Why does the Left still love communism?

The allegation that the Czechoslovak communist state tried to cultivate influence in the Eighties Labour Party is deadly serious. It’s important to remember why. Part of the imperialist Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovakia was a brutal dictatorship hell-bent on subverting Britain’s security. Contact with representatives of this regime would have been extremely unwise – and yet Jeremy Corbyn, who insists that claims made about his association with a man posing as a Czech diplomat are a smear, does not deny their meeting. “A cup of tea in the House of Commons,” is how Mr Corbyn’s spokesman described it.

Why doesn’t the very memory of communism fill the hard Left with revulsion? They are quick to pounce on the historic errors of European empires or the United States. And yet, even when acknowledging its crimes, communism is treated with greater balance. Fidel Castro was a “champion of social justice” (Mr Corbyn). Mao Tse-tung “some people would judge... did more good than harm” (Diane Abbott). “For all its brutalities and failures”, communism delivered “rapid industrialisation, mass education” (Seumas Milne, Mr Corbyn’s strategy and communications director).

There is in fact nothing good to say about communism. Nothing it accomplished economically or socially wasn’t achieved in the free world – and with far greater success and without the bloodshed. Mao’s Great Leap Forward killed around 45 million. Stalin’s collectivisation triggered a famine that killed more than 5 million. Communist slaughters were motivated by class hatred and racism. Czechoslovakia was typical for maintaining order by fear. In Prague, dissidents are commemorated with a line of bronze statues that appear to decay as they disappear into the horizon. The memorial tallies the victims: 205,486 arrested, 4,500 died in prison, 248 executed.

Given these indisputable facts, why do some on the Left continue to make the case for communism or insist upon applying a ridiculous veneer of objectivity when discussing its history? They quite rightly wouldn’t do this with the horror that was fascism or apartheid South Africa. And yet to wave a hammer and sickle flag at a rally is to celebrate a record of bloodshed and misery. Vanishingly few who lived under communism want it back. On the contrary, they have enthusiastically embraced democracy and Nato, and got rich on capitalism – the only real means of progress.