1

Red Star Over London Communist Conquest Plans for England

By Nevin Gussack
The Soviets sought to subjugate Great Britain through either a takeover by the Left in the
Labor Party, in alliance with Communist political forces or an outright invasion by Soviet and
Warsaw Pact forces. It has been documented that Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion forces would
have been assisted by native British Leftists and even possibly elements of the peace movement.
The Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion was to be preceded by acts of sabotage and labor/political
unrest, which were components of the standard Moscow strategy before it attacks a
noncommunist state.
Defecting Czechoslovak Major General and top Warsaw Pact planner Jan Sejna revealed
the depth and specifics of the Soviet strategy towards Great Britain: The main objective of the
Soviet Strategic Plan as a whole was to isolate and encircle Europe, which would hit the U.K.
hardest because of its dependence on foreign trade. Britain would also suffer from any
exploitation of world market forces through the control of oil and supplies of raw materials.
Vladimir Koucky, Secretary of the Central Committee with responsibility for foreign policy,
informed me at a gathering of Political Commissars in 1967 that the Russians had advised the
British Communist Party to establish industrial schools in key industries for its members and
sympathizers. They also asked it to nominate suitable candidates for trade union courses in
Czechoslovakia. International companies, especially those under American ownership such as
Ford and Chrysler, appeared in the Plan as targets for industrial militancy and agitation. The
idea was to force out management and have workers committees take over their factories. By
the end of the 1970s, when Britains economic situation was expected to be already fairly bleak,
the Soviet Union was prepared to provide employment for those factories by offering joint
enterprises.1
General Sejna revealed that the Soviets and their bloc partners viewed the United
Kingdom (UK-Great Britain) as a declining power. The Soviets predicted in the Strategic Plan of
1967 that the UK would suffer irreparable economic and social decay that would be exploited by
communist agents by 1977. The Soviets and their British minions would accelerate moral and
spiritual decline; erode the British military and police; and empower what the Plan referred to as
the second power. The second power consisted of the industrial trade unions, the Communist
Party of Great Britain, and the leftwing of the Labor Party. The second power would usurp the
first power which consisted of the government and Parliament. The Soviets accorded
preference to the unions and the leftwing of the Labor Party. In the Strategic Plan, these leftist
forces would then force the government to create workers councils and press for an all-Europe
trade union organization modeled on the existing World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU).
By the early 1980s, the Strategic Plan foresaw that the second power would be firmly in the
saddle of governmental power in London. Thus, the UK would become communist.2
Other industrial and military targets would be destroyed by the special forces of the
communists. A Soviet occupation force and/or a progressive British government would then
settle accounts with the bourgeois leaders. In the spring of 1964, KGB Chairman Aleksandr
1

Sejna, Jan. We Will Bury You Accessed From:

http://www.spiritoftruth.org/We_Will_Bury_You.pdf
2
Lord Chalfont. How Britains Economic Difficulties Help the Soviet Grand Strategy Times
(London) September 1, 1975

Shelepin gave Czech Communist leader Antonin Novotny a list of potentially hostile British
leaders in business, politics, and the police/army. The list consisted of leaders of most major
political parties. Furthermore, the list had a section which broke down the enemies in the
Conservative Party to the constituency level. The lists were compiled by the KGB and the British
Communist Party. They were replete with biographical notes and a recommendation of judicial
action. These unfortunate British VIPs would either be detained or executed without trial. The
most prominent leaders, such as Edward Heath, Sir Alex Douglas-Home, and Harold Wilson
were to undergo show trials before their execution.3
According to Czech foreign intelligence (HSR) defector Frantisek August, the Soviet
KGB advisers in the HSRs British Section ordered the preparation of a list of
counterintelligence and intelligence facilities to be secured during a Warsaw Pact invasion of
Britain. Lists of hostile persons, such as Members of Parliament (MPs) and journalists, were also
to be compiled for immediate arrest upon an occupation of the UK. Soviet advisers to the Czechs
estimated that a Soviet invasion force would reach the English Channel in 3 to 5 days.4
By the 1970s, the British economy and military posture deteriorated so badly that London
quietly expressed grave concerns about the survival of the United Kingdom. Top secret
conversations held in 1978 between Prime Minister James Callaghan and his Defense Secretary,
Fred Mulley, noted that Britain could not withstand a Soviet attack. The document recounting the
conversations noted that Air defences would be outweighed because aircraft would be
outnumbered and stocks of air defence munitions would sustain operations for only two or three
daysThe Army would be able to counter the currently assessed Soviet land threat during the
initial stages of war but, lacking supporting arms and logistic support, it would be inadequate to
deal with any significant threatIn the case of nuclear attack by ballistic missiles there would
be no defensive capability, save the indirect defence of our nuclear forcesIn the air, the UK
would be forced to confront an estimated 200 Soviet bombers with 98 fighters, resulting in
destruction to the UK many times worse than that delivered by the German Luftwaffe.
Callaghan wrote that Heaven help us if there is a war!5
In the event of a Soviet attack on Britain, Moscow and its allies were expected to conduct
sabotage operations to paralyze a counter-response to the aggression. General Sejna recalled that
the Czech Minister of Interior Rudolf Barak observed that the easiest way to ship explosives to
Britain was through India, since ships from the British Commonwealth were less vigorously
searched than ships from a communist country. In the event of war, Sejna also noted that the
Czechs urged the poisoning of the British water supply system especially in the districts
populated by the bourgeoisie.6
General Jan Sejna reported that strategic targets in Britain, such as the London subways
and water supply, were to be sabotaged. Interestingly, the British Parliament Buildings were to

Sejna, Jan. We Will Bury You Accessed From:

http://www.spiritoftruth.org/We_Will_Bury_You.pdf
4
Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate. Communist Bloc Intelligence Activities in
the United States (Government Printing Office 1976) page 68.
5
Bell, Dan. 1970s UK Defenceless Against Soviets BBC News December 30, 2008 Accessed
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/7795497.stm
6
Raanan, Uri. Hydra of Carnage (Lexington Books 1986) page 577.

be spared the effects of Soviet bombing runs. According to Sejna, the USSR reasoned that we
could make it inoperative through other means.7
There was also evidence which pointed to Spetsnaz infiltration of the Greenham Common
anti-nuclear groups. Yossef Bodansky alleged: The Soviet Union has maintained a secret
detachment of female Spetsnaz special forces in the area of Britains Greenham Common Air
Base since December 1983.Soviet defectors have disclosed that three to six trained agents, from
Warsaw Pact and West European countries, including the UK infiltrated womens protest groups
at Greenham Common and were present at all times. His report continued to say that There
has been a regular rotation of agents to enable a large number to gain field experience. The
women agents are trained in camps situated in the Rovno-Lvov-Lutsk area of the Carpathian
and the Ural and Volga military districts. They contain mock-ups of elements of the Greenham
Common camp like the heavily defended inner defence zone. There the women are trained to
attack the missile sites under war or surprise conditions in a pre-emptive strike. They will act as
beacons for other Spetsnaz and airborne troops who would be used to attack the missiles in
war. These Spetsnaz women receive emergency cash via dead drop. when needed or they
travel abroad to meet their paymasters. The initial purpose is to incite protesters to mount
protests and demonstrations to test the defending forces reaction times and to monitor security
arrangements and timings of cruise missile convoys leaving Greenham Common.8
Clarke believed that after a Soviet nuclear attack on Britain, Moscows forces would
commence occupation duties in a 9-12 month period when British resistance would be minimal
and radiation levels lower. Clarke also noted that remaining British capital assets would be
stripped and removed to augment the Soviet war effort or to assist in Soviet reconstruction.
Clarke felt that if the removal of British industry proved impossible or too costly, then the
remaining British industries would be harnessed to benefit the Soviet economy similar to the
German industries taken over by the Soviets in 1945 and retained in Soviet-occupied German
territory. Clarke observed that the Soviets may impose direct rule over the UK. Clarke also
expected that Russian would become the official language in the UK alongside English.
Education would be completely remodeled on Soviet lines.9
A more sinister aspect of the Soviet subversion of the West (including Britain) included
the planting of sleeper agents within politics and the economy by Moscow. These sleeper agents
were trained by the Soviets and completely integrated themselves in British society. According
to the former high level Czechoslovak Communist official J Bernard Hutton, Stalin announced in
March 1948 the creation of a secret cadre of communist sleeper agents in the West to a meeting
of the top level CPSU officials in the Politburo: Comrades, it is imperative that we create an
entirely new type of fighting force. It will operate first in the most advanced capitalist countries,
and later in other countries. This fighting force will consist of devoted and trained comrades who
will have no connection with the Communist Party whatsoever. These comrades will operate
undercover, as do our intelligence officers and spies who are working abroad. This special force
will control networks of other undercover comrades, who will also have no outward connection
with the Communist Party of their country ... The objective of this fighting force is to speed up
the development of revolutionary situations and spread awareness of how unrest, public
Parliament to be Spared if Russians Invade London Times August 11, 1971
RAF Greenham Common The 1980's Accessed From:
http://www.rafregiment.net/greenham%20common.htm
9
Clarke, Magnus.The Nuclear Destruction of Britain (Croom Helm, 1982) pages 237 and 251.
7
8

disturbance, disorders and industrial dissatisfaction can bring about a breakdown of the
capitalist system. This will lead to the revolutionary overthrow of governments, and the
establishment of Soviet states. In another secret meeting in April, 1948, Stalin said: The way
to assure success is for us to create not one, but two undercover subverter networks. They will
operate simultaneously in all the countries of the capitalist world. The undercover subverters of
the first network will operate quite independently of the second ... In each capitalistic country
one undercover subverter network will be composed of tried and trusted communists who are
nationals of that country. Their activities will be directed by Comrade Suslov who will be
responsible to the Politburo. This network of undercover subverters will comprise of men and
women of ability and intelligence, especially selected for these qualities. As soon as they
undertake the undercover subverter work, they will sever all contact with the Communist
Party- and dedicate themselves to working for the Party by indirect methods. They will be
called upon to join and operate within organizations and societies that are bourgeois and
opposed to communism and the Soviet Union. They will engage in undercover subverter
activities within these organizations and societies on behalf of the Communist Party. It will be
necessary for them to conceal their previous and present connection with the Communist
Party. They will create the impression they are opposed to the ideology of communism ... The
second network of undercover subverters will consist of operators of Soviet nationality. These
comrades will be under direct orders from our Secret Service Headquarters (KGB). A new
department of Secret Service Headquarters will be created forthwith, to be named Special
Division for Subversion. The directors of this Special Division will select and train recruits of
Soviet nationality for this professional undercover master-subverters network, in the same way
that they select and train Soviet comrades for work abroad as Secret Service Network
Operators...
The network of secret agents of the Special Division of Subversion was known as the
Institute 631s Subversive Cadres. In late 1948 the Special Division of Subversion and Institute
631 sent a coded directive to the world's Communist Party leaders stating: The leaders of all
Communist Parties must select completely trustworthy comrades who will take up undercover
subverters work outside the Communist Party. Their activity will be revolutionary and
subversive. It is essential that these chosen comrades sever all connections with the Party. It is
desirable that they become regarded as antagonistic to the Party, and in conflict with its
policy.10 In 1948, training centers for the subverters were established in Britain (Purley, Surrey,
Edgbaston, Birmingham, Maidstone, Cardiff, and Glasgow), United States (Chicago, New York,
Boston, and Detroit), France (Paris, Marseilles), West Germany (Munich), Italy (Palermo,
Genoa, Naples, Rome, Milan, and Torino), and Japan (Tokyo). Defector Hutton noted that many
of these specially trained communists proclaimed themselves anti-communists and anti-Soviet,
joined and voted for conservative candidates, and used Soviet funds to establish businesses and
become employers. Undercover orders to subverters in Britain urged greater penetration of the
Church and the Conservative Party, along with the trade unions and the Labor Party. Hutton
noted that The recruits attending these secret undercover subverter centres were hard-core
communists, men and women who were prepared to dedicate their lives to the cause. They
abandoned their relatives, friends and the environment in which they were known, and travelled
hundreds of miles to other parts of the country to begin life over again. But a new type of life.
The subverters cultivated new circles of friends and acquaintances wherein they proclaimed
10

Hutton, J. Bernard. The Subverters of Liberty (W.H. Allen 1972) page 18.

themselves anti-communist and anti-Soviet. Many subverters chose the 'cover' of being
respectable business people. With the funds provided by Moscow they were able to set up in
business and become employers. They voted for the Conservative Party, supported the local
church, took a leading part in charity activities and in every possible way disguised their true
loyalty to the Communist Party and the Kremlin. Institute 631 issued its basic orders to
undercover subverters in the form of the following directive to the British network leaders: 2.
Comrades whose membership of the Communist Party is secret must infiltrate every field of
Britain's social life and activities. 3. It is recommended that women members infiltrate the
Churches and other religious organisations. The scope for undercover activity in these fields is
extensive. 4. Once comrades have infiltrated into the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party,
sports organisations and other social institutions, their position must be consolidated. This is
best done by other, known, Communist Party members accusing them of being anti-Communist
and opposed to the interests of the working class. Institute 631 sent another directive in code to
London in the General Elections in the 1960s stating: The British elections show strong support
for the Conservative Party. Our undercover subverters must infiltrate much deeper into the
Conservative Party and set up subversive cells.11
Export minded British business interests also promoted trade with the Soviet Union and
their allies throughout much of the Cold War. They actively lobbied Conservative, Liberal, and
Labor Party MPs to loosen trade restrictions on the communist bloc. British businessman Rudi
Sternberg recruited some Conservative MPs to work for his company. He worked with these
Conservatives to organize biennial visits to East Germany in order to promote free trade between
London and East Berlin. Labor and Conservative MPs such as Ian Mikardo, Burnaby Drayson,
Terence Clarke, and Lord Boothby supported and lobbied for freer trade with East Germany.
Sternberg rode around Leipzig in a Rolls Royce which flew a Union Jack flag. Deacon noted that
Sternberg manipulated or coaxed Conservative MPs as easily as left wing Laborites, using a
mixture of flattery and bonhomie and the promise of peaceful co-existence with profits and
tradeThe Foreign Office and Security Services were seriously worried by some of Rudi
Sternberg activities which seemed to go beyond simply establishing trade links with a regime not
then recognized in Whitehall.12
The East Germans counted on the support of three factions in Parliament: Conservative
MPs who had financial interests in trade with East Germany; Labor MPs who had trade interests;
and leftwing Labor MPs who supported the East Germans for ideological reasons. Time,
expense, and care were spent on creating a bloc of MPs which supported East Germany out of
commercial considerations. By the mid-1960s, this lobby included Conservative MPs such as
Burnaby Drayson and Brig. Terence Clark. In 1965, the All-Party British-GDR Parliamentary
Group was formed and it included Conservative and Liberal Party MPs. MP Ian Mikardo noted
we dont recognize East Germany but neither do the West Germans. Yet they do trade whilst
putting their allies under the utmost pressure not to recognize the GDR.13
In the fall of 1953, Conservative MP Burnaby Drayson inked the first major trade
agreement worth 3 million pounds. He was a director of Dominion Export Ltd. Dominion Export
was a major player in the early East German-British trade. Drayson was revealed to be a Stasi
contact. In 1954, Conservative Minister of Trade Peter Thorneycroft supported increased trade
11

