THIRD INA THREE PART SERIES

By RAY STEVENSON —

In 1943, after the Soviet Army had Seized the initiative and was advancing all along the front, Churchill came for- ward with a strategy that called for an invasion of Europe from the Mediterra- Nean areas, through ‘‘the soft underbelly of Europe’. Implicit in this plan was the placing of a Western Allied Army in the

Centre of Europe, directly in the path of the Soviet advance toward Berlin.

Plainly the coordination and syn- chronization of war plans by the western powers with the Soviet strategy, and their advance into central Europe, was Neither exactly straightforward nor sim-

ple, and carried within it the seeds of a

post-war attempt to isolate the Soviet Union following its superhuman efforts for victory over the Nazis. For its part, the famous January, 1945 plea by Churchill to Stalin, asking for an advance in date of the planned Soviet spring of- fensive, and the immediate positive re- sponse of the Soviets, at considerable Sacrifice to themselves, under lines the scrupulous manner in which the Soviets pod their commitments to total vic-

ry. : But by this time, the military fate of the Nazi forces was sealed. In the winter and Spring of 1945, they were caught between the gigantic pincers of the advancing and Victorious Soviet armed forces, and a Much smaller, but effective western al- lied advance through France, Belgium, Holland and into Germany itself. May 8, 1945 rang down the curtain on the Euro- pean war.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

_.With its two partners, Germany and Italy out of the war the resistance of Japan to total defeat was merely a matter of time, although one comment regarding this is necessary. The final military ac- tion of the war, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, opened a new era of inter- National diplomacy for the post-war period, but it had at that time, August, 1945, no military objective or aim con- nected with the war itself.

Madrid 1980

Last summer the federal government established a Parliamentary Sub-Com- Mittee on The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in Prepara- tion for the Madrid Conference.’’ The sub-committee published a small news- Paper advertisement on July 19, 1980

seeking opinions from Canadians in the ©

form of written briefs on security and Cooperation in Europe.

The sub-committee suggested in its advertisement that the briefs should focus on two main questions: (a) what objectives should Canada pursue in such fields as disarmament, human rights, economic relations and human contacts? (b) how well has the Final Act of the 1975 Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe been imple- mented so far?

* ae bd

For the uninitiated the Madrid Confer- ence to be held in November of this year is a meeting of the signatory countries to the Final Act of the 1975 Helsinki Con- ference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Those signatory countries in- cluded all the European countries plus the United States and Canada. The pur- pose of the meeting (the second such meeting since Helsinki) is to examine how well the principles embodied in the Final Act have been observed by the sig- Natory states. ; ;

The Final Act is a 10-point declaration of princivles worked out in conformity

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The banners of the fascist army are turned to the ground before Lenin’s tomb in Moscow.

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By May of 1945, Hitler's hordes were defeated.

During June and July, 1945, the Far Eastern Soviet Army had engaged and smashed the sole remaining land army of the Japanese, the Kwantung Army, through the Pacific and- throughout southeastern Asia the U.S. Navy and the allied forces of the area, including Au- stralian, British and U.S. troops had broken all offensive capacity of the Japanese military. In fact, before the dropping of the bombs, Hirohito and the Japanese High Command had put out ‘‘peace feelers’’ obviously to salvage what they could from the debacle. But Truman and the. U.S. High Command, acting unilaterally, dropped the bomb anyway. _.

The excuse given that ‘‘it would save American lives’, was a hardly credible position in view of the desperate military situation confronting the Japanese. It was clearly a show of U.S. nuclear mus- cle, designed to intimidate friend and foe alike in the post-war period.

On the celebration of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the massive victory over

Marxism-Leninism

with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law. They accord with the principles of peace- ful co-existence between states with differing social systems. The Final Act covers: sovereign equality, respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty, refraining from the threat or the use of. force, inviolability of frontiers, territorial integrity of states, peaceful settlement of disputes, non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms including freedom of thought, consci- ence, religion or belief, equal rights and self-determinattion of peoples, coopera-— tion between states, fulfillment in good faith of obligations under international law. * * *

As can be seen from the above sum- mary of principles the Helsinki Final Act covers a good deal of important ground which the sub-committee’s advertise- ment invites Canadians to comment on. To pose such a question to the average citizen mocks all reason. How can ordi- nary Canadians be expected to voice a reasonable opinion when they have never seen, let alone studied, the Final Act? In fact, they were actually deprived access to this historic document by the then Government of Canada in deliber-

the forces of Nazism and Fascism, the Second World War, replete with its un- paralleled death and destruction, it is to be remembered that it was a turning point of immense and_ historic im- portance in the affairs of the human fam- ily.

