THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. Vaughan Williams,
10, Hanover Terrace,
Regents Park,
London, N.W.1.

October 18th 1953.

Dear Buckland,
I am sorry for not answering your letter before, but I have been very busy. I have had bitter experience of signing letters at the request of Left Wing organisations, and I find that they are almost always incorrect in their facts: and I have in consequence  often had to eat my words, and I have had enough of it. Of course we are all communists, in the ideal sense of the words, in that we should all wish to work for the common good. But Communism, in its modern manifestations, is entirely anti-democratic, and also connotes tyranny, chicanery, and disengenuousness, which I, and I hope all proper thinking people, will not have anything to do with. Of course if any nation wishes to govern itself in this way, it has nothing to do with me or any other outsider. But they must keep it within their own boundaries, and I can see no reason why I should be pressed to eat out of their hands.
This is my final answer.
Yours,
R Vaughan Williams