Sir,
Your Editorial today appears to contradict comments made by Winston Churchill in the House of Commons on October 5th 1938 regarding the Munich Agreement.
Following it Poland seized part of Czechoslovakia, and when the British and French Ambassadors in Warsaw attempted to speak to the Polish Foreign Minister, Colonel Beck, he was unwilling to see them.
“I am not forgetting, I must say, that it is less than twenty years since British and French bayonets rescued Poland from the bondage of of a century and a half ” said Churchill.
Robert Boothby, then an MP was equally opposed to the Munich Agreement. Boothby, like Churchill favoured effective French, Soviet and British support for Czech Independence.
Poland had made a non-aggression Pact with Hitler in 1934.
Boothby was particularly appreciative of Soviet Foreign Policy conducted by Maxim Litvinov,as any sane human being should have been.
The Polish Government in the 1930s, and Chamberlain’s Government were vain and treacherous. Poles and Britons were amongst those who paid the price in blood.
The Soviet Union was not responsible for the outbreak of the war which devastated Europe.
The lion’s share of the liberation of Europe from Fascism was borne by the peoples of the Soviet Union.
For example St. Petersburg/Leningrad endured an 872 days’ siege during which approximately 800,000 of its civilian citizens and 300,000 of its military defenders perished.
Approximately 25,000,000 more Soviet citizens and service personnel also perished.
I hope you will forgive me for remembering of some of the few facts which escaped you when penning your thundering thoughts for today.
Yours sincerely
Donal Kennedy
London
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