Famous Irish Stalinists weren’t jailed for views
Sean O’Casey and George Bernard Shaw were living in England in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II. Both were ardent supporters of the Soviet Union. After the Nazi-Soviet pact they wrote articles in the British press proposing that Britain make peace with Hitler as Stalin had so wisely done. Shaw was explicit in his praise of the Fuhrer.
Nothing happened to either of them - and this was wartime. In 1938, O’Casey engaged in a dispute with Malcolm Muggeridge about Stalin’s show trials. The spat continued for several months in articles and correspondence in several newspapers with O’Casey alternately denying or justifying the atrocities.
Unlike Irving, O’Casey was supporting a mass murderer at the time he was committing his crimes.
Shaw was dead by 1956 when Khrushchev denounced Stalin. However, confronted with a choice between the new party line and Stalinism, O’Casey choose the latter. Later that year he supported the crushing of the Hungarian revolution.
Of course, his democratic right to justify barbarism was never questioned. How can any normal person justify Irving’s imprisonment?
Rory Connor
11 Lohunda Grove
Dublin 15
