Note of despair
Sir: I would not presume to challenge Tibor Szamuely's personal knowledge of Russia and its people (13 September). Not only because I have none myself but be- cause I invariably find his comments shrewd and penetrative. But I wish to take issue with his concluding paragraph in his review of Message from Moscow by 'An Observer'.
This reads: 'Observer's book is a message of hopelessness; there will be no change for the better in Russia. It is a terrifying message. It is also a true one'. If it is indeed a true one, if 'centuries of autocracy and long years of Stalinist terror' have indeed turned the Russian people into 'a race of political robots', then I fancy we might all just as well commit suicide. This in itself would by no means prove Mr Szamuely's despair to be ill-founded but I suggest that before we queue for the cyanide, we would do well to examine the proposition.
I suggest that, in the first place, although the Russians are clearly cowed by their tyrannical government (as who would not be?), there is no real reason to doubt that they are men like other men. Secondly, I must stress that it is open to nobody, not even an expert like Szamuely (and I use the epithet in no derisory sense), to say what• a whole people are thinking and feeling when they are not free to say so themselves. As an example of this, which would be amusing if the background were not one of dark tragedy, I would cite the case of the Labour party's expert on eastern Europe, Mr Mikardo, who has at least as much knowledge of his chosen area as 'Observer'. Towards the end of the Rakosi regime in Hungary, he went on record as saying that some people believe that the Hungarian people dislike their com- munist government but he knew better and poured scorn on the idea. And in due cou the Hungarians (mainly youngsters who been indoctrinated all their lives) sho their love for their government by hangi its agents from the lamp posts of Buda Men may be cowed. They cannot be Ira formed.
14 Templewood Avenue, London Nw3 L. E. Weidb
Previous page
