MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 02:54 PM

the British security services are the augean stables that evry elected government can never quite bring itself to clean. the spycatcher thing showed that they have no real attachment to democracy.   the philby business showed that they regard class loyalty well above loyalty to country.


one things certain watergate could never have happened in England. they just ain't that accountable.

truly a law unto themselves.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 01:33 PM

More likely Patel than MacColl?

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,dax
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 09:52 AM

All this begs the question:
Who today is on the MI5 watchlist?

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: shepherdlass
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 08:23 AM

Point taken, courtesy of Malcolm Douglas. "Scotch" was used in titles of some old song collections, wasn't it? I still can't help but visualize a pint when I hear the word, though. Then again, maybe this says more about me than the word and maybe, like the immortal Father Jack, the first thing that pops into my head in any given topic is the word "Drink!!!!".

Back on topic, we should remember how many people considerably to the right of MacColl were deemed worthy of monitoring by MI5 - didn't they keep a close eye on many in the Wilson government? I suppose the one thing these recent revelations show clearly is that MacColl's work was considered influential enough for them to bother.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 07:37 AM

ake, you're probably the last person on mudcat to notice that my political leanings are slightly to the left of Pol Pot

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Babatunde
Date: 10 Mar 06 - 06:54 AM

At last a sensible Scottish man!

Well said.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 07:44 PM

Much of the debate here is way off topic, and I'll keep out of the political side of it for now.

On the linguistic side, however, I feel obliged to make the point (as I've done before) that "Scotch" is no more than a contraction of "Scottish". A great many people, including many very well-informed Scottish people, have used, and continue to use, both words interchangeably.

It's certainly true that the word "Scotch" is fast going out of fashion except as a specific term for whisky, mist and other more-or-less inanimate objects; but it is quite wrong to state, baldly and without qualification, that it is per se incorrect or insulting to use it of people. That is a fairly modern snobbery, though one that I must confess to having believed when younger and more impressionable.

That doesn't mean that people don't sometimes use the word with the intention of insulting; but the person who takes offense and rises to the bait risks appearing just as ignorant -or more so- as does the person who made the remark (perhaps innocently) in the first place. Let's try to avoid irrelevant distractions of that sort.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: ifor
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 07:42 PM

"The revolution was nothing what came after was the real business"Ifor
The October Revolution was a cataclysmic event ...one of the great political and social dramas of this or any other age.For a brief period the working class of one country was able to overthrow their bosses and take power.And this came during a war which was like a slaughter house right across the Europe from Russia to Flanders.And it was an international event that inspired millions to the revolutionary cause including Ewan McColl.
Revolutionary Russia was blockaded,attacked and starved and its revolutionary bolshevik party veterans almost killed off in the turmoil defending the Revolution at the front against the Tsarist and foreign armies.
Lenin died in exhausted in 1924 [?] and it was left to Trotsky to conduct a battle against Stalin and to defend the Revolution against what Stalin had in store [ie forced industrialization and the gulags etc]
The Revolution was betrayed and of course what came after was dependent on what occured in those few years of hope and despair.Storming the very gates of heaven indeed!
ifor

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 07:42 PM

Weve had our differences in the past wld, but you seem a very perceptive fellow

Do I sense a swing to the left?..:0)

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 07:33 PM

No what it says is that major artists tend to make their startling observations from some pretty startling points of view.

It's just an observation, founded on fact. those of us who stand in awe of artists like auden , ezra pound, woody guthrie, oscar wilde, james joyce, ts eliot, mozart, js bach, etc. we don't necessarilly share these viewpoints, but we realise that the vision these doctrines gave them was part of the magic.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Guest DB
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 06:15 PM

Another thing us scotch are good at is kicking the shite out of you english.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 05:20 PM

Reframing that writing great songs & spouting spurious rationalisations for mass murder should never be seperated?
Well it's a view

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 04:29 PM

If you ever are lucky enough to hear Alan Bennet's Poetry in Motion series about major poets - there is this gem about Louis Macniece - the Ulster poet, and Ake's comment just calls it to mind.

