A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
THERE can be no question,&I think, that ICravchenko's book I Chose Freedom, reviewed by Sir Harold Butler in The Spec- tator last week, will have a powerful influence on public opinion in this country, as it has had on public opinion in the United States. It is probably the most damning picture yet painted of a police-State in action and of the pervasive terror which the N.V.D.K., successor of the dreaded G.P.U., spreads throughout Russia. The question of the authenticity of the picture, of course, arises. Is this literal truth, or the product of a fertile imagination? So strong is the faith of a certain British industrialist in the book that he has presented a copy to every member of the House of Commons. That has been followed by a circular from the British-Soviet Society, attacking the author, pointing to various discrepancies in his narrative, and de- ciding (very libellously, I should have supposed) that "there is ample evidence that this book was never written by the defaulting Russian clerk, but was ghosted for hint by some American writer." This may be put on record. .My own view is that the book is, in essentials, completely convincing. There may be some exaggeration, there may be slips over detail, some of them surprising, but as the reader follows the succession of sombre scenes through which the book takes him he will find it impossible to believe they were painted by anyone except a man who had lived through them. No one not determined to be blind can ignore the book.
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