B_345_The-Rulers-of-Russia

helping Russia, expose themselves to a great danger is too obvious
to require further proofs. ... As far as we are concerned, this
danger exists considerably nearer, but nevertheless our position
between France and Poland compels us to try to remain in constant
touch and in close understanding with Russia in order not
to fall into complete dependence upon the Western countries.
This position will remain compulsory for us no matter whether
the present regime in Russia continues or not." 1
With regard
to Poland, General von Seckt added that any understanding between
Germany and Poland was out of the question. He held
that German hopes for the future were intimately bound up with
her relations with Russia, but that Germany should ruthlessly
repulse any attempt at penetration on the part of Bolshevism. It
is quite clear now that the Prussians in 1939, as in 1932 and
before it, are to be reckoned amongst those who think, as Mr.
Melville puts it, that they can play with the devil and win.
Russia's aims, or rather the aims of those who control Russia,
have not changed. Trotsky, on the one hand, wanted world-revolution
as the only secure bulwark for a strong Communist State
in Russia. Stalin, on the other hand, wanted a strong Soviet
Russian State as the only secure foundation for world-revolution.
Stalin's point of view has been accepted by the controlling powers,
and we have been allowed by the Russian Board of Censors,
whose non-Russian nationality was certified to us by Mr. Douglas
Reed in 1935, to peruse what they thought fit about the very elaborate
elimination of the elements imbued with the Trotskyist
ideals. Both Stalin and Trotsky, however, were and are instruments
of those for whom Communism is a means. We must therefore
bear well in mind that "the new Bolshevist orthodoxy of
Stalin is probably more dangerous to Europe in the long run
than the more spectacular methods of Trotsky and the more vocal
methods of Zinoviev in the heyday of the Third International.
I say more dangerous . . . and more formidable, because a more
practical conception than the old Trotskyist idea. ... It is just
the growth of this Stalinist conception which has made possible
the continuance on an ever-increasing scale, of the secret relationship
between 'Red' Russia and 'White' Germany." 2
1
Melville: The Russian Face of Germany, pp. 158, 159.
2 The Russian Face of Germany, by C F. Melville, pp. 169, 170.
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