Ewan McColl was one of the greatest songwriters to come out of the folk or any other tradition.The man was and is an inspiration.He has gifted a huge number of wonderful songs from Dirty Old Town to The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.
He was a communist I think because capitalism had "gifted "the 20th entury with the barbarism of the 1914-1918 war,mass unemployment and huge inequality.The 1930s has been described as "the dark valley and fascism was on the march with all its beatiality and horror.
Many socialists looked to the beacon of the bolshevik revolution in Russia and saw in it a way of opposing war ,poverty and fascism.One of the contributors rightly said that Khruschev blew the whistle on the crimes of Stalin although probably the first opponent of Stalin was Trotsky one of the leaders of the boshevik revolution.
Ifor