The Evening Star (September 4, 1945)
Editorial: Russia and peace
Generalissimo Stalin’s victory address to the Russian people places its main emphasis on the great fact that the war is at last over. The words are those of a man who must feel a deep sense of relief after long years of carrying the heaviest burdens of leadership in a country which probably lost more blood and treasure than any other victim of Axis aggression.
It is hardly to be doubted that the Stalin government, no less than the Russian masses, desires nothing so much as a warless era in which to reconstruct the devastated areas of the Soviet Union and to move forward from there into a period of vast internal development. In many ways, the country – by far the largest land mass in the world – is not unlike America of 50 or 75 years ago. Its immense natural resources are still largely unexploited, and if it can but feel secure along all its frontiers, it can make itself over into an industrial and agricultural giant offering almost limitless opportunities for the social and economic betterment of its people.
Generalissimo Stalin almost certainly has some such prospect in view. Indeed, the last sentence of his address implicitly refers to it. “May our motherland thrive and prosper,” he says – a hope likely to strike a responsive chord in the heart of every Russian. It is significant, too, that the Soviet leader declares, “Now we can say that conditions necessary for the peace of the world have already been won.” The words suggest that in his own mind at least he is convinced that there need not be any war for a long time to come, if ever; that the security of Russia is guaranteed and that the country can now proceed with its self-development without fear of molestation.
The destruction of Germany’s war potential and the political upheaval in the countries of Eastern Europe certainly seem to make secure the borders of Western Russia. Similarly, in the east, where Japan has been crushed and where a highly reassuring treaty has been worked out with China, there appears to be nothing likely to endanger the Soviets. Moreover, Generalissimo Stalin’s declaration that Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands will now revert to Russian possession – a statement presumably based on an inter-Allied agreement not yet formally announced – clearly indicates that the country can look forward to the strategic and economic advantage of a safe and free passage into the Pacific.
All things considered, not in many a long year has Russia had more reason to feel genuinely secure. Accordingly, it ought to be able to concentrate with unprecedented vigor upon the task of promoting its domestic prosperity. The potentialities in this respect are tremendous, and since a lasting peace is essential to their materialization, the Soviet Union – for its own self-interest if for nothing else – may well prove to be one of the most active and earnest promoters of such a peace in the new era immediately ahead.