BOOKS OF THE DAY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20186, 2 March 1940, Page 14

BOOKS OF THE DAY

The Soviet Machine

J IVING in Russia during 1937 and L 1938 was, says Mr. W, G, Krivitsky, the author of "I Was Stalin’s Agent,” •‘like living in a madhouse.” It would not be difficult to find madhouses where residence would be pleasanter as well as safer. During the period of the great purges destruction fell upon individuals not at the dictation of insane impulse, but by the deliberate ordin- | ance of a man who was intent on sweeping away not only all opposition to himself, but all elements in possession of information which might, in the long run, prove dangerous. About Stalin's motives, about the Russian trials, about the concoction of •‘evidence,” Mr. Krivitsky has much to say that is of interest and importance, and this saves his book from falling into the indiscriminate mass of those “recollections” which are now issuing with such monotonous regularity from the circles of disillusioned Soviet and Comintern officials. The author was Chief of the Soviet Military Intelligence in Western Europe until the end of 1938. The murder of Ignace Reiss in Lausanne finally determined his defection. He is now in America. Both as an official and as spy he saw much of what was going on, and shrewdly deduced a great deal more. The RussoGerman pact, he maintains, was no mushroom of diplomacy. Stalin had desired it ever since Hitler, by his purge of 1934, showed himself to be a man to be counted with and “admired.” Every move in Soviet foreign policy was planned with unacknowledged object of blackmailing, persuading, or bludgeoning Germany into an alliance. Mr. Krivitsky writes with apparent fairness. His facts seem sure, his sincerity is plausible. Taken in conjunction with Dr. Rauschning’s “Hitler Speaks” this book stands as an appalling revelation of the movement' of totalitarian politics in the years before the war.

Books in Demand

A WEEKLY list provided by Miss ™ Brenda S. Cox, Librarian, Turaoganui Library:— FICTION. BROKEN PLEDGES, by Philip Gibbs. LIVE AND KICKING NED, by John Masefield. THE MAN WHO KILLED HITLER, bv Anonvmous. HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, by Richard Llewellyn. TO STEP ASIDE, by Noel Coward. WATCH FOR THE DAWN, by Stuart Clocle. AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON. by Netta Syrett. THE SINGAPORE EXILE MURDERS. bv F. Van Wyck Mason. THE VALIANT HEART, by George Blake. THE VALLEY BEYOND, by William Byron Mowery. NON-FICTION. A SURGEON’S DESTINY, by George Sava. THE VOYAGE OF THE CAP PILAR, by Adrian Seligman. HITLER SPEAKS, by Hermann Rauschning. THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN, by Liddell Hart. LIGHT OUT OF DARKNESS, by Clarence C. Hatry. ONE WAY OF LIVING, by James Bridie. WILDERNESS WIFE, by Katharene Pinkerton. BALTIC ROUNDABOUT, by Bernard Newman. He Warned Hitler AT the end of July, when he was ** preparing to invade Poland, Hitler received a long letter. It was a warning from a man who, in the last five years, had done much to get Britain rearmed in the air. This is how the letter ended: — “Just as in 1914 the divisions oi_ home political questions disappeared in the twinkling of an eye, so now all the juvenile antics —such as resolu:he juvenile antics —designed to shock the elders —such as resolutions not to fight for King and Country, have been instantly forgotten. . . That message was sent by Lord Rothermere. He tells the story in “My Fight to Rearm Britain.” All through July Lord Rothermere was writing and telegraphing to von Ribbentrop, Hess, Hitler’s deputy, and Weidemann, Hitler’s adjutant. Referring to his final letter to Hitler, Lord Rothermere says:— “I have no means of knowing whether or not Herr Hitler absorbed the picture of the British breed, but with him, as with Herr von Ribbentrop, I had done my best to ‘dispel any illusions as to Britain’s determination to resist further aggression, by force if necessary’.”