Hutton, J. Bernard. The Subverters of Liberty (W.H. Allen 1972) pages 19-25.
Deacon, Richard. The British Connection (Hamilton, 1979) pages 236-239.
13
Glees, Anthony. The Stasi Files (Free Press 2004) pages 70-78.
12

with East Germany. LaPorte noted The relative success of the GDRs lobby was reflected in the
doubling of British exports to the GDR between 1955 and 1958.14 In 1956, the Chairman of the
Conservative Party foreign policy committee Alexander Montagu Viscount Hinchingbrooke
called for the full recognition of the GDR. MPs even profited from such trade with East
Germany, with British companies paying commissions up to 2.5% to the MPs.15
By the late 1960s, the termination of the embargo on East Germany was promoted not
only by left-wing Labor MPs, but also Conservatives MPs such as Drayson and Liberal Party
leader Clement Davies. Davies returned from the 1958 Leipzig Fair and called for the British to
normalize all trade with East Germany. In 1969, the Financial Times added its voice to the
growing chorus of British voices urging the recognition of East Germany on the economic
grounds for expanded British exports.16
At the Liberal Party Conference of 1961, a resolution was passed which favored
recognition of East Germany in exchange for Soviet assurances for a free West Berlin. The West
German FDP delegation walked out of the Liberal Party conference as a result. In 1962, David
Steel of the Liberal Party supported recognition of East Germany as an exercise of realpolitik:
The DDR is a fact and we must make politics with facts and not with ghosts. Liberal Party
leader Jo Grimond praised aspects of the East German economy and culture, even though he
conceded that the planned economy was not a success. Other Liberal MPs supported recognition
and contacts with East Germany. They included Eric Burden, Eric Lubbock, and David Steel.
The puppet East German party, the LPPD, made overtures to the Liberal Party. It is important to
note that the Liberals were not ideologically sympathetic or enamored by communism in East
Germany. 17
By the early 1970s, the normalization process with East Germany was complete. Twoway trade experienced an uptick. The East Germans also received a major base of operations in
London to conduct influence operations. The first official East German Embassy in Britain was
headed by Ambassador Karl Heinz Kern who made contacts from Conservatives to the
Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). He found Conservatives easier to work worth,
despite their ideological anti-communism. They were interested in promoting business and had
concerns about a re-united Germany.18
Arguably, the Thatcher era of free market neo-liberalism failed to fully arrest the
decline of the British industrial base, which is a vital sector in any effort to promote a strong
defense posture. Thatcherite economic policies stemmed from the pro-free trade, classical liberal
tradition of Prime Minister Gladstone, Friedrich von Hayek, and Dr. Milton Friedman. Thatcher
underwent a conversion from the economic nationalist old-school Tory position to that of
classical liberal globalism. As a Conservative John Miller wrote: She stressed that Imperial
Preference (free trade within the Empire, and tariffs outside it) was still the cornerstone of
Conservatism.19 According to Skrabec, Thatcher was converted to classical liberal globalism
14

LaPorte, Norman. Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR 1949-1990 (Berghahn Books, 2010)
page 104.
15
Ibid, page 110.
16
Ibid, page 106.
17
Ibid, pages 153-156.
18
Ibid, page 105.
19
Charles Moore Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands (Knopf Doubleday
Publishing Group, 2013)

during the 1976 meeting of the free market/free trade Mont Pelerin Society. Libertarian (classical
liberal) economists and philosophers such as Dr. Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek became
regular visitors to the Prime Ministers residence on 10 Downing Street.20 This conversion was
apparent in Thatchers rhetoric on trade. For example, she observed that Countries trade with
each other - or to be more precise people buy and sell from each other across frontiers-because
that is the way to advance their interests. We do not need to beg people to trade with us-as long
as we have something that people want, of a quality they expect and at a price they are prepared
to pay. Thatcher also echoed Dr. Milton Friedman when she stated Whether manufactured by
black, white, brown or yellow hands, a widget remains a widget-and it will be bought anywhere
if the price and quality are right. The market is a more powerful and more reliable liberating
force than government can ever be.21 However, many of Britains trade partners did not
practice free market trade practices. The reality of world trade rested on the interplay of socialist,
communist, and state capitalist governments using global commerce for the advancement of
ideological or strategic-economic interests. Thatchers viewpoint was stuck in a 19th Century
British Liberal utopian worldview which viewed the world as it ought to be, as opposed to how it
was. Furthermore, a blindness to the sources of imports conditioned Thatcher to accept trade in
raw materials and some manufactured goods from the communist world.
Thatchers monetarist policies allowed the expansion of the financial services industries
in the City of London, while the mining and industrial base declined. The Thatcher governments
representatives praised this transition from an industrial to a service and finance-oriented
economy. The dangers of deindustrialization and chronic trade deficits were ignored or belittled.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson noted that the chronic British trade deficits of
the 1980s were simply noise in the system. In fact, Britain retained trade deficits on a
consistent basis since 1983.22 Lawson noted before the House of Lords that there is no
adamantine law that says we have to produce as much in the way of manufactures as we
consume. If it does turn out that we are relatively more efficient in world terms at providing
services than at producing goods then our national interest lies in a surplus of services and a
deficit on goods.23 Thatchers economic advisor Terrence Burns commented in 1991: if we
cant make money by manufacturing things, wed better think of something else to do.24
Such neo-liberal policies compromised Britains capability to manufacture and extract
materials crucial for Britains defense-related industries. Thatchers policies did face opposition
from the socialistic Labor Party, as to be expected. However, elements of the Conservative Party
also viewed Thatchers neo-liberal economic policies with great concern and even skepticism.
Lord Weinstock logically stated in 1985 that: What will the service industries be servicing when
there is no hardware, no wealth is actually being produced? We will be, probably, servicing the
product of wealth by otherswe will become a curiosity. I dont think that is what Britain is

20

Quentin R. Skrabec Jr. The Fall of an American Rome: De-Industrialization of the American
Dream (Algora Publishing, Mar 1, 2014) page 18.
21
The Best Quotes Accessed From: http://margaretthatcher.tv/The_Best_Quotes.html
22
Elliot, Larry and Atkinson, Dan. Going South: Why Britain will have a Third World Economy
by 2014 (Palgrave Macmillan 2012) pages 295 and 191.
23
Lucas, Michael. Understanding Business: Environments (Routledge, 2005) page 36.
24
How to manufacture an economic revival The Guardian June 30, 2011 Accessed From:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/jun/30/manufacture-an-economic-revival

about. I think that is rubbish.25 The Conservative MP Sir Fred Catherwood noted in a speech to
the Wolverhampton Chamber of Commerce that to contemplate deindustrialization is to face
eventual ruinwe must have a realistic and specific programme for economic recovery; such a
programme is at hand, evolved around and within the European Commission.26 Jeffrey
Simpson observed that: what a price the country has paid. Since she (Thatcher) took office,
more than a million jobs have been lost in manufacturing. Put another way, that means one in
seven people employed two years ago in manufacturing no longer has a job. Manufacturing
output has declined by 17 per cent. In short, the deindustrialization of Britain has not just
proceeded apace, it has quickened to a gallop.27 Edward Heath was concerned that Thatchers
deindustrialization policies would push the workers further to the Left: The great danger is if
people leave us and go to the SDP then they may very well put a Labor government in power. We
will lose our nuclear deterrent, we are taken out of NATO, we are taken out of the Common
Market and more private enterprise is nationalized. That is not what anybody in this conference
hall wants.28 Such neo-liberal policies paved the way for Great Britain for Soviet/Russian
domination through the destruction of Londons arsenal of democracy which would have
supplied the needs of the Royal Armed Forces.
Britains deindustrialization and commitment to free market fundamentalism also
affected its scientific R&D capabilities. Such a decline would in turn negatively impact defenserelated innovations. In 1987, the House of Lords Selected Committee on Science and
Technology concluded that Britains scientific R&D capabilities worsened since 1981. It
concluded further that in some areas it has even become worse. It traced such scientific
decline to a brain drain and a lack of sufficient support for a thriving manufacturing base. The
House of Lords also concluded that the Thatcher governments attitude towards trade and
manufacturing needed to change-and change radically-if we are to avoid a major social and
economic crisis in our nations affairs.29
Meanwhile, the Soviets covertly approached British Conservatives regarding political and
economic issues. According declassified Soviet files, the head of the pro-Thatcher Center for
Policy Studies Sir Alfred Sherman was reported to have criticized British government social
spending to the London Pravda correspondent Arkady Maslennikov in January 1984. Sherman
noted that the government was going on spending money on the parasitic state sector and
branches of the economy which have outlived their time. Sherman noted to his Soviet contacts
that the government should be more decisive in cutting funds to the civil service, the bloated
and inefficient educational system, and the collapsing National Health Service. Sherman noted
that he favored massive cuts in pensions and unemployment benefits. The Soviets then asked
whether this would provoke a social explosion and Sherman noted that The unemployed and the
25

Datta, Madhusudan. The Significance and Growth of the Tertiary Sector (Northern Book
Centre 2001) page 2.
26
Fleet, Kenneth. Finance and Industry: Community Solution for Thatchers Second Phase:
Focus on Conservative Policy on Eve of Party Conference The Times (London)October 5, 1985
27
Simpson, Jeffrey. Iron Ladys Cure is Deadly in Short Run The Globe and Mail July 14,
1981
28
Johnson, Maureen. Heath Attacks Thatchers Policies The Associated Press October 14,
1981
29
Williams, Roger. The Decline of the British Science Empire Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists October 1987

lumpen never have been a revolutionary force. If the unemployed get lower benefits, they will be
quicker to start looking for work, and they won't turn to political trouble-making. As for the
lumpen, coloured people and the Irish, let's face it, the only way to hold them in check is to have
enough well armed and properly trained police. In order to heighten social tensions and
provoke the revolution, the Soviets would desire to groom and support the political ambitions of
someone like Sherman, who believed in a harmful slash and burn neo-liberalism. The Soviets
and their British Communist and leftist allies could then use Shermans opinions and organize
revolutionary actions among the disaffected colored, lumpen-proletarian, and Irish populations.
According to the Soviet files, the KGB wanted to determine whether there was any Liberal or
Conservative Party MPs which supported an independent British foreign policy. L. A. Parshin,
the Counselor at the Soviet Embassy, talked with David Steel at a Soviet reception. The Soviet
file regarding this conversation noted that D. Steel critically distanced himself from statements
by the US deputy secretary of state, L. Eagleburger, about an alleged lack of solidarity by west
European countries. The USA, he said, cannot automatically rely on Western European
solidarity. Sherman was recorded as stating to Maslennikov that the Thatcher government has
no foreign policy. It only reacts to events. Another file noted that the Soviet Ambassador to
Britain, Viktor Popov, talked with two Conservative Party MPs, Sir Anthony Kershaw and
Robert Harvey, at the Soviet Embassy in London on June 6, 1984. Sir Anthony was the
Chairman of the Commons All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs who believed
Britain could play a more decisive role in solving East-West problems. The two Conservative
MPs believed in closer cooperation with the Soviet Union. The two MPs told Ambassador Popov
that Great Britain within NATO conducts a foreign policy which is autonomous and
independent of the United States.30
While British Prime Margaret Thatcher was ideologically a strong anti-communist, she
fell into the trap of the libertarian/internationalist belief in the linkage of free trade with greater
freedoms and lessened aggression by the communist world. She also followed the American
example of implementing the policy of differentiation in relations with the Soviet bloc. Larres
and Meehan wrote that Prime Minister Thatcher began differentiating between Eastern Bloc
countries which were loyal followers of Moscow like East Berlin and more independent and
allegedly more liberal countries like Romania under its dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.31
In 1980, the Soviet press reported discontent amongst British businessmen with
Thatchers economic measures. It appeared that the Soviets sought to use the British business
community to pressure Thatcher to increase free trade with the USSR and the Bloc countries.
This Soviet broadcast noted that: The economic policies of the Tory Cabinet have come under
strong criticism of the business circles. Such criticism has been voiced by the Chamber of
Commerce and by the countrys leading employers organization, the Confederation of British
Industries. The Thatcher Governments economic policy and its devastating effects came under
especially strong criticism at the annual conference of the Confederation of British
Industries32 Thatcher was reportedly pressured by the big business lobby to reinstate direct
trade talks with the Soviets in 1981. Courtaulds, ICI, Rolls Royce, and Davey International were
Steele, Jonathan. Thatcherite Footprints in the Archives The Guardian February 6, 1992
page 9.
31
Larres, Klaus and Meehan, Elizabeth. Uneasy Allies (Oxford University Press 2000) page 96.
32
Business Circles Discontent with Tory Policy BBC Summary of World Broadcasts
November 15, 1980
30

10

among the companies which lobbied Thatcher to increase trade with the USSR. The
governments position was to continue mutually advantageous trade with the Soviets, while
British business wanted to export goods related to the Soviets Five Year Plan.33 In 1980,
Imperial Chemical Industries signed a trade pact with the USSR for the supply of chemicals. 34
Other British officials upheld the continuation of trade with the Soviets. Lord Carrington noted
after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that commercially justified trade should not be
subjected to any sanctions.35
Four British subsidiaries of American corporations were encouraged by the Thatcher
government to violate the Reagan Administrations embargo on gas pipeline materials for the
Soviet Union.36 The British firm John Brown Engineering, shipped three giant turbines aboard
the Soviet freighter Stakhanovets Yermolenko in 1982. Prime Minister Thatcher unequivocally
stated her opposition to the American sanctions against the export of pipeline equipment to the
Soviet Union: Naturally we feel particularly deeply wounded by a friend. Secretary of State
George Shultz, Treasury Secretary Donald Regan, and Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldridge
urged President Reagan to soften the sanctions against the export of pipeline equipment from
American companies and their overseas subsidiaries.37
Rather than continuing domestic extraction of coal, Thatcher chose to break the
communist-dominated unions and import it from a variety of nations, including communist
dictatorships. In December 1981, a British parliamentarian reported that Anthracite coal of an
inferior quality is being imported from Tunisia, the Soviet Union and Vietnam.38 This occurred
during a period of time when the British Coal Board was rationalizing that domestic industry
by closing down various pits. Instead, the neo-liberal free traders and free marketeers in the
Thatcher government thought it would be cheaper and more efficient to import the coal from
other nations, including communist adversaries.
The Soviets continued to dump other types of cheaper goods into the British market
during the 1980s. A British parliamentarian complained that A manufacturer of pianos in my
constituency has pointed out that, as the Germans have a fine reputation for making pianos,
many now on the market are produced not in Germany but in countries behind the Iron Curtain,
and given German-sounding names. Therefore, the Steinbeck and the Bechsburgh pianos, made
in Czechoslovakia, East Germany or in other countries beyond the Iron Curtain, have come on
to the market and, some of us would say, have been dumped in this country. Such pianos give the
impression of being German, because they do not have to display the fact that they are made in
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, or wherever it may be. Ironically and sadly, the same
parliamentarian noted There is another matter that particularly concerns me. The Soviet
Hill, Peter. Anglo-Soviet Trade Talks To Resume Times (London) May 22, 1981 page 19.
U.S. Allies Trading With Soviets Despite Afghanistan Intervention Associated Press
November 22, 1980
35
Jamgotch, Nish. Sectors of Mutual Benefit in US-Soviet Relations (Duke University Press,
1985) pages 30-31.
36
Osnos, Peter. Britain Orders 2 More Firms to Ignore U.S. Pipeline Ban Washington Post
September 11, 1982 page A1.
37
Griniger, Henry. Reagan Softens the Sanctions New York Times September 5, 1982 page 2.
38
Employment Prospects in Wales House of Commons Debates December 14, 1981 Accessed
From: http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1981/dec/14/employment-prospects-inwales
33
34

