N.Z. attitudes to Russia

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34104, 17 March 1976, Page 20

N.Z. attitudes to Russia

( Sir. — Can Mr Creel be so naive as to believe Soviet statistics? In many years in the “workers paradise.” I was lied to countless times — demonstrable lies, not exaggerations. The Bolshe-

viks are very selective with their statistics. Can Mr Creel show us publication by the Soviet authorities of the number of concentration camps, ihe number of citizens sent to their deaths in the purges of the 1930 s (was it five million or six million?), the number of Jews who have been fired from their jobs this year for expressing a desire to leave the U.S.S.R., the number of Christian churches shut by the State in the last decade, or the number of employees of theK.G.B. (Western estimates of over 500,000)? If the Soviet statisticians are so selective in their reporting of “Soviet reality” in these matters, how can we believe their statistics on tractors? -• Yours, etc., THE REV. R. OPPENHEIM. Timaru, March 13, 1976,

Sir, — M. Creel appears to be an expert on all things pertaining to Russia. If he has, in fact, visited that country, I can only think he must have been wearing rose-tinted spectacles, otherwise he must surely have noticed the queues of people yards long at vegetable stalls, the acres and acres of wasting, undeveloped lands with no sign of any form of cultivation, to say nothing of the shocking state of the highways. I am not against Russia, merely the Soviet system, as are many of the oppressed citizens of that country. “If the border gates are ever opened, people will be climbing, trees to get out of the rush,” was one sentiment expressed to me ar. 3 t; pica! of many others. M. Creel would do well not to criticise those such as the Rev. Mr Oppenheim who have had long-term experience of the country. — Yours, etc., A. C. GRANT. March 13, 1976. [This correspondence is now closed —Editor]