In that wonderful earnest Yorkshire voice, Bennet says something to the effect....Macneice was lot more sensible than Auden and Isherwood and all those other writers of the 1930's. He never made a fool of hinmself over boys, or daft religions, or even dafter politics.
But y'know, if y'never go off the deep end about anything. Y'do tend never to make much of a splash......

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 03:40 PM

If Ewan had been a footballer, he would have been eligible to play for our team....and we could sure do with him!!
So he was probably quite at liberty to call himself Scottish if he so wished....The shame of being born South of the border was obviouly too much to bear :0).

Getting back to the thread, I'm surprised by the number of people who say they love Ewans music but hate his politics, or we can forgive his mistake because of his songwriting brilliance.

You just don't seem to get it.


Dont you realise that if Ewan had been a Conservative,a Lib Dem, or perish the thought, a follower of New Labour, his wonderful songs would never have been written.

Revolutionarys like Ewan live for their beliefs and in my opinion they should never be separated.

If you're a middle of the road jogger and you like Ewans songs...well you just don't understand them...Ake

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Barrie Roberts
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 10:35 AM

Since I discovered the Mudcat Forum I have been astonished by the number of people there are in the world who have never made a mistake, adopted a wrong idea or expressed a dubious opinion. Is it some kind of statistical freak that so many of them communicate throuth the Mudcat?

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 09:35 AM

Dear 'GUEST English and Proud',

Not sure what you're trying to achieve by insulting out SCOTTISH brothers and sisters. I notice that they're all far too intelligent to rise to the bait.
Nevertheless, I'm rather hoping that a group of brawny hielan chiels have hacked into your computer, worked out where you live, and are now, as we speak, heading down the M6 to sort you out!

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 06:32 AM

Remember a Scottish relative buying a round Shepherdlass, I ppted for a Pint of Scotch. He nearly fainted!
Dennis Skinner was reputedly a mean Al Jolson impressionist.
Back on subject. Is it not acceptable to respect & admire MacColl as an important contributer to music & reject his,of their time, Political beliefs ?
I think Stalin was beneath contempt.
I wish I had written "First time, ever I saw your face".
I see no contradiction between these two statements.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: shepherdlass
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 06:01 AM

Thanks, weelittledrummer, for some much-needed balance. I presume a lot of us would agree that he was right about some things and wrong about others ... and would also bet that we'd disagree about which things fell into which category. As you said, each to their own ...

Have to admit, though, it does seem deliberately confrontational when people talk about "Scotch" accents. Where I come from, Scotch certainly doesn't denote a people, it doesn't even always mean whisky - it's a kind of beer.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 05:34 AM

It's all so uncreative, all this sneeering at each other for whatever accent you feel comfortable singing in. Ian Campbell, a protege of Ewan and founder of the Ian Campbell Folk Group once told me that his own Dad's singing style was based on that of Al Jolson.

American music hall acts were popular in England from about the 1880's so its hardly surprising that there has been cross fertilisation in different singing styles. My own mother (Lancashire/Irish) always affected accent of crooners like Bing Crosby when she sang. Ian Campbell's kids sing with Jamaican accents in the group UB40.(probably outselling their Dad and Ewan and the Seeger family and influencing more would be singers out there!)

Ewan MacColl was a great human being, a great artist and achiever, and he was wrong about some things and he was right about others. he did his best. It is pretty obvious from this thread that most of us who met him, found him and Peggy approachable and pleasant.

I just don't see where these people are getting off - saying shitty things about him. Okay so he admired some weird people. Martin Carthy once told me that he admired Cecil Parkinson....no I didn't get it either, but as the French say chacun a son gout, everyone to his goat, and handing out white feathers ....well that is despicable.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,English and proud
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 05:24 AM

Why are scotch people embarrased by being scotch?