11

Government are busy locking up Christian dissidents and dumping Christmas cards in this
country unmarked with their country of origin. No Christian in this country ought to buy
Christmas cards manufactured in Russia. We ought to know whether they are manufactured in
Russia so that we can not only refuse to buy them but tell shopkeepers why we refuse to buy
them. This legislation would give us the opportunity to make that decision.39
Even certain, vital components for the British defense industry were imported from
communist countries. The British Ministry of Defense utilized Soviet and Romanian bearings in
Scorpion tanks and armored cars. The British knowingly purchased these bearings from Western
middlemen. This usage of Soviet bloc parts and materials in Western weapons were called into
attention by the British Conservative MP Robin Hodgson in 1977.40
Some anti-communists publicly noted and opposed Thatchers inconsistent policies
regarding the Soviet Union, the bloc countries, and China. The concerns were voiced especially
after Thatcher pronounced that Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev was a leader that Britain
could do business with. Former British Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Dr. David Owen
warned We should not finance a return to Stalinist principles. Mr. Gorbachevs actions in the
last few months do not deserve credits. They do not deserve technological assistance. It is not in
our interests to keep the USSR together. What is the USSR? It is a forced empire.41 Soviet
dissident Vladimir Bukovsky recalled that he had a falling out with Thatcher over her support for
Gorbachev. Bukovsky also publicly refuted her position at a conference of the Committee for the
Free World in London in March 1985.42 Clearly, Thatcher was duped by Gorbachev and refused
to truly fathom that the Soviet ruler was still committed to communism, despite the perfume of
perestroika and glasnost. Kara-Murza wrote that Thatcher was enchanted with Mikhail
Gorbachevthe man I can do business with, as she famously referred to himmuch to the
displeasure of her longtime friend Vladimir Bukovsky, a legendary Soviet-era dissident who
often acted as the British prime ministers unofficial adviser on Russian matters. Gorbachev
wanted to preserve the system by reforming it, Bukovsky explained to her, whereas what the
Russian people (and the world) needed was to be free of that system altogether. Countering
Thatchers argument that Gorbachev was a pragmatic leader, Bukovsky affirmed that a
pragmatic Communist is a Communist who has run out of money. We argued (about
Gorbachev), it came to shouting and banging of the fists on the table, Bukovsky recalls.43 In
July 1991, Thatcher exclaimed to her adviser Christopher Story that Gorbachev isnt a Leninist
any more...I dont think we have been deceived-at least, I hope we havent.44
Origin Marking House of Commons Debate June 11, 1980 Accessed From:
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1980/jun/11/origin-marking
40
McForan, Desmond. The World Held Hostage (Oak-Tree Books, 1986) pages 215-216.
41
McMullan, Tom. Howe Wary of Gorbachev Dealings Press Association February 17, 1991
42
Boobbyer, Philip. Vladimir Bukovskii and Soviet Communism Slavonic and East European
Review, Volume 87, Number 3, 2009 Accessed From:
http://www.kent.ac.uk/history/old/staff/files/boobbyer/boobbyer_vladimir_bukovskii_and_soviet
_communism.pdf
43
Vladimir Karza-Murza. Margaret Thatcher Understood Russia World Affairs April 9, 2013
Accessed From: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/margaretthatcher-understood-russia
44
Story, Christopher. The European Union Collective (Edward Harle 2002) Accessed From:
http://exopolitics.blogs.com/files/eu-collective.pdf
39

12

Amazingly, the Thatcher government initially believed it was a necessity to support the
Polish communists ruling Poland in 1981. The dictatorship of communist generals and party
officials in Poland was beset by massive strikes. A classified West German Foreign Ministry
document revealed that Foreign Minister Lord Carrington noted that the British only backed
Solidarity out of respect for public opinion. Carrington believed that a more rational
position would be Britain being on the side of the Polish government in the event that the
Solidarity strikes got out of control.45
The declassified Soviet documents also revealed a mixed relationship between
Gorbachev and Thatcher. While Thatcher had choice words regarding communism, Gorbachev
did sense that Thatcher possessed a realist and independent streak that could serve
Moscows interests. In a conversation with the Secretaries of the Central Committee of the
CPSU, Gorbachev noted: Gorbachev: It should be noted that our conversation with the Prime
Minister of England, Margaret Thatcher, had a somewhat different character. She spoke quite
decisively in favor of expanding bilateral economic, scientific, and cultural ties between our
countries. Thatcher also stated that she was in favor of energizing the dialog aimed at
establishing better trust between member-states of the Warsaw Treaty and members of NATO.46
A September 1989 meeting between Thatcher and Gorbachev revealed that the Iron Lady
initially was uncomfortable with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and any attempted
overthrow of the communist parties in Eastern Europe. Much of Thatchers positions was rooted
in her distrust of a reunified Germany. An internal Soviet report of this meeting highlighted
Thatchers positions: We do not want the unification of Germany. It would lead to changes in
the post-war borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine
the stability of the entire international situation and could lead to threats to our security. We are
not interested in the destabilization of Eastern Europe or the dissolution of the Warsaw Treaty
either. Of course, the internal changes are apt in all the countries of Eastern Europe, but in some
countries they are more pronounced, in some countries not yet. However, we are in favor of
those processes remaining strictly internal; we will not interfere in them and spur the
decommunization of Eastern Europe. I can tell you that this is also the position of the U.S.
president. He sent a telegram to me in Tokyo in which he asked me to tell you that the United
States would not undertake anything that could threaten the security interests of the Soviet
Union, or that could be perceived by Soviet society as a threat. I am fulfilling his request.47
The later years of the Thatcher government was characterized in an uptick in SovietBritish trade relations. In 1987, total Soviet British trade was worth $2.5 billion. Great Britain
was the Soviet Unions seventh largest trading partner in the developed, industrialized world.48
In 1987, Prime Minister Thatcher and the Soviets opened an office of the joint British-Soviet
Shunning Solidarity: Thatcher was Suspicious of Polish Solidarity Movement Der Spiegel
February 27, 2012 Accessed From: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/shunningsolidarity-thatcher-was-supicious-of-polish-solidarity-movement-a-817778.html
46
Conference of Secretaries of the CC CPSU, Held in the Office of CC CPSU General
Secretary Comrade M. S. Gorbachev March 15, 1985 National Security Archive Accessed
From: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB172/Doc5.pdf
47
Document No. 3: Record of Conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher
September 23, 1989 Accessed From: http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/120816
48
Axebank, Albert. UK Looks for Steady Rise in Trade with Soviet Union Journal of
Commerce April 1, 1987 page 4A.
45

13

Chamber of Commerce in the International Trade Center in Moscow. By 1987, the British-Soviet
Chamber of Commerce had 500 participating firms from Great Britain.49 In 1987, GEC and
Simon Engineering set up microchip-based controlling equipment plant for the Soviet machine
tool industry.50 As of March 1988, Lord Beloff noted that Britain imported 9.7 million tons of
inexpensive coal from Colombia, Red China, apartheid South Africa, Australia, communist
Poland, and the United States.51 In 1988, the British arranged for a 1 billion pound credit for
trade with the Soviet Union. The participating British banks were: Midland, National
Westminster, Lloyds, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Morgan Grenfell.52 In 1987, three
British firms (Courtaulds, Rieter Scragg, and Davy McKee) won contracts to modernize Soviet
clothing and manmade fiber plants.53
Sometimes, British-Soviet trade reached into the strategic realm during the 1980s. In
1987, Consarc Engineering sold a heat resistant material to the Soviet Union, which was used to
increase the accuracy of nuclear warheads. This material was described as carbon based, light in
weight, and tougher than steel.54 In 1989, the British exported a programmable logic controller
plant, which was built by Simon Carves Engineering and General Electric Co. Plc. National
security analyst Frank Gaffney commented that: What is afoot is an institutional assault on the
mechanism through which Cocom countries evaluate technologies with military applications.
There is little doubt that the technologies will have military relevance.55 British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher persuaded President George HW Bush to eliminate the no exceptions rule
of COCOM in 1989.56
Following the footsteps of Presidents Reagan and Bush, Thatcher forged close economic
and military relations with Red China. There was no doubt that Thatcher bought into the notion
that the Sino-Soviet split was either irreparable or not a deceptive provocation. Thatcher
paved the way for increased Chinese Communist infiltration of Hong Kong through a tolerance
of Beijings subversion. In addition, Thatchers government also signed the Sino-British Joint
Declaration which stipulated the transfer of Hong Kongs government to the Red Chinese in
1997. The Communists believed that they would garner long term benefits from the acquisition
of Hong Kong in 1997 and close relations with the Thatcher government. The Sino-British Joint
Declaration reached between Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping was described by the Chinese
communist dictator as a product of dialectical Marxism and historical materialism in which
Hong Kong would preserve its capitalist system when reunified with China. The Declaration
Work of British-Soviet Chamber of Commerce TASS March 31, 1988
Narbrough, Colin. 246 million pounds Soviet order Times (London) December 19 1987
51
Energy Generation and the Economy House of Commons March 9, 1988 Accessed From:
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1988/mar/09/energy-generation-and-the-economy
52
Narbrough. Colin. Banks build 1bn pounds credit for Anglo-Soviet trade Times (London)
October 21 1988
53
Fallon, James. 3 UK firms in $78M pact with Soviets; upgrading plants Daily News Record
April 3, 1987 page 1.
54 Report: U.S.-Owned Company Sold Potential Military Hardware To Soviets Associated
Press November 8, 1987
55
Fallon, James and King, Christopher D. King. US objects to British firms Russian contract
Metalworking News May 8, 1989 page 4.
56
Riley, Karen. Bush eases rules on exports to Soviet bloc Washington Times July 4, 1989
page C1.
49
50

14

was signed in 1984 and served Chinas long range economic interests. The inking of this
agreement did not represent a true weakening of the ideological resolve of the Chinese
Communist Party towards world capitalism. Instead, Beijing would inherit all of the benefits of
Hong Kongs status as an international port and business center without reforming the
communist system on the Mainland. Former Xinhua Hong Kong office chief Xu Jiatun reported
that Deng Xiaoping unveiled a secret work plan in 1983 which called for a strategyto
struggle against as well as unify with Britain in order to gain public acceptance and support.
The Hong Kong Chinese Communist Party would influence the working class and a widely
based patriotic united front to implement its plan. Criticism of communism and positive
publicity about capitalism would be allowed. British and Hong Kong businesses would be
encouraged to stay, be appeased, and unify with Overseas Chinese enterprises, while Mainland
communist companies would be strengthened. Even right wingers were to be won over,
according to Deng. They included pro-British, pro-American, and pro-Taiwanese forces in Hong
Kong. Xu noted that a businessmens political inclination is normally linked to his business. He
would side with whomever would support him. The Chinese Communist Party even provided
financial aid to troubled Hong Kong private companies such as Tung Chee Hwas shipping
company in the mid-1980s. In 1983, the Organization Department of the CCP Central
Committee sent undercover cadres to Hong Kong under the guise of family reunions. During
the period from 1983 to 1997, 83,000 of these Chinese emigrants were agents of the fifth column
of the Chinese Communist Party.57 Meanwhile, the Hong Kong police and Special Branch
cooperated with the Red Chinese Public Security Bureau in suppressing Taiwanese spy rings in
Hong Kong.58 Despite the fact that Hong Kong was a British colony during the 1980s, Beijing
clearly asserted its power through subversion and cooperation.
The Thatcher government also approved sales of military hardware to the Red Chinese
and engaged in other forms of exchanges between the Royal Armed Forces and the Peoples
Liberation Army. In 1982, Vosper Thornycraft and British Aerospace Dynamics Group agreed to
upgrade eight Chinese Luta-class missile destroyers with the Sea Dart long range anti-aircraft
and anti-ship missiles, modern radars, and various electronic systems. In 1981, three British
warships visited Shanghai, including the 4,100 ton missile destroyer Coventry. Over 100 Red
Chinese technical specialists and naval officers visited the British ships and no doubt gathered
intelligence to enhance the Red war machine.59 In 1987, a Chinese naval training vessel was
launched and reportedly utilized British-made navigational equipment and radar. It was capable
of sailing 10,000 nautical miles.60 In 1982, China ordered more than $170 million worth of Sea
Dart missiles from British Aerospace and radar and other electronic equipment from Vosper
Thorneycroft, the MEL division of Philips Electronics, and Racal Decca. British technicians
were dispatched to Red China produce and operate these products.61 By September 1989, the
British Conservative government authorized the sale of $30 million GEC-Marconi head-up

57

Loh, Christine. Underground Front (Hong Kong University Press, 2010) pages 145-154.
Faligot, Roger. The Chinese Secret Service (Morrow, 1989) pages 443-444.
59
UK: Chinese Navy Looks to Britain for Help Defense & Foreign Affairs January,
1982/February, 1982 page 3.
60
Development of the Navy; use of British equipment in training ship Xinhua April 23, 1987
61
China Orders $170 Million in British Armaments Aviation Week & Space Technology
December 6, 1982 page 117.
58

15

display systems and additional radar avionics for use in Chinese jets.62 In November 1984, the
Chinese PLA Navy Commander Liu Huaqing visited Great Britain and met with British Minister
of State for the Armed Forces John Stanley, Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, and other British
officials. The Chinese PLA delegation visited British Royal Navy units, schools and other
training facilities as well as enterprises with business links to the British Navy.63 Chinas Air
Force Chief General Zhang Ting Fa visited Britain in 1985 and conferred with Defense Minister
Michael Heseltine and the Minister for State for Defense Procurement. They took a 10 day tour
of British Air Force and aerospace facilities.64 In 1982, China purchased British-made Sea Dart
missiles, radar, and electronic equipment. It was also agreed that Chinese naval destroyers would
be refitted with British technology.65 Rolls Royce agreed to assist China in producing Spey
engines for eventual use in a newer fighter-interceptor jet.66
British trade with China doubled between 1982 and 1984, according to Prime Minister
Thatcher. In 1985, a nuclear cooperation accord was signed between Britain and Red China.67
China purchased 10 British Aerospace 146 airliners from the British in 1985.68
In 1988, a Chinese Communist newspaper also sympathetically examined the
fundamental readjustment of the British economy from a productive to speculative-based
economy: First, a new international system of division of labour is taking shape. The first
policy promulgated by the British government after Mrs. Thatcher took office was the policy of
allowing Britains domestic capital to be remitted out of Britain. Our British friends told us
Although Britain is a small country; she has become the second largest capital exporting
country in the world. We also saw a large number of foreign enterprises in Britain. Most of
those foreign enterprises are owned by the United States and Japan.69 Such a shift from an
industrial to a finance/services-based economy had the effect of weakening the industrial power
of Britain and allowing highly volatile sectors to become the engines of the British economy.
This trend had the potential to weaken the overall NATO alliance through the heavy destruction
of Britains productive capacity.
The Thatcher government also enhanced its economic relations with East Germany. The
first East German Ambassador to Britain, Karl Heinz Kern, cemented contacts which ranged
from the Conservative Party to the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Ambassador Kern
found Conservatives easier to work with, despite their ideological anti-communism. He reported
that the Conservative Party was interested in promoting international commerce and voiced
Pienaar, John. Fighter systems sold to Peking The Independent September 15, 1989
PLA Navy Commander Ends Visit to Britain Xinhua General News Service November 16,
1984
64
Stanhope, Henry. UK Woos Chinas Air Force Chief Times of London June 10, 1985 page
4.
65
Bonavia, David. Britain Clinches 100 Million Pounds Weapons Deal With China Times of
London November 12, 1982 page 9.
66
Hollingworth, Clare. Inside the PLA Defense & Foreign Affairs August, 1981/September,
1981 page 32.
67
Stanhope, Henry. Britain and China Sign Nuclear Deal Times of London June 4, 1985 page
1.
68
Townsend, Edward. China Buys 10 British Airliners for 120 Pounds Times of London April
25, 1985 page 1.
69
Britains Economic Restructuring May be Useful to Parts of China Liaowang July 6, 1988
62
63

16

concerns about a re-united Germany.70 In 1981, the high level SED party official Hermann Axen
visited Britain and held discussions with Thatcher and Lord Carrington. An internal East German
report of this meeting noted that Thatcher expressed support for continued political dialogue with
East Berlin. Lord Carrington told Axen that if East Germany did not exist, then it would have to
be invented.71 Hence, a number of Conservatives were willing to support continued trade and
political relations with East Germany.
When Thatcher was elected prime minister in 1979, the East German foreign intelligence
(HVA) noted that the Conservatives would take a business as usual approach to relations with
East Berlin. East Germany believed that Lord Carrington, Thatchers first Foreign Minister,
retained a commitment to realpolitik and dtente in East-West relations. The former East
German Ambassador to Britain, Dr. Joachim Mitdank reported that In spring 1989 when I took
up my post as Ambassador in London, bilateral relations between the GDR and Great Britain
were well developed. Britains leading circles had gone a long way towards abandoning their
reservations about the GDR.72
Trade relations between London and East Berlin also experienced a slow improvement.
In June 1981, SED official Hermann Axen met with representatives of British business, industry,
and high finance. This meeting was arranged by the Trade Council for Eastern Europe of the
Confederation of British Industry. One such British firm that Axen visited was Guest, Keen and
Nettlefolds, which was an engineering company.73 East Germany and Poland exported coal to
Great Britain during the communist-funded coal strike of 1984-1985 in order to gain further hard
currency.74 In fact, the Research Officer for the South Wales Area NUM believed that coal
imports from Poland and fuel oil deliveries on Soviet tankers played a crucial rolein
defeating the NUM in 1984/85.75 Polish coal was transshipped through the Port of Rotterdam or
sent directly to British ports, such as Flixborough, Humber, Trent, and Scunthorpe. The coal was
destined for industries and utilities such as Cawoods, the British Central Electricity Generating
Board, and British Steel.76
In 1982, Horst Sindermann met with the director of ICI Peter Rees, Minister of Trade
Norman Tebbit, and Foreign Minister Francis Pym to discuss further political dialogue. In April
1985, Foreign Minister Geoffrey Howe visited East Germany and conferred with Oskar Fischer,
Willi Stoph, and Erich Honecker. Howe negotiated a contract for a British company to build a
de-sulphurization plant in East Germany. According to East German strategy documents,
Foreign Minister Howe was favorable to arms control under the framework of dtente, as
70

