STALIN: MAN AND LEADER
Sir.-Knowing from experience your insistence that correspondents to The Listener stick to the facts of the case, I suggest that the same attitude be applied to other conttibutors, such as "J\F.K." in his article, "Stalin — The Man and the Leader." I do not intend to comment.on everything he writes, but one single instance wil] suffice to show that "J.F.K." like many other critics gets his information, not from reading the original, but from other individuals’ versions of what Stalin was supposed to have written or said. "J.F.K." mentions Stalin and the Antaeus legend. The article states, "Overlooking that Hercules in the end did kill Antaeus, Stalin argued:* Antaeus is the Communist Party, the earth is the Russian or Soviet people; as long as the Party draws its strength from the people it is invincible... Now what did Stalin really say? Here it is straight from his Defects in Party Work: "Yet he (Antaeus) had a vulnerable spot-the danger of being detached from the earth in some way or another. His enemies were aware of this weakness and. watched for him. One day an enemy appeared who took advantage of this vulnerable spot and vanquished Antaeus. This was Hercules. How did Hercules vanquish Antaeus? He lifted him from the earth, kept him suspended in the air, prevented him from touching the earth and throttled him. I think that the Bolsheviks remind us of the hero of Greek mythology, Antaeus. They, like Antaeus, are strong because they maintain connection with their mother, the masses, who gave birth to them, suckled them and reared them. And as long as they maintain connection with their mother, with the people, they have every chance of remaining invincible. That is the clue to the invincibility of Bolshevik leadership." I quote the above, because if "J.F.K." can’t get a simple fact right, Heaven knows what the rest of his "facts" are like.
L.
REID
ahuhu).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 718, 17 April 1953, Page 5
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322STALIN: MAN AND LEADER New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 718, 17 April 1953, Page 5
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