HE. Soviet Union is the centre of the peace forces of the world. Hundreds of millions of common people look to her as the organizer of peace.

Union thinks peace, speaks peace, plans peace. Those who charge her with aggressive intentions, either lie or are ignorant of the facts.

Aggression in any part of the world wold instantly start a

third world war. Russia wants

* no such war. I could give a score of reasons in proof of it.

First, the colossal destruction of the first and second world wars left wounds so deep that no na- tion in its senses would wish to add to them by the horrors of an atomic war.

Second, the Soviet Union pos- sesses all raw materials necessary for her progressive industrial and agricultural activities. Her im- mense size precludes all fear of over-population.

Third, the’ Soviet Union’s so- cialist planning enables her to meet all internal economic troubles. With control of pro- duction and distribution, the more she produces the higher her standard of living.

Fourth, Admiral Kirk, the American ambassador to Mos- cow, said in this last winter time~he could detect no signs which an expert would expect to find if the Soviet Union was _ pre- paring for war; no _ over-age classes are called up, units re- main at peacetime strength, no extraordinary movements of troops, no restriction of civilian consumption of critical mater- ials.

Assume however, for a moment that the Soviet Union had ag- gressive intentions. Suppose that it purposed to march across Eur- ope and seize Calais and Paris. Would she in that event be call- ing peace councils? Would she make war propaganda a crime? Again, were Russia contemplat- ing aggressive war she would not be wasting her energies on the vast projects to which she is now deeply pledged.

And for that. purpose would Russia conduct such a war? To enforce Communism on _ reluc- tant nations? Repeatédly, from the first, Soviet statesmen have urged that Communism is not for export. Communism cannot be imposed from outside.

Yet again, and more important still, had Russia aggressive in- tentions surely she would not sit still and conduct peace propa- ganda at home and make, as Kirk says, no military prepara- tions while America and Britain and other countries are straining every nerve to build tup the biggest army, navy and air force

the world has ever seen, declar-

ing at the same time that atom bombs are being piled up for the possible destruction of Russian industrial cities.

Were Russia aggressive she would be from war factories instead of producing peacetime goods and wasting her energies on giant

constructive projects.

No, instead of that the Soviet Union is doing precisely what the world at large ought to be doing. She in preparing to attack, not human beings, but the . great enemies of all mankind, want and poverty, drought and famine, plague and disease. The Soviet Wnion wrestles with peaceful con- struction on every hand and of vast dimensions.

eo Approaching’ Moscow last sum- mer we were startled to see a

The Soviet

stockpiling weapons.

Pre et ee tt tir |

The Soviet Union

leads in the struggle for peace

By RIGHT REV. HEWLETT JOHNSON

huge new building. It was the science university with 6,000 rooms for students. And that was only one of a series of giant buildings in Moscow alone, the plans of which but a short time ago the Soviet architects had spread out on tableau for inspec- tion by Professor Bernal and my- self. These buildings approach completion.

~Construction and _ reconstruc- tion proceed on eyery hand. Love- ly parks arise, mature trees are planted in city streets. Not a sign, not a hint that people are straining every nerve to prepare for war..

And as if that was not all, as if the highly successful re- construction of the productive machine, enabling an increase of consumable goods sufficient to warrant four massive price re- ductions since 1945, the last one one March 1, this year, so great that every citizen awoke to find himself some 25 percent richer than when he went to bed the night before—as if that was not enough they must embark on

Dean of Canterbury

four of the largest schemes that have ever eexercised the imagi- nation or absorbed the energies of any nation past or present.

I have seen these schemes in

' operation. In view of the incred-

ulity in my country I was per- mitted to see them in June of this year. I travelled with my wife by special plane to Stalin- grad. Transferring there to two small planes travelling low and slow, we flew along the entire length of the new canal from the Volga to the Don. With our own eyes we observed the mighty waterway which will link Stalin- grad with all the oceans of the world, and* at length bring sea- going steamers into the city of Moscow itself.

These schemes stagger one. The dams at Kuibyshev and Stal- ingrad will produce power greater than all the hydro-power units of France, and create a sea over 300 miles long, with its own

oes { . -ports, lighthouses and_ seagoing

ships.

