Stalinist propaganda

Douglas Bain (Letters, 6 November) really shouldn’t single out long-ago members of the Labour Party as admirers of Stalin. I’m a bit older than Mr Bain and my childhood (in Britain) was bombarded with cinema newsreels, features in magazines and newspapers – all newspapers – about wonderful, cuddly, twinkly-eyed, pipe-smoking Uncle Joe.

And in many published photographs Stalin seemed to be Mr Churchill’s big pal, too. But it seems it was all propaganda. Nobody was really expected to believe any of it, were they? There’s a lesson for us all there.

Jack Oliver

Edinburgh