Stupid sub-human, penny pinching, self rightous, kilt wearing, porridge quaffers. SCOTCH is what you all are.

Scotch is a contraction of the word SCOTTISH. It came about cos the stupid cross dressers north of normality SAID IT THAT WAY.

Whiskey came from Ireland.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,J C
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 04:00 AM

Whoops, sorry, wrong button.
MacColl changed his name to a SCOTS one (I never once saw him dress up as a bottle of Highland Park) in the same way many people in the theatre did. I see you were promoting the songs of a Robert Zimmerman on the other thread - didn't he change his name to a Welsh one at one time?.
He didn't pretend to be Scots - he was born of Scots parents, grew up in a Scots household surrounded by Scots people singing Scots songs - in my book that makes his cultural influences Scots certainly in his formative years. He always managed to get his songs across to me. The subject of his nationality - along with that of his name are irrelevancies used by those who would prefer to divert the discussion away from his achievments as an artist - like now for instance.
He did incorrectly claim on a few occasions (most of the time he avoided the subject) to have been born in Auchterarder in Perthshire, where his mother came from - but there you go - we all have our little romances at times - I'll bet you go round telling people you're a thinking human being who knows something about singing.
I take it you knew him long enough to know he was a miserable git - I knew him long enough to know he wasn't - I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours.
He never claimed to be working class - he was born into a working class family and he always sided with working class causes (again -I'll show you mine....... etc).
As for him being a total wanker - I'll bow to your greater experience on that one; you obviously have an insider's knowledge of the species.
From your deafening silence on what accent to sing in - I take it you prefer the mid-Atlantic variety - well horn mah swoggle - Ah'd never have guesssed!!!

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 03:27 AM

pAUL,
    You wrote 'every freedom you have is a direct result of the Russian revolution' fair enough. There was also the small matter of keeping the Germans out of England! A matter in which Mr Maccoll dodged playing his part. Did he change his name in order to avoid arrest for desertion?

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 03:16 AM

Piers and Greg, remember that virtually EVERY freedom you have is as a direct result of the Russian revolution. There would have been no concessions to trades unionism at all but for the fear of revolution in the west, and the best you would have had now would be in a far- eastern style sweatshop. And grateful for it, at least you don't starve this week.

As for the horrors of the revolution, they weren't entirely caused by the Bolsheviks, were they? The Kerensky government was doomed from the moment they elected to continue the policies of the Czarist government, and continue the war. The Bolshevik/ Left Social Democrat alliance worked for the moment- but the exigencies of the civil war brought repression, after all, if you don't survive, there can't be any reform. That's not an excuse, it's just history.

Russia was a marginally- industrialised country, and subsequently, progressives were hoping that the economic development which Stalin promised (and delivered, at horrific cost) would bring about the circumstances in which a classically Marxist proletarian state could exist. Misguided, yes. But what better model did they have? Liberal socialism, with its history of beiing absorbed into token gestures? Anarcho-syndicalism? Mussolini's state was syndicalist. Or just let capitalism win, and hope for the best?

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 03:15 AM

"Singing in a mid atlantic accent hardly equates to changing your name to a scotch one, being a miserable git, pretending to be working class and being a total wanker"!

MacColl changed his name to a SCOTS (

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 02:56 AM

100!

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Barry Finn
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 01:16 AM

I believe that MI5 just like our FBI did & does as all nations do. Spy on their own. Those that disagree & make noise will come to their governments attention & will be watched & seen as a threat. It is usually the arts & their artists that will suffer first & foremost for when they speak through their medium they speak for their people, and their people listen. As for Ewan he spoke often & loud, no matter what your beliefs are he sang, spoke, wrote & acted on behalf of his people, working people. His heart was always with the working people.

