THE SOVIET AND THE SQUATTERS t Sta,—Your reference to Russia
in your article on squatting is misleading. While you correctly state that in Russia " individuals may own property, provided that it is not part of the means of production," you do not point out that the personal ownership of property for letting is included in the latter category, so that blocks of flats, as well as factories, cannot be private property in Russia. The fact is that in Russia there do not exist buildings of the type occupied by the London squatters. There are no blocks of privately-owned flats awaiting letting to the highest bidders, and publicly-owned buildings in the U.S.S.R., if released from one use, are immediately turned to some other useful purpose. As for empty hotels, the recent British-Soviet SoCiety's delegation to Russia notes on its return that tourist prospects are bad for the near future, because so many hotels have been taken over for housing. So Ivan uses hotels for housing, but the Hotel Ivanhoe remains empty till squatters move in!
Anyone with experience of Soviet Russia knows that the Russians use all available accommodation, sometimes in shifts. I have myself taught university students: in the evening in buildings used as offices during the day. Whatever you may say, the squatters have given a fillip to requisitioning and utilisation of empty accommodation which could not have been given by more legal but less dramatic methods. Incidentally, while on the subject of Russia, I entirely agree with the principle of Hubert Griffith's reply to the Duchess of Atholl, though not with his figures. A comparison of Stalin's figures for aeroplane and tank production during the main war years with our own official figures of tanks and planes sent to the U.S.S.R. shows the outside aid in these two arms to have amounted to about ten per cent. of the total, not the one per cent. cited by Hubert Griffith. But even ten per cent. rules out the Duchess of Atholl's claim that it was " mainly " our aid that led to the Red Army's victories.—Yours, &c., PAT SLOAN. Crockham Hill Vicarage Flat, Edenbridge, Kent.
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