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George Stern

Behind the Lines

(13 April 1941)


From Socialist Appeal, Vol IV No. 15, 13 April 1940, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.


The same Allied policy that has set up a war front in Norway is going to lead in the near future to serious complications in the Pacific which will necessarily involve the United States. I refer to the policy the Allies have adopted of tightening up their blockade of Germany almost regardless of cost.

One of the “leaks” they propose to plug is the “leak” of war supplies which they believe are reaching Germany through the Soviet port of Vladivostok.

This is a sizeable job and involved ticklish Allied relations with Japan on the one hand and the United States on the other, as well as the USSR. Japan has already declared it will not tolerate British naval operations in what it regards as Japanese waters.

To make the blockade more palatable to the Japanese, the British have been holding out the possibility of a “deal” in China. This was the meaning of the speech of British Ambassador Craigie in Tokyo on March 28.

Washington appears to be ready enough to cooperate with the British in facilitating a Pacific blockade. But it will consider itself thoroughly double-crossed if Britain secures similar cooperation from Japan on the basis of a “deal” at the expense of American interests in China.

The London declaration that it “still” recognized the Chungking government offered no comfort to the Washington strategists. Nor did it silence the angry mutterings over the Craigie speech which identified the “ultimate objectives” of Britain and Japan. Lord Halifax, the British foreign secretary, said, indeed, that he fully approved the speech.

Meanwhile, the British blockade has already begun to operate in Far Eastern waters. Two Soviet freighters were seized and have never been released, despite repeated Soviet protests. One American freighter carrying a cargo of copper turned back in mid-ocean (its captain denied he was stopped by any British warship) and goods are beginning to pile up on West coast docks because shippers are afraid to ship.

Actually, of course, this blockade is a blockade of the Soviet Union. There is no evidence to show that the goods being brought in through Vladivostok because the war has closed other lanes is destined especially for Germany. On the other hand, Moscow has certainly no disposition to be “cooperative” with the Allies and will resist the attempts to choke off this trade. Herein lies the possibility of renewed serious friction between the U.S.S.R. and the Allies.

The American press, and the New York Times in particular, have begun to prepare American public opinion for events in the Far East by publishing highly circumstantial and detailed “reports” about German submarine bases in Soviet Far Eastern ports, the presence of important German naval and engineering contingents in that region, etc.

The vast maneuvers of the United States fleet, taking place in the midst of these developments, assume an especially ominous significance. They tend to stress the fact that the intensification of the war means speeding the tempo of American participation and that this participation will be mainly on a Far Eastern front.


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