Studying a booklet published by Soviet News and containing reports
of speed's delivered at the recent Soviet Union elections (such as they were) by five leading figures in the Union, I have been interested to observe the various Russian counterparts of " Heil Hitler " with which the different speeches achieve their climax. Thus:
M. MoLorov: "Long live our great and wise leader, our own Comrade Stalin."
M. MALENKOV: " Long live Comrade Stalin, our leader and teacher."
M. SHVERNIK: "Long live our wise leader, teacher and friend, the great Stalin, for the happiness and joy of the Soviet people and of all progressive mankind."
MARSHAL VOROSHILOV: " Glory to our great leader and teacher, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin."
M. MIKOYAI•1: " Long live the brilliant continuator of the immortal cause of Lenin—Stalin."
He may live long, but he won't live for ever..
Sceptre and crown' must tumble down
And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade (and hammer and sickle). What is the right adjective to apply to Harold Laski ? I think brilliant. He was a brilliant scholar, a brilliant teacher, a brilliant conversationalist. I have heard him scintillate steadily all through a fairly prolonged luncheon. That, of course, is not necessarily all virtue. Brilliance and stability of judgement by no means always go together. They did not in Laski's case—cerlainly not, at any rate, in the view of people who frequently disagreed with him. He was full of generous impulses, and impulses are not always the best guide. He stood to the far Left in politics, with an almost undis- criminating weakness for Moscow and all it stood for. That gravely diminished his value to the London School of Economics, with which practically the whole of his life was bound up. His influence with his students was immense, but that meant that the School acquired a Left-wing reputation which it neither desired nor deserved. A wholehearted admirer wrote of him this week : "By the time I had arrived in ' Red ' Houghton Street in the early 'thirties, the School was almost known as the place where Laski teaches '." Inspiring as he was as a teacher, when the full account is balanced due weight must be given to the effect of sending back to West Africa and elsewhere a stream of Colonial students enthu- siastic over a half-digested Marxism. Against all that must be set, though in rather another sphere, all Laski's ceaseless kindnesses to his friends and the qualities in him that made his friends so numerous.
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