" RUSSIA AND OURSELVES "
SIR,—The two most important speeches made since the end of the war are undoubtedly those of Mr. Churchill at Fulton, Missouri, and of Marshal Stalin in his Pravda interview. Arguments based on mutual accusations of war-mongering, &c., are obviously sterile. These two speeches provided a complete picture of the great new conflict which confronts mankind and on whose solution depends peace and security for the world. This is the conflict between those, like ourselves, who believe in a system of government based on " His Majesty's loyal opposi- tion," i.e., western democracy, and those who believe in authoritarian government. It is surely time that we realised the lack of meaning in the party labels used by authoritarian states. Any government, be it Communist, Falangist or Nazi, which is based on the principle of a single party and which offers to the electorate no opportunity of over- throwing it, must be classed as authoritarian, and all such governments should be treated in the same way. To the great majority of the thinking people in Great Britain the late war .was fought for western democracy against the . authoritarian principle. We must, therefore, come to a decision and face the unpalatable fact that either we accept the continued existence of authoritarian states and a consequent semi-permanent war of nerves (and therefore the effort made between 1939 and 1945 was wasted) or we must state that we will have no dealings, politically, economically or socially with states having an authorithrian regime.
Which shall it be?—Yours faithfully, DAVID YOUNG.
Previous page
