There is a danger that, as time passes, people will begin to think that the communist states were not so bad after all.

Gradually the generation that lived through the last few decades of European communism will become a minority. New generations will grow up who never heard the many anecdotes of deprivation, misery and political oppression that were widespread in those years. I have already heard one BBC radio programme in which Russian communists lamented the passing the 'good old days'.

It is, of course, a reflection of the political bias at the BBC that this programme idea was selected from the thousands that which are constantly being submitted. The way in which the programme was done - giving credence to the idea of 'good old days' - also reflected this bias. But this kind of thing is likely to become more common, not less.

Last night I heard another story of just how bad things were in the Soviet Union. Professor Christopher Andrew, the historian of secret services, gave a talk in which he mentioned in passing that mothers to be 'fled' from hospitals in Moscow and Leningrad. They went to the country to have their babies because they were terrified of having them in City state hospitals where the cross-infection rates were so dreadful.

Later, Mary Kenny, who was in the audience, told me that when she stayed with the Irish ambassador in Moscow in the 1980s, she learned that an American anti-abortion film sent to the Soviet Union had not had the effect intended. An American lobby group had wanted to shock Soviet women with pictures of how dreadful is the reality of abortion. Instead, Soviet women seeing the film were ecstatic by how wonderful - particularly how clean - were American hospitals.

I asked Professor Andrew if he knew of any book which documented the terrible state of the Soviet Union prior to its collapse. He did not. Surely someone has written about this. If not, someone should gather together and verify the stories and the data. The disaster that was communism should not be forgotten. Otherwise it could well be repeated.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in General • Media, including BBC bias • NHS

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