I met Ewan & Peggy once, in the late 70's in LA at a house & was introduced to them because I had come the farthest distance to see them. Actually I was driving cross country, from Boston heading for San Francisco. They were warm, inviting & very friendly. Ewan & I talked mostly about unions. What came through mostly was his love & respect of the working class & his disdain of anyone or thing that ment to exploit or harm them. I don't know what kind of ideology that might be called but it workd for me before that, then & still does.

I love alot of great songwriters (not that there are that many greats like him), even if they write a piece of shit once & awhile.

Barry

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 08:26 PM

a scotch name...?

Glen Livet
Red Label
Johnny Walker
Talis Kerr

as for Ewan - let's leave it that some of you weren't keen on the bloke. However, some of us thought he was quite nice.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,melodeon thing
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 07:33 PM

Singing in a mid atlantic accent hardly equates to changing your name to a scotch one, being a miserable git, pretending to be working class and being a total wanker!

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: greg stephens
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 05:34 PM

As Ifor correctly points out, far more people died after the revoltion than during it. The so-called "Russian revolution" of 1917 was a small coup in St Petersburg/ Petrograd/Leningrad/St Petersburg, that toppled the semi-liberal/bourgoeois Kerensky regime(which had been vaguely voted into power by a not-excessively-democratic democratic process after the czar had been de-powered). After this Leninist(Trotsky and Stalin were also around) coup, the Bolsheviks started consolidating, and seriously started killing their opponents, sometimes with the simple bullet to the head or starving in camps, sometimes in more imaginatively amusing ways. This continued, with steadily escalating and more revolting intensity, as Trotsky's army, and then Stalin's regime, took over(with others fighting back, with matching or exceeding ferocity). Hardly surprisingly, this system is still having difficulty evolving into anything very conducive to a peaceful life for the working-class citizens of Russia, even 79 years later.
Ifor is absolutely right, the revolution was nothing. What came after was the real business. And Ewan M thought it was bloody wonderful. Most people who sit back and take a long hard look would think it was just bloody revolting.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Piers
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 05:24 PM

Ifor, what exactly has all this got to do with socialism?

Trotsky wasn't sending in troops to kill bloodthirsty reactionary anti-semitic generals who specialised in torture, massacre and rape at Kronstadt. He sent workers to kill workers who were rebelling against the bolshevik government.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: ifor
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 02:40 PM

Try reading Ten Days That Shook The World by the American writer John Reed for an eye witness account of the Revolution.
ifor

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: ifor
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 02:34 PM

came to power by coup. ??...
The Romanovs had presided over 20 million Russian war dead.Tsarism evaporated because it was rotten to the core.When the Revolution broke out Lenin was still in exile.The Russian workers had had enough of the slaughter and starvation and took to the streets with the slogans "Down With The Autocracy!,Down With The War and We Want Bread!"
The Bolsheviks echoed their volcanic discontent with the demands for an end to the war,the redistribution of land and workers control of the factories.This is what the workers wanted-and they gave the October Revolution mass support when others wanted to continue with the war and bring back the old generals who were thirsting for blood.

It is said that more people died during the making of a film by Eisenstein about the October Revolution than during the actual revolution itself.

Used military force against rebels??.....
The Red Army was created to defend the precarious revolution against a bunch of bloodthirsty reactionary anti semitic generals who specialised in torture ,massacre and rape.If they had succeeded the word fascism would have been Russian in origin. Add into the mix the dozen or so western imperial armies and expeditionary forces and you can see why the Revolution needed to defend itself.Trotsky who led the Red Army had no military training and had spent much of the war years living in the slums of New York's Lower East Side.He was a writer,journalist and political agitator and yet his Red Army defeated all that could be thrown against it...Ifor

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 01:40 PM

not like that nowadays eh - folksingers getting mbe's!