A vast canal nearly 700 miles long, is to be constructed through

Turkmania to the Caspian Sea, bringing fertility to a soil so rich and a climate so appropriate that the harvest of subtropical plants will surpass anything that has been known before in the Soviet Union, or elsewhere.

Endless forest belts, as I have seen them ‘from the air, stretch- ing on through hundreds of miles are being planted and are des- tined to conquer drought and cold and to change the climate of enormous areas in Central Asia..

Nobody but a person ignorant of economic possibilities could imagine that Russia is doing all this and at the same time heap- ing up overwhelming quantities “of aggressive armaments. To think otherwise is to credit Sov- iet economy with a miracle suf- ficient to stagger even the most ardent Communist.

®

No, Russia’s aggression is not against man.-It is only against the universal enemies of man- kind. Because she believes that peace is possible, that war is not inevitable, she can still continue

A READER in any of the 46 reading and study rooms of the new Moscow. University Library will never have to wait more than 10 minutes

before receiving any one. of the 1,200,000 volumes assembl- ed there. This has been made possible by installation of the latest technical devices and

1,200,000 volumes serve Soviet students

by a special system of cata-

loguing, developed by Soviet experts. Pneumatic tubes are used to transport books

throughout the library, which spreads over.13, floors of the university’s 26-storey struc- ture now being completed on the Lenin Hills on the out- skirts of Moscow.

In an article published in

Uchitelskaya Gazeta, periodi- cal of Soviet teachers, F. Koz- lova, deputy director of the Science Department of the Moscow State University Lib-

rary, says that this gigantic library was assembled in the record time of only two years. It is considered one of the best in the world.

MOULD ULL Ee iad babe &

‘Times, May 20, 1951): a the nations talk peace the U.S. i

‘ingness to disarm together with

with these astonishing enter- prises, side by side with a pro- duction which permits of no stint on consumer goods, and no stint of cultural or scientific ex- penditure.

Life grows more gay in the Soviet Union. The quality of her food is good. Her children grow up provided with ever increasing facilities for creches, kindergar- i tens and schools and cultural in- ‘9 stitutions. ;

It is in enterprises such as these that the Soviet Union is giving: a lead to the peace loving peoples of the world. With singu- lar consistency, year in, year out and side by side with all this peaceful and massive construc- tion the Soviet Union has striven for peace, striven for the destruc- tion of all atom bombs, has de- clared that capitalist and social- ist societies can coexist side by side, has urged that she may ex- ercise friendly business exchange with other countries. It is with this intent that the Soviet Union makes war propaganda illegal.

The Soviet Union has never said of other peoples “atomise them now!” has never sketched the advantages of a preventive war. I challenge anyone to show me any sentence from any res- ponsible leader in the Soviet Un- ion that threatened war, or pre- ventive war, or atomic attack.

Since 1945 Stalin has repeated- ly expressed his willingness for peace conversations to responsi- ble American statesmen.

The Soviet Union seeks peace with all its heart. Such sayings as “sudden peace would cause havoc to business” (New York The day

faces economic disaster” (U.S. News and World Report), etc.” would be absolutely impossible in any Soviet newspaper.

Stalin’s great statement in the | beginning of this year was crown- ed by Malik’s suggestion of a a truce in Korea. : E

It was Russia which first sug- gested and asked for progressive disarmament of all peoples, ex- iq pressing her own complete will-' ke

others.

It is Russia: which has consis- tently stood for international peace and reasonable agreement with the United States.

It is Russia which has shown a willingness to compromise on many points for the sake of world amity and shown a desire to make the United Nations a, suc- cessful functioning organisation.

It is Russia which has repeat- edly proposed a top level confer- ence between the USSR and the USA for the purpose of ironing out the mainedifficulties between these two great countries and reaching some kind of overall settlement.

It is Russia which in place of bellicose talk produces a new” magazine News which the capi- talist press was bound to confess had aé conciliatory tone and sought by reason and persuasion to meet and understand other people’s point of view.

It is Russia which is focussing the eyes of all peace loving peo- ple upon her as the great peace fighter of the world. And mem- bers of the Soviet Union through- out the wide land where the hammer and sickle flies may be proud to reiterate again and again the desire which is the desire of all peace loving peoples of renewed conversations which shall lead to a five-power pact, end the war in Korea, and intro- duce an all-round | settlement, paving the way for lasting peace in the world.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 23, 1951 — PAGE 4.