THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 174 No. 5196

LONDON, DECEMBER 9th, 1939

SIXPENCE

IN THIS ISSUE

EUROPEAN UNITY AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

I. THE BREAKDOW N OF THE LEAGUE

By Christopher Dawson IN VIENNA TODAY The Accounts of Eye-witnesses, by Michael Power THE VATICAN AND THE SOVIET

From a Vatican City Correspondent

THE COMING OF THE REDEEMER

An Advent Sermon, by Ronald Knox Full L is t o f Contents on page 664.

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Lost Leader

It has often happened th a t certain nations, afflicted with great sufferings, have brought enormous vicarious benefits to the rest o f the world. Probably nothing less than the present sufferings of the Finns would ever have cleared away the mirage o f Moscow from so many English and American eyes. The outraged condemnations which have appeared in the Left Wing Press yet disclose a peculiar reluctance to believe th a t the Soviet and Stalin are as bad as the Nazis and Hitler. Mr. A. J. Cummings writes of “ a temporary aberratio n ,” Mr. Vernon Bartlett thinks th a t the worst o f it is th a t men will now forget the real services rendered by the Bolsheviks to social progress, and Reynolds News, in its leading article, declares that Stalin “ has resigned the leadership of those progressive forces th roughout the world which, for twenty years, have looked to Russia as the custodian o f international law and decency. ’ ’

When full allowance is made for the real obstacles in the way o f a true knowledge of what goes on under the Soviet, a very remote country speaking a difficult language and adept a t deception, it yet remains a curiosity o f social history th a t so many well-intentioned people should have contrived to see in the brutal Soviet regime the hope o f mankind. Its Finnish and Polish policies are o f a piece with its domestic tyranny. Earlier this year the smooth-spoken M. Molotov brought in the decree imposing the death penalty from the age of twelve. I t is the unanimous testimony o f all who live in Russia for any length of time that no Russians dare associate with foreigners. It is only a few months since the English papers were full o f the exploits o f an English husband o f a Russian wife, who learnt to fly and flew to Moscow because for years he had been separated from his wife. She was not allowed to leave Russia, because no Russians are.

From the Baltic States there come reports o f the amazement o f the poor, ill-nourished and ignorant youths who make up the vaunted Red Army, when they see, for the first time in their stunted lives, a form of society in which men and women are free and can talk without the furtive fear of the police and deportation to forced labours in remote and cheerless spots. The delusions about Russia were hugged so fondly from a desire to believe that a better state o f society was not just something in the realm of hope and the future, but had actually begun, and it was fostered over the last few dangerous years by the smooth hypocrisies in which M. Litvinov was so adept. Waiting While the People Learn

The blindness of English and American “progressives ’ ’ about Russia made them hasten to assume th a t the fault was Mr. Chamberlain’s, when there was no pact in defence o f Poland last summer. Mr. Chamberlain showed the greatest forbearance when the Opposition continually assumed th a t Russia only longed to play a fine part for peace, and th a t Mr. Chamberlain and M. Daladier kept inventing difficulties because they had secret hopes o f an understanding with Germany. It was not a secret that when the Russians pressed for the right to protect the Baltic States against indirect as well as direct aggression, they were really asking Britain and France for a free hand in those States as the price of their support, and what we refused as highly dishonourable, the Nazis, although it was very much more to their detriment, granted. General Krivitsky’s disclosures, reported fully in The T ablet of May 27th, undoubtedly reflect the position. Stalin was more nervous of Germany and anxious for the understanding than Hitler was, until the unexpected firmness of Britain and France faced Hitler with the choice of leaving Poland alone or partitioning it with the Soviet at a price. It can be seen now how right Mr. Chamberlain was to call the Soviet bluff about wanting a common front against aggression by offering to negotiate one. The British Government has had this long time few enough illusions about the real aims and character o f revolutionary Communism ; Sir Samuel Hoare is particularly expert in this field since his Russian experiences in the last War. But a bemused public opinion, fed on antiFascist propaganda, and Left Book Club publications,