[To the Editor of TIIE SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—For a long time I have sought for an authoritative statement of the essential respects in which the position of the Communist differs from that of a Socialist. I assume that there is an essential difference, or otherwise Socialists in this country, as embodied in the Labour party would not t o gravely distrust and dislike those who label themselves as Communists.
It was therefore with considerable hope of enlightenment that I turned to the article in your last number on "The Claims of Communism." Here, I said, is a Communist, for so I take the writer to be, who will explain his faith, and incidentally perhaps will resolve my difficulties.
What do I find ? Alas ! I find no enlightenment. I am told in one place that "The Soviet Union is not a Communist Society. . . . The Soviet Union is a Socialist Society," and in another that Marx, the founder of the world Communist movement and a decisive authority on the subject of com- munism, would have held the present economic arrangements of the Soviet Union as the fulfilment of his proposals. I cannot reconcile these two statements, and I, and I am sure others of your readers, would be glad to know how Mr. Strachey reconciles them.
Perhaps Mr. Strachey could see his way to explain to us briefly the difficulties between a Socialist and a Communist, and between n Socialist and a Communist Society.—Yours
faithfully, H. FOUNTAIN. Little Mote, Eynsford, Kent.
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