Daniel Hannan and the Upside-Down World of Bourgeois Fantasy Fiction

On 14 August 2021, one imperialist hack by the name of Daniel Hannan (Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, former Conservative Party MEP and current advisor to the UK Board of Trade), wrote an article in the Telegraph proclaiming black was white, up was down and right was wrong! The title of his anti-Soviet diatribe of crude fiction was titled The collapse of the USSR thirty years ago was a victory for nationhood over tyranny.” The collapse of the Soviet Union was not an overnight event that happened because everyone was drunk, it had been a long time in the making with traitors and Western spies pushing and working for it ever since the death of comrade Josef Stalin. Continue reading “Daniel Hannan and the Upside-Down World of Bourgeois Fantasy Fiction”

Anti-Soviet Lies: Did Stalin Pluck A Live Chicken To ‘Prove How Easy It Is To Rule People’?

The absurd lie that Stalin plucked a live chicken to an audience to demonstrate his supposed dictatorial power has been doing the rounds on many platforms of social media lately. It has taken the form of a poorly executed meme. This sloppy piece of propaganda has been resurrected and is supposed to teach us something about the ‘lockdown’.

Of course the story is a complete fabrication, even in the words of its author, but that hasn’t stopped it being passed off as truth.

For many sites, and publications would like to propel this story into the stratosphere for all the world to see. They would use it as an example of a megalomaniac, crazed tyrant intent on showing his power of control, the extent of his evil. Therefore, we take a moment to deal with this crazed, ludicrous rumour, scraped truly from the bottom of the barrel. 

What is it that Stalin supposedly did?

The tale follows as thus:

“Stalin once ripped all the feathers off a live chicken as a lesson to his followers. He then set the chicken on the floor a short distance away. The chicken was bloodied and suffering immensely, yet, when Stalin began to toss bits of wheat toward the chicken it followed him around. He said to his followers “This is how you govern stupid people, they will follow you no matter how much pain you cause them, as long as you throw them a little worthless treat once in a while”. 

Where does this story come from?

The tale can be traced back to the pen of anti-Stalin, revisionist scribbler Chingiz Aitmatov. Aitmatov is well remembered for his literary works, as well his role in helping Mikhail Gorbachev in the passing of ‘Perestroika’. Aitmatov was known for his particular “style” of writing that combined fact with fiction and in the preface to his most famous work wrote:  

“As in previous works, here I also draw on legends and myths [Ed: unsubstantiated slander] handed down to us from former generations; together with these, for the first time in my writing career I also use fantasy to form part of the story. But, for me, neither is an end in itself, simply a method of expressing thoughts, a means of identifying and interpreting realities.”

The Truth

From such a literary “style” comes this tale of Stalin plucking a chicken alive is exactly an example of Aitmatov’s writing that blends very little fact with a heap of fiction, indeed in this case there is no fact to be found!  The tale is part of the tradition of anti-Stalin slander that was brought in under Khrushchev in the Soviet Union, as part of the ‘de-Stalinization’ [asnti-communist] process. Apart from Aitmatov’s confession to passing off fantasy as fact, this fable has no further evidence or source for being true and if we are bearing into mind that this type of tale was typical of Aitmatov, and there are no other original sources for the tale other than Aitmatov, then we discover that the tale can be categorically ruled out as false, a cheap flight of fancy paid for by the Gorbachev era press. All other sources for this tale come from bourgeois and Christian newspapers, repeating with minor variations this ludicrous garbage. All in all, the tale reeks of falsity and is found from time to time, to be found bobbing along in the sewage of the revisionists and bourgeois press. 

Conclusion 

Usually, debunking myths around Stalin can be a more serious affair. However, this tale is so laughable and so easily uncovered as a categorical lie that it merely requires a scratch and the obvious falsity is revealed. Here we have a tale from a revisionist writer adding to the canon of anti-Stalin propaganda no more, no less. 

Cuba is Socialist – and so we will be!

Cuban ambassador to the UK, Comrade Teresita Vicente, speaks powerfully at the CPGB-ML meeting to celebrate the 99th anniversary of the Great Socialist October Revolution held in Saklatvala Hall, Southall, West London on 5th November 2016.

