18 JANUARY 1919, Page 14

THE BASIS OF BOLSHEVISM.

iTo THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")

SIR,—IS it quite fair to say, as yea do, or a writer in your columns does, at the end of the first complete paragraph on p. 32, that "our own British Socialists emphatically " (or at all) " ally themselves with Russian Bolshevism" ? I am a regular render of tile Spectator, and such a warm admirer of it that I have it sent after me when I "week-end " in the wilds. But the article seems to me a most unfair indictment of Socialism based on the unwarranted identification of it with Bolshevism. Does the Fabian Society—to which I belong—

"emphatically ally itself with Russian Bolshevism" Do more than a very small fraction of British Socialists do so?—

I am, Sir, Ac., FEAR. -Nom Colwyn Bay Club, Colwyn Bay, N.1V.

[IVs are sorry if we seemed to identify British Socialism with Bolshevism. We meant that the habit of British Socialists of finding excuses for Bolshevism amounts in..prae- tire to emphatically allying themselves with Bolshevism.—Ea. Spectator.]