From Rumania with Love Sta. \Ir. Malcolm Rutherford ('From Rumania
with Love') states 'the Russians had treated [the Ruman- ians] with more than usual clumsiness from the begin- ning,' and that 'It dawned eventually on even the most pro-Soviet of the Rumanian regime that the country was being bled.'
There was no clumsiness in the Russians' treat- ment of Rumania after the war : the vicious manner in which the Communists were put into power by the Soviet arrm, through blackmail, rigged elections and the destruction of the democratic parties (Lib- eral, Peasant and Social-Democrat), was the only course open to them, because there was practically no Communist party in Rumania : it numbered 1.00( members in 1944.
While the Labour party is looking kindly at efforts to improve relations with Rumania, it should also try to influence the repressive regime there into be- having in a more civilised and humane manner to- wards its own citizens. Information has reached me that of the some 12,000 political detainees released in 1964. very many are still without work or a home, and of the many- who came out old and crippled, few have been given pensions or have been put into hospitals. There is also the problem of an Englishwoman imprisoned last year after a secret trial, on charges that appear ridiculous.
Mr. Rutherford should remember that Lucretiu Patrascanu, one of the leaders (in 1944) of the Communist party in Rumania. was imprisoned in the late 'forties, held incommunicado for about seven years. tortured, tried and shot in 1954 for his opposition to Soviet encroachments upon Rumanian sovereignty, and to the transformation of Rumania into a milch-cow for the Soviet economy. With him, of course, as in all Communist trials, many others fell. both Communists and non- Communists. Most of those in power today were, if not in the first rank, in the rat race along the corri- dors of power (you will. I trust, forgive this pile-up of clichés). There is an old Rumanian saying: 'The wolf may shed its hair, but not its bad habits.'
J. C. VORVORFANU
21 Elvaston Place. London. SW7
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