"The Word Is Out"

By last week Russia and Japan were talking back & forth about a war as if such a conflict were as certain to come as this year's U. S. baseball season. Each side piously insisted that it would not start it but neither convincingly dissembled its itch for a "defensive fight."

War talk reached a new high in Moscow fortnight ago when Dictator Stalin told the 17th Russian Communist Party Congress: "Those who attack us will get such a decisive blow that they will learn to keep their swinish snouts out of our potato patch. . . . We must take every precaution to prepare ourselves against sudden attacks in the Far East. . . . Relations between Japan and the U. S. S. R. need serious improvement. . . . One section of the military party in Japan openly advocates the necessity of war against the U. S. S. R. . . . The Japanese Government instead of calling these incendiaries to order, washes its hands of the matter. . . . That is why we must adopt measures to defend our country."

The nature of those measures was last week described to the same Congress by Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze, President of the Supreme Economic Council, who boasted that the U. S. S. R. had produced "many more tanks, heavy artillery and machine guns in 1933 than in 1932." Taking his cue from his leader, Comrade Ordzhonikidze cried: "If these swines' noses compel our industry to mobilize to arm our Red troops, I think we will do it with more strength and more successfully than we have ever done anything before."

To pile the onus for a prospective war still higher on Japan Karl Radek, No. 1 Soviet journalist and propagandist, wrote for Izvestia: "Having seized Manchuria and improved railroad transportation systems there and constructed many new air-dromes, the Japanese military now openly propagates the necessity of war with the Soviet Union. The U. S. S. R. does not observe these military preparations with folded hands but openly prepares to defend Soviet territory."

In Japan Army and Navy men talked (and often wrote) of almost nothing else but the "Inevitability of a Russo-Japanese War." Their militant chatter reached such a pitch last week that War Minister General Senjuro Hayashi was moved to step in and soft-pedal it. In his first interview since his elevation to the Cabinet as successor to the sword-rattling Araki, General Hayashi kept a straight face while he told the Associated Press:

"We are making no preparations for war with Russia.* We are out for peace. Our dispositions in Manchuria are merely aimed at fulfilling our treaty obligations to defend Manchukuo. The enthronement of Henry Pu Yi and the inauguration of an Empire in Manchuria will prove a stabilizing factor in the promotion of peace in the Orient. . . . The Japanese Army will not assist in any attempt to extend the territory of Manchukuo in any direction."

Same day, however, Japanese troops entered Hulin, close to the Siberian border. Loudly General Hayashi's War Office insisted that they were only "chasing bandits."

Meanwhile the rest of the world was gravely concerned by the day-to-day increase of diplomatic tension between mighty, patient Russia and small, aggressive Japan. Last month Edouard Herriot of France reported on a visit he made last summer to Russia after which he nearly died of gastric disturbances and a kidney infection. Statesman Herriot pointed out that hostilities between Japanese and Russians, if not between Japan and Russia, have in fact commenced. Thus M. Herriot cited the complaints of the Soviet manager of the Chinese Eastern Railway spanning Japan's puppet State of Manchukuo. The manager, Comrade Julius Rudy, had counted up to 280 armed attacks by "Manchukuans" on his Soviet railway guards before Manchukuo authorities clapped six Soviet officials of the Chinese Eastern into jail at Harbin where they still languished last week. Since that time Russia's negotiations to sell its $200,000,000 equity in the Chinese Eastern to Manchukuo have completely collapsed. "All wise governments should watch the Far East with the greatest vigilance," wrote M. Herriot. "The question of a railroad in Manchuria brings us to the question of war or peace. . . . War! The word is out!"

Taking pen in hand at Rome, Benito Mussolini last month also scratched with such vigor on the same subject that last week the Japanese Embassy was officially and fruitlessly protesting. "There is no doubt that Japan is going through a period of 'dynamic imperialism,' " wrote the dynamic Duce. "Two armies confront each other at the frontiers of Russia and Manchuria. The peril of war exists. This event does not interest only Russia and Japan. It also involves China and the United States and, directly or indirectly, England, France, Italy and Holland."

