The Red Army. (Melbourne : Australia-Soviet Friendship League, [1941])

The Australia-Soviet Friendship League was a Communist front organisation, which had originated in 1930 as the Friends of the Soviet Union. The Party used it to promote awareness among Australians of the need for Allied support for the Russian war effort.

The A.S.F.L feels that the possibility of opening of a second front is not being considered by many influential people in Britain, who are prejudiced against the Soviet Union - perhaps by some members of the British Cabinet - simply as a military question. Are some of these Cabinet members, for example, under the influence of the ideas expressed by the Minister for Aircraft Production, Lieut.-Col. Moore-Brabazon, when he said that the German and Russian armies would exterminate each other and that this would enable Britain to gain the dominating power in Europe? (see "Herald" September 11^th)

Anyone in Britain who dreams that Britain should stay more or less aloof and fully-armed while the Soviet Union and Germany weaken each other, leaving Britain safe, sound and unscathed, is a madman or a Nazi agent. (p. 3)

The Red Army begins with a sense of urgency, "As this is written, the calendar shows June 26^th 1941. Less than a week has passed since Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union." (p. 2) The message of the pamphlet is how well-trained and disciplined the Red Army is and how high their morale.

The final section is an account of the Red army's invasion of Lithuania. This had taken place in 1940 after the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact had been signed. This had enabled Germany and Russia to divide Poland, and Russia to invade Finland and the Baltic States, including Lithuania. The ASFL pamphlet quotes Anna Louise Strong's account of the invasion. Miss Strong was a Communist journalist of long-standing, and had been a close friend of several senior Soviet officials. She lived in Russia and edited the Moscow News. According to her account,

Lithuania became transformed, without the shedding of one drop of blood, into a people's Socialist Republic and a member-Republic of the U.S.S.R.

One thing only made this peaceful transformation possible - the presence of the Red Army inside Lithuania. (p. 19)