ORWELL’S LIST - 4

I am grateful for the following from thepolitburo.com (click here) on dear old Charlie Chaplin:

"When H G Wells criticised Stalin’s reign of terror, Chaplin, the unswerving party loyalist, upbraided him for selling out the cause. According to Chaplin’s own account, published long after Stalin's criminal record entered the public domain, he reproached Wells for harboring traitorous thoughts: 'When H G Wells visited me in 1935 in California, I took him to task about his criticism of Russia. I had read his disparaging reports, so I wanted a first-hand account and was surprised to find him almost bitter about it. "But is it not too early to judge?" I argued. "They have had a difficult task, opposition and conspiracy from within and from without. Surely in time good results should follow?" . . . He seemed especially critical of Stalin, whom he had interviewed, and said that under his rule Russia had become a tyrannical dictatorship.'

Once again, Orwell was right . . .