IN an astounding piece of written oratory, Mark Boyle (Letters, April 19) roundly slanders the membership of the SSP as thugs, albeit interesting thugs. His core argument was that the SSP were really like the BNP, but are ''class bigots rather than race bigots''. The fascist hate was there in the socialist wrapping. This is the political argument that sees left and right not as a continuum but as a circle where extreme left meets extreme right in intolerance and authoritarianism. Brilliant image, let's write off the SSP.

But not true, for all its simplicity; the Scottish socialist tradition that the SSP hail from has ever been at the forefront of fighting for libertarian ideals. It manifests itself in folk songs that ridicule the rich and bewail their baleful hegemony. It is about individualism, about collectivism, and it is about freedom.

This is no continuum. On the one hand there is private privilege and the displacement to defend this, and then there is social justice which requires

no defence.

I give no evidence because Mr Boyle gave none. Perhaps, after all, this is a matter of faith. I prefer the faith that people can live without greed as their main driving force.

Allan Mackenzie,

42 Union Road, Inverness.

IN the second volume of his classic study of the Soviet Union's system of prison camps, The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn informs us that by as early as 1921 the system of ''concentration camps'' set up by the Bolsheviks was ''already in full flower''. In the same book, Solzhenitsyn quotes Lenin's order of August 1918 to a provincial communist executive that they ''carry out merciless mass terror''.

Given that the above are facts, how can Tommy Sheridan continue to pretend, as he does yet again in Vitali Vitaliev's article (April 19), that socialism only became synonymous with tyranny because of Stalin?

For a brief time, following the revolution of February 1917, Russia knew unparalleled freedom. Following the Bolshevik coup d'etat of October that year, Lenin and his henchmen systematically set about shutting down all forms of opposition - from political parties to newspapers. The results of the only free election that Russia had ever known, that of November 1917, were overturned when Lenin used the armed supporters of his party, which had failed to gain the support of the Russian people, to close down the resulting assembly.

Tommy Sheridan is fooling himself, and attempting to fool the Scottish electorate, in trying to ignore the uncomfortable fact that terror and repression have been part and parcel of every socialist regime right from the very beginning. Why should we believe that things would be any different in an independent socialist Scotland?

Furthermore, given that the SSP would like Scotland to pull out

of the EU, who then would remain as our trading partners? North Korea

and Cuba?

Given that Mr Sheridan states that he would allow freedom of expression in his Fantasy Scotland, what does he have to say about the recent imprisonment of 25 dissidents in Castro's ''workers' paradise'', which he once said we could learn a lot from?

Finally, Mr Vitaliev mentions yet again, as if it were a virtue, the fact that Tommy Sheridan only keeps half of his MSP's salary. Given that the residual (pounds) 24,000 is still quite a reasonable income by anyone's standards, I wonder what could possibly be considered virtuous about using (pounds) 24,000 of what is essentially taxpayers' money to further his own political interests.

Allan D Forrester,

Grotz, Broughton, Westray, Orkney.

JUST as we see the end of one cult of the personality in Iraq, so another arises in Scotland. A perusal of regional-list candidates for the South of Scotland reveals that the nomenclature of choice for the socialists is not, as you might expect, a simple ''Scottish Socialist Party'', but rather ''Scottish Socialist Party convener Tommy Sheridan''.

Never has the term ''one-man band'' seemed more appropriate.

Michael Collie,

11c Mansfield Road, Musselburgh.

FOR once, the Labour Party is campaigning on genuine ground with its description of independence for Scotland as being the same as divorce. How else do you describe getting a fresh start after years of being tied to a partner who refuses you access to the income of the household, who makes every decision based on his own needs without consideration of your own, who regularly keeps dubious company, who is prone to violence, and who is determined to control and decide every matter in his own interest?

A partner who makes promises which he rarely keeps, who isn't willing to spend enough to educate the kids or help with the health care of the family but finds plenty of cash when the opportunity arises for a quick battle or two with people he hardly knows on the other side of town. A partner who is constantly on the take and who changes the rules on a whim if that's what it takes to win. A partner who controls the TV, radio, and the newspapers, and never allows anyone else to have an alternative point of view.

It may not be battered status but it is undoubtedly unreasonable behaviour with a strong streak of narrow self-interest that inhibits the natural growth of the family and would be more than enough to justify a divorce as the best way forward.

Laura Lawson,

27 Ben Lui Drive, Paisley.