LaPorte, Norman. Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR 1949-1990 (Berghahn Books, 2010)
page 105.
71
Ibid, pages 159-165.
72
Ibid, pages 159-165.
73
Hermann Axens Visit to Britain East German News Agency June 20, 1981
74
LaPorte, Norman. Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR 1949-1990 (Berghahn Books, 2010)
pages 159-165.
75
Alex Pravda, Peter J. S. Duncan. Soviet-British Relations Since the 1970s (Cambridge
University Press, Apr 26, 1990) pages 157-158.
76
How Stalinism Helped Defeat the Great Miners Strike in 1984-85 Ukrainian Solidarity
Campaign April 12, 2015 Accessed From:
https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/2015/04/12/how-stalinism-helped-defeat-the-great-minersstrike-in-1984-85/

17

opposed to the Reagan Administration. An East German Embassy report dated from 1986
highlighted the respectful attitudes of prominent Britons for East Germanys alleged social
achievements, strong economy, and political stability. However, the Berlin Wall remained an
obviously negative image in the eyes of the British public. The pro-East German sentiments were
even held by some Conservatives. For example, the President of the Coventry branch of the
British-GDR Society (BGS) and the Conservative Party activist, Lord Kenneth Benfield, stated
on GDR Television: One of the things in Dresden was that the people could go to the opera or
symphony concert or to the restaurants as families and return home through the streets in peace.
I saw no evidence of vandalism and I was impressed with the Peoples Palace of Culture and
with the happiness of the people we saw everywhere on the boats of the Spreewald. People were
really enjoying their leisure.77
The British even continued to maintain ties with Castros Cuba under the Thatcher
government. In 1985, a British-Cuba Trade Committee was formed to improve trade between
UK and Cuban enterprises.78
The British also assisted both the Arab Socialist dictatorship in Iraq and the Islamist
regime in Iran. The British maintained traditional markets for their products in those two nations.
Despite the anti-Western positions of Tehran and Baghdad, London eagerly desired to continue
exports of its industrial products to Iran and Iraq. Between September and November 1979,
Great Britain exported 25 million pounds worth of goods with Iran.79
Even more egregious were the military ties between London and Tehran during much of
the 1980s. Until 1987, the Islamic Republic of Iran maintained its Military Logistic Centre
(IMLC), which was manned by 250 Iranian military employees working there. It was housed in
the offices of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Shamran Chubin of the Geneva
Institute for International Affairs observed that the Centre was a very important facility, not the
least because most of Irans standard equipment is of Western origin, largely American and
British.80 David Steel, the British Liberal Party leader, criticized the Thatcher government for
allowing NIOC and the IMLC to maintain offices in London: Until this office is closed, Her
Majestys Government is helping to prolong the Gulf War by their inaction at a time when
thousands of young men are dying, and also helping to prop up a government involved in
international terrorism.81
In September 1982, it was reported that Iran sold a large portion of its gold held in the
City of London to pay its bills owed to the British firm Talbot. Talbot exported automobile parts
to Iran under both the Shah and the Islamists. According to the Free Voice of Iran, contrary to
the silence surrounding Islamic Republic ties, the relations between the two countries are very
friendly, especially in the economic field. The British Embassy in Tehran continues its activities
with a full complement of diplomats. It is interesting to note that the British charge daffaires in

77

LaPorte, Norman. Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR 1949-1990 (Berghahn Books, 2010)
pages 159-165.
78
Anglo-Cuban trade committee established BBC Summary of Broadcasts March 31, 1983
79
British Companies Still in Business with Iran Times (London) December 21, 1979 page 15.
80
Johns, Richard. Why Iran Valued Its London Arms Purchase Office Financial Times
September 24, 1987 page 4.
81
Thatcher is accused of Iran arms cover-up The Times January 28 1987

18

Tehran is a fluent Persian speaker and has very friendly relationships with several influential
mullahs within the government.82
Despite the nasty anti-British propaganda and pro-Soviet positions of the Baathist Iraqis,
weapons shipments and high technology exports from Thatchers Britain continued unabated. In
1982, the Ministry of Defense-owned International Military Services (IMS) was cleared by the
government to repair British-made Chieftain tanks captured by Iraq from Iran. In July 1985, 300
military Land Rovers and Cymbeline radar equipment were exported from Britain to Iraq. Iraqi
radar operators were trained by the British in 1990. British Marconi also provided command and
control systems to the Iraqis. The Ministry of Defense exported tens of thousands of sandcolored uniforms to Iraq in 1986.83 Plessey Electronics also provided Iraq with an electronic
command center.84
The British Army Equipment Exhibition (BAEE) in 1986 hosted a five-man Iraqi
delegation led by Major General M. Ibrahim Hammadi (Director of Armaments and Supplies)
and Major General Qahtan al Azzawi (Director of Military Computer Applications). British
Aerospace also exhibited Hawk fighter aircraft at the Baghdad Arms Fair in 1989. Also, the
British companies GEC Avionics, Racal, Royal Ordnance, Thorn EMI, Astra Holdings, Matrix
Churchill, and Colchester Lathes also displayed their dual-use technologies at the Baghdad Arms
Fair. The subsidiary of British Aerospace, Royal Ordnance, unwittingly sold 900 strips of
explosives retardant via an intermediary to Iraq.85
However, the Saddam dictatorship maintained its ideological opposition and suspicions
of Britain. They viewed Britain as an accomplice in American imperialist actions in the Persian
Gulf and Middle East. In January 1980, the Iraqi News Agency and the state-owned newspaper
Ath-Thawrah remarked that Britains attempt to return to east of Suez coincides with and
shares a common objective with the declared aggressive US policyBritain wants to join an
existing, but undeclared, pact comprising the United States, Oman and Iran, which has not given
up its policemans role as shown by its continued occupation of the three Arab islands in the
Arab GulfBritain is trying to exploit the opportunity afforded by the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan, the Omani peoples mounting resistance against the Qabus regime and the
developments in Iran to attempt an unsuccessful return to the region with US encouragement.86
The Iraqis also lambasted the British dual-track policy of arming both sides of the IranIraq War. The Saddam dictatorship also attacked Israel, Zionism, and the government of Prime
Minister Ian Smith of the old Rhodesia and linked Britain with all three. In October 1984, AthThawrah and the Iraqi News Agency reported Britain, under Thatchers leadership and due
to a wrong assessment and arrogance, has decided to provide Iran with military equipment and
to help it to establish rapid deployment forces equipped with supply and landing craft powered
by Rolls Royce enginesBritains well known roles against the Arabs and peoples of other

Iranian gold sales in London Free Voice of Iran September 29, 1982
Arming Saddam: The Supply of British Military Equipment to Iraq, 1979-90 Accessed
From: http://www.caat.org.uk/publications/countries/iraq-1991-briefing.php
84
Lafayette, Lev. Who Armed Saddam? July 26, 2002 Accessed From: http://www.hartfordhwp.com/archives/51/040.html
85
Arming Saddam: The Supply of British Military Equipment to Iraq, 1979-90 Accessed
From: http://www.caat.org.uk/publications/countries/iraq-1991-briefing.php
86
Britains attempt to return east of Suez Iraqi News Agency January 30, 1980
82
83

19

nations, especially its role in handing over Palestine to the Zionists and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) to
the racist Ian Smith clique before African independence.87
In November 1984, Ath-Thawrah and the Iraqi News Agency warned the Conservative
Government under Mrs. Thatcher against the consequences of the outmoded colonialist methods
the UK, in co-operation with Iran, is employing against Iraq and the Arab Gulf countries and
which are based on terrorism, blackmail and aggressionthe UK does not want to learn from
the lessons of the past which led to the emancipation of these colonies and to the establishment
of national liberation movements in various continents.88
In March 1990, the Republic of Iraq Radio denounced the British reporter Bazoft in the
harshest possible terms. He was charged with espionage by the Iraqis. The Bazoft affair was used
as a pretext by the Baathists to launch an anti-British campaign. The Republic of Iraq Radio
blasted the Thatcher government: When you were invaders of our region and homeland, your
history was the history of looting, shame, robbery and colonialism. Your policy was also a
forgery of the peoples will, an oppression of their liberties, a hindrance to their progress and a
repression of their humanity. Throughout that history, you were identified with everything that is
shameless and mean. The peoples of our region, however, managed to expel you from their
lands. But your desire to exercise the old colonialist policies, which originally stemmed from a
worn-out mentality and illegitimate interests that lack every ethical and human element, has led
to this angry response of our masses in Baghdad.89
In March 1990, state-owned Iraqi television denounced the British royalty in a
documentary titled This is Britain, and These Are Some of the Scandals There. The program
made assertions such as (Queen) Elizabeth does not feel any shame, despite the fact that her
family members are hanging out their dirty linen before the people. The program also described
Princess Margaret love life and affairs as scandalous and sordid. Prince Andrew was
described by the Iraqis as a spoiled brat. of the British royal family. Prince Charles was
reported by the Iraqis as patronizing cheap night clubs, frequented by drug addicts and
alcoholics.90
Long after the departure of the Thatcher government in 1990, Britain continued its
dependence on other powers for its energy and industrial resources. The New Labour Party
governments under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown only encouraged this state of affairs in an
effort to promote the concept of a post-industrial economy. Chakrabortty observed it was
with Tony Blair that the argument for moving from industry to services shifted from one of dire
necessity to being an altogether more optimistic vision about Britains place in the world. The
architects of New Labour were convinced that the future lay in what they called the knowledge
economy. Mandelson declared Silicon Valley his inspiration; Brown swore he would make
Britain e-commerce capital of the world within three years. Again, the theme was simple: most of
what could be manufactured could be done so more cheaply elsewhere. The future lay in coming
Iraqi Newspaper Ridicules Britains Military Sales to Iran Iraqi News Agency October 18,
1984
88
Iraqi Party Papers Criticism of UK Policy in the Gulf Iraqi News Agency November 2,
1984
89
Iraq Angry Masses Of Baghdad Hand Protest Note to British Embassy Over Bazoft Case
Republic of Iraq Radio March 19, 1990
90
Stokes, Lee. Iraq targets British royal family in renewed attack United Press International
March 20, 1990
87

20

up with the ideas, the software, and most of all, the brands. Once the British had sold cars and
ships to the rest of the world; now they could flog culture and tourism and Lara Croft.91 A
study by the Financial Times found that deindustrialization accelerated under New Labour. In
fact, the loss of manufacturing under Blair and Brown was more prolific than even under Prime
Ministers Thatcher and Major. Manufacturing accounted for 20% of the British economy in
1997. In 2007, its share fell to only 12.4% of the British economy. Lord Mandelson, the business
secretary recalled In the 1980s and 1990s, we as a country did not do enough to encourage
manufacturing and this approach led to colossal economic damage. During the New Labour
years, the share of real estate in the British economy rose from 12.6% to 16.2%. Banking and
other financial services rose from 6.6% to 9.1% of the British economy. Health care and
education rose from 6.2% to 7.9% and 5.3% to 6.2% of the British economy, respectively.92
In 2013, Great Britain purchased over $153 billion more in goods from other countries
than they sold to them. By 2009, Britain only possessed four coal mines and much of the textile
industry was eliminated by the 1980s.93 Thatcher and successive governments allowed the coal
pits to flood and sealed the shafts with concrete. By 2013, Britain had virtually no open coal pits
despite large reserves. As Breverton observed, Britain is dependent on imported coal, often
produced by child or slave labor. Breverton bitterly complained A natural resource has been
buried in the interests of a free market economyThatcher, unfortunately, chose as her enemies
the most productive sectors of the British economy-manufacturing and mining-sectors that
brought money into Britain. She ignored banking and the public sector, with the result that
Britain has hardly any British companies left, and a massive public sector which it can only
sustain with increasing debts for future generations.94 By 2005, the Rover Car company plant
assets in Birmingham were sold off to the Red Chinese state-owned firm Nanjing Automotive.95
Great Britain also became a net energy importer since 2000. Oil and natural gas was imported
from Russia and the Middle East.96
Since the Cold War ended in 1991, much of the Conservative Party believed that
Russia would enter the community of nations and was no longer Marxist or hostile to Western
interests. Prime Minister David Cameron paid $250,000 to the wife of a former minister in the
Putin regime and oligarch Mrs. Lubov Chernukhin. This money was deposited into the coffers of
the Conservative Party and was used for its election campaigns in March 2015. The British
Chakrabortty, Aditya. Why Doesnt Britain Make Things Anymore? The Guardian
November 16, 2011 Accessed From: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/nov/16/whybritain-doesnt-make-things-manufacturing
92
Giles, Chris. Decline in manufacturing greater under Labour than with Thatcher Financial
Times December 3, 2009 Accessed From: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8c257da6-dfab-11de-98ca00144feab49a.html#axzz4HRSTJJhS
93
Taylor, Adam. 21 Sad Facts About The Deindustrialization Of Britain Business Insider
November 4-5, 2014 Accessed From: http://www.businessinsider.com/uk-factory-job-loss-oil2011-11?op=1
94
Breverton, Terry. The Welsh: The Biography (Amberley Publishing Limited, 2013)
95
Taylor, Adam. 21 Sad Facts About The Deindustrialization Of Britain Business Insider
November 4-5, 2014 Accessed From: http://www.businessinsider.com/uk-factory-job-loss-oil2011-11?op=1
96
Elliot, Larry and Atkinson, Dan. Going South: Why Britain will have a Third World Economy
by 2014 (Palgrave Macmillan 2012) page 55.
91

21

Electoral Commission reported that the Conservative Party received $1.5 million in donations
from wealthy Russian oligarchs in 2013.
Russian oligarchs and regime officials deposited massive amounts of money in London,
which became known as Londongrad. Putin mocked London as the location where the
oligarchs have bought Chelsea. Roman Abamovich became the owner of the top soccer club in
Britain, while another oligarch, Evgeny Lebvedev, became the owner of The Independent and
the Evening Standard, along with a London-based television station. In 2013, one in ten homes in
London was snapped up by Russian oligarchs, including the former director of the state-owned
airline Aeroflot. The British government granted visas to 433 Russians who invested more than
$1.5 million in the British economy. A House of Commons committee revealed that Britain
maintained 285 arms contracts with Russia worth more than $200 million. The Russian oil giant
Rosneft held 20% control of British Petroleum.
Despite pressure from MPs and the press, Prime Minister Cameron and his Foreign
Minister William Hague slowed investigations into the murder of the defecting FSB agent
Alexander Litvinenko. After the Russian annexation of Crimea, one of Prime Minister
Camerons Foreign Ministry advisers was caught carrying a position paper which stated that
Britain should not, for now, support trade sanctions. Columnist Ben Judah wrote that Britain
is ready to betray the United States to protect the City of Londons hold on dirty Russian
money.97
Elements of the British labor union movement contained hardcore pro-Soviet
collaborators within its ranks. Arguably, some could have cooperated with a Soviet occupation
of Britain by disciplining and purging the anti-communists from the organized labor movement.
Furthermore, British collaborators in the labor union movement could have conceivably imposed
an iron-handed rule over the working class by speeding up production in plants in a Sovietoccupied UK. Labor union leaders such as Arthur Scargill called for an outright communist
dictatorship. Scargill stated We are fighting a class war and you dont fight a war with
sticksYou fight a war with the weapons that are going to win it. I believe that the only way you
are going to get workers control in the real sense is to take into control society itself.98 Scargill
also had very strong relations with the Soviet Union. He received money from the USSR and
Libya to finance his strikes in the coal pits during the mid-1980s.99
Other pro-Soviet moles within the labor union movement in Britain were Jack Jones
(Code named by the Soviets DREAM-Transport and General Workers Union) and Ray Buckton
(Code named by the Soviets Bartoc-Train Drivers Union). They were found to have passed
information on influential personalities in the British trade union movement to the Soviet
Embassy. Jim Slater of the Seamans Union and Lord Richard Briginshaw of the Printers Union
were also leaders of the mass strikes during the 1960s and 1970s. They also cooperated with the
KGB. Labor Members of Parliament were also found to be actively collaborating with Soviet
MacShane, Denis. London-grad: British Capital Under Russian Influence The Globalist
August 11, 2014 Accessed From: http://www.theglobalist.com/london-grad-under-how-muchrussian-influence-is-the-british-capital/
98
Winder, David. Striking British Miners Leftist Connections Christian Science Monitor
November 28, 1984 page 1.
99
Lewis, Jason. How Scargill Begged the Kremlin to Fund Miners Fight with Thatcher Mail
on Sunday April 15, 2007 page 46 and Scargill Accepted Libyan Money in Miners Strike
The Advertiser July 12, 1990
97

