On a recent weekend trip to the Lake District I read Martin Amis’s ‘Korba the Dread’, a sobering exploration of the free pass given to the Soviet Union for far too long by the West’s Intelligentsia , especially during Stalin’s long dictatorship.
Amis tops and tails his vignettes of starvation, torture and death with personal reflections which include a memory of his father’s early membership, and later rejection, of the British Communist Party, and with an evident bafflement that it should have taken so long for Robert Conquest‘s research, published as The Great Terror, to be accepted. Amis tells the story of Conquest’s publishers who requested a new title when a revised edition was planned after the Soviet Union’s collapse. The supposed suggestion of, ‘I told you so, you fucking fools‘, turns out to have been a Kingsley Amis joke.
The indulgence of Stalinism continues, it seems. This is an Early Day Motion tabled in Parliament
That this House commends the achievements of Fidel Castro in securing first-class free healthcare and education provision for the people of Cuba despite the 44 year illegal US embargo of the Cuban economy; notes the great strides Cuba has taken during this period in many fields such as biotechnology and sport in both of which Cuba is a world leader; acknowledges the esteem in which Castro is held by the people and leaders of Africa, Asia and Latin America for leading the calls for emancipation of the world’s poorest people from slavery, hunger and the denial of human rights such as the right to life, the right to shelter, the right to healthcare and basic medicines and the right to education; welcomes the EU statement that constructive engagement with Cuba at this time is the most responsible course of action; and calls upon the Government to respect Cuba’s right to self-determination and resist the aggressive forces within the US Administration who are openly planning their own illegal transition in Cuba.
If one of the fools who sigened this is your MP why not write to them, or email them, to tell you just what you think of their support for a dictator whose undemocratic rule over half a century has seen thousands of political executions, imprisonments for trying to promote democracy , restricted access to independent information sources and Castro’s suggestion of a first-strike during the missile crisis.
Interesting fact: fully one-fifth of Cubans are emigres.
Here are the signatories:
- Trickett, Jon
- Cruddas, Jon
- Gibson, Ian
- Clapham, Michael
- Mudie, George
- Hopkins, Kelvin
- McDonnell, John
- Cryer, Ann
- Abbott, Diane
- Taylor, David
- Riordan, Linda
- Price, Adam
- Skinner, Dennis
- Heyes, David
- Iddon, Brian
- Jones, Lynne
- Llwyd, Elfyn
- O’Hara, Edward
- Campbell, Ronnie
- Caton, Martin
- Corbyn, Jeremy
- Dismore, Andrew
- Flynn, Paul
- Francis, Hywel
- Hamilton, David
- Battle, John
- Clark, Katy
- Devine, Jim
- Prentice, Gordon
- Purchase, Ken
- Sheridan, Jim
- Singh, Marsha
- Holmes, Paul
- Hood, Jim
- Hoyle, Lindsay
- Humble, Joan
- Lepper, David
- Murphy, Denis
- Owen, Albert
- Cohen, Harry
- Crausby, David
- Dean, Janet
- Dobbin, Jim
- Drew, David
- Efford, Clive
- Etherington, Bill
- Grogan, John
- Hamilton, Fabian
- Austin, John
- Begg, Anne
- Taylor, Dari
- Wood, Mike
- Anderson, David
- Davies, Dai
- Buck, Karen
- Caborn, Richard
- Challen, Colin
- Cook, Frank
- Sharma, Virendra Kumar
- Simpson, Alan
- Havard, Dai
- Kilfoyle, Peter
- Mackinlay, Andrew
- Mitchell, Austin
- Chaytor, David
- Davidson, Ian
- Galloway, George
- Turner, Desmond
- Salter, Martin
- Vis, Rudi
- Slaughter, Andy