RETURN OF THE SCAPEGOAT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 715, 27 March 1953, Page 5

RETURN OF THE SCAPEGOAT

Sir,-As a human being who managed to escape from his enslaved country before being humiliated to a robot or to "something less than a human" may I be permitted to say a few words to the admirers of the biggest slave labour camp ever created on earth? "The liberated people" are really a witness to a new conception in living, something your correspondents have not the slightest knowledge of. The Soviet . Constitution has a lot of fine language; freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of meetings, are guaranteed by law to the citizens of the USSR if in the interest of the workers and for the purpose of strengthening the socialist order. The Government does not have to obey the law, since "the dictatorship of the proletariat is the rule unrestricted by law and based on force." (Stalin, Principles of Leninism, page 32.) The only principle on which this regime is based is the rule of force and violence. Thete was an abundance of writers in the 19th Century in Russia who were almost’ political prophets. In 1870 Dostoievsky wrote: "A day will come in Russia when Copernicus will have his eyes put out and the Shakespeares of our times will be killed and Russia will spread her lies and her revolution throughout the world, and every scurvy group in the world will be made use of . .. and the teachers in other lands who say there is no God will be on our side though they know it not... and the political men who are willing to sacrifice truth will be on our'side..." It has to be deplored that even here in New Zealand Dostoievsky’s prophecy is being fulfilled by the different groups of your corespondents. One of. them spreads Russian lies, the other says "there is no God." And some of your thoughtful. contributors are refreshed

and encouraged by .J. W. -Warburton’s naive outlook on world affairs: "Russia has been without political liberty for hundreds of years... You do not mis¢ what you’ve never had. "* It is a very poor philosophy in the middle of the 20th Century... Why then. did the French people Fevolt in 1879 and demand political ‘freedom? Why did they miss what they smever had» hefore? Mr. Warburton ould ‘acquaint ‘himself with. the causes of, the. bourgeois-democratic Revolution of 1825,. and realise that today there are living in the heart of Russia millions of ! z » Of ‘different tt ons who, prior to R enjoyed tni‘versal freedom; pty ‘ heréfore even those O-AFe willing ‘to. $ rifice the truth and pacing 2 ta epieies > slaye ="who do not 188 » ca "om the Kremlin’s dide "though they Know it not."

PADEREWSKI

(Hamilton)

Abridged-~Ed )