22

diplomats and KGB agents. Former KGB officer and Embassy staffer Mikhail Lyubimov
recalled that: We had a plan that if the Labour party came to power it would be a great
advantage to Russia.100
British trade union leaders visited East Germany as the guests of the state-run union.
They were taken on a bus trip from their luxury hotel to a showpiece housing estate where pretty
streams divided the apartments.101
Soviet interests in the British Labor Party stemmed from the times of earliest days of the
Bolshevik Revolution. Lenin told the British Communists to support the Labor Party as the
rope supports the hanged man. The British Communists influenced the Labor Party through
planting members in the National Executive Committee and trade unions. Covert communists
also exerted influence through their card votes at Labor Party conferences and influencing Labor
MPs.102 Famed British socialist Harold Laski underscored the pro-Soviet mood of the Labor
Party when he noted in 1937 that are we not all, as socialists, friends of the Soviet Union, even
if we are also critics?103
In 1955, the MI5 secured 55,000 files on secret British Communists. This MI5 operation
also revealed that 31 serving MPs were on the list of secret British Communists. Several top
trade union leaders were also secret party members who took their orders from Moscow.104
However, the Soviets were clearly irritated by British labor union leaders that were strong anticommunists. Sejna noted that Khrushchev stated If communism were to triumph Gaitskell105
would be among the first to be shot outside the Houses of Parliament as a traitor to the working
class.106
However, the bacillus of dtente seeped into the British Labor Party and sapped its anticommunism. The Soviets welcomed the decision of the Labor Party Conference of 1973 to
abolish the proscribed list of communist front groups that Labor Party members were forbidden
to join. Resolutions supporting unilateral disarmament were passed by the Labor Party in 1972
and 1973.107
The British allies of the Soviets also planned actions in concert with other European labor
unions to cripple the economies of the NATO countries. In 1975, MI5 also infiltrated a meeting
of communist trade union leaders from Britain and Europe on how to disrupt industries within a
5 year period. This meeting was located in West Germany. This Moscow-sponsored meeting
decided that the car industry was most vulnerable for sabotage.108
By the 1980s, powerful elements of the Labor Party fought Thatchers laudable efforts to
re-arm the British Armed Services with conventional and strategic weapons. The policies of the
Labor Party in the 1980s clearly would have degraded Britains defense posture and concurrently
transform the country into a stalwart socialist state. The Statement on Defense and Security for
Leppard, David. With Smiles and Cash Sunday Times February 19, 1995
Chittenden, Maurice. Western Defector Who Saw the Light; Trade Unions and Eastern
Europe Reform The Sunday Times (London) January 14 1990
102
Pincher, Chapman. The Secret Offensive (St. Martins Press: NY 1985) page 16.
103
Lilleker, Darren G. Against the Cold War (I.B.Tauris, 2004) page 205.
104
Pincher, Chapman. The Secret Offensive (St. Martins Press: NY 1985) page 169.
105
Gaitskill was a strong anti-communist unionist and Labor Party member.
106
Pincher, Chapman. The Secret Offensive (St. Martins Press: NY 1985) page 243.
107
Ibid, page 16.
108
Ibid, page 186.
100
101

23

Britain formulated in advance of the 1984 Labor Party Annual Conference by the National
Executive Committee called for the:
1) Elimination of the Polaris submarines.
2) Cancellation of the Trident program.
3) Decommissioning of nuclear weapons used by British forces in West Germany.
4) Refusal to introduce neutron bombs in Britain.
5) Removal of all Cruise missiles from the UK.
6) Expulsion of the US submarine base at Holy Loch.
7) Removal of all USAF F-111 airbases in the UK.
8) Phasing out of both Warsaw Pact and NATO.
9) Supported the nuclear freeze.
10) Opposition to SDI.
11) The eventual dissolution of NATO would be replaced by protection of our national
interests through the United Nations.109
Labor Party MPs and government officials who maintained close relations or contacts
with the Soviet Embassy included Neil Kinnock, Michael Foot, and Dennis Healey. Based on the
enthusiastic pro-Soviet sentiments exhibited by elements of the Labor Party, it is quite possible
that Moscow could have drawn collaborationists from this camp in the event of a Warsaw Pact
occupation. Copies of Soviet diplomatic telegrams marked secret and top secret dated from
1979 to 1985 indicated close cooperation between Labor MPs and the Soviets. Neil Kinnock had
several meetings with Soviet Embassy officials where he denounced Conservative Prime
Minister Margaret Thatchers government for allowing the United States to station nuclear
missiles in Britain. Michael Foot openly believed that Britain should scrap its nuclear weapons
completely and unilaterally.110 Ron Brown admitted having a relationship with KGB official
(later defector) Oleg Gordievsky in the 1980s.111 Labor MP Bob Edwards received a Soviet
medal for passing NATO secrets to them.112
Labor MP James Lamond was one of the most slavish apologists for the Soviet Union
and their allies. He was a vice president of the World Peace Council, president of the British
Peace Assembly, and a founder of the Britain-East German Friendship Society. Lamond was also
an apologist for the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.113 While visiting the Soviet
Union in 1980, Lamond even claimed that Moscow posed no threat whatsoever to world peace.
He stated: The Soviet Union has no aggressive intentions towards any other country andI am
firmly convinced that in reality there is no Soviet threat. The Soviet Union does not have any
aggressive aspirations with regard to other countries. On the contrary, it has submitted very
many specific proposals directed at improving relations between States and at cessation of the
arms race and the holding of talks on the reduction of armaments. But all these proposals
remain unanswered. Moreover, our newspapers are either silent about them, or, if they report
them, then they do it very sparingly and unintelligibly. I am sure that ultimately the question of
109

Ibid, pages 7-10.

Kinnock Secret Out Herald Sun February 3, 1992
111
Pierce, Andrew. Deselected Labour MP Admits Secret Dealings With KGB The Times
December 26, 1994
112
Leppard, David. Cream of the Left on KGB Target List Sunday Times February 19, 1995
113
Roth, Andrew. Obituary: James Lamond: Leftwing MP Whose Penchant for Peace was seen
as Pro-Soviet Guardian December 21, 2007 page 38.
110

24

curbing the arms race will be resolved in a positive manner, because on this depends the
peaceful future of mankind.114 James Lamond and two other Labor MPs, James Parry and Ron
Brown, also attended meetings of the Friends of Afghanistan, which supported the Soviet puppet
communist party ruling Kabul.115
Lamond noted that the danger the Soviet Union represented to us was grossly
exaggerated. Lamond noted further that If the Soviet Union disappeared as an enemy and
there was subsequent pressure on the United States, Britain, and other countries to reduce the
amount spent on defense, a fresh enemy would have to be created. Lamond helped develop the
Scottish branch of the CND and was a member of the Anglo-Soviet Parliamentary Group. He
referred to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as the alleged Soviet invasion. Lamond
supported the creation of the Afghan Peace Council, which was controlled by the Babrak Karmal
governments foreign ministry. Lamonds trips to the USSR were paid by the Soviet-funded
World Peace Council.116
Another pro-Soviet Labor MP Frank Allaun felt that Gorbachevs actions ended the Cold
War, and lamented the alleged weakening of the command economy structures under glasnost.
He concluded that I was convinced as I am today that the Soviet people and their government
did not want war. Allaun stated that I do believe that the collapse of the Soviet Union has set
back hopes of a socialist world, at least for a time. Allaun visited the USSR during the 1930s,
which resulted in the enhancement of his already pro-Soviet sympathies. Allaun stated for the
less spent on the military the more money there would be for housing. Allaun also frequently
published articles in the Morning Star, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Allaun opposed a rearmed West Germany.117
In 1959, Labor MP Swingler told the Labor Party Conference that goal of the Victory for
Socialism Vision was the achievement of a classless society and a planned economy in
Britain. He also called for disarmament, full employment, and continuation of nationalized
industries. MP Stan Newens was originally influenced by the pro-Soviet Konni Zilliacus.
Newens was also a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. He helped organize proCuban, pro-North Vietnamese, and anti-Suez demonstrations in the UK. Newens believed that
the UK should become a non-aligned socialist nation. He called for the widespread
nationalization of industries and the imposition of industrial democracy along the lines
recommended by the Trotskyite Communist elements in the Labor Party. Newens praised the
role of the USSR in the Third World and called for the development of a Socialist Europe that
was independent of the United States and allegedly the USSR. Newens developed close relations
with Ceausescus Romania. He established positive working relationship with Romanias
representatives in London. Newens was initially invited to the Romanian Embassy once
Bucharest learned of the Labor MPs interest in Ceausescus policies. Newens met with
Ceausescu, who then convinced Newens that Romania was allegedly independent of the
USSR. Newens noted that Romania was the model of a communist country which is both
socialist and fully independent. Newens called NATO a potential death trap and excused the
Labour MP James Lamonds Moscow Radio Interview: No Soviet Threat Moscow Home
Service October 11, 1980
115
British Labour MPs Attend Meeting to Support DRA Kabul Home Service October 20,
1982
116
Lilleker, Darren G. Against the Cold War (I.B.Tauris, 2004) pages 185-197.
117
Ibid, pages 125-133.
114

25

Warsaw Pact as a defensive union spurred on by the aggressive actions of the United States.
Newens also excused the imposition of totalitarianism in the USSR as a reaction to the
encirclement by the capitalist powers and the foreign support provided to the White (Volunteer)
Army. Newens praised Gorbachev for allegedly ending the Cold War, yet criticized the Soviet
dicator for allegedly introducing too many market mechanisms within the communist system.
Newens also supported North Vietnam, Cuba, and Sandinista Nicaragua.118
During a 1977 visit to the Soviet Union, Alex Kitson noted: I am pleased to visit a
country where the situation differs from that in my own, where there is no unemployment and
one can see a consistent rise in the standard of living of common workers. Kitson noted that
Id sooner have colleagues in the Communist Party than in the Conservative Party any day.
Kitson admired the system of Soviet economic planning. He also met with Brezhnev and left
with gifts from the USSR. Kitson served as the Vice President of the Soviet front World Peace
Council.119
Labor MP William Wilson championed British recognition of East Germany. He also
served as a member of pro-Soviet friendship societies. Within Parliament, Wilson fought for
expanded British trade with Eastern Europe. Wilson also maintained close friendships with
officials at the Soviet Embassy. Wilson argued that capitalism was a profit making, poverty
making, war making, anti-democratic system of society. He felt that capitalism should be
replaced by a state-owned system based on workers control. Wilson became a member of the
British-GDR Friendship Society. In the 1970s, he also campaigned for the admission of North
Korea to the UN in the 1970s and increased trade relations with Albania in the year 1980. During
a visit to East Germany in February 1967, Wilson alleged the SED built a prosperous society.
Wilson met with Soviet diplomats at a British-Soviet Friendship Society dinner.120
George Galloway was a Labor MP who supported communist and socialist governments
in Angola, Nicaragua, Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Cuba, and Afghanistan. In 1989, Galloway
also supported a resolution which called for the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea on
the grounds that the American presence threatened North Korea. In 1990 Galloway also raised
150,000 pounds for the British Communist Party newspaper Morning Star.121
Labor MP Ron Browns profound dislike of the Conservatives led him to throw eggs at
Prime Minister Thatcher in 1982. Brown also supported the Qaddafi dictatorship in Libya.
Scargill served as a courier transporting money from Libya to striking mineworkers. Brown also
developed links with the Afghan government of Babrak Karmal. His 1981 visit to Afghanistan
was sponsored by the Soviet Embassy. Brown pleaded Karmals case in Parliament: we are
talking about world peace, does that not matter, or does militarism cloud every mind in the
House? Brown also served as a trade agent for North Korea. For examples he acted as a conduit
between British companies such as Virgin Trading Company and Highland Distillers and the
communist government in Pyongyang. Brown believed that the USSR was a socialist state. He
viewed Anglo-American anti-Sovietism as a deception contrived for the benefit of the capitalist
class.122

118

Ibid, pages 133-149.

Ibid, pages 187-205.
120
Ibid, pages 193-205.
121
Lewis, Julian. Rather Hard on George Galloway The Times January 26, 1994
122
Lilleker, Darren G. Against the Cold War (I.B.Tauris, 2004) pages 202-205.
119

26

There is some specific evidence which implicated certain high level Labor Party leaders
as potential collaborationists in the even of a Soviet occupation or pro-Moscow takeover of
Britain. At meetings in London and Moscow, Labour Party General Secretary Ron Hayward
admitted to high level Soviet official Chernyaev that he was dedicated to the implementation of a
genuine socialist government in Britain. Chernyaev noted that Hayward believed that he
needed to break the Labour Cabinet. Hayward, as the new dictator, would have referred to
himself as the party leader. Hayward informed the Soviets that he wanted to nurture a cadre of
young covert communists within the Labor Party to prepare for Red rule. Hayward boasted to
Chernyaev that I am the first Labour leader in British history who is not afraid to come out
alongside Communists with the same agenda.123
Other Labor Party bodies displayed propensities for totalitarian-type of rule. Local
governmental bodies such as the municipal Labor Party councils could conceivably cooperate
with a Soviet occupation force in Britain. After all, they shared a common political culture.
Nicholas Ridley, the Secretary of State for the Environment, noted that I know that people
living and working under these Labour councils live in fear. Mrs. McGoldrick may have been
reinstated. But other teachers are scared. They think they are being watched by spies. They are
afraid that chance remarks might lose them their jobs. I am told that people dare not speak out
for fear of what might happen to them and their families. It is more like Poland or East
Germany: the knock on the door in the middle of the night. It is totalitarian, intolerant, antidemocratic and it employs fear to control people.124 Greater London Council (GLC) Chairman
Ken Livingstone noted in an interview with GDR Radio that the USA was the major world
aggressor and this had forced the USSR into a defensive posturethe US ruling class should be
overthrown.125
The Soviets and their allies sought to influence British politicians on the Left and Right
into supporting policies favorable to Moscow, East Berlin, et al. Such influence operations would
also serve to neutralize the anti-communist intellectual, security, and military forces in Britain. In
a 1976 statement to the Central Committee Department of Foreign Information, Horst Brasch of
East Germany noted that the foreign friendship movement in Western countries was for
mobilizing social forces in support of dtente, to highlight the GDRs support for peace and
the achievements of socialism, and to develop contacts with target groups outside the area of
traditional GDR supporters. These target groups included unionists, established politicians,
churches, peace, womens and students groups.126 A 1975 SED127 Politburo document noted the
important task of cultivating the Left development of the British workers movement and the
Reid, Sue. How the Kremlin Hijacked Labour: Diary of a Kremlin Insider Reveals the Hold
Soviets Had Over Labour Politicians Mail Online November 5, 2009 Accessed
From:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225637/How-Kremlin-hijacked-Labour-DiaryKremlin-insider-reveals-hold-Soviets-Labour-politicians.html
124
Parliament: Some Labour Councils Just Like Eastern BlocThe Times (London) November
19 1986
125
GDR Radio Interviews Ray Buckton, Ken Livingstone Voice of the German Democratic
Republic July 3, 1982
126
LaPorte, Norman. Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR 1949-1990(Berghahn Books 2010)
pages 180-181.
127
SED was the acronym for the ruling communist party in East Germany, the Socialist Unity
Party.
123

