13 NOVEMBER 1942, Page 1

M. Stalin's Review of the War

There are two points in M. Stalin's speech at Moscow last week Which specially affect Russia's Allies. One was his insistence upon the absence of an Allied second front in Europe ; the other was his equally firm assurance that all the members of the Anglo-Soviet- American coalition will stand together against the common enemy. The first point occupied a great part of his speech. He elaborated the argument that the main reason for the successes of the Germans in Russia was that the absence of a second front in Europe enabled them to transfer all their spare reserves from West to East ; and he even suggested that—by their operations in Egypt—the Allies

are diverting only four German and eleven Italian divisions. It is difficult to understand this depreciatory account of the Allied effort, since M. Stalin well knows that many of the German divisions which " occupy " Western countries are kept there by the threat from Britain, that Allied air forces on the Western front alone are containing nearly half the operational strength of German fighters, that the United Nations are actively engaging Japan, which other- wise would probably attack Russia in the rear, and last, but not least, Britain and America are bearing almost the whole brunt of a global war at sea and thereby safeguarding supplies essential to Russia. M. Stalin must also have known of the vast preparations which were being made for the expedition to French Africa. But if he has been less than generous to the Allies, and especially to this country, which for a year bore almost the whole weight of the war before Russia became involved at all, there is nothing to qualify the confident view he takes of the effective co-operation of all the Allies, and the " progressive rapprochement" which he observes between them. He spoke of Mr. Churchill's visit and the Anglo-Soviet Alliance, and expressed his belief that ideological differences do not bar the way to common action.