Soviet apologist
From Dr Geoffrey Farrington Sir: In the course of his rightly respectful review of Robert Conquest's Reflections on a Ravaged Century (Books, 6 November) John Vincent suggested mistakenly that Manning Clark's affection for the Soviet Union was expressed at the same time as that of the Webbs and Harold Laski, and that 'after the war this changed'.
Manning Clark's ludicrous Meeting Soviet Man, based on a Potemkin tour in 1958-59, was not published until 1960. In 1999 Clark's old pupils and admirers, who domi- nate Australian universities' history, politics and sociology departments, usually operate as though the Soviet Union had never exist- ed, but they are quick to defend Clark against charges of being excessively pro- Soviet at any stage of his life, and continue to hate Australia's historical ties with Britain just as much as he did.
Geoffrey Partington
69 Cheltenham Street, Malvern, Australia
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