Image: Red Labour (based on "The Motherland is Calling" by Irakli Toizde, 1941)
I had a spat with someone I respect on Facebook recently. I shared a Guardian article by Kevin Bolton that modestly asks why the Ukrainian community weren’t consulted about the Engels statue from Ukraine placed outside the HOME arts centre in Manchester by the artist Phil Collins. I received a swift, angry response telling me that to share this article was anti-communist and that the British Ukrainian community was largely formed out of SS troops who murdered Jews en masse. Bolton's opinion therefore was to be refused. I disagreed. This spat went on for a while and then fizzled out.
A little later, I circulated a link to a timely post by Cathy Nugent, on the Shiraz Socialist blog, titled 'Stalinist iconography is not acceptable'. This was greeted by laddish sneering from the same 'comrade'. It was telling that the jeers could not defend using Stalinist symbols directly, they skirted around the issue.