27

Labor Party. This Left development was the force which drove the Labor Government towards
a realistic attitude towards the East Bloc.128
The first official East German Embassy in the UK was headed by Ambassador Karl
Heinz Kern. He forged political contacts which ranged from Conservatives to the Communist
Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Kern found Conservatives easier to work worth, despite their
ideological anti-communism. He found that the Conservatives were more interested in promoting
business and possessed concerns about the potential of a re-united Germany. The Embassy
provided funding to the CPGB and the Britain-GDR Society. A unit of East German Foreign
Intelligence (HVA) was also based at the East German Embassy.129
Between 1975 and 1981, the SED sent delegations to the Labor Partys annual
congresses. Ambassador Kern noted that these forums provided avenues for East Germany to
forge new contacts. Neal Ascherson recalled leftwing Labor MPs congratulating the Peoples
Police for their steadfast defense of the Berlin Wall at the Potsdam Discussions of the 1970s.
An East German Embassy report on the attitudes of official British circles (circa 1986) reported
that the communist state commanded a degree of respect for its social achievements, strong
economy, and a stable state. In November 1987, Britain-GDR Society (BGS) official John Kotz
stated that the GDR at the moment is just about the most successful country in Europe in light
rising living standards and no unemployment. In October 1989, GDR Ambassador Joachim
Mitdank noted at a BGS event which celebrated the 40th anniversary of East Germany: The
GDR has arrived. It has become an advanced industrial economy testifying to the vitality of
socialism. It ranks today among the ten leading industrial nations of the world.130
Peace movements such as the CND were also aligned with the Soviet Union. They
possessed an extreme bias against US efforts to build up British defenses. CND and many other
major British peace groups militantly opposed the stationing of US troops and strategic weapons
on British soil. It was known that CND officials met with Soviet and East German officials and
diplomats.131 CND was also known to be close to the East German Peace Council.132 In 1984,
CND official Joan Ruddock met with East German Ambassador Gerhard Lindner. During this
meeting both Lindner and Ruddock found themselves in agreement on issues affecting peace in
the world.133 Bruce Kent of CND was interviewed by East German Radio about nuclear weapons
and defense policies. Not unexpectedly, Kent denounced the West.134 The East German Peace
Council President Werner Rumpel developed contacts with the CND. Meetings took place at the
East German Embassy and CND offices between Rumpel and Bruce Kent, Joan Ruddock, and
Beresford. Rumpel exploited the anti-US feelings of CND. In 1987, a CND report noted that the
SED was pursuing Glasnost with a German face. The Stasi identified Kent and Ruddock as

128

LaPorte, Norman. Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR 1949-1990(Berghahn Books 2010)
page 214.
129
Ibid pages 170-171.
130
Ibid pages 227-240.
131
CND Delegation in Moscow Soviet Television September 25, 1985
132
Visitors: German Democratic Republic East German News Agency February 6, 1988
133
British CND Delegation Received at GDR Embassy East German News Agency December
13, 1984
134
CND Leader Interviewed on GDR Radio Voice of the GDR December 30, 1980 and Bruce
Kent Interviewed on East German Radio Radio GDR Home Service January 2, 1984

28

elements sympathetic to East Germany who fought against rightwing elements within the
CND.135
In September 1984, Joan Ruddock, CND Chairman, noted in the Morning Star that the
threat comes from the United States having made Europe the front line in its conflict with the
Soviet Union. In December 1983, John Cox, CND Vice-President, stated in Communist Focus
that I believe that our work in destroying the big lie about the Soviet threat is one of the most
important things we do. Sally Davison, former CND National Organizer, noted in a June 1982
interview on Radio Moscow that the Soviet Government is in favour of peace John Cox,
CND Vice-President, stated to the Morning Star in January 1985 that The consistent stand of
CND for unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from NATO has been won by working
as Communists in a principled non-sectarian way. Incredibly, Gary Lefley, the CND General
Secretary, noted in Straight Left in May 1982 that the Soviet Union has never welshed on any
treaty obligation in its 65-year history. No, rather it is our membership of NATO which involves
us in plans to initiate global war. A former CND Chairman Marjorie Thompson broke with
CNDs pro-Soviet positions and recounted that she was driven close to a nervous breakdown by
efforts of communists in the organisation to undermine her.136 CND supporters organized the
escape from prison the convicted Soviet spy George Blake, on the grounds that he was a
prisoner of war.137
Former CND supporter John Braine noted that Despite its great protestations of
political impartiality. CND is about as independent of the Soviet line as a ventriloquist's dummy.
Indeed it provides a textbook example of the way in which Communists involved in any
movement will take over. The London Daily Telegraph estimated that 25% of the CNDs
council were members of the Communist Party. Robert Porter wrote in the Daily Mail that at
least seven CND leaders are either card-carrying Communists or sympathizers. Leading British
Communist have used CND platforms to attack the U.S. and defend the Soviet Union. Britains
Defense Minister, Geoffrey Pattie, noted that A straight-forward Make Britain Weaker
movement would set nowhere. But a CND movement designed to do exactly the same thing
commands support because many people are so worried about the danger of war that they refuse
to think through the consequences of their actions.138
Services CND members interviewed John Stanleigh, while John Hoof was interviewed by
Radio GDR correspondent Knut Hennsler in 1984. Services CND mobilized ex-military soldiers
and officers against nuclear weapons and consequently British efforts to strengthen their armed
forces.139
Some former British military officers also joined with the pro-Soviet elements of the
peace movement. Brig. Gen. Michael Harbottle was involved in the Soviet and East German135

LaPorte, Norman. Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR 1949-1990(Berghahn Books 2010)
page 274.
136
Yes, the CND Was Pro-Soviet Sunday Telegraph October 3, 1999 Accessed From:
http://www.julianlewis.net/press_detail.php?id=108
137
Soviet Stooges Concealed in CND Clothes Sunday Times January 15, 1989 Accessed
From: http://www.julianlewis.net/press_detail.php?id=45
138
New Nuke Hysteria AIM Report May A 1982 Accessed From:
http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/1982/05a.html#6
139
GDR Correspondents Interview With British Ex-Servicemen BBC Summary of World
Broadcasts March 1, 1984

29

controlled Generals for Peace and Disarmament (GPD), which was a collection of former NATO
generals who were anti-US leftists. Gunter Bohnsack, formerly of the Stasi, stated that the GPD
was conceived, organised and financed by the StasiThis created a real power that was in line
with Moscows ideasand we always controlled this through our intelligence services in
Moscow and East Berlin.140 In 1986, GPD held a premiere for the film Die Generale in East
Berlin. Present alongside East German dictator Erich Honecker were the following NATO exgenerals who turned pro-Soviet: Michael Harbottle (Britain); Gert Bastian (FRG); Johan
Christie (Norway); Nino Pasti (Italy); Georgios Koumanakos (Greece) and Francisno da Costa
Gomes (Portugal).141 Brig. Gen. Harbottle served as an apologist for Soviet rearmament and
military buildups. While on Czech Radio, Harbottle condemned the deployment of new US firststrike nuclear missiles in Western Europe as disrupting the military balance and destabilizing
the situation in Europe. From the military point of view, the counter-measures of the Warsaw
Pact countries were understandable.142
The British-Soviet Friendship Society (BSFS) was formed in 1927. It was affiliated with
the British Peace Committee which was renamed the British Peace Assembly. It was linked with
the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR, which was formed by the old COMINTERN.
By the 1980s, the BSFS had 3,000 members. It engaged in visits to the USSR and maintained
strong links with the Soviet Embassy in London. BSFS events were attended by Soviet Embassy
officials, including the Ambassador. The British Peace Committee (BPC) was formed in 1948
after the convening of the World Congress of Intellectuals in Communist Poland. It was the
British affiliate of the World Peace Council. It launched activities directed at cultural
organizations and artists. Prime Minister Atlee noted that the BPC was an offshoot of the
WPC, an instrument of the Politburo: more than ninety per cent of the members of its permanent
committee are known to be communists or fellow travelers. In 1980, the BPC became the
British Peace Assembly. The BPA arranged peace delegations to travel to the USSR.143
Indirect and direct Soviet subsidies for the Communist Party of Great Britain continued
until 1990. Its program, The British Road to Socialism, envisaged that communism could come
to power in the UK through parliamentary means. The trade unions would be utilized by the
Communist Party to push the Labor Party towards communism. Under this plan, the Communist
Party would become a part of the Labor Party through infiltration and influence operations. This
alliance would support The Alternative Economic and Political Strategy. The Alternative
Economic and Political Strategy called for massive nationalization of industries, confiscatory
taxation of the wealthy, withdrawal from all Western alliances, and a pro-Soviet foreign policy.
A breakaway faction of the British Communist Party developed into the New Communist Party
(NCP). The NCP were nicknamed the tankies for their staunch support of the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia. Other British Leftists believed that the NCP was funded by Czechoslovak
intelligence during the 1980s.There were reports that the NCP provided Czech intelligence with
information about leftist rivals in Britain. The NCP supported other communist regimes such as

Lewis, Julian. Obituary: Brigadier Michael Harbottle Independent May 28, 1997 page 16.
Visitors; GDR East German News Agency September 29, 1986
142
Czechoslovak Radios Interview With Brigadier Michael Harbottle Prague Home Service
February 9, 1984
143
Rose, Clive. The Soviet Propaganda Network (Pinter Publishers 1988) pages 245-248.
140
141

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North Korea and Yugoslavia.144 Another source indicated that the NCP received funding from
Czechoslovakia during the period from 1977 to late 1989. After Czech funding dried up,
Ethiopia funded the NCP until mid-1991. The NCP also praised Saddam Hussein as a great
revolutionary and the non-capitalist development of the Iraqi economy. It also supported the
anti-Gorbachev coup of August 1991. The NCP then supported North Korea and Communist
China. The NCP developed open ties with the ruling communist parties of both nations.145
The Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) was a Trotskyite communist party which was
allied with pro-Soviet Libya and Iraq. The WRP received funds from Arab regimes and the PLO
from 1975 until at least 1983. The WRP through Gerry Healy, Alex Mitchell, Corin and Vanessa
Redgrave, established an intelligence relationship with Libya. The WRP gathered information on
Jews in the British media, politics, and business. The WRP also received more than 19,000
pounds from Iraq for spying on dissident Iraqis in Britain. This information was turned over to
the Iraqi Embassy in London. The WRP also had ties with the Libyan Peoples Bureau in
London.146 In July 1978, the Iraqi media quoted the British Workers Revolutionary Party
(WRP) in condemning the rightists British information media campaign against Iraqi
diplomats.147
Both Labor and Conservative Party delegations met with the Arab Bath Socialist Party
of Iraq during the 1980s. The Conservatives sought business deals with Saddams Socialist
dictatorship, while the Laborites admired Iraqs collectivist system. In July 1980, delegations
from the British Conservative and Labor Parties met with Baha ad-Din Ahmad deputy speaker of
the Iraqi National Assembly. They included Robert Hicks and Cyril Townsend, Conservative
MPs and David Watkins and Robert Leatherland, Labor MPs.148 In March 1984, delegations
from the British Conservative and Labor Parties met with Naim Haddad head of the Iraqi
National Assembly.149 An article titled Saddams Admirers on the British Left noted that
Certainly after 1991 it (Iraq) targeted respectable Labourite leftists as its best hope. I had
several offers of freebie trips to Iraq (none mediated by Galloway) in the late 1980s and early
1990s when I was a journalist on Tribune. I did not take up the offers: others did.150
The Communist Party of Great Britain continued to maintained ties with the international
communist bloc even after 1991. The Communist Party of Great Britain maintained ties with the
ruling communist dictatorships in Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Red China, and Venezuela. It also was
an integral component of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and the Venezuelan Solidarity
Campaign. Delegations from the PLO, CPUSA, and the French Communist Party attended a

Mosbacher, Mike. British Communist Movement and Moscow Political Notes Number 127
1996 Accessed From: http://www.libertarian.co.uk/sites/default/lanotepdf/polin127.pdf
145
Searchlight and the New Communist Party Lobster Magazine Issue 28 December 1994
Accessed From: http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/issue28.php
146
Revolution betrayed-the Workers Revolutionary Party and Iraq Accessed From:
http://libcom.org/library/revolution-betrayed-wrp-iraq
147
Baghdad Cites British Paper on Campaign Against Iraq Baghdad Voice of the Masses July
31, 1978
148
British Parliamentary Delegation Arrives in Baghdad INA July 29, 1980
149
National Assembly Speaker Receives British Delegation INA March 17, 1984
150
Saddams Admirers on the British Left-1 Accessed From:
http://libsoc.blogspot.com/2003_04_01_archive.html
144

31

Communist Party of Great Britain event in 2006.151 The Communist Party of Great BritainMarxist Leninist (CPGB-ML) maintained close ties with Islamist Iran, Qaddafis Libya, Baathist
Socialist Syria, Red China, Cuba, Venezuela, the Russian Federation, Zimbabwe, North Korea,
and Vietnam. The CPGB-ML maintained particularly close ties to the Chinese Embassy in
London.152 In 2012, the CPGB-ML asserted that It would seem that Putin is standing firmly
against the Russian bourgeoisie accepting to be vassals to the West. 153 Leading figures of the
Communist Party of Great Britain successor organization Democratic Left was heavily involved
in campaigns of support for communist Cuba. The splinter Communist Party of Britain (CPB)
retained a very pro-Soviet position after its formation in 1988. The CPB was supportive of Cuba
and the increasing power of Gennady Zyuganovs Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
In fact, the CPB dispatched work brigades to Cuba. It is more than likely that Castro planted
agents within these CPB work brigades. It also welcomed the communist-dominated ANC
regimes in South Africa.154
Some British scholars also maintained ties with the Soviet Embassy in London. Professor
Fred Halliday was one such scholar. Colonel Yuri Kobaladze found Hallidays information
useful for KGB analysis.155 Perhaps the Soviets found Halliday an ideologically compatible
contact, in light of his leftwing views. Accuracy in Media Report noted that Halliday was one
of the few Westerners that the Soviets permitted to enter Afghanistan to report on the war. In
1981, he reported that the Soviets were playing a positive role in Afghanistan. In a 1982 article
he explained this saying, The guerrilla forces threatening to seize power in Afghanistan were
feudal and clerical in ideology, fighting for a return to social conditions that have kept the
Afghan people crouched in untold backwardness and misery. Those who know Halliday
describe him as being on the extreme left fringe of the New Left movement and as a defender of
Qaddafi as well as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.156
While the British neo-Nazis were anti-communist, they maintained ties with pro-Soviet
states in the Middle East. All of the neo-fascist, neo-Nazi groups in Great Britain adhered to a
collectivist economic ideology. In this area, neo-Nazis and communists had a similar spiritualideological basis and temperament that the state was supreme and the individual were its
servants. It is not uncommon for Nazis to become communists and vice versa. In the event of a
communist takeover of Britain, it would not be surprising if neo-Nazis joined the forces of the
Left.
Communist Party of Great Britain Accessed From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Great_Britain
152
Communist Party of Great Britain Marxist-Leninist Accessed From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Great_Britain_(Marxist%E2%80%93Leninis
t) AND October Revolution: beacon lighting the way forward for all humanity Proletarian
Online Issue 33 December 2009 Accessed From: http://www.cpgbml.org/index.php?secName=proletarian&subName=display&art=571
153
Russian Elections Displease the West Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
Accessed From: http://blog.cpgb-ml.org/tag/vladimir-putin/
154
Mosbacher, Mike. British Communist Movement and Moscow Political Notes Number 127
1996 Accessed From: http://www.libertarian.co.uk/sites/default/lanotepdf/polin127.pdf
155
Leppard, David. With Smiles and Cash Sunday Times February 19, 1995
156
Notes From the Editors Cuff AIM Report February A 1989 Accessed From:
http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/1989/02a.html
151

