Criticises the Writers' Triai

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last Saturday's Morning Star contained an editorial commenting upon the recent writers' trial in the Soviet Union, which resulted in vicious sentences being passed upon three Soviet writers and a girl who typed for them. The paper did not express an opinion on the heroic action of Maxim litvinov's grandson and the wife of Yuli Daniel in issuing a manifesto denouncing the trial. It did, however, express very considerable disquiet at the way the trail had been conducted. "Neither friends not enemies of the Seviet Union in Britain mow what went on in the courtroom," the ;paper seid. "This is in contrast with some other Soviet trials in the past Tew years," it added. Going on to contrast the trial with that of Creville Wynne and Gerald Brooke, it went on "The result of the way in which it has been handled is that enemies of the Soviet Union have been able to make capital out of it and cast doubt on Soviet justice." It concluded : (Progressive people)..."cannot avoid expressingccncern when the handling of a trial such as this one gives such opportunities to the enemies of the Soviet Union to create confusion and misunderstanding." Although the criticism is guarded and always posed from the point of view that the Russian authorities are ccting in an ill-judged manner, the comparison of the Greville Wynne and Gerald Brooke trisl* with this latest one bas a clear hint of a doubt about the charges of collaboration with NIS,etc. Why else would the Russians have a public trial of a self-confessed spy and @ private one for people who prociaimed their inmmor*nce on this score? On Tuesday of this week, the Morning Star published several letters commenting upon the editorial. Raymond Willaims and Miurice Dobb were in full support of the editorial but most of the other letters were sharply eritical, however James Harvey drew attention to the similarities with the trials of the thirties. On Wednesday another letter supported the editorial but said that it did not go far enough; two other writers opposed the editorial. It is clear that the Soviet Goverm ment's action in trying to intimidate the growing struggle for freedom of expression in the Soviet Union has creatediresh problems for the "pro-lMoscow" Communist Parties. Together with events in Czechoslovakia, this trial is going to make life very difficult for John Gollan and co. ‘over the next few months.