What is fallacious is the widely trum- peted idea in the western world, and in particular in North America that victory was primarily. the result of western im- perialist actions. The truth is the re- verse. It was the encompassing and un- conquerable actions of the peoples of the first land of socialism, the Soviet Union, who not only bore the brunt and the most terrible cost of that un- precedented war, but won the decisive strategic contest with the Nazi monster. The price they paid more than equalled all other sacrifices made by all other peoples. The Western imperialist pow- ers’ role was wavering, hesitant, and in the end, vastly inferior of the role of the Soviet Union.

The opening of the new era of dip-

in Today’s World

ate violation of a solemn obligation to make the text available to Canadians.

The signatory countries in signing the Final Act undertook that the text of the Final Act “‘will be published by each par- ticipating state, which will disseminate it and make it known as widely as possi- ble.’’ Unfortunately for the average Canadian the government failed to take the necessary steps to ensure that the text would be made known in Canada as ‘widely as possible’’. It only published 3,500 copies in all. Of this number 3,000 copies were made available to the Min- istry of External Affairs for internal use and by its embassies abroad. The re- maining 500 were retailed through Government of Canada bookstores at $2 a copy. And, as far as we can ascertain, not one leading newspaper or periodical published the complete text, or even a significant part of it.

* * * ;

The parliamentary sub-committee’s advertisement drew special attention also to those Canadians concerned with ‘‘human rights in eastern Europe’’. One can well wonder why only in eastern Europe? Surely the Final Act is applica-

ble to all of the signatory countries in- -

cluding Canada. We are of the opinion, that singling out of “human rights in

By ALFRED DEWHURST

victims

lomatic and military history by the use of the nuclear weapon, has in a military sense shifted the parameters of military science and the concepts of total war and mass destruction.

To illustrate the point, if by the use of so-called ‘‘conventional weapons”’ and military technology of. the Second World War, more than fifty million died and destruction which cannot be estimated done today, under the Damo- cles Sword of nuclear weapons, neatly stored in their silos and already targeted on the great-cities of the world, the po- tential human carnage and destruction defies precise definition. To send the ICBMs, and the various land and sea- based nuclear missiles whistling through space to the already targeted centres of population could destroy our world-as we know it.

But that is not all. The insane U.S. and NATO escalation of an arms race in both the nuclear war capacity and in the so-called conventional arms, just as Werner said in 1939, is today exerting ‘‘terrible pressure on foreign policy, and forcing it in the direction of war’’. That we believe to be incontrovertible.

But another factor exists today that did not exist in 1939, a worldwide con- sciousness and a worldwide movement of the peoples everywhere for peace, for disarmament, for national liberation, for détente and for the right to live.

It is this immense, creative and grow- ing spirit that leads to actions by peoples everywhere that will in the end destroy the arsenals of destruction, together with the obscene Nazi doctrines of **to- tal war’’, so that a state of creative labor, peace and future security will be ushered into our world.

There is truly no alternative for hu- manity.

Ray Stevenson, of Canada, is serving as a member of the secretariat of the World Peace Council, Helsinki. He served, during World War II, as the Chief Information and Educational Of- ficer of the Canadian Armored Corps. The present article first appeared in New Perspectives, the journal of the World Peace. Council.

eastern Europe’’ is but an invitation to those rabid anti-Soviet, anti-socialist elements in Canada to participate in a spate of anti-Sovietism under the guise of a parliamentary review. This suggests a continuation of the shameful action of parliament, which by unanimous vote of all parties in the House passed a motion : of censure against the Soviet Union for arresting certain individual citizens who undertook actions contrary to Soviet law.

- We can only judge such an invitation as an incitement for gross interference into the affairs of a fellow co-signer of the Final Act with Canada. Such behavior can only be seen as a hostile act by the receiving country on the eve of the follow-up Madrid meeting.

So much for the consultative process followed by the parliamentary sub- committee.

Canadians would be much better served if Canada goes to the Madrid Con- ference with the aim of searching out ways and means of improving relations between the participating states; con- solidating security and cooperation in _ Europe; defending peace and detente beginning with winning agreement that NATO should not deploy U.S. medium- range nuclear missiles in western Euro- pean countries; to take steps to end the arms race and to establish parity as the basis of an international accord on ways to disarmament.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCT. 31, 1980—Page 9