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After World War II, former British Union of Fascists and National Socialists (BUFNS)
leader Oswald Mosley formed the Union Movement (UM). It propounded an Europeanist form
of British fascism. In 1973, the Union Movement promoted the concept of the siege-economy
as a transitory step in its effort to impose fascism. The UM also promoted the concept of an
Economic General Staff to rule over the British economy. The UM supported the concept of
European Socialism in its long-range plan for a continental economy. Mosley supported
workers ownership of industries, class solidarity, and state development of new economic
projects. The neo-fascist, Nazi-style National Front (NF) and the UM praised the USSR and Red
China as countries which possessed a positive program for social mobilization that were
supportive of national survival. The UM and NF also praised the Chinese and Soviet youth
programs. The British National Party (BNP) supported the collectivist concepts of Nation
Above Class and folk-society in opposition to class society. The NF pamphlet Beyond
Capitalism and Socialism noted that aspects of the organizations economic program were
already in place in Britain: the welfare state, employee-employer cooperation, and government
direction of the national economy. The BNP supported private enterprise within a framework of
national control. The NF supported private enterprise basically, but subject to government
control...industries of vital national importance. In 1974, the NF supported the nationalization
of foreign-owned companies in Britain. The National Socialist Movement (NSM) of Colin
Jordan supported the creation of a national credit authority which controlled the private banks
and money agencies. The NF supported the creation of a national authority for the issuance of
credit, massive reductions in interest rates, and a consumer-credit service to absorb surplus
consumer commodity production. Mosleys UM supported wage and price controls. The NF
supported an autarkic economy. The NF supported the concept that the labor unions should be
under state control.157 The National Labour Party (NLP) sought to appeal to the Left through a
form of popular socialism and racial collectivist nationalism.158 In 1961, John Tyndall noted
that The Jew knows that only within a state governed according to his self-proclaimed theories
of Liberalism and Freedom will he be permitted to continue, unhampered, the activities by
which he has corrupted every nation that had opened his doors to him. Instead, Tyndall
proposed What we intend to build is a national community in which that natural Nordic
birthright of freedom is not something to be taken for granted by the dregs of society, but
something earned by labour, loyalty and serviceIn place of the modern Jew-inspired illusion of
freedom we substitute the honest reality of freedom, i.e. Freedom for those fit to use it and a
curb on those who are not. Such a principle forms the basis of the authoritarian state, which we
seek to build in Britain.159
During the 1960s, various fascists led by John Tyndall formed the Greater Britain
Movement (GBM), which then became the National Front (NF). The GBM called for a racially
based collectivist society which suppressed individualism. The GBM noted that Nationalism
has one final and vital role: it must restore unity to the British people. Today we are torn apart
Saleam, Dr. Jim. British Neo-Fascist Politics 1960 -1975 Accessed From:
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/britfascism/chapter4.html
158
Copsey, Nigel and Macklin, Graham. British National Party: Contemporary Perspectives
(Routledge, 2013) page 21.
159
Botsford, David. British Fascism and the Measures Taken Against It By the British State
Historical Notes 1998 Libertarian Alliance Accessed From:
http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/histn/histn028.pdf
157

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by all manner of factional interests representing class, occupation religion and political
ideology. Three major parties argue with one another over details of day to day government
which are superfluous as long as they exist within the overall framework of a weak and lethargic
national body. Sections of industry, goaded from the rear by political exploiters, fight over the
spoils of the nation's production. Social groupings, representing manual workers and brain
workers, are encouraged to identify themselves with conflicting political causes and to believe
that the interests of one must always be pursued to the detriment of the interests of the other and
that the state of the country is the fault of the other. Only a community of people with a truly
national sense will be immune to the insidious disease of class warfare. Free trade and
socialism was rejected by the GBM in favor of the organisation of the production and
distribution of wealth within the secure framework of a mighty nation-state. A GBM
dictatorship would also strictly control the banking and private financial interests: The British
nation must be freed from the clutches of the international financial system and must firmly
control all the financial forces by which its economy is fed. This means strong government
direction of financial enterprise within defined national and Commonwealth bounds, and based
on a regular equilibrium between the creation of money and the real wealth in production.160
Colin Jordan of the NSM wrote that National Socialism, properly understood, has never
been a mere combination of conventional socialism spiced with nationalism, and thus yet
another merely materialist doctrine. It most certainly derives from its conception of the Folk a
strong belief that this racial kinship justifies and decrees radical social justice, and thus the
belief-, increased by its belief in the Leadership Principle, again derived from its racial belief
that private ownership and private enterprise must be subject to national regulation and
supervision to ensure that its productive efficacy is fairly distributed and in accordance with
national requirements; but it has never accepted the idea that nationalisation of property is the
only and necessary means to adequate social justice, any more than it has been prepared to
tolerate the anarchic inequity of liberal capitalism as the only answer and necessary means of
preserving private property and enterpriseIt has always stood for reconciliation, not a conflict
of private and corporate interests. However, along with this economic outlook, National
Socialism has always been far more than this, being first and foremost a racial outlook from
which its economic outlook has followed.
Jordan also noted that The social feeling of oneness must find practical expression in,
and in turn be stimulated by, a sincere and profound concern for social and economic justice.
Consciousness of kinship and care for the collective good of the folk demand that every citizen
must have an equal opportunity to develop and exercise his talents and rise according to his
merits; and that every citizen must receive a fair return for his services to the community, and
even the simplest worker an assurance of the necessities of life.Thus we arrive at the socialist
element in National Socialism. This is not the Marxist socialism of state ownership of the means
of production and distribution, which is the economic over-government of the ant heap, and as
objectionable as the predatory individualism of the capitalist system, which is the economic
under- government, or anarchy, of the jungleInstead it is Folk Socialism, or the regulation of
private enterprise for the equitable division of its fruits, under equitable conditions. The
economic injustices and social evils of capitalism have fostered Marxism, with its pernicious
form of public control of the economy, and the alternative to both lies in National Socialism.
160

Tyndall, John. Six Principles of British Nationalism (2nd Edition 1970-1st Edition 1966)
Accessed From: http://www.aryanunity.com/sixprincip.html

34

Jordan wrote that There are, those, on the one hand, who seek to reduce National
Socialism to something of the so-called right, stifling its supra-national and pan-Aryan
implications to present it as nothing more than a militant form of the old nationalism;
suppressing its radical economic and social implications to make it an accomplice of capitalism;
thus depriving it of its revolutionary content in order to accommodate it within the old order
which it exists to overthrow and replace.161
The neo-Nazi League of St. George also engaged in apologia on behalf of the Soviet
Union. This was the result of a commonly held anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. The League of
St. George noted in its publication that certain important aspects of Soviet society were less
unwelcome to our way of thinking. The publication also observed that the USSR may still be
Marxist in word but she is racial nationalist in deed.162 Similar to the communists, the League
of St. George also adhered to a platform which rejected economic and political freedom. The
League of St. George asserted that the Nation should not be just a collection of individuals and
groups pursuing their own, often conflicting, interests without any regard to other parts of the
Folk CommunityExploitation, snobbery, class war, excessive inequality of wealth and other
factors which work against unity must be eliminated; and an organizational structure must be
established to ensure that the various social and economic interests work in harmony with each
other and the Folk State as a Corporate whole. The League also explicitly called for state
control of the economy: A nation should not leave the fate of its economy and the livelihood of
its people at the mercy of market forcespursuit of profit and personal ambition must not
endanger the economic fabric of the nationMultinational companies, international bankers,
and speculators should not have unfettered freedom to move money and goods in and out of the
country at will. The League also believed that the Folk State must be in full control of the
money supply. The state would curb unemployment, enact strong price and exchange controls,
and restructure banking through a Royal Commission on Monetary Reform. Global free trade
was denounced, while tariffs were strongly supported by the League of St. George. A National
Industrial Finance Corporation would be set up to provide stable, long term financial resources to
British manufacturers. The League of St. George also supported the imposition of higher taxes
on what it termed the very rich. The League also noted that unity and harmony in the Folk
Community are impaired when employers ride roughshod over the rights of their employees and
ignore their welfare. The old trade unions were viewed by the League as corrupt arms of the
establishment. Instead, the League recommended the formation of a new independent National
Union or Labor Front to replace the old labor unions. Greater worker participation in the
governance of industry was also encouraged by the League.163
The NSM and NF maintained close relations with various Soviet satrapies and anti-US
dictatorships in the Middle East. In 1962, Egyptian Colonel Muhammad al-Shazli, the Military
161

Jordan, Colin. National Socialism: Vanguard of the Future (The Historical Review Press
2011) Accessed From:
http://archive.org/stream/NationalSocialismVanguardOfTheFutureSelectedWritingsOfColinJord
an/National%20Socialism%20%20Vanguard%20of%20the%20Future%20(Selected%20Writings%20of%20Colin%20Jordan)_
djvu.txt
162
Neo-Nazis Hopes of Russia Patterns of Prejudice Volume 15 Issue 3 1981 pages 49-50.
163
League of St. George. The Folk State: League of St. George Policy Statement (Steven Books
1995)

35

Attach at the Egyptian Embassy in London, met with important British neo-Nazis Colin Jordan
and John Tyndall to discuss funding of 15,000 pounds for Jordans National Socialist
Movement.164 NF officials visited Libya as guests of Qaddafis regime.165 The NF also praised
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The National Front stated Their belief in their cause is
so strong that they will run through mine fields unarmed to attack enemy positions; their ideals
are so all-consuming that they will drive truck bombs into enemy camps knowing full well their
(own) death is inevitableThis power, this contempt for death, is the stuff of which victories are
made. The NF promoted Qaddafis Green Book. According to NF member Ray Hill, the Libyan
Peoples Bureau in London funded the National Fronts magazine.166
The Soviets and their allies sought to utilize the Irish Republican Army (both the Official
IRA and the Provisional IRA or Provos) to dismember the British Empire and to create a
socialist despotism in Northern Ireland. Sejna also recounted how the USSR and its allies
cooperated with the IRA in an effort to subvert British power: I remember a delegation of three
representatives of the I.R.A. visiting Czechoslovakia in 1963 to seek arms, training, and financial
support. Their visit was arranged through military intelligence channels, after a decision by the
Military Committee to allot a maximum sum of 3 million crowns ($60,000) to the I.R.A. This
decision was endorsed by our Politburo and by the Russians. The delegation came under the
wing of the Department for Foreign Aid in our Ministry of Defence, which was directly
responsible to the Chief of StaffWe supplied the I.R.A. with light weapons, machine-guns, hand
grenades, explosives, and field communications equipment. We thought the I.R.A. was asking for
more than they could use, but we agreed to take five or six of their trainees in 1964 for a twomonth course on political organization and guerrilla warfare. They were trained individually
and not made known to each other in Czechoslovakia.
Sejna also wrote that The Plan defined the political goals of the Warsaw Pact - in other
words, of the Kremlin - as follows: to support the progressive anti-colonialist movement in
Northern Ireland; to help the people of Northern Ireland gain their freedom and independence
from Great Britain; to establish a democratic and socialist regime in Northern Ireland as a
prelude to the unification of Ireland as a Socialist state. The Kremlin did not want the unification
of Ireland to take place until a Socialist state had been created in the North, because their
planners thought the Northern militants would be overwhelmed by the Catholic, bourgeois
South.167
The IRA combined the strategy of deception and a general struggle against capitalism.
During a fund raising tour in the United States in 1971, IRA officer Billy Kelly was carefully
briefed as to how the audience should be played(he was instructed) to make copious references
to the martyrs of 1915 and 1920-1922-the period most of the audience would be living inAntiBritish sentiment, recallingthe potato famine and the Blacks and Tans could be profitably
exploited. By no means should anything be said against the Catholic Church. And all reference
Trafford, Daniel. Beyond the Pale Searchlight June 2001 Accessed From:
http://www.aijac.org.au/review/2001/266/arab_holo.html
165
Lee, Martin A. The Swastika and the Crescent Intelligence Report Spring 2002 Accessed
From: http://www.american-buddha.com/911.swastikaandcrescent.htm
166
Lee, Martin A. The Swastika and the Crescent Intelligence Report Spring 2002 Accessed
From: http://www.american-buddha.com/911.swastikaandcrescent.htm
167
Sejna, Jan. We Will Bury You Accessed From:
http://www.spiritoftruth.org/We_Will_Bury_You.pdf
164

36

to socialism should be strictly avoided. Tell them by all means that the Ireland we are fighting
for would be free and united. But say nothing about just what form the new free and united
Ireland would take. The Provisional IRA supported the education of workers to destabilize
capitalism in the whole of Ireland through armed struggle creating an irremediable conflict
between the needs of local capitalism and international imperialism and those of the popular
masses.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Soviet bloc support for the IRA factions increased.
The first Soviet helicopters and RPG-7s reached the Provisional IRA in 1972. AK-47s replaced
US-built Armalite rifles. The Official IRA was traditionally pro-Soviet and communist. The
Provisional IRA originally split from the Official IRA on the charge that they were a bunch of
communists. The Official IRA were Stalinists who endorsed the Soviet occupation of
Czechoslovakia in 1968. They called for the creation of a National Liberation Front for an
Irish Socialist Republic allied with the Soviet Union. The Central Committee of the CPSU
International Department dispatched officials to confer with the Official IRA. The KGB
established contact between the Official IRA and the Soviets through the British and Irish
Communist Parties. KGB officers settled in Dublin under the cover of serving as employees of
Pravda, TASS, and Intourist. The KGB also networked the Official IRA with the Cuban DGI
network in London via the British Communists. The DGI operational plans for 1972 called for
Cuban training of the IRA in terror and guerrilla warfare tactics. The Official IRA held an
Anti-Imperialist Festival in Dublin and Belfast in 1974 where Soviet representatives were in
attendance and printed all of Festivals propaganda.168
The IRA groups in Northern Ireland sought the creation of a socialist-communist state
once their revolution triumphs. The president of the Provisional Sinn Fein, Ruari O Bradaigh
outlined his platform in the Guardian newspaper in February 1980. The governments in Ulster
(Northern Ireland) and in Dublin were considered bankrupt. The Provisional IRA also
endorsed the nationalization of banking, finance, insurance mining, energy, and many more
economic sectors. Worker-owned cooperatives would run agriculture and industry. The Sinn
Fein platform, approved at their 1980 conference, noted that Private enterprise would have no
place in the key industries. IRA ruled Ireland would be a Democratic Socialist
Republicanti-imperialistanti-colonialist. Ireland under IRA control would ally itself with
the Third World and European nations allegedly the victims of colonialism. Such oppressed
European nations would include Scotland and Wales. The platform rejected the imperialism of
the East and NATO. The platform was overwhelming biased against the Western Alliance.169
The strategy of the Provisional IRA was to demolish the Quisling Regime in the Irish
Republic, which was dubbed by the IRA as a fascist state designed for privileged capitalist
sycophants. In 1978, an IRA representative noted in an interview with Controlnformazione, the
publicity organ of Italy's Red Brigades, that We must educate the workers to destabilize
capitalism in the whole of Ireland through armed struggle. An IRA representative noted that
We want a general dismantling of the existing Establishments in the Irish Republic and Ulster
both. Sinn Fein noted in its party manifesto that the IRA government would nationalize
industry, create farming cooperatives, and form a government based on Peoples Committees.

168

Sterling, Claire. The Terror Network (Berkley Books, 1982)

Willis, David K. IRA Aims at Leftist Revolution in Ireland: North and South Christian
Science Monitor May 5, 1981 page 1.
169

37

Sinn Fein President Ruairi O'Bradaigh admitted that We want a Democratic Socialist
Republic.170
A leading member of the Official IRA Malachy McGurran noted in March 1972 that the
English working class was helping the Official IRA for class reasons, not because of some
nationalistic notions. They must do it, because it will help them in the long run to advance their
own socialism, not just the quasi-socialism of Harold Wilson. Over here all we can do is set the
example as Cuba set the example for Latin America. In 1970, Cathal Goulding of the IRA
favored a worldwide propaganda campaign to evict the British troops occupying Northern
Ireland: We do favor such a campaign and we are trying to develop one particularly through
our allies in America, the people who are organizing the different Irish emigrant groups in
America. We are trying to get these people to work as much as possible to publicize why the
British troops are in Ireland, what they are doing and what they are doing and what they are
protecting. We have Irish organizations in Australia, New Zealand, America, and England. We
have also established contact with other countries where there are socialist groups and we are
trying to work with these people to arouse worldwide feeling against the occupation of Ireland
by England. Tomas MacGiolla President of the section of Sinn Fein attached to the Official
IRA noted that the US antiwar movement was growing in strength and its influence which it has
in restraining the designs of the Washington government. He also noted We are convinced that
this movement can be most helpful to a small nation like Ireland if it were engaged in a struggle
for its national liberation such as the Vietnamese people are engaged in at the moment171
Some articles and books even laid out alternative historical scenarios where the Soviets
and/or sympathetic leftists seized power in Great Britain. One such treatment was written in the
Daily Mail by historian Andrew Roberts. It was presented on the backdrop of tremendous
military cutbacks undertaken by a Labor Party government in the 1970s. Roberts wrote that The
seven-day war between the USSR and United Kingdom has gone down in history as one of the
most decisive victories of all time. Even three decades later it seems astonishing that a modern
sovereign nation such as Britain could have been defeated in such a short period. To this day we
still do not know who in the Ministry of Defence leaked the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC)
report of November 1978 that warned Jim Callaghan of Britains weaknesses right across the
armed services. It seems the key sentence that encouraged the Soviet Union to attack was:
Stocks of air defence munitions would sustain operations for only two or three days. The rest of
the report-which pointed out that there were only enough surface-to-air missiles to reload
launchers once, that the RAF faced a crippling shortage of pilots, and the Army would be
overwhelmed before Britain was able to mobilise her reserves -only added to the Russians
certainty that the war would be over quickly. They were right. The massive aerial attack by MiGs
from Russias 12 aircraft carriers off the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts, coupled with the landing of
20 parachute brigades on key British aerodromes and a naval armada unloading 30 tank
divisions into East Anglia, meant the JICs stark assessment was put to the test only two months
after it was made. The British armed forces fought with superb bravery for a week, but the
former Labour PM Harold Wilsons swinging defence cuts of the Sixties and mid-to-late
Seventies left them powerless to resist the Russian assaults. The government in Britain
collapsed. Prime Minister Callaghan was imprisoned for 20 years for crimes against the
170

Currie, Robin. The Irish Republican Army: a Closer Look Journal of Social Political &
Economic Studies Volume 19 Number 3 Fall 1994 pages 287-298.
171
Greig, Ian. Subversion (Tom Stacey, 1973) pages 165-169.

