Stalin in Clerkenwell
There's a myth that Lenin and Stalin first met in The Crown Tavern on Clerkenwell Green. Some old geezer in The Sekforde Arms (a pub full of OAPs) told me about it a few years ago. Although I didn't believe the old bore at the time, I've felt a strange compulsion to pass on this piece of obvious disinformation to gullible fools ever since. Well, yesterday Stalin really was in Clerkenwell - or at least his image was, carried by a host of social misfits. I took this photo at the top of the street on which my pub is situated. As any fule kno, it was May Day, and the marchers were out in force. Hundreds of them trooped through a baffled London. It was a wonderful spectacle on a sunny day, even if they were celebrating totalitarian mass-murderers (alongside random Turkish leftists that nobody's heard of).
12 comments:
The origins of May Day actually lie in commemorating the Haymarket martyrs, anarchists murdered by the US state for fighting for the eight hour day. Nothing to do with Lenin or Stalin.
As I understand it May Day's first association with the labour movement was indeed as a commemoration of the Haymarket incident in Chicago, but since then it's become the international day of labour. In that way it does have a lot to do with Lenin and Stalin (and a host of obscure Turkish leftists to boot).
The guys with the Stalin banner are members of a Maoist group and therefore supporters of at least two totalitarian mass-murderers.
Don't forget Lenin! That's three totalitarian mass murderers then.
No Ed, two: Lenin, unlike Stalin and Mao, was neither a totalitarian nor a mass murderer.
Matt: Tell that to the Kronstadt rebels. There's plenty of blood on Lenin's hands.
On the subject of Lenin, might I recommend Lenin the Novel by Alan Brien. It's a fictional diary covering his whole life. Sounds a bit rubbish, I know, but it's very well researched. The author is clearly a sympathiser, though.
According to Montefiore's Young Stalin, Lenin and Stalin first met in Tampere, Finland. It says the venue was the People's Hall, now the Lenin Museum. So I guess I've been there, unless there are two Communist museums in Tampere.
Damn. I missed a chance to see Stalin. He must be getting on a bit now - is his moustache grey now?
According to the big GPB map book, Lenin and Stalin first met in Harrogate in 1842, several years before either was born.
Jeff, they definitely met next door to the Crown in what is now the Marx Memorial Library.
Any biography of either man will confirm that for you. Lenin gave a talk and upstart Stalin insistend on taking the grander man out for a pint after.
It differs which pub they actually went to but since it existed then and was right next door to it I like to plump for the Crown.
"Social misfits" quite nicely sums up the photo of the mis-guided souls marching with their banner of Uncle Joe. It's like going back to the 1970's - I should know, I was there! (not marching, but gazing in dis-belief).
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