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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER 25, 1981
PAGE 11
the Polish nation, this is an historic movement, and the last chance to make
order in our own house with our own force."
No Piecemeal Freedom for Eastern Europe
The latest Polish erisis also probably represents the last chance for
Poland, or any other Soviet satellite in Eastern Europe for that matter, to
come out from under Kremlin domination on its own strength.
Poland is simply too strategic a piece of real estate to escape the Soviet
orbit. "It is axiomatic," said one expert, "that Moscow is not in this era
and under existing world patterns going to allow Poland to escape from its
effective military control."
Poland is strategic because it lies athwart the historic invasion route to
Russia from western Europe. Without Poland, the Soviet Union's forward
position in Central Europe acquired in the aftermath of World War II would
collapse.
Poland, in fact, is the keystone to Moscow's entire buffer zone in
East/Central Europe. Moscow maintains an army of occupation of 20 divi
sions in East Germany. There are also five divisions in Czechoslovakia and
four in Hungary. This combined force of 29 divisions is largely supplied
over the road and rail network of Poland. There are only two Soviet divi
sions in Poland, but they are encamped there for the express purpose of
guarding these supply lines.
Without Poland, Moscow would have to abandon its entire Western position.
Its troops would fall back on the line of the Pripet marshes where Russian
armies lost out to the Germans in both World Wars I and II.
Where does this leave the people of Poland and their neighbors in Eastern
Europe? Simply this: their independence cannot be achieved on a piecemeal
basis, with one satellite after another gently s;lipping out from under
Moscow's control. Not only the recurring crises in Poland (in 1956, 1970,
1976 and 1981} proves this point, but the crushed rebellions in East
Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 do as well.
"True and full independence for Poland," writes Joseph C. Harsch in THE
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, "can come under existing circumstances only
through a breakup of the whole Soviet empire or in the course of a major war
which Moscow lost."
The nations of Eastern Europe will only come out from under Soviet domina
tion en masse, as one of the two "feet" of Daniel 2. This will occur only
by means of a grand realignment of political forces in Europe as a whole.
There will obviously have to be great pressures on Moscow exerted by a re
awakened Western Europe. The Kremlin only respects force.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau