STEVE Metcalfe excuses the brutality of Stalin, Mao, Lenin, and others on the grounds of the massive strides forward made by these people in terms of education, general health, social security and so on'.

I doubt that these strides somehow mitigate the deaths of tens of millions of people directed by these pillars of communism.

Furthermore, strides much greater than these have made peacefully in the capitalist countries that Metcalfe condemns. Life is better in the US and the UK today than it ever was under communism anywhere.

And even the undeniable improvements in education and health made in Cuba today hardly compensate for Castro's tyranny.

Metcalfe continually appeals to the working classes to unite against capitalist oppressors. He remains 70 years behind the times. In capitalist countries like the US and the UK, the working class has become middle class, and it seeks to partake of capitalism, not to fight it.

The class struggle is over. Trade unionism is dying out. The percentage of unionised workers in the US is down to a fraction of its former number. Thatcher, who should be sainted, increased prosperity in the UK by defeating the trade unions.

If life under capitalism is so bad, why do those subjected to it embrace it so effusively? And why do those freed from communism choose it as well?

Robert Segal, Lancaster.