18 JULY 1925, Page 25

Valentina. By George Scott. (Geoffrey Bles. 7s. 6d. net.)—The main

theme of this remarkable story is an account of a journey made in 1918 from Georgia towards Moscow by some British officers and men who had been attached to Denikin's Army and had been taken prisoners. • The descrip- tions of Bolshevist conditions and morality are alike horrify- ing, and the girl leader, Valentina, is an attractive but sinister figure. Cruelty, inefficiency, famine, dirt, typhus—all these horrors are told of as the natural result of the rule of" Lenin the Golden." The curious detachment in the attitude of the principal characters towards their environment and even towards their own misdeeds is well described, and the peculiar sexual morality of the Bolshevists is presented in full detail.