RUSSIA: Dizziness From Success

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"These causes are rooted in the inner weaknesses of the Polish State. Poland is a multi-national State.*The Poles constitute only about 60% of the population of Poland. . . . Poland is inhabited by no less than 8,000,000 Ukrainians and about 3,000,000 White Russians. ... It would appear that the Polish ruling circles should have established normal relations with such important national minorities. . . . Instead the national policy . . . was characterized by suppression and oppression of national minorities. . . . Regions in which the Ukrainians form a majority of the population were subjected to extremely rude and unscrupulous exploitation by Polish landlords. . . ."

Thus with great circumspection the Dictator told the people what part of Poland Russia intended to get—i.e., the Polish Ukraine, the northeast area south of Lithuania. Hurriedly Russia called up 4,000,000 troops. Hurriedly Russia called an armistice in the Russo-Japanese War (see p. 24). Then suddenly, as the Germans struck southward toward Polish oil fields, cutting off Polish retreat to Rumania, getting within 80 miles of the Russian frontier, Russian troops crossed the Polish border on a 500-mi. front (see p. 28).

But even after Russia's troops were haltingly emulating Germany's great drive, with 2,000,000 troops in motion against a fragmentary Polish defense, Russian leaders continued to murmur against the perfidy of the Poles in being whipped so soon. When Russia's military machine began to move, more than 3,000,000 well-equipped, well-trained German-Russian troops were driving in opposite directions against the forlorn remnants of Poland's scattered, shattered, fragmentary armies. Still dizzy with successes, Premier Molotov made a radio address: "Comrades," said he, "men and women citizens of our great country, events arising out of the Polish-German War have revealed . . . the obvious impotence of the Polish State."

But mostly he shook his head over its speed and his bewilderment: "All this has happened in the briefest space of time . . . mere fortnight has passed . . . Poland already has lost her industrial centers . . . no one knows the whereabouts of the Polish Government."

In this perplexing situation, Russia formally denounced its non-aggression treaty with the missing government, worried because Poland had become "a fertile field for any accidental and unexpected contingency which may create a menace to the Soviet Union," found its sacred duty to "extend the hand of assistance to its brother Ukrainians and brother Byelo-Russians inhabiting Poland."

But Premier Molotov soon came back to the big problem: "Nobody could have expected the Polish state would have such impotence . . . collapse is a fact . . . Polish statesmen have revealed their utter bankruptcy."

Therefore, the Premier was convinced, "our Workers' and Peasants' Red Army will display its combative might," and Russia was still neutral. Notes saying the same were handed the diplomatic representatives of the U. S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Finland, Bulgaria, Latvia, Denmark, Estonia, Sweden, Greece, Belgium, Rumania, Lithuania, Norway, Hungary, the Mongolian People's Republic, and the Tuva People's Republic.