THE LAST DITCH

AUFERSTANDEN AUS RUINEN | Socialist Unity.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was the great political event of my life. Though I wore a "free elections in the East" badge at National Union of Students conferences, it was something I never really dared to hope for. I remember either Edward Heath or Keith Joseph quieting leftist protestors at my University by asking the simple question;

If the Wall was taken down, which way would the human tide flow?

They had no answer even then and would be startled, I suspect, to see their political successors arguing the DDR's merits so many years later. The full horror of that police state is now beyond rational denial. 

This is the chorus of the anthem Socialist Unity is inviting you to be nostalgic about. 

The Party, the Party, she is always right!
And Comrades, so it will always remain…
Since he who fights for the right, is always right…
He who defends mankind is always right….
As raised to life by Lenin’s spirit, as welded by Stalin
The Party, the Party, the Party!
How many hearts sank at the effort of singing such inhuman nonsense? I wonder who complained to YouTube about "copyright violations" so that the Socialist Unity video link is dead? Some socialists with a better understanding of effective agitprop perhaps? Or has some arm of the German government claimed the copyright to this tosh in the same way that the state of Bavaria owns that of Mein Kampf – the better to suppress it?

One response to “When will they ever learn?”

  1. Cascadian Avatar
    Cascadian

    Somewhat like your Students Union experiences, I dabbled in the world of unions when younger and attended a good few dreary conferences wherein a fixture of the event was always a singing of “the red flag”. I took great delight in singing:
    The working class can kiss my arse,
    I’ve got a foreman’s job at last.
    Which resulted in a good many disapproving stares and a couple of attempted lectures-good times.
    I was sincere in representing my working class colleagues, but as you are aware unionism veers very far from that primary aim.

    Like

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Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.

Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.

He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that

“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

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