Hallo Comrades, The taunts of "Go Back to Russia" to which I was subjected at street-corner meetings 50-years or so ago never hit home because I never had any desire to go to the Soviet Union and, indeed, felt sure I would not survive there very well.... [but I was prepared to argue its case to the end] - but, of course, that is just as beside the point as so much of current discussion of countries other than our own.
I am English, in the tradition of Oliver Cromwell and John Milton, of Robert Kett and John Ball, indeed of the Pilgrim Fathers of Mayflower relown, and of, in later years of Tom Paine, William Cobbett, William Morris as well as Karl Marx, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, AND Willie Gallacher, Harry Pollitt, and so many more. I have been involved in earlier campaigns for Colonial Freedom as well as many peace campaigns - against the war in Korea, the war in VietNam as well as those more recent ones concerned with Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and now Iraq - and it was not my fault that my volunteering for the Armoured Corps in the fight against Hitler just gave me a view of Italy and EGYPT after WWII - I was evidently just too young. But nevertheless I learnt a lot - even if it was just the kids in Ismailia shouting at me (an English officer) "Go Home Inglesi Bastard" in 1947..... [But in a visit in 1978 to lecture at Ein Shams University in Cairo I was intensely moved when some Egyptian soldiers accosted me with the question "Are you American?" and on the reply "No, English" they gripped my hand and filled it with a lot of baked sunflower seeds - having no Arabic I could not converse, but that action said a great deal]. Of course, many of the names I list above, like all of us, had to some extent "feet of clay" - but we live in their tradition and it is futile to dwell on past disputes UNLESS they really have lessons for us today... The fight today is PRIMARILY against Bush and Blair - and I have seen the latest US internet slogan "Drop BUSH not BOMBS". This gives fantastic joy to an old revolutionary like me - DEVELOP it COMRADES !! Comradely greetings, Paddy NFHS Member #5594 Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://apling.freeservers.com/index.htm or http://www.e.c.apling.btinternet.co.uk > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of > Paddy Apling > Sent: 05 February 2003 18:22 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: [L-I] Fw: From the Iraqi Communist Party (with comments > from AH) _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
