THE ACHILLES HEEL OF THE SOVIET SOLDIER

Abstract

In the 1930s democratic people watched with growing incredulity as the world's political systems broke up: the Depression gave rise to disintegration, disintegration led to anarchy, and anarchy to war. Some eminent men, observing the pattern of events and foreseeing the consequences, tried to bring them to public notice. Sadly, the general reaction, especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries, was that those who warned of the dangers were 'prophets of doom' and 'alarmists'. Peace could be maintained, so the theory ran, by just one more minor concession; but each such surrender was never the last, but led inexorably towards bigger demands. This whole tragic story is epitomised in one word: 'Appeasement'. The extraordinary thing is that it all seems to have been forgotten and there is a strong possibility that the same bitter and costly lessons will have to be learnt all over again in the last two decades of the Twentieth Century.