MORE in sorrow than in anger I note once again that it is impossible to say the word 'socialist' without some people screaming 'tanks' and 'purges' and 'Siberian salt mines' at you.

The replies to Neil Windle's recent letter on the monarchy brought forth the same tedious and ill-informed litany of cheap abuse.

I shouldn't be surprised.

I have explained a number of times in these pages that while socialism involves a free democratic society without leaders, it is not our fault if some tinpot dictators decided to run brutal regimes and call them 'socialist'.

If somebody gave you poison and called it 'milk' would you blame the dairy industry? Am I wasting my time, yet again pointing out that the SPGB took a stand against the Bolshevik revolution in Russia as early as 1919, saying that it wasn't socialist? Do I have to repeat until I'm old and grey that we opposed Mao's 'socialism' from its beginnings? Are we forever to be blamed for dictatorships we opposed from the outset? Well, it seems so.

But accusing social

ists of advocating tyranny is like accusing Moslems of advocating terrorism, in other words unhelpful, misleading and insulting.

I can only assume that people who indulge in this sort of argument would like everybody else to be as confused as they are.

I sincerely hope, for all our sakes, that they don't succeed.

Paddy Shannon

Green St

Lancaster