RUSSIA: White or Red

From Berlin last week came word that the man whom Führer Adolf Hitler had chosen to raise an army of White Russians to stir up trouble on the Ukrainian border was onetime Tsarist General Turkul. The general is accustomed to trouble, having recently been deported from France for alleged German dealings uncovered during the inquiry into the mysterious “kidnapping” of General Eugene de Miller, leader of Paris’ White Russian colony.

Still pining for Holy Russia after 21 years of Soviet rule are the thousands of White refugees who sit at café tables in Paris, their “capital,” where they make a living driving taxis, waiting on tables or trading on their tarnished nobility. But last week it was surprisingly revealed that a great number are particular about how they get back.

Frosty-bearded General Anton Denikin, commander of the White armies in their last-ditch fight against the Reds in the south of Russia in 1918-20, emerged from his Paris retirement last week to excoriate any “socalled White Russian” who would join Hitler to fight the Soviet Union. In a phrase reminiscent of Frenchman Jacques Deval’s play Tovarich—which Adolf Hitler has seen three times—old General Denikin cried to an audience of fellow-exiles: “White or Red, our fatherland remains our fatherland. Whoever may aid Russia’s enemies cannot call himself a patriot, no matter what ideological excuse he may use for taking money to fight his own people.”

Supported by dossiers gathered by his extra-legal White Russian secret service, General Denikin, who bears a strong resemblance to England’s late King George V, charged that in addition to General Turkul, two other Tsarist officers, Generals Biskupsky and Solonevich, had gone into the pay of the Nazis.

Meanwhile Poland, afraid that some of her territory may soon be grabbed by the Nazis just as she lately made a grab in Czecho-Slovakia, hastened to strengthen her sudden friendship with Russia. Traditional enemies, Russia and Poland month ago broke a long period of diplomatic coolness with a declaration of their good intentions toward each other. To this rapprochement last week was added a trade treaty which is expected to multiply thirtyfold the trade between the two nations.

On the military side, both nations took steps to stand off Hitler’s eastward push. Only 25 miles from completion was a 450-mile, four-lane highway running from Moscow to Minsk, near the Polish border, which can be used to transport Soviet troops and supplies to Poland if necessary. Poland, whose sizable army is one of the best-trained and officered among the small nations of Europe, announced that in the next three years an additional $300,000,000 would be spent on her armed forces and border defenses.