"They were only there from 1918 until 1920.
What's the difference - they could afford to commit money ammunition and troops to support the anti-government forces.
They allowed the re-armament of Germany - it was an open secret that this was happening and it accelerated when the Nazis came to power
"Jim, they were not "criminalised" "
They were given a record and prevented from working - treated as criminals, in other words
For the religious minded among you, many of them, my father among them, were excommunicated from their churches.
"Many were communists and believing in revolution they posed a threat to our democracy just like the fascists."
Being a communist in this period (as now) was perfectly legal - in fact there were a number of Communist MPs
The fact that the State could act against a legally operating political party, or in my fathers case, somebody who held left wing, anti-facist views, underlines the point of how close that administration was to fascism.
"Remember that from 1939 to 1941 British communists were in league with Hitler."
No they were not - they signed a treaty on non- aggression - Russia, following the revolution and the civil war, were in no position to do anything else.
They built up their armaments and openly declared opposition to the rise of fascism in Germany (more than Britain did).
In fact, one of Stalin's accusations against his opponents (Trotsky included) was that they were Nazi agents.
They bore the brunt of Germany's attack and lost more people than any other nation 20 million people
Time to call in a "real historian" methinks.
Fair point Allan - my mistake
" 'educated' is a term of abuse"
Beneath even you Mike - I value and respect education and envy those who were able to move on to higher education, but an educated ape is still an ape.
"The Daily Mirror 'right wing'?"
Yup, 'fraid so - used to be vaguely left back in the day when comedy was funny - but the Goons and Hancock are all dead and Monty Paython retired (or should have, when he was winning).
Jim Carroll