SOVIET HATRED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 30, 3 December 1943, Page 4

SOVIET HATRED

Sir,—Your loading article re Sov-i iet Hatred in the Beacon of Novcm-i her Hi left me, to use your own ■words "Cold with horror." To see a man who stands l'or fair, play sowing misapprehensions about our ally without any foundation in fact is truly a painful experience. The reply to your article on November 26 did much to explain the position, but again you waded in with unfounded insinuations such as "Russian armies will present a pathway of vengeance which will rcach and may even surpass the Nazi atrocities in their frightfulness." If, a* you say, you ''are not seeking to incriminate the gallant legions of Stalin" you eertain.lv have done just that.

Your remark the "lialo of perfection'' is decidedly unfair. People who understand Communists know that they demise lialos jjrcfcring hard facts, they are in fact realists opposed to sentimental emotionalism. Anyway why should the army of a people who have been trained to re-: gard all other peoples as brothers and who, as Hcwlct Johnston, Dean of Canterbury says, are doing more, to put the ethics of Christianity into practice than any other nation, surpass the Nazis in .their frightful atrocities. We did not have to wait for- wartime propaganda to learn that atrocities were an essential part of -Nazi policy, and that the German youth was being trained to subdue noil Aryan peoples by terror. Of course the Russians will shoot all those responsible for what has happened in Russia and. occupied Europe. Consequently the. Nazis would certainly prefer to be. invaded by British troops, for Sir Oswald Mosley, Admiral Domville, Captain Canning and other British Nazis who were released, from gaol recently, along with their friends who were so powerful that they could secure their release, will certainly again bring pressure to bear to secure the pardon of the German Nazi murderers and torturers. You say that if our boys, had seen their people, suffer the same treatment as the people in occupied Russia have suffered they would be. filled with, "an overwhelming appetite for vengeance." Certa'inly, against Hitler's army, but against the civil popula-. tion. No. The great majority of our boys would never take it out of enemy women and children for atrocities committed by their soldiers on our people, and our would certainly do the opposite to encouraging such a Fascist policy. Neither will the Russian army adopt these Na£i tactics and their excellent discipline will ensure this.

No, Mr Editor, Communists don't say that the Russian soldiers will behavo like a lot of ''Sunday School students/' as you suggest, but. as a well trained army who know just what they arc fighting for, and fully understand that the friendship of all working people including Germans is essential to their owri well be'ing. Yours etc., WORKING FARMER. (It is not our desire to prolong this controversy along lines which to both parties must be. largely one of conjecture. We would however like to draw our correspondents attention to the fact that atrocities are not necessarily limited to civilians but can be perpetrated with just as much upon helpless soldiers and prisoners.

We will leave the matter at that and allow future events' to tell their own tale. Ed.) s