Being compared to reviled Stalin is badge of honour for Labour leader
The lack of reaction from Jeremy Corbyn after being likened to Joseph Stalin reflects the extent of his flirtation with the politics of the despotic mass murderer.
After Boris Johnson accused the Labour Party under Corbyn and John Mcdonnell of acting with a “vindictiveness not seen since Stalin persecuted the kulaks” – the Soviet Union’s wealthier peasant farmers – the response from the Opposition leader was steeped in socialist sarcasm.
Tweeting a picture of The Daily Telegraph’s front page featuring the remarks as the Conservatives launched their election campaign in yesterday’s newspaper, the Islington North MP said: “The nonsense the super-rich will come out with to avoid paying a bit more tax.”
For while most politicians would vehemently object to being compared to one of history’s most reviled figures – who executed, arrested or deported millions of people – Corbyn has always worn comparisons with his heroes as a badge of honour.
Before he ascended to the Labour leadership, the anti-nato former chairman of the Stop the War coalition insisted the USSR did not pose a danger to the West and praised Communist leaders for seeking peace.
In 1989, he gave a speech to a conference organised by the communist newspaper Morning Star shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“If there are two areas where I think grave mistakes were made by the Soviet Union,” he said. “It was the ability of the system to recognise the importance of the national question and the way in which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union became an extremely elitist body.” It is estimated 20million Soviet citizens were put to death by the regime or died as a result of its repressive policies – although Corbyn’s closest adviser, Seumas Milne, has disputed this figure. When he was comment editor of The Guardian, Milne frequently defended Stalin, including arguing he should not be bracketed with Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot “to equate communism and fascism as the two greatest evils of an unprecedentedly sanguinary era”.
When Milne was appointed as Corbyn’s director of communications and strategy in 2015, a source close to them said: “Seumas shares Jeremy’s world view almost to the letter. They sing from the same hymn sheet.”
Like Corbyn’s adviser Andrew Murray, the long-standing Communist Party of Britain member and trade unionist who has worked for him since February last year, Milne used to write for the Stalinist Left-wing publication Straight Left. Another Corbyn ally, Murray’s ex-wife Susan Michie, whose brother Jonathan is best friends with Milne, was nicknamed “Stalin’s nanny” at university because she was such a Soviet sympathiser.
Like them, Corbyn has made no secret of his admiration for the 1917 Revolution, telling fellow socialists in 1991 that he wasn’t willing to “bury” the idea of supporting the Communist mutiny. He attacked then Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock, for “denying the birthright of this movement”.
Hansard, the official record of all Commons debates, is brimming with pro-russia quotes from Corbyn. In 1986, he claimed the Soviets were more committed to peace talks than the West, declaring: “In recent years, there has been no occasion on which
He appeared to suggest the USSR should hold Britain to account over its human rights record
the Soviet Union has walked away from negotiations.”
In an exchange with then foreign secretary, Geoffrey Howe, in 1988, he appeared to suggest the USSR should hold Britain to account over its human rights record.
Then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he said: “It is sad that the minister and many Conservative members seem to be pretending that the Soviet Union is our enemy. I do not believe that it has ever intended to invade Western Europe.”
He repeated his claim in 1991 when he said: “I was never one to support the idea of the Cold War – the idea that there was an imminent threat of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.”
After the fall of the Communist regime, Mr Corbyn became more critical of Russia – condemning the government of Boris Yeltsin for not allowing free speech. There have also been hints of pro-russian sentiment since he became Labour leader four years ago. In February last year, Corbyn was forced to deny being a Communist conspirator after it emerged he had held meetings during the Eighties with Jan Sarkocy, a Czechoslovakian diplomat in London who was later expelled as a spy.
A month later, he courted controversy by calling on Theresa May the prime minister at the time, to present more evidence before blaming the Putin regime for carrying out the Salisbury attack. He suggested the Russian-made nerve agent Novichok could have been stolen by the mafia, and warned that hitting back risked creating a witch hunt.
The BBC was then forced to dismiss complaints that Newsnight had altered a photo of Corbyn to make him look more Russian. Critics said his hat was digitally altered to make him look like a “Soviet stooge”. But, in fact, it was an undoctored picture of Corbyn in a Russian hat.
When it comes to Corbyn’s Soviet sympathies, it appears to be a case of if the cap fits, wear it.