This reader takes exception to my remark, in my January Diary, about the

communist states being uncreative:

“Dear Mr. Derbyshire—Early soviet Russia saw by far the greatest works of

poetry of this century, and arguably its greatest works of prose if one

excludes the works P.G. Wodehouse.

“Zoshchenko, Bulgakoff, Ilf & Petroff, Mandelshtam, Akmatova, Gumileff, etc.

For a fairly bigoted partisan of English literature, I have to admit that

Russian writers of the early twentieth century blow anything we did out of

the water (once again, excepting Wodehouse).

“I loathe communism more than anyone, but communist regimes were just as

human as the West, despite their inhuman cruelty. To confine creativity to

the capitalist west smacks a bit of ideology, which is rather not in the

conservative way, I think.

“Sincerely

“Nicholas”