Communism

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29734, 30 January 1962, Page 3

Communism

Sir. —To answer G. F. Seward, “class war” (not a good term), does not fundamentally mean aggrieved workers waging a senseless hate campaign against wicked rich people; it denotes a flaw in the present economic set-up by which the goods sold for profit over and above what the com-

munity needs cause a plough- , ing-back of capital into in- ( dustry, to produce yet more i goods beyond the capacity ■ of a country, or its over- ; seas markets, to buy. It is i only as a by-product of this < impersonal economic process , that industrial unrest arises. ( The “dictatorship of the pro- < ietariat” means a provisional j Government of those not en- ■ gaged as owners or substan- ■ tiai shareholders in large- 1 scale industry or agriculture. . This proletariat (those own- • ing no means of production) j comprise workers, profes- ; sional' people, retailers, etc. , A more scientifically based , economy cannot harm re- ; ligion which already exists under diverse political systems. I hear that China allots a seat in Parliament . to each of the main religions. , —Yours, etc., HILARY RICHMOND. , January 29. 1962 Sir. —With regard to the suggestion that communism denies spiritual life, Professor B Bykhovsky. DPh.. writes in “New Times" < October 4. 1961): “It implies liberating man of his feeling of , solitude, one of the many | evils of capitalist society: the , solitude of the individual lost , in the desert of a great city f where all his fellow men are < but grains of sand.” With f reference to the class struggle t and the working-class state, , Professor Bykhovsky writes: t “The constantly growing ac- t tivity of all citizens in pub- t lie self-government, the de- r velopment of socialist de- s mocracy and the gradual s transformation of socialist c statehood into public Com- ( munist « self-government is 1 another major factor. The feeling of solitude vanishes as the individual comes to take an increasing share in the great common cause.” — Yours, etc., A SOCIALIST. January 28. 1962.