MONEY IN RUSSIA
Sin,—The article ' Money in Russia," by M. Leon Kiril, is one of the most informative yet published on the Soviet regime. The Russian money system appears to be soundly scientific in almost every essen- tial, but I am sure you have very many readers who would be most grateful if you could publish a reply by M. Kiril to a query on the disappointing conclusion of the article.
Why do the Russian authorities discourage small-scale handicrafts? We hear of the musicians receiving ample subsidies for The practice of their art. Why is taxation imposed on the artist in bootmakiag or furniture making? In view of Karl Marx's vigorous denunciation of all forms of taxation because of its adverse effect coon tht. lower and lower-middle classes of any community, it would seem that the Stalin regime taxes the crafts merely to suppress them.
No doubt, Russia, in her present low state of material development, is bedazzled by the harvests of mass-production machinofacture. (We know, in fact, that she is still blind to the danger, which the U.S.A. has suffered, of vast units of agriculture.) Nevertheless, the self-ex- pression of the individual in his own creative handwork is the basis of the progressive enrichment of any nation, as Russia appears to have realised in the matter of her engineers and experimental scientists. It would seem, therefore, there is a blind spot on this point in the usually very up-to-date science of Russian administration. It would
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