Purley, Surrey
Western will
SIR: Your account of 'The Decline of the Western Will' treats as one problem matters of which clarity of thought requires separate treatment. Why be surprised at the undemocratic nature of the regimes governing parts of former European empires? They learnt their authoritarian treatment of opposition from their predecessors. The independence movement has become the governing political party, support of which is regarded as a test of patriotism. The decisions which are here taken in the House of Commons are there taken in the governing party. The tolerance of opposition by the government of India was always a myth. Soviet and Cuban intervention in Angola is not, indeed, comforting. Now was German and Italian intervention in Spain before the war, but Spain did not become an Axis satellite. Those who obtain political power, however unpleasant or lacking in national spirit they may be, do not do so in order to take instructions from foreigners, unless, of course, they depend on the foreigners; and the history of the last thirty years supports that view.
It is foolish of European countries pot to make provision against aggression by Russia, whatever regime may govern that country; but healthy suspicion of a powerful neighbour does not require acceptance of the prevailing myths about communists, who occupy in many minds a position similar to that occupied by papists in the minds of our ancestors during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. D. E. Folkes 5 Queen's Walk, Ealing, London W5
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