Dear Editor

...Dear Editor Bertram Wolfe An otherwise most perceptive article by Sol Stein, "Remembering Bertram Wolfe" (NL, December 12, 1983), is marred by its incomplete and therefore inaccurate account of Wolfe's departure from the Communist Party...

...The fact is that he was thrown out, along with Jay Lovestone and other "Lovestonite" Communists...

...Communists earned him Uncle Joe's wrath, marking the beginning of the end of his political romance...

...Don v. R. Drenner...

...But he slides too easily over the country's 10 million unemployed, today's union-busting, and the increasing number of bag people one sees warming themselves on the sidewalk steam vents of Federal office buildings in the nation's capital...

...The editor of The New Leader, in "Between Issues," states it more accurately: "his challenging Stalin's iron-clad control of U.S...

...By providing us with a graphic description of the Th&tae des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, where the production was originally mounted, and contrasting this with the conditions at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater when it was staged there, he helped us understand the intentions of Brook's adaptation of Bizet's opera—and why they could not be fully achieved in New York...

...Washington, D. C. Eliot Golub Jayhawking The people of Lawrence, Kansas, as in Marvin Kit-man's "In Defense of 'The Day After,'" (NL, November 28, 1983), are not called "Lawrentians" (perhaps those of Nova Scotia are...

...Yet we are to believe—or at least it is strongly suggested—that the French Noises Off is more authentic, more nearly captures the flavor of the original, than the American one...

...with Colette Brosset in the part Dorothy Loudon plays in this country...

...New York City Charles Cogen French Perspective There are times when Leo Sauvage's French perspective gives his reviews an added dimension...

...Stein writes that Wolfe "had broken with Stalin in 1928," giving the impression that he quit the party on his own volition and on principle...

...Many of the cast in New York also are English...

...Coffeyville, Kan...

...President...

...there does appear to be a somewhat blurred perception among actors here of the distinction between a European farce and American burlesque...

...They are called Jayhawkers—as are we all...

...For instance, in assessing the Broadway version of Michael Frayn's Noises Off ("On Stage," NL, January 9), Sauvage writes: "I can't help recalling the French production of Frayn's work staged by Robert Dhery...

...An example was his discussion of Peter Brook's La tragidie de Carmen ("On Stage," NL, November 28,1983...

...Furthermore, when I read Wolfe's autobiography, A Life in Two Centuries, I was appalled by the fact that while he railed endlessly against Stalin's authoritarianism in intraparty matters, nowhere in the book did he clearly complain about Stalin's antidemocratic acts and views in governmental affairs...

...Really now, M. Sauvage...

...I read it with pleasure, and not a little profit, from cover to cover...

...In my view, it far surpassed the similar holiday efforts of other journals I take, including the New York Review of Books...

...New York City Yolanda Gewisenheit Kudos A word of praise is in order for your Christmas Book Issue (NL, December 12,1983), one of the best, most balanced of your semi-annual book numbers that I can recall...

...NL, November 28,1983...

...Wolfe had his hours of greatness, but let's not make a pure, early-born anti-Communist saint of him...

...As Sauvage himself notes, Michael Blakemore, who directed in Britain, was the director on this side of the Atlantic as well...

...Boston Roland Somers Economic Reality John E. Schwarz is right in saying that accenting the negative, rather than the positive aspects of our economy is self-defeating ("Et Tu, Mr...

...At other times, however, Sauvage's angle of vision seems to distort his judgment...