16 DECEMBER 1949, Page 18

The Russian Sentry

SIR.—You applied the epithet " brutish " to the mind of the Russian sentry who recently shot an American sergeant in Berlin (Spectator of December 2nd, page 762t Is this quite fair ? If one remembers that the smallest dereliction of duty by Russian service personnel is visited with penalties which are almost unbelievably hard to our way of thinking, the pressure on this sentry's conscience will be better understood. The Soviet system may well deserve your adjective, but I suggest that the individual Russian does not.—Yours faithfully,