SOVIET SUPPRESSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21912, 22 September 1934, Page 15

SOVIET SUPPRESSION

Sir, —We hear a good deal about Soviet opposition to religious freedom. But it appears to me that Soviet tvrannv goes even further than that, and "extends to a rigid suppression of all philosophy, and indeed all science that cannot be brought within the narrow framework of official Soviet thinking. A significant instance of this is found in the fact that Soviet Russia is probably the only country in the world that bans psychical research literature as such. 1 submit the following details reported in the official journal of the French Society for Psychical Research and published in the July-August number of 1932. This journal (Revue Metapsychique) is a highly scientific publication. and concerns itself not only with psychic phenomena proper, but publishes illuminating articles on such subjects as hypnotism, somnambulism, psychotherapy, etc. It cannot by the furthest stretch of imagination be regarded as either religion's or political. In June, 1932, a university professor in a large city in Soviet Russia wrote to the editor of the journal and asked him if he would give him information about the present position in psychical research. The editor replied by Setter to the Soviet professor and also forwarded him several of the most recent copies of the jo.irnal. No reply from the Russian. no acknowledgnn-nt. no letter of thanks. Then on July 1, 1932, the journals returned to the outraged editor with their pages cut out (showing that tliev had been read), and this brief comment: " Returned as forbidden entry by the (department of) administration of printed matter." The journal published a brief account of the incident with the following comments: " A functionary sets himself up as judge of what an eminent university professor shall or shall not read. Russia realises the communism of the anthill and the termitary, and leads men back to the discipline of the insect world. Marvellous progress." Marguerite W. C'rookes.