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Piers
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 01:29 PM

He worked for years to build the party which came to power by coup, used military force against rebels and established a secret police force - he was no socialist.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: ifor
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 01:01 PM

Piers
Lenin was no elitist.He worked for years to build the party whether in factory branches or in towns and cities.And who were the members?They were the most determined class conscious socialists and militants around.And it was not an easy thing to be in a czarist Russia with secret agents everywhere and a population which often appeared cowed after the failure of the 1905 revolutionary uprising.
ifor

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,G.p
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 12:47 PM

Interesting thread, but I haven't got time to read it all at the moment.

Two thoughts; has anybody ever noticed how many people. Do try to pretend they are Scottish or Irish ? I think it's flattering .( In our family we say : many were called, few were chosen!) I'll tell you what though, true Scots ( like me ) have got an accent that leaves no doubt as to where you are from.

I would find it interesting to see which other "folkies" were being watched. I know that Hamish Imlach was under surveillance, yet amongst the folkies he was almost a Tory !

Is there any way of finding out, I wonder ? My interest is personal; we grew up firmly believing that our dad ( a folk singer ) was being watched, and the phone was tapped. He was great, though ! If I was in MI5 I would have watched him too !

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,J C
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 06:23 AM

PPS
By the way – Lenin didn't invent the gulags – they were well established in Tolstoy's time in the 19th century when he wrote Resurrection.
Trotsky was exiled to one in 1898 and escaped in 1902

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Obie
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 05:01 AM

The simple truth is that "power corrupts"!
Many a good project has been derailed because the leaders thirsted for wealth and power at the expense of those that they were entrusted to fairly represent.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Piers
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 04:38 AM

Ifor, perhaps Lenin did have good intentions but they were betrayed by his elitism. He was clearly wrong to say that "the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness", you and I are living proof of that. The principle of leadership is opposed to the socialist principle of actual democracy. There can be no leaders and followers in socialism.

Lenin's idea that "socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly" is clearly flawed and history proved it so.

The only way we are going to get socialism/communism (common ownership, direct democracy and free access) is by making socialists. The SPGB may be small but for over a hundred years we have only been solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism and have done so by producing journals, cds, dvds, pamphlets, books, giving talks, standing in elections, holding meetings, debates and discussions. Other so-called socialist parties have presented a programme of policies to patch up capitalism, supported the murder of workers, collaborated with islamofascists, obscurantists and all kinds of capitalist parties, lied, deceived and done more to discredit socialism than advance it.

State capitalism and labour parties and are all dead and good riddance. Building socialism can now proceed with less hinderence from those labouring (pun intended) under the fallacy that capitalism can somehow work in their interests with a few tweaks here and there.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 04:24 AM

I don't find it takes any great leap of the imagination to admire part of someone's life, but not others. My deep admiration's of MacColl's achievements are something I have made very clear throughout a working life in the theatre, directly inspired by McColl's and Littlewood's extraordinary work. But that does not tempt me to act as any kind of apologist for the man's politics. (Greg Stephens)

On the one hand you have those who will credit a person for all of his contribution to our knowledge and enjoyment of traditional song. On the other there are those who continue to judge him on the basis of what he believed more than half a century ago and will use this to denigrate his work. (J C)

But still the leap's too great for some.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,J C
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 04:06 AM

PS
Melodeon King,
I notice from another thread that you recommend singing the songs of Bob Dylan - a assume you are addressing this only to Americans.
Do you sing Dylan songs - are you an American - we need to know!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,J C
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 04:01 AM