In Tokyo U. S. recognition of U. S. S. R. was interpreted almost as an unfriendly act, the Japanese Press being alert to see and exploit its economic potentialities in case of hostilities. After one flying visit to Moscow William Christian Bullitt, President Roosevelt's new Ambassador, returned to the U. S. last month under the definite impression that a Russo-Japanese war was in the making. He felt it his duty to warn U. S. businessmen not to lend Russia too much money because of the danger that she may find herself unable simultaneously to fight and pay interest.

The best informed U. S. opinion on the subject was summed up last week by able Arthur Krock, Washington correspondent of the New York Times: "In the War and Navy Departments there is a division of opinion among our high command as to the imminence of a military crisis between Japan and Soviet Russia. But . . . their disagreement is only as to time: most of them expect a war."

On what is this world-wide expectation of a Far East war based? On a broad and basic antagonism that is greater than the sum of its parts. A capitalist nation aggressively alert to its foreign investments would doubtless have gone to war long ago over the rape of the Chinese Eastern by Japan, which last week continued to default on millions of rubles due for transporting Japanese troops. But Russia has stolidly refused to be provoked into battle by the virtual loss of a few hundred millions sunk in a Tsarist speculation. Nothing irks the Japanese Government more than its yearly chore of having to haggle with the Soviet Government over how much Japanese fishermen shall pay to lease Siberia's fishing grounds. Fishing is Japan's largest industry. Repeatedly Japanese fishermen, poaching on unleased Soviet grounds, have been fired on from the shore by OGPU. Any one of these incidents might have offered an excuse for hostilities if Japan had been completely ready and sure of herself. Russia even closed its diplomatic eyes to the Japanese "campaign" which has burst the boundaries of Manchuria and set up the puppet State of Manchukuo. But out of this campaign has developed a situation which opened Moscow's eyes in alarm and set its tongue to crying "War!"

Though it could tolerate Japanese expansion in Manchuria, Russia cannot tolerate Japanese expansion into Outer Mongolia. This autonomous republic, a wild no man's land of nomadic tribes under hereditary princes, is under strict Soviet domination, a protective outpost for the Siberian border. Just north of that border runs the Trans-Siberian Railway, Russia's Asiatic lifeline. Today Japanese troops have overstepped the Manchukuan border by 30 miles into Inner Mongolia. Their most westerly garrison is at Dolonnor. If from this north and south military line Japan should suddenly swing its forces northwestward into Outer Mongolia, strike through the Siberian border and cut the Trans-Siberian near Lake Baikal, Russia would be dealt such a staggering blow that it would be forced to withdraw from the eastern half of Siberia. And that is precisely what neutral militarists believe to be Japan's grand strategy.

There are no Japanese troops today in Outer Mongolia. But there are advance Japanese agents weaving the expanding web of empire. As prospectors for gold and oil, as traders and travelers they spread Japanese propaganda, try to bribe Mongol princes into alliances. Every Russian fears that these Japanese advance agents are paving the way for Japanese troops and that the real objective of Japanese troops is the rich farm land between Lake Baikal and the Pacific, from which to harvest more food for the homeland. Because Lake Baikal is a strategic key-point the nation that controls it controls the "grasslands" of the Amur.

Twentieth Century Japan fights first and declares war, if at all, afterwards. That is why Russia is in everlasting dread of a flank attack across the Siberian border, an attack which may fall anywhere, anytime. Russia's prime defense is its ability to move up & down the Trans-Siberian. And that rickety road is at present in notoriously bad condition for a major military action.* It can handle only a few thousand troops a day, provision only a small army on active service. But Russia is double-tracking at breakneck speed and, while it does, 200,000 Red troops guard the border from Lake Baikal to Vladivostok. Mean while contemplated under the Second Five-Year Plan is another transcontinental line running from Archangel to the Sea of Okhotsk, as a military backstop in case Japan does cut the Trans-Siberian.

