THE SOVIET SYSTEM-
SiR,—Mr. Havelock in your issue of September 6th tells us that in this last war the Russians fought " better than they have ever done," and attributes this to the Soviet system. No one questions the value of the Russian contribution to Allied victory, but had a Russian Army ever before been armed as was the Red Army from 1942 onwards, mainly owing to American and British aid? And was the Soviet system entirely successful in maintaining the loyalty of the Russian people? Has Mr. Havelock not heard of the Russians behind the German lines (estimated at half a million) who fought against their country under the Ukrainian General Vlassov ; or of the deserters from the Red Army whom we hear of as hiding in Polish forests or endeavouring to seek refuge in the British zone ; or of the " many Chechenj and Crimean Tartars " who, as a recently promulgated Soviet law tells us, " waged an armed struggle jointly with the German forces against the Red Army " and " acting on German orders also formed gangs of saboteurs to fight the Soviet regime behind the front line"? The law goes on to state that " the bulk of the populace of- the Chechen-Ingush and the Crimean Republics did nothing to counteract these traitors." Hence, incidentally, the recent liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush Republic and the degradation of the Crimean Republic'to the status of a province. is it so certain, then, that the Soviet system was not found wanting "when it was weighed in the greatest of
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