23 OCTOBER 1936, Page 18

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Mr. Strachey is surely

inconsistent. He blames me for distinguishing between State Socialism and Communism —which I had to do if I was to handle my prescribed subject intelligently—and then draws the same distinction himself. He also objects to my using the word " gangsters " of the group of bloodthirsty criminals who surrounded Lenin. He oddly thinks that I used the word, not of Stalin, Trotsky, Djerzhinsky and Zinovieff, but of "Us." I did not mean to call Mr. Strachey a gangster ; I did not know that his association with the orgies of the Cheka went beyond sym- pathetic admiration. As for the subject of my article—the attitude of the Church in the past towards revolutionary theories—it does not seem to interest him. W. R. IfccE.

Brightwell Manor, IVailingford.