RUSSIAN SELF-SACRIFICE

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21806, 11 June 1936, Page 19

RUSSIAN SELF-SACRIFICE

*u tbb editor or tbb frees. Sir,—To one always Inclined to think the worst of the Soviet system in Russia, and the cruelties with which it began, the following quotation from one of Merriman’s novels, written in 1903, came as rather a surprise. He is speaking of the destruction of everything in Moscow at the time of Napoleon's invasion in 1812. “It seemed that the citizens before leaving had collected all their merchandise and burnt it. To the rank and file this meant nothing but incomprehensible stupidity. To the educated and the thoughtful it was another evidence of the dumb, sullen capacity for infinite self-sacrifice which makes Russians different from any other race, and which has yet to be reckoned with in the history of the world. “For it will tend to the greatest good of the greatest number, and is a power for national aggrandisement quite unattainable by any Latin people.” If this is so, they may be a godless race, but are not devoid of the essence of religion, and from certain accounts the principle of service \ is now thoroughly accepted by them.— Yours, etc., SOUTH CANTERBURY. June 10.1836.