The Pittsburgh Press (January 31, 1946)
Background of news –
‘Peace’ after two wars
By Bertram Benedict
“Saying peace, peace, when there is no peace.”
The lament of Jeremiah seems particularly appropriate now, five months after V-J Day.
Into the Assembly of the United Nations, Iran has thrown a monkey wench by demanding action against Soviet intrusion in Iranian affairs. And the Soviet Union has thrown down the gauntlet to Great Britain by asking the Assembly to do something about British military activity in Greece and Java.
Look at the record today:
Java, Indo-China, Siam: British troops, sometimes with aid of Japanese forces, suppressing nativist movements by force.
Greece: Something akin to civil war.
Palestine: Smoldering hostilities.
Iran: Threat of force behind Soviet pressure.
Turkey: Threat to fight before yielding to Soviet demands.
China: Desultory fighting, despite government-Communist truce.
Korea: Armed unrest.
However, this gloomy record becomes almost rosy when it is compared with the situation in he six months following the Armistice of World War I.
In the first half of 1919, there was much less peace than today.
Russia: Engaged in desultory clashes with the American-British forces around Murmansk and the Japanese forces around Vladivostok. In January, the Red armies were fighting in Latvia, where they took Riga and whence they were driven out soon by a German army under Gen. von der Goltz, acting with the blessing of the Allies. The Red armies were being driven out of Estonia. Relations with Finland were soon to degenerate again into open war.
Russian armies were fighting Ukrainian nationalists, and also a French force in Odessa. They were putting down counter-revolutionary attacks by Gen. Denikin and his Cossacks in the Caucasus and by Adm. Kolchak in Western Siberia.
Red armies were driven out of Vilna by a Polish farce under Gen. Pilsudski which then advanced into White Russia, leading to full-fledged war between Russia and Poland.
Hungary: A Communist regime took over, declared war on Czechoslovakia and invaded Slovakia, was attacked by Rumanian armies.
Romania: Russia declared war in May.
Albania: Yugoslav forces invaded from the north while Italian forces were fighting to maintain their occupation along the coast.
Germany: Communist (Spartacist) uprisings broke out in Berlin and Munich. A Communist republic set up in Bavaria was suppressed by government troops in April. Communist revolts also in Austria.
Czechoslovakia: Clashes with Polish forces around Teschen.
Portugal: Royalist uprising against the republic.
Ireland: Guerrilla war against British rule.
Egypt: Revolt against British rule.
Asia Minor: Greece and Italian forces landed on Turkish soil.
India: The “Amritsar Massacre” of demonstrating natives in April.
Afghanistan: Border warfare against the British.
China: Japan holding on to Shantung, cause of China’s refusal to sign the Treaty of Versailles. Revolt in Korea against Japanese rule.
Compared with the aftermath of World War I, then, the state of the world in 1946 doesn’t look too bad.