AUTHORITIES ON RUSSIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 40, 17 February 1939, Page 15

AUTHORITIES ON RUSSIA

■ In an abridged reply to other correspondents who questioned the value of authorities he quoted on Russia, G. J. Murray writes: "The authority of W. H. Chamberlin and Eugene Lyons on recent Soviet history I accept as unimpeachable for the following reasons:—(l) Though a frequent reader of Left-wing journals I have yet to find so much as an attempt to refute the damning facts and conclusions brought forward in the well-publicised books of these two experienced observers; (2) these facts and conclusions have since their publication been corroborated by the admissions of such erstwhile admirers of the Soviet as Boris Silver and Andre Gide; (2) they have also been corroborated by subsequent and recent events reported from Russia, e.g., the purge in the Ogpu, harsher labour laws. On the other hand we cannot accept the evidence of a cursory visitor to Russia or that of a devotee of Marxism. Neither, Sir, can we accept a publication by Friends of the Soviet Union. The fact that the particular book recommended is documented with data from the League of Nations Bureau does not detract from its unreliability since it is a known and demonstrable fact that the Soviet authorities do not scruple to falsify, 'official' reports for the sake of propaganda. 'Vigilans' would have me name anyone of academic standing who advocates private property. I need only mention two ex-Professors of Economics who not only stand for the retention and wider distribution of private ownership over the means of production, but who are now, as rulers of their respective countries, basing their system of social reconstruction on the right of the head of every family to such ownership—De Valera of Ireland and Salazar of Portugal. In this latter regard I am unaware of any civilised State, other than a slave State, that has operated without some form of private ownership.

[This correspondence is now closed. —Ed.]