If and when a war flames up almost overnight somewhere along the Siberian-Mongolian border, setting afire some 750,000 sq. mi. of territory, the man of the minute, from the Russian viewpoint, will be handsome Soviet Army, Navy & Air "Commissar Klimentiy ("Klim") Voroshilov. As Commissar of the Red Navy, red-faced "Klim'' Voroshilov commands a ludicrous force of four battleships, six cruisers, eight modern submarines and some 50 other small boats, mostly anti quated. So superior is Japan on the sea that, should the Great Powers remain neutral, she could not only take Vladivostok and Russia's Siberian fishing grounds with ease but could also send a few of her better war boats around to crush the Soviet toys in the Baltic Sea and bombard the daylights out of Leningrad.

In Moscow "Klim" as Army Commissar knows well enough that the Red Army, second largest (562,000) in the world though it be, is untried, inexperienced and if forced to fight Japan at the end of the Trans-Siberian 5,600 miles from Moscow will be at an appalling disadvantage. But as Commissar for Air he is believed to feel that the Red Air Force (2,000 planes) is Russia's joker, her super-trump card against Japan.

Flimsily built, most of Tokyo and every other Japanese city is so much pasteboard and matchwood, ready to be kindled by incendiary bombs. Fire is the worst part of every Japanese earthquake. Not being able to count on an earthquake, "Klim" Voroshilov has built up one of the great air armadas of the world. According to Britain's ablest writer on war books for civilians, Captain B. H. Liddell Hart: "In case of war with Japan, Voroshilov . . . is said to be favoring the idea of conducting it purely by air action. If so, he will have the credit of inaugurating the new era of warfare. . . . Russia, which in the past [World War] provided the supreme ex- ample of folly of 'mass'* may be the first to free herself from this delusion."

When what the world supposed to be the firm of Lenin & Trotsky was disrupted by Lenin's death (TIME, Jan. 28, 1924) it was no easy task for Secretary Josef Stalin of the Communist Party to oust Trotsky and make himself Dictator.

Trotsky, "The First Fighting Jew since Judas Maccabeus" was an idol in Soviet hearts because as Commissar of War he had created the Red Army out of chaos and revolution and had successfully beaten back the White Armies of Russian capitalism. Stalin, after maneuvering Trotsky out of office by the tactics of political bossism. still had to break the popularity which made "Trotsky" a name of power. Appointed Commissar of War was Trotsky's bitter foe, Comrade Michael Frunze. He "broke" every Trotskyist officer, but grew too powerful himself. His sudden death Stalin's enemies attribute universally to poison. Stalin's next move was to hand the Army, Navy and Air Force over to a man of whom the Soviet public had never heard, a Red general 13th on the Red Army's ranking list, big, hearty Klimentiy Voroshilov.

According to Moscow correspondents, "Klim" was picked because he is "very likeable, completely unambitious and just a bit stupid."

Speechmaking is a great part of every Red Army officer's job and "Klim" on the platform compares favorably with General Johnson. Peasant born and bred to the trade of a foundry workman, Russia's War Commissar spends much time inspecting and orating to collective farms and factories. In 1931, when trouble with Japan first loomed, and again in 1933 ''Klim" inspected not only the whole Soviet Far East frontier but the leading mines, smelters, metallurgical plants, factories and, on his last trip, the colonies of ex-Red soldiers now being established by Dictator Stalin's orders as the patriotic rallying points of luckless Russians who are being forced to colonize Red Far East open spaces as buffers to Japan (TIME, Dec. 25).

In public loyalty to Stalin no Russian is louder than Klim who constantly hails the Dictator as "Lenin's true disciple, the Bolshevik of Bolsheviks!"

