Hearing on the radio the news of Stalin’s death in 1953 is one of my earliest precisely datable memories. At the time it was still possible to think of him warmly as ‘Uncle Joe’, whose stand against Hitler had made it possible for us to win the war. Without him history would have been different, and Britain would most likely have suffered a German conquest and occupation.
But of course we now know much more about the ‘Great Terror’, the ruthless purges, the show trials and the estimated 20-30 million who died under his orders. Few of us would now want to march behind his portrait, as a number of groups in the May Day march in London do.
As well as the usual large groups of Turkish and Kurdish communists, there are also many other groups in the march, headed by a number of trade union banners. It’s a real shame that May Day is not a Bank Holiday, when a rather larger and more representative event might be expected.
Unusual animation from Tony Benn
The rally in Trafalgar Square is dominated by the trade unions, and many marchers didn’t stay. The final speeches were the most interesting, especially with a very lively Tony Benn who now seems to be getting younger with every public appearance.
One trade unionist missing was Jack Jones, whose funeral Tony Benn and some of the others had attended earlier in the day.
On the march was a sizeable block of Sri Lankan Tamils who went on to join the continuing demonstration in Parliament Square against the continued assault by government forces on civilians and Tamil Tigers confined in a small area a couple of miles wide. Considerably unwelcome was another group of Sri Lankans, the Sinhalese JVP, a party now part of the Sri Lankan government, and whose intervention stopped the government considering a federal solution and led to the all-out attacks on the LTTE.
The JVP on the March
More about the event and lots of pictures on My London Diary.