The Pittsburgh Press (February 8, 1946)
Simms: Red peace
By William Philip Simms
WASHINGTON – Europe is daily becoming more and more a seething cauldron of bitterly hostile, unassimilable elements dangerous to peace.
Behind this ominous situation is the Anglo-Soviet-American blind disregard of President Wilson’s 1918 warning that if the world hopes for peace, “peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were chattels or pawns in a game.”
Instead of following Wilson’s advice the United States and Great Britain have felt obliged to purchase Soviet co-operation like Neville Chamberlain who believed he was buying what he called “peace in our time” from Hitler. They let down their own Allies, Poland and Yugoslavia, gave Russia free hand in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and parts of Asia. Now having sowed the wind, there are signs that a whirlwind might be approaching.
Concentration camps are filled
Russia, Poland and Yugoslavia have warned Britain and the United States against what they call aiding and abetting the foes of those three countries. And who are these “foes?” They are:
First, the uprooted and dispossessed people thrown out of the provinces seized by Russia and her puppets and,
Second. Polish and Yugoslav soldiers who have been fighting loyally on the Allied side since the outbreak of the war but who care not return now to their native lands.
As in Russia, anybody who opposes the governments of Warsaw and Belgrade is in a most unhappy position. The prisons and concentration camps are full of them. Many have been shot. Thousands have been in jail for months without charges being made against them. Over the past week-end, according to reports from Warsaw, a police drag-net brought in another 75,000 to 100,000 political prisoners. Last week both Secretaries Byrnes and Bevin accused Polish Security Police of murdering prominent members of political parties which happen to be in the bad graces of those in power.
As there is a stampede of American soldiers to go home, our occupation forces in Europe can hardly function. The British position is better than ours, but is comparable. Accordingly, both welcome the aid of uprooted Poles and Yugoslavs for labor and guard duty, but against this practice Moscow, Warsaw and Belgrade are up in arms. As usual, their opposition is tinged with suspicion. They charge that the United States and Britain are backing “enemies” who contemplate war. If the idea weren’t so dangerous, it would be laughable.
They’d have us let them die
Warsaw has asked that Polish troops now serving with the British and Americans be discharged. Warsaw, Moscow and Belgrade have demanded that UNRRA quit feeding their displaced “Nationals” who refuse to return home. Yet there has been a constant stream of refugees pouring out of Soviet-occupied areas into the American and British zones.
To round up these exiles and drive them back where they came from would be to sentence many of them to death or prison. And certainly the United States, whose taxpayers are providing 75 cents out of every dollar’s worth of food for Europe’s hungry, is hardly going to feed some and let others die because they belong to the wrong political party.
If anybody thinks all this is a teapot tempest let him disabuse his mind. It is serious.