SLOUCHING TOWARD CHAOS

I’m getting a little tired of reading how the hard-core “rightists” are attempting to subvert the Soviet Union’s breakup (“Slouching Toward Chaos,” by Robert Cullen, Jan. 12).

It is intellectual dishonesty to label as rightists those who wish to return the Soviet Union to communism. The former Soviet Union is moving slowly toward democracy, meaning that it is moving to the right, since communism is the ultimate expression of leftist ideas in practice. Therefore, someone who wishes to return Russia to communism is a hard-core leftist.

To use the terms “conservative” and “rightist” to define someone who wishes to thwart democracy in Russia is, I believe, done consciously by the liberal media in order to discredit American conservatives who are trying to get communist-style, overly intrusive government off our backs. Cradle-to-grave government is the wish of the left, not of the right.

MICHAEL V. STRATTON

Brea