941, it was Russian and not American military advisers that were attached to the Chinese government at Chungking...
...But no one familiar with the set-up in China could doubt its significance...
...Japan and Moscow need not openly cooperate against Chungking...
...The Chinese Communists were to be taken into full partnership with the Kuomintang at Chungking...
...And we may, indeed, lose China first...
...The position in the Far East radically alters the situation...
...Bisson was taking orders from Moscow...
...American and British support was too vital to be risked in any way...
...The Kuomintang is about as feudal as Hitler is feudal...
Vol. 7 • October 1943 • No. 41