Melodeon King - the word is Scots - if you don't like Scotch, drink brandy (don't understand the plastic - dead bit, perhaps you might like to try harder and describe it!!!!). Do you, for instance, find those who pretend to be American when they sing just as hateful?
(Jeeze - I find that strange Mid-Atlantic accent more than a little off-putting too!)
There is one name left out of all this of course - Bert lloyd. Bert's politics were similar to MacColl's and would be described as Stalinist, though he was far less open than Ewan was about his beliefs. He was (I'm pretty sure) chairman of the Anglo-Albaninan Friendship Society and a regular visitor to Central and Eastern European countries such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Rumania. His activities would have guaranteed him a file in the MI5 archives. I await with interest to see if the publicising of that file generates the same degree of venom as this one.
The early musical choices of Topic Records would almost certainly have earned themselves a place in the shelves - Soviet Airmen's Song, Song of Poland, Chi Li, Song of The Partisan, Kevin Barry (et al) - even down to the pro IRA LP 'Easter Week And After' (Dominic Behan never pretended which side he was on).
I never cease to be amazed how disputes such as this one sort out the pygmies from the giants. On the one hand you have those who will credit a person for all of his contribution to our knowledge and enjoyment of traditional song. On the other there are those who continue to judge him on the basis of what he believed more than half a century ago and will use this to denigrate his work.
I have to say that I find this rush to join the Stella Rimmington School of Grave-Dancing more than a little distasteful.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 03:55 AM

Dear GUEST - let me guess, you don't hate MacColl and his memory because of his politics or his Scottishness. You really hate him because he didn't endorse your particular musical tastes. Let me push my neck out a bit further and speculate that you belong to the 'anything goes' school of 'folk music' - a school whose basic project is to colonise folk with rock music. Am I getting close?

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 11:31 PM

Words cannot describe how much I hate that plastic scotch dead thing.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 11:10 PM

Under capitalism, people exploit people.

With communism, it's just the reverse.

MacColl was a fine singer who did a mountain of good work. I am glad I got to hear him and Peggy that one time in Chicago -- 1970.

Art

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: melodeon king
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 10:11 PM

I agree

Anybody who pretends to be scotch is a plonker.

I hate people who force their crap politics on you.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: woodsie
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 10:04 PM

The man was a plonker.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 07:07 PM

The long and short of it is that a lot of people got very cynical about what their Lords and Masters told them about communism. And by and large the toffs were the folk imparting the information, plus we'd had Orwell's great works urging us to view propaganda urging us to hate the enemy with circumspection.

A hell of a lot of my parents' generation are still like that. Not an entirely bad thing, given the monolithic nature of the Murdoch empire and the politicians whom he has in his pockets like so much loose change.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: Goose Gander
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 06:37 PM

ifor-

Under Lenin's adminstration, a system of prison camps for political prisoners was set up in the Soviet Union. Under Stalin, these camps became the Gulags. To the extent that he was the architect of the camp system, Lenin bears direct responsibility for the millions of deaths that followed in the 1930s.

The whole idea of the 'vanguard party' was that the slavs were too stupid to know what was good for them, so the revolution would have to instigated by intellectuals. If that's not contempt, I don't know what is.

Subject: RE: MI5 monitored Ewan MacColl
From: ifor
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 06:17 PM

Reply to Piers
You have attacked Lenin using the website of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.Well they would say that wouldn't they!!

It is a miniscule little sect that claims to be socialist but has done zilch since its foundation over a hundred years ago.

The claim that Lenin had contempt for the workers is also absurd.
For much of his life he lived on the run in contact with workers,seeking their support and their advice.

In power he pulled the new soviet state out of the war and helped to shorten it.I think that is the opposite of contempt.He hated war,injustice and capitalism which in his day was dripping from head to foot in blood [literally].
Lenin gets a bad press from the bosses,the warmongers and the bigots...and I think it was because he was their implacable enemy.

Lenin's Soviet Russia was attacked on all sides by foreign enemies and vicious right wing   czarist armies.It was starved and surrounded and terrible things happened...but perhaps you could tell me why David Lloyd George ordered the British army and navy to invade Russia in 1918...Hadn't he had enough of slaughter??By the way the 18 year old Nye Bevan stood up to and faced down a group of ex servicemen who supported the British attack on Russia.
Rather than attack Lenin we should be looking at the actions of the Labour type parties in western Europe who would not come to the aid of the beleagured revolution ...and Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were among the few honourable exceptions!!
Yes that Lenin was on the side of the workers!
ifor