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proletariat in May 1979. President Carter in the United States refused to intervene on behalf of
the beleaguered Labor Party government. The Soviets divided Britain into separate republics:
England, Scotland, and Wales. The Chairman of the Presidium of the English Soviet was labor
union boss Arthur Scargill. A Politburo was formed which consisted of an alliance of all of the
British Left parties, such as the Socialist Workers Party, the Stalinists, and the extreme-Left
Labor Party members. Ken Livingstone became Mayor of London, while George Galloway
became Chairman of the Anglo-Soviet Friendship Council. Derek Hatton became Commissar for
Trade and Industry, while Tony Benn left for Paris after the House of Commons was converted
to the Peoples Duma. A General Election was held in May 1979 where only the Communist
Party was allowed on the ballot. Scargill received 99.8% of the vote. Pravda, Izvestia, TASS, the
Socialist Worker, Morning Star, The Mirror, and the BBC all proclaimed the election as free and
fair. Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh fled to Canada, while Prince Charles left for
New Zealand shortly before the British defeat. Anti-communist resistance in Britain was crushed
in what was later termed The Pacification. A British concentration camp system was opened in
Swindon and Wiltshire. These camps totaled 64 facilities, which interned 550,000. Conservative
Party activists were arrested, tortured, and executed by firing squad. Other political opponents
were interned in mental hospitals. Farming was collectivized and the economy placed under the
discipline of the Five Year Plans. By the mid-1980s, food production in the English Soviet
collapsed. Portraits of Brezhnev and Scargill abounded in English cities. Churches were
converted to state museums which extolled communism and militarism. In May 1979, all private
schools were abolished. Banks and industries were nationalized. The gold possessed by the Bank
of England was removed by the Soviets and transported to Moscow.172
Another example of a pro-Soviet takeover of England was portrayed in Robert Moss
book The Collapse of Democracy. The economy was portrayed as sclerotic, political freedoms
were suppressed, and socialism was imposed by the newly named Working Peoples
Government. London moved towards an accommodation with the Soviets. Various government
ministries were renamed, such as the Ministry of Equality. The Ministry of Equality was based in
Buckingham Palace. The Royal Family fled to New Zealand. The Working Peoples Government
was sworn in fully in 1984. The Union Jack flag remained but the countrys name was changed
from the UK to the Republic of Britain. The Prime Ministers residence was moved for security
reasons from 10 Downing Street to Windsor Castle. A new Hadrians Wall was built on the
Scottish-British border that was an electrified fence to prevent refugees from fleeing to Scotland.
In order to deceive the remaining free nations, the Working Peoples Government identified
itself as socialist, not communist. The Working Peoples Government retained NATO
membership and the existence of Parliament. The American Ambassador was expelled by the
Working Peoples Government. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party was banned and five
officials of the Socialist Party were tied to the CIA by the Working Peoples Government.
The ruling socialists in the Republic of Britain sought to maintain as much of the old
Empire as they could. Separatist efforts were blamed on the United States and rightist elements.
The Working Peoples Government accused the United States and rightwing British exiles in
colluding to hatch Scottish independence. Protestant leaders in Ulster Northern Ireland declared
unilateral independence from Britain when British troops were withdrawn and the IRA was
Roberts, Andrew. What If the Russians HAD Invaded Us? The Daily Mail Online January
2, 2009 Accessed From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1104459/What-RussiansHAD-invaded-us.html
172

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given control of the Catholic areas. The British embargoed all trade with Ulster under the aegis
of the Socialist United Nations. This reorganized UN excluded the United States from any
participation. Wales remained under British control, since a number of the Working Peoples
Government officials were of Welsh descent. The Working Peoples Government paid subsidies
for the operation of the steel mills and coal mines in Wales. England and Wales were divided
into 6 regions. Citizens needed special passes to travel between the regions within the Republic
of Britain. Most passports were withdrawn from private citizens while access to foreign currency
was limited.
While the regular British armed forces were cut down in size, the number of socialist
paramilitary troops increased. The Volunteer Constables were a mobile police force which was
based at the Knightsbridge Barracks. They were drawn from factory militias which grew in size
as a result of the General Strike. The General Strike occurred years before in northern England.
Various socialist governments reduced the British Army to 60,000 troops through severe budget
cutbacks. The British Armed Forces were deployed to maintain vital services during the General
Strike. The Volunteer Constables were provided with automatic weapons by the government.
Seeing parallels with Nazi Germany, this action upset the traditional British Army. As a result,
the Chief of the Defense Staff and the chiefs of all three services resigned. They were replaced
by a junior brigadier who served as a member of the Anglo-Soviet Friendship Society in his
student days. The rundown of the armed forces also made it impossible for the Working Peoples
Government to suppress Scottish independence. Minesweepers from the British (ex-Royal) Navy
and Soviet submarines were used to maintain control of the North Sea oil rigs. One Tory MP in
exile quipped that the Labor socialist government should have scrapped the entire army and
recorded a message directed to the USSR: Dont shoot, were on the same side. Once the
Working Peoples Government was inaugurated, the Soviet fleet made a port visit to London
while the Volunteer Constables and factory militias paraded with their new armored vehicles and
automatic weapons.
Much of the noncommunist press seemed to disappear. Only communist and one fascistminded newspaper remained. The newspapers which existed in the Republic of Britain included
The British Times, Morning Star, and The Peoples Mirror. A monthly publication titled
Corporate Britain reflected a fascist strain within the Working Peoples Government. When Red
China and the USSR signed a non-aggression pact, the Maoist Peoples News was allowed to
publish again. It was originally banned by the Working Peoples Government at the request of
the Soviet Embassy. Foreign newspapers such as the Scottish Express, Glasgow Herald, and the
International Herald Tribune were smuggled into Britain. British television was also tightly
controlled. BBC television programming included sports, old horror films, the blue movies,
Bolshoi Ballet, and historical films. This type of programming was consciously crafted to
distract the British masses from politics.
The Scottish Express published a smuggled British government document which outlined
the covert leftwing takeover of Great Britain. This operation was codenamed Operation Brutus
and the document was addressed to the Soviet Embassy. Years before the takeover by the
Working Peoples Government, the Labor Party governments suppressed rightwing political
activism and quasi-uprisings. In the mid-1970s, the Labor socialist government suppressed
rightwing taxpayer and small business/farmer movements with the assistance of (Soviet or
Bulgarian?) Colonel Zhivkov. Zhivkov set up a new security service for the British government.
The Home Office, armed forces, and police were infiltrated by pro-communists. So-called
patriotic elements were infiltrated by the organized Left as a tool to discredit the anti-communist

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Right. The Industrialists Association supported the crypto-communists in their electoral

campaigns where they thought that the communists could be domesticated and turned from
predators to house cats.
When the socialist Prime Minister was forcibly retired, a Labor Party ex-communist who
retained his Marxist beliefs took over as the new Prime Minister. He inaugurated the Working
Peoples Government and implemented a totalitarian program. A Socialist Minister in the
Working Peoples Government requested NATO assistance in suppressing the communist
takeover in Britain. The Minister was jailed as a part of the Grosvenor Square Plot, which
resulted in the expulsion of the American Ambassador. Trade unions members who participated
in the General Strike also opposed the restructuring of the government. Farmers and small
businessmen resisted inspectors from the Ministry of Equality. These inspectors were tasked
with the enforcement of collectivization decrees. Such high-handed actions resulted in shooting
incidents. These inspectors also confiscated anti-egalitarian possessions which included
paintings, furniture, jewelry, and other luxury items.
The economy of the Republic of Britain was socialized. Rationing was instituted even
before the Working Peoples Government was sworn in. Local supply committees controlled
the issuance of ration cards. These committees were controlled by the Working Peoples
Government. British citizens caught with gold or hard currency were imprisoned for 10 years.
Economists who espoused free market capitalism fled to the United States. The Working
Peoples Government stated that the meat supply would improve when Britain joined
COMECON.173
Another alternative history book which portrayed a Soviet takeover of Great Britain is
titled All Our Tomorrows by Ted Allbeury. In All Our Tomorrows, Britain is portrayed as a
nation beset by economic malaise, an expanding socialist welfare state, riots, and leftwing
subversion. The Soviets and British Communists penetrated the Labor Party, the trade unions,
and essential services. The British Prime Minister declared a state of emergency in the wake of
the chaos. The Soviet Ambassador to Britain stormed into the Prime Ministers office, declaring
that the Soviet Union would intervene and occupy the country. The Soviet Ambassador protested
that the USSR had to intervene to protect the leftwing protestors who were being contained and
arrested by the police and the Royal Armed Forces. The peace protestors also denounced the
American military presence in Britain. The Soviets forced Britain to sign a Treaty of Neutrality
and Cooperation. The treaty stipulated the British withdrawal from NATO; the imposition of
Soviet law in an occupied Britain; control of British government institutions by Soviet
advisers; membership in COMECON; Soviet assistance to the British in achieving full
employment, the maintenance of law and order; and equal opportunity for all citizens; and the
transfer of British technology and goods to the USSR. Fearful of the implications of the
impending Soviet occupation, British citizens fled across the English Channel to France or
secured flights from a chaotic Heathrow Airport. American citizens in England fled to US
military bases and then to Shannon in Ireland.
Soviet advisers soon controlled the local governments of towns with a population of
25,000 residents or more. The Soviets also granted a 100 million ruble Reconstruction Loan to
retrain unemployed British workers. Demobilized British soldiers and sailors were also
conscripted by the Soviets into new positions in British industries. All unemployed were
provided with employment within 21 days with compensation and working conditions similar to
173

Moss, Robert. The Collapse of Democracy (Abacus, 1977) pages 21-35.

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that of Soviet laborers. The Soviet Commissioner for Great Britain Smetana ominously warned
over TV that the days of the law-breakers are overWhen a new society is being established,
new methods, new thinking has to be applied. All British aristocrats had their titles legally
revoked. All political parties, including the British Communists, were disbanded on Soviet
orders. Smetana noted that politicians have not served this country well. They have been
divisive not constructive, seeking privileges for themselves and their sponsors. British
businesses which employed 50 or more workers were absorbed into large state-owned
corporations. The old Job Centres became local offices of the British Ministry of Labour. To be
unemployed was declared illegal and Social Security benefits were cancelled. Strict price
controls were levied on goods sold by private traders. The production of socially unjustified
goods was canceled by the Soviets. Landholdings of the aristocracy was nationalized. The
churches were supervised by the KGB and the British Ministry of Social Services. A dozen
Protective Custody Camps were opened were political enemies were interned. Erstwhile allies of
the Soviets in the Labor Party, trade unions, Liberal Party (which was more libertarian, not proSoviet), writers, broadcasters, university lecturers, professors, Trotskyite Communists, and
historians were jailed in these Camps. On the other hand, Tories were provided niche positions
within British industry and finance. The Stock Exchange was closed, while all banks and
insurance companies were nationalized. All citizens were ordered to fill out detailed
questionnaires. In return, citizens were provided with a plastic card entitling them to hold a job
and to procure food. Lying on these registration forms earned British citizens a five year slave
labor term in the USSR. Food shortages and rationing became the norm of the everyday British
citizen. Trade unions became the arm of the British state: The State represents all workers.
Youre living in the past. All separate unions were merged into a National Trades Union. The
Peoples Courts tried and sentenced anti-communists to prison or execution. All newspapers
were merged into one organ titled The British News, while radio and TV programming were
controlled by the New British Broadcasting Company. British and Soviet products and
technology were displayed at the Festival of the New Britain. The British police cooperated with
the Soviets and conducted arrests of political oppositionists. Chiefs of police were controlled by
Soviet advisers.
The distrustful Soviets purged the British Communists in manner similar to Hitler
purging his most fanatic followers in the SA in 1934. In fact, the American Secretary of State
noted that the Soviet occupation appealed to various British factions: The old right-wingers are
delighted that the unions have lost all of their clout. The old left-wingers are delighted that the
Lords and Barons have been done down. In fact, the British leftists and militants who paved the
way for the occupation were portrayed as power-hungry individuals: Those so-called leftwingers and militants didnt give a damn about working men. What they wanted was power.
Power for themselves.174
On the other hand, A Piece of Resistance by Clive Egleton provides the reader with a
very limited backstory on the nature and circumstances of the Soviet invasion and occupation of
Britain. The Soviets arrived in the wake of an atomic missile attack on Bristol. The old
government surrendered and signed an armistice with the Soviets. It appeared that the Soviets
controlled the British through a puppet government. The Soviets also maintained control over
Britain through a Control Commission. Old ministries and new departments appeared to be one
of the hallmarks of this puppet government. Such departments included the Home Secretary and
174

Allbeury, Ted. All Our Tomorrows (The Mysterious Press 1982)

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the Ministry of Internal Security. Some of these officials served as Soviet agents burrowed
within the pre-occupation British government. One such official was Edwin Blythe who served
as the Third Secretary of the British Embassy in Lebanon. Blythe then defected to the USSR in
the early 1960s and later returned to Britain with the Soviet Occupation Force. He became the
Minister of Internal Security, which controlled the National Police Force and the Special Branch
of the puppet government. The puppet government also exercised totalitarian controls over the
population in other ways. All citizens were required to obtain registration cards from the puppet
government. Prison camps and rationing also became the norm in Soviet occupied Britain. The
security in the British prisons were provided by the Soviets, while the governors and other staff
were English. It also appeared that the British were conditioned to accept aspects of the Soviet
occupation through their dependence on government controls and services: Over the years
weve come to accept more and more state control. Before the war, we were-all of us-everdemanding that the government should do something-about wildcat strikes, about the price of
land, about bad landlords, and a hundred and one other problem areasA lot of people would
settle for stable prices, full employment, law and order, and security in their old age.175
Fast forward to 2015, and the same Russian and leftwing threat continues to be pointed
against free society in Britain. The far left wing of the British Labor Party poses a challenge to
the globalist Conservatives and other members of the Labor Party. This extreme left wing of the
Labor Party is led by MPs such as Jeremy Corbyn. Former Labor Prime Minister Gordon Brown
hinted at a criticism of Corbyn when he suggested: I have to say that if our global alliances are
going to be alliances with Hezbollah and Hamas and Hugo Chavezs Venezuela and Vladimir
Putins Russia, there is absolutely no chance of building a worldwide alliance that can deal with
poverty and inequality and climate change and financial instability, and weve got to face up to
that fact. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair warned People who say their heart is with
Corbyn, get a transplant.176 Meanwhile, under the neo-liberal, free trade policies of New Labor
and the Conservatives, the Russians gained tremendous financial and economic leverage over the
British economy. The British elites need to reject both neoliberal and socialist economics in
favor of economic and political nationalism of a constitutional variety.

175

Egleton, Clive. A Piece of Resistance (Coward-McCann New York 1970)

Calamur, Krishnadev. How Jeremy Corbyn Would Govern Britain The Atlantic August 18,
2015 Accessed From: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/jeremy-corbynlabour-britain/401492/
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