Perhaps because of his personal popularity with the Soviet masses, Klim is often called "Stalin's only rival." Stories constantly circulate that Klim and other Red Army officers strongly resent the privileged position of Stalin's praetorian guard, the OGPU "Special Troops." It has even been stated that the Red Army's rifles are taken away from it every night and locked up in each barracks by the OGPU--doubtless an exaggeration, but not without significance.

No optimist, Klim has expressed conviction that the world's next important war, no matter how it starts, will end up as a concerted assault by the Capitalist Powers on the Soviet Union. For this reason he threw his whole influence behind a successful move to draft the Five-Year Plan in such fashion that Russia would achieve self-sufficiency first in the realm of munitions and armaments. As Captain Liddell Hart points out, Soviet battle planes--on which Klim pins so much hope --are of 100% Soviet manufacture and the whole effort of the Red War Office is to make it possible for Russia to fight on the basis of her own stupendous natural resources, even though she be completely blockaded by the Capitalist World.

Like all popular leaders, War Man Klim pays frequent lip service to Peace.

"The toiling masses of the world," he likes to orate, "know that wars are prevented by the existence of the Soviet Union. Let the world know that the Red Army will never threaten anybody but will continue to watch events and to be where it should be when necessary. If some groups or countries want to test our strength we will show them! They try to provoke us but our nerves are strong!"

Last week in Moscow Commissar Voroshilov stirred the Communist Party Congress to terrific applause when he delivered this pointed challenge to Japan:

"It is now clear to all that Japan was the first nation to seek to issue from the Depression by the aid of war. She has become the greatest purchaser of war material and of war industrial supplies in the world market, and is simultaneously carrying on the political preparation of the country for a more serious war than she waged in China. That is clear to the nonmilitarist eye."

Japanese military writers, soldiers, publicists, teachers, manufacturers, politicians and public and state officials in the last two years have talked and written so much and so openly about the necessity of war with Russia, have so often discussed the details of the conquest of ... our Trans-Baikal and even of all Siberia, that it would be strange if we did not appear to notice it or if we regarded our dear neighbor with as much confidence as before. . . .

"Our measures of self-defense seem to be an affront to the Japanese. Doubtless it would be preferable to our neighbors if we left our frontier in the same defenseless state as the Chinese Manchurian frontier in 1931. But that favor, in all politeness, we grant to no one.

"Japan has not only become the real master of Manchuria and as such has not only failed to secure Soviet interests on the Chinese Eastern Railway, as she obligated herself to do by her own initiative, but on the contrary has done everything to injure our interests in the Manchurian section of the road.

"Manchuria is progressively being transformed into a Japanese military base, . . . the Far East is covered with clouds, and it is there the storm may burst. . . . A war if it is forced upon us will be a great and serious war. . . . It will cost those who start it dearly . . . every inch of our Far Eastern land we must hold at all costs and hold it we shall, without doubt. . . ."

Most observers believe that Japan will not be ready to go into what it considers an "inevitable war" until it completes its aerial defenses of Tokyo and other big cities against Klim's bombers flying from Vladivostok in six hours. Nor is Russia expected to be ready to resent by military action Japanese thrusts westward into Mongolia until the Trans-Siberian becomes a double-tracked Class A carrier from Karymakava to Vladivostok.

*Last week 40,000 Japanese youths from 17 to 25 were ordered into munitions plants to speed up armament production, nominally for Manchukuo. Meanwhile extraordinarily heavy shipments of Chilean nitrates were moving to western Pacific ports.

*Passenger express trains run twice a week between Moscow and Vladivostok. The trip takes ten days. First class one-day fare (sleeper and diner) is about $300. Passengers from Moscow to China change at Manchouli to the Chinese Eastern which carries them to Changchun, capital of Manchukuo, where they take the South Manchuria or Peiping-Mukden line.

*I. e. of sending to the front millions of poorly trained and in some cases unarmed troops as pure "cannon fodder."

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