VICTOR GOLIANCZ

Grey River Argus, 14 March 1940, Page 9

VICTOR GOLIANCZ

AND THE U.S.S.R. (The following lelter was s:nt by Mr Victor Goliancz to the London ‘ Doily Telegraph ’ after that paper -•ad misrepresented the publisher’s altitude towards Soviet Russia. Th? ! letter, which was refused publication■ by “Tiie Daily Telegraph,” was then, sent Io “The Tr lame, ’ ’London la-i hour paper, where it app.ared on 26tii' January. 1940.- Ed.). : The Editor, The D illy Telegraph | January 23, 1944. I “Sir, “You will permit me to comment on! Peterborough’:; paragraphs about me m this morning’s ‘London Day byDay,’ as they give—l am sure unintentionally—a totally false impression Peterborough writes: ‘The German Soviet Pact was a grave shock to Mr Goliancz, who bad always maintain.cl, that Russia was Impeccably pea.eloving, democratic and Unlike the nimble Communisms apologists he made no atiew.pt, I Ml.eve, to follow the will o’ the wisp of Salluist changes of policy. He Lank y confessed himself disgusted ’ It is perfectly true that the German-So vet Pact was a grave shock to me, as to countless others. But the turn °f Peterborough’s sentences, and his use of the word ‘disgusted.’ might lead people to imagine that my attitude to the Soviet Union is totally different from what it in fact is.

“There can be little doubt that every action Russia has taken, from the negotiations which led up to the German-Soviet Pact to the present campaign in Finland, has been dictated by her view of what was necessary for self-preservation: and

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her view was very largely the result of a foreign policy on the part of Britain for which no condemnation can be too strong. “I am not, I am afraid, a very ‘tough’ person: and I dislike to see the Soviet Union playing our own game of power politics. Moreover, I believe that by doing so the Soviet Union has for the time being lost the opportunity of giving herself the leadership of all decent opinion throughout the world. “But our judgments are fall ble, and tend to be falsified by history:-and it may well be that in the light' of h s-toi-y we shall, look back and see that everything the Soviet Union has done has been necessary for her own preservation.

“And that is a point of vital importance. Ono may dislike, and dislike intensely, this or that in the Soviet regime: one may be sure, that our own Socialism, wjien, please God, we get it, will be coloured by the British tradition: but the fact remains that m the Soviet Union, and in the Soviet Union alone, has the appallingly difficult task been accomplished of replacing production for private profit by production for the common good—and if one thing is as important in the world to-day as the destruction of fascism, it is that the land of Socialism should be preserved, and so enabled to go on to heights of human progress at present hardly glimpsed. A war against the Soviet Union would be the vilest of crimes. “One final word. Peterborough's paragraphs contain gibes at Communists which (as they occur in the paragraphs about me) thoughtless people might think 1 share. I have never been a member of the Communist Party: I have had many grave differences of opinion with Communists since more than a year before tne war; but their single-minded devotion to the cause of human liberation is such that it should make every supporter of capitalist and fascist abominations hang his head in shame. VICTOR GOLLANCZ.