10 JUNE 1943, Page 12

EVOLVING RUSSIA

Sm,—Under this heading it is stated in your May 28th issue that room has been found once more for private property in Russia, and that this means a fFdamental change in the doctrines of Marx and Trotsky. know little of Trotsky's views, but am familiar with those of Karl Mars. In the Communist Manifesto, drawn up by Marx and Engels, and pub- lished in 1848, it is stated that: "Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society ; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation." Soviet Russia is changing in many ways, but there is no fundamental departure from the views of Marx and Engels on the