Her full speech is now available to view in this video. Please watch and listen carefully to her words, and share her powerful message widely. You could not find a better antidote to the US election campaign!

The meeting, and comrade Teresita’s speech was reported in the Cuban media: http://misiones.minrex.gob.cu/es/articulo/celebrado-aniversario-99-de-la-gran-revolucion-socialista-de-octubre Continue reading “Cuba is Socialist – and so we will be!”

Suffragette – Where’s Sylvia Pankhurst?

Where is Sylvia, what is she?

Sylvia-photo-for-web-with-

Ask anybody what name they most associate with the suffragette movement and almost universally the answer will be Sylvia Pankhurst. This film for all its merits only once mentions her in passing, and then only to suggest that she didn’t really approve of what the suffragettes were doing. What explanation can there be for this distracting mystery? The answer lies in the bourgeois falsification of history, as we shall see. Continue reading “Suffragette – Where’s Sylvia Pankhurst?”

Through Hell for Hitler – NAZIs v NATO

Henry Friedrich Carl Metelmann, was born on 25 December 1922, the son of a socialist railway worker in Hamburg, Germany. As a lively and active boy, he joined the scouts, and later his group was merged with the Hitler youth. With Hitler’s rise he was seduced by the fascist movement, and the experiences and privileges it bestowed

He fought with Von Paulus’ Nazi 6th army at Stalingrad. Through experience he came to reject fascism and capitalist imperialism. He settled in Britain, becoming a communist, a railway worker, groundsman, writer and peace activist. He died on 24 July 2011.

Henry Metelmann was keen to talk about his experiences, especially to the young, and equated the invasion of the Soviet Union by an oil-hungry Nazi Germany with the Anglo-American assault on oil-rich Iraq in 2003. He remained a member of the Communist party of Great Britain until its break-up in 1991.

He delivered a powerful lecture to the Stalin Society in London, in 2004, which sadly was not filmed, but shortly afterwards Harpal Brar, now chairman of the CPGB-ML, conducted this interview with Henry at his home in Godalming.

This interview remains as moving, compelling and relevant as the day it was conducted. For it helps us to understand German (Nazi) Imperialism. Not merely as something exceptional, uniquely evil, incomprehensible and never to be repeated; but as the standard behaviour of imperialism. That is of expansionist monopoly capitalism.

What conclusions does he draw from his long, full active and historically rich life? He tells us that there can be no peace, while capitalism still exists. We must overthrow it, or perish.

LALKAR Article:
http://www.lalkar.org/issues/contents/may2003/metel.html

Read More: http://www.cpgb-ml.org

Henry’s books:

Through Hell for Hitler:

A Hitler Youth:

To understand WW2, the role of the Soviet force, and Stalin, read: Stalin, Man of History, by Ian Grey

Guardian obituary:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/22/henry-metelmann

Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Metelmann

Stalingrad:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad

22nd Panzer Division:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/22nd_Panzer_Division

Battle of Kerch:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Kerch_Peninsula

Red Youth celebrate the October Revolution!

Red Youth and CPGB-ML member Jamie speaks at a meeting to celebrate the 94th anniversary of the Great Socialist October Revolution, at Sak Hall in west London.

He outlines the relevance of the October Revolution to working class youth in Britain today, and its key lessons.

Chiefly, he points out the necessity of forming an organization and studying our exploitative society and the alternatives, in order to make our struggle effective; of confronting and opposing the mis-leadership of the social democratic ‘Labour’ Party, the enemy within the working-class movement; and the importance of imparting the spontaneous resistance that is rising around us (Student EMA and university fees protestors, Occupy Wall St and the LSX, union strikes, and the ‘London Riots’…) with class-conscious and revolutionary perspective.

These are the lessons we all must learn if we are to building effective resistance to the attacks of a political and economic order that is in its most profound crisis, and ultimately overthrow the British, American, EU and NATO criminally corrupt, venal and genocidal ruling monopoly capitalist class gangsters.

Choose the road of October!

Join us – join the struggle!

https://redyouth.org
http://www.cpgb-ml.org