§ LORD ADDISONMy Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government whether they desire to make any statement on the outbreak of war between Germany and Russia.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (LORD CECIL) (Viscount Cranborne)My Lords, I am very glad to take the opportunity of giving some account of the sensational events which have occurred in the international sphere during the past weekend and of indicating the attitude of His Majesty's Government towards them. There is indeed little that I can add to what has already been said by the Prime Minister in the powerful broadcast which he addressed to the country and to the world on Sunday night. As noble Lords will know, at four o'clock on Sunday morning last the Armies of Germany invaded Soviet Russia. This was in some ways the most remarkable of the series of assaults against his neighbours which have been the characteristic feature of Herr Hitler's tenure of power. It was for one thing committed against a nation with whom he had only recently signed a treaty of non-aggression. That perhaps is not so surprising. There have been notable precedents in the case of Austria 486 and of Poland. But in those cases at least he made some attempt at manufacturing, however disingenuously, a crisis. In the present instance he went through no such formality. Negotiations between the two countries had not broken down. Negotiations, according to the statements of M. Molotov, were not even proceeding. There were apparently no points at issue between Russia and Germany; they were close and cordial associates. Then suddenly, without any warning from Germany, as it were out of a blue and cloudless sky, bombs rained down on the towns of Kiev and Sebastopol, and an hour later the German Foreign Minister delivered to the Russian Ambassador a declaration of war. Within a few hours, the German Armies had crossed the Russian border and were at their old associates' throats.
With regard to the progress of the struggle, there is little that I can tell noble Lords. Both sides, as your Lordships will know, have issued communiqués, but they tell us little, and we shall have to wait to hear how the conflict develops. It is, however. I think desirable that His Majesty's Government should at once define their attitude to this new extension of the world war. We in this country have never concealed our antipathy to the Communist creed. All political Parties alike have condemned it as utterly alien to those principles of free democracy for which this country stands and for which it is now fighting. We are poles apart, both in matters of politics and religion. But Soviet Russia and Britain, so different in all other respects, have to-day this in common: They are facing the same ruthless foe; they are the objects of the same insatiable ambition; the defeat of either will mean increased peril for the other. To that extent, at any rate, we and Soviet Russia have a common interest. To ignore that would be folly. It is for this reason that His Majesty's Government, as the Prime Minister has already announced, have decided to give the Soviet Government all the assistance in our power. This decision will, I am confident, be generally approved, and immediate steps are being taken to give effect to it. By agreement with the Soviet Government a British Military and Economic Mission is to leave for Russia at an early date.
487 I should like here, if I may, to add one word of warm appreciation of Sir Stafford Cripps, to whom we are all greatly indebted for his invaluable work in Moscow. Noble Lords will, I am sure, understand if it is not possible to-day to go into any more detail or to elaborate what I have said. The delicacy of the international situation is such that it would do more harm than good. I would only repeat, once more, that we have one object and one object only in this country and that is the defeat of Hitler. On our success in this task depends our very existence. To that end in this, as in other respects, all the energies of the Government are being, and will be, directed.
§ LORD ADDISONMy Lords, it is only necessary, I am sure; in a few sentences, to associate oneself with hearty support of the statement which has just been made by the noble Viscount. We were all. I think, heartened and encouraged by the initiative and boldness of the Prime Minister's broadcast on Sunday night. It applied a decision, and a rapidity of decision, to the case which was most stimulating to every one of us. We all know, I think, that use is being made, and will be made, by Hitler of the recent events to pose as the champion of Christendom and all the rest of it against Communism. Floods of propaganda will be let loose on the world, and it will be moulded in that way, but I am sure that the decision of the Government to put first and last the overwhelming necessity of the defeat of Hitlerism will be sufficient, apart from the unmentionable and widespread horrors for which Hitler himself has been responsible, to get people's minds clear and our objects defined. I thank the noble Viscount for his statement.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELMy Lords, the main question at this juncture is undoubtedly the attitude which will be taken up by public opinion in this country with regard to the new development in the war situation. There can be little doubt that that opinion will wholly and completely endorse the course which has been adopted by His Majesty's Government, and declared in the Prime Minister's recent broadcast and to-day in the speech of the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. There is, as he has just stated, general disapproval in this country both 488 of the creed and of the methods of Bolshevism, but events must determine international relations, and just as prior to the last great war and in its course we found ourselves, as a country, allied to Russia under Tsardom, although there was then profound disapproval of Tsardom in many quarters here, so now events must determine our relationship. It is almost a proposition as certain as Euclid that States which are enemies of the same State are Allies of one another. Unquestionably the right course must be for our Government to give to Russia the fullest military and other support which the geographical conditions allow. I cannot conceive that there will be any British citizen who would say that his antipathy to Bolshevism was so great that he would rather see Germany win now than Russia The whole future of human freedom and human welfare depends at this moment on the defeat of Hitler, and nothing matters except that.
Equally, if we look at the question from a narrow, national standpoint, Russia is in no circumstances a military danger to this country, while Germany is a very real and a very imminent peril to us. Nor, I believe, is Russia even a propagandist danger to this country, for the common sense of the British people, no matter what propaganda may be employed, is such that they are never likely in the future to adopt a Communist creed. The risk rather is that, Germany being now embroiled with Russia, there might be a feeling of relief in this country and in the United States of America which might lead either or both of us to relax our efforts. That, of course, would be the gravest of errors. It may be that this conflict between Russia and Germany may not long endure, and at the end it is possible—although one cannot forecast the future in any way—that Germany may be stronger than at the beginning, on account of added resources of oil and of supplies. Not for a moment, therefore, must we consider the danger averted. There is only a change in the order of the German onslaughts. The order was intended to be France, Britain, Russia; now, owing to the defeat of the invasion plans last autumn by the Royal Air Force, probably the order has merely been inverted and is now France, Russia, Britain.
489 The main point which should be emphasized among our people, therefore, so far as our influence extends on public opinion, is that this development of the war is rather an incentive to increased energies on our part, and also, we trust, in the United States, than the reverse. Meanwhile, few of us can help feeling what a wanton crime it is that tens of thousands of Russians—and of Germans also—should be sent to their death, that populations should be trampled down, houses blown to pieces and families killed, merely for the sake of this megalomaniac. In his proclamation the other day Hitler said: "A movement of troops is taking place which in extent and magnitude is the greatest that the world has ever seen." That is the true spirit of the megalomaniac conqueror; but the time comes, as history shows, when each one of them finds that his fame becomes infamy and that the enthusiasm which his victories have aroused turns to greater execration on his defeat.