RUSSIA DEMOCRACY OR DICTATORSHIP.

Evening Star, Issue 24003, 30 September 1941, Page 3

RUSSIA DEMOCRACY OR DICTATORSHIP.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —For some years the U.S.S.R. has been described as a totalitarian country, and Stalin has on numerous occasions been linked with Hitler and Mussolini, the three being described as dictators. Yet recently Dr Wellington Koo, the Chinese Ambassador to London, referred to the British Empire, tho U.S.A., China, and the U.S.S.R. as “ the four great democracies,” and in ‘ Comments and Reflections,’ in your issue of Saturday last, reference is made to Russia under the description of “ another great bastion for democracy.” This is all very confusing, and 1 am sure, in view of Russia’s present rcla-

tionship with the British Empire, that it would be of interest to your readers if some reliable indication could he given as to the nature of the political and economic system operating in the U.S.S.R.—I am, etc., Student. 163 York Place, Dunedin, C.2., 29th September, 1941. [Sir Bernard Pares’s ‘ Russia ’ (Penguin Library), which is a fair-minded plea for more understanding of that country, states: “ A totalitarian Government, like Stalin’s, looks for results.” A “ bastion for democracy ” need not be democratic itself and the word “ for ” was chosen deliberately in preference to “of,” which might have given more grounds for our correspondent’s question.—Ed. E.S.]