For the past several weeks the newspapers have been filled with the aggressive speeches of Soviet leaders all asserting that Russia is more than ready for any Japanese attack, that, in fact, the Soviet armies will wipe up Manchuria with the Japs and throw their mangled remains into the sea; in addition to this, the Russians have given out specific estimates of the number of troops and airplanes which they have in the Far East, thus violating that essential point of military strategy, secrecy. All this bellicose public shouting by the Kremlin tough boys shows, I think, a certain pathological state of fear, a sort of whistling in the dark psychology. If the Soviets were as cocksure as they claim to be, they would not be spending such a considerable portion of their waking hours proclaiming their own invincibility; nor would they allow the Japs to get away with the various raw deals which they have handed Russia in the Far East. Instead they would remain discreetly silent, sure that they could give the little yellow men a resounding kick on their posteriors that would speedily propel them back to their native islands.
This profound nervousness on the part of the Russians is not due merely to fear of Japan, for in the event of a struggle it seems evident that the Russians are going to prove hard nuts for the Japs to crack; nor is it attributable to fear that their programme of internal development will be irreparably damaged by a war, although both of these factors certainly play an important part. The cause of the jumpy nerves of the Soviets goes far deeper and is less tangible than this; what this cause is was revealed in a recent speech by Stalin in which he warns the powers to "keep their swinish snouts out of the Soviet potato patch" and in similar pronouncements by his associates. What the Russians fear is that in case of a war with the Japanese the rest of the capitalist powers are going to gang up on Russia and engage in a good deal of international eye-gouging and groin-kicking at the expense of the USSR; if Germany and other European states launch an attack upon Russia at the same time that Japan does, it is obvious that the results are going to be pretty sad for the proletariat.
This theme has, of course, been one of the favorite obsessions of Marxists since the foreign attacks of 1919-1920; but I do not think that up until very recently it has represented to them anything but an annunciation of doctrine. The thing that caused them to revive this political funk is the upsetting of the European status quo established at Versailles by the refurbishment of Germany under Hitler, with the result that a territorial realignment now looms. Obviously, the likeliest power at whose expense this realignment could be accomplished is Russia; in that way a war of mutual destruction could be avoided and a political system which is anathema to the powers could be crushed. It is this possibility which has caused the recent outbreak of political hypochondria in Moscow; and even though it is only a possibility, it is still of sufficient magnitude to warrant the case of jitters that it has provoked. NEMO.
