Another Hungary?
Sir: I hesitate to cross swords with Tibor Szatnuely (15 March) even on a tangential issue, partly because it is impossible not to respond favourably to his articles and partly because it is clear that, in general, anyone who thinks be knows better than Szamuely on his chosen ground of communist Eastern Europe has got another think coming.
I think, however, that he could be wrong in assuming that the Russians would be unlikely to move Red Army troops now stationed on the borders of Czechoslovakia into that country because that would be invasion. And he goes on to suggest that this inhibition is supported by the fact that they did not actually invade Hun- gary in 1956, their troops being already in the country.
One hopes he is right, of course, but he must forgive me for fancying that there is an element of wishful thinking here. In the first place, his precedent hardly holds water. The Red Army did invade Hungary with new troops, the occupation troops having been withdrawn in the early days of the revolution (there was, in fact, the tragi-comic spectacle of the last of the garrison troops marching out of the country when the tanks that were to crush Budapest were crossing the border). Secondly (and more important), the Soviets are not the sort of people to stop at fine points if they think their hege- mony is threatened. If they think a steamroller will do the trick, they will use one.
L. E. Weidberg 14 Templewood Avenue, Hampstead, London NW3
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