OCR
Overshadowing ali the news on details from Czecho-Slovakia is the report on the Secret Military Conference held near Prague in the last days of August, at the Headquarters of Soviet Marshall Konev* This Conference, presided over by Marshall Bulganin, had drawn a large number of Soviet Military leaders, to which where joined #11 the top military men of the Satellite countries of rope, namely Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria and Albania, Furthermore a large Chinese Military Mission was present - the first time that Chinese officially abtended an European Soviet Military Conference. The Chinese in fact participated most actively in all discussions. “here was also one representative of the North Korean Amy = a Staff-Colonel but his only duty seems to have been to give to the Satellite Delegates a Russism=—language lecture an the experiences in North Korea, a lecture to which the Soviet Marshalls had not even the courtesy to come, One of the most interesting features of the meeting, was the talk given by Marshall Bulganin. In this talk hz first returned to one of his favourite theftes - the one of his thesis at the exemi=nation in the Military Academy - namely that the classical warfare on the European Continent was outdated. If, he pointed out, our forces would strike now without adequate preparation, they would ge#in smashing military victory, but the price would be high, He pointed out, thet the Combineé Forces of the People's Democracies would certainly destroy the Atlantic Forces, but that they would reach the Pyrenees - the main barrier in Europe - in such a state of exhsustion, that they could not take it on the first blow. Valuable weeks would be lost, during which the enemy could at least partly recuperate, end while in the end victory woüd be achieved in the European Theatre, the price in material would be stiff, and would then be missing for the essential follow-up : en African cempaign.e. Hence the Marshall pointed out, the main effort should now be concentrated on the political and psychological preparation for such a war, which in his opinion, is more then 50% of the duties to be performed, In this field he pointed out vast opportunities in Evrope, such as the people's tiredness with the idea of war and talks of war, the apparent willingness of large groups of the bourgeois world toco=operate with the Soviet Forces, the distrust towards Ameroca, the demoralization of large Atlantic Forces, and more pxtheularly the French Army. He underscored that these 15.