TALKS ON RUSSIA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 800, 19 November 1954, Page 5

TALKS ON RUSSIA

Sir,-Mr. Bell is so bursting with enthusiasm for Jeffersonian ideals and so ready with charges of "bigotry" and "blind prejudice" that I haven’t much hope of getting him to see daylight, but to clear things up for some of your other readers, it may not be a bad idea if I show that Mr. Bell’s charge of bigotry is groundless, He writes: "I called G.H.D. a bigot for advocating the suppression of talks not in keeping with his own opinions." If Mr, Bell has another look at my original letter and allows time for the meaning to sink in, he will find that I advocated nothing of the kind. What I did was to criticise the NZBS for inviting a speaker to give

seven talks which were obviously worthless as a contribution to the democratic discussion of the Soviet way of life since they amounted to little more than Communist propaganda, It was not a question of suppressing the talks, as though Mr. Collins, having made the talks, could demand that the NZBS broadcast them. My point was that the NZBS should never have brought the talks into existence, There is enough of a threat to our democratic way of life already, without having the NZBS used as a medium for disseminating anti-demo-cratic propaganda. And if Mr. Bell does not agree that Communist propaganda is anti-democratic, I fear his enthusiasm for Jeffersonian ideals is all heat and no light, Mr, Bell evidently expects an affirmative answer to his first question. But the answer is No. Democracy does not survive only by the exercise of the rights and liberties inherent in it. For proof I refer him to the history of the Peloponnesian War. The answer to his second question is a qualified Yes. Free discussion of politics is an integral part of the democratic process, but the preservation of the democratic process requires that the right of free discussion be subject to certain limitations, Democracy is not the beautifully simple ideal that Mr. Bell and lots of others seem to imagine.

G.H.

D.

(Palmerston North)

Sir-I cannot understand why "A Foreigner" should criticise my talk on religion in Russia when what I said dnd implied was so very close to what he says himself. I feel that to reply to G.H.D. will only waste your space. His idea of understanding Russia is for all of us to believe everything he believes and that everything else is "Russian propaganda." He has part of the truth but his intolerance closes his mind to a little more of the whole truth.

NORRIS

COLLINS

‘Christchurch ).