RUSSIA'S "SHADOW"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 242, 11 February 1944, Page 3

RUSSIA'S "SHADOW"

Sir,-In this week’s Listener I turned as usual to the editorial first, and noted the quotation from Field Marshal Smuts: "Central and Eastern Europe, Western and Northern Asia are passing under the shadow of the U.S.S.R., etc., etc." I then read the report of an interview with Kathleen Hall by a member of The Listener staff, and found this (quoting K.H.): "And then came the Communists-whole villages going to school, sanitation introduced, local industries built up, and all unused land brought into cultivation as State property for the poorest." Now if Kathleen Hall’s version of the Communists at work is correct (and there is no reason to doubt it), no one in his senses could liken their advent

to a "shadow." I hate to come to the conclusion that Field-Marshal Smuts is talking nonsense, or to believe that he is unscrupulously expressing himself at the dictates of his own class bias, but I think it would be safer to take the word of a Christian missionary who has had first-hand experience of practical Communism than to accept the opinion of an aged gentleman who doesn’t remember that the U.S.S.R. is our very gallant ally. If he had spoken of the "shadow" of American politics passing over Europe, how quickly he would have been accused of sedition!

E.

HOLLAND

(New Lynn).

(it our correspondent had read the article carefully, she would have noticed that "shadow" was our word, not the Field-Mar-shal’s. If she supposes that shadows necessarily threaten, it would be interesting to know how she protects herself of&a sunny day.-Ed.)