Peace -by Understanding
Slit,—When Mr. Harold Nieolson points out that any real understand- ing of the mentality of a foreign nation is beyond the capacities of ordinary people, I am sure he is right.' But he is clearly of the opinion that we are wasting our time, to say the least of it, in trying-to get into touch with the ordinary people on the other sick of the Iron Curtain. With the greatest respect, I am sure he is wrong.
All the evidence is that at present the ordinary people in Russia are perfectly willing to live and let live and are not unfriendly. Bqt there is also evidence that the Stalin Government is determined to make the whole world Communist, perhaps with the idea that that is the only way to end war. The important point here is that nobody can tell whether Stalin really believes that the Americans are blood- stained (or was it bloody-minded ?) imperialists,- or whether he is deliberately poisoning the minds of the Russians in order to disguise an attack on the West as a war of defence. If he is planning to attack us, our only hope is to convince the ordinary Russian people that the Americans are not aggressive imperialists, and that we ourselves are not really being ill-treated by licentious American soldiery. What is Mr. Harold Nicolson's objection to our inviting our opposite numbers in Russia to carne and see for themselves ?
But I think there is more in it than that. It is obvious enough that the only way to prevent war is to make peace, and that peace can only be made by the ordinary individuals themselves. Mr. Harold Nicolson will agree, I am sure, that it is not enough to leave it to the Foreign Office; it is not enough to elect a Member of Parlianient to influence the Foreign Secretary; it is not enough' to send a delegate to a peace conference. Where we begin to differ, I think, is in the belief that,. in the present emergency, it is just as much the duty of every man and woman *take exactly the same active part in making peace as they would take in war. If .that is so, it seems to folloiv that the responsibilit§ of the Government is also exactly the same. If that is sound logic, we arrive at a peace-making effort organised by the Government in 'the same way as the waf effort, and with an expenditure of energy (brains, money, work) tin a scale comparable with rearmament o r'the export drive.—Yours faithfully, R. L. KITCEIING.
Wetherby,. Yorkshire.
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