We'll never know for sure
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A public inquiry examining undercover policing is refusing to publish a list of more than 1,000 political groups that have been spied on since 1968.
The above reminded me of an anecdote in a 1969 Socialist Standard article that I just scanned in a few days back:
“Still more serious was the case of a young man who, some years ago, became interested in the World Socialist Party. A somewhat timid young man, he was pulled in by the political detectives of Glenravel Street Barracks, in Belfast. He was advised that he was being foolish in having anything to do with the Socialist Party and that he should steer clear of our local office. Later he was again pulled in and the same political cop who had ‘advised’ him against attending our meetings suggested that he should now resume attendance at our meetings and let him know what was ‘going on down there’. The unfortunate man was assured that his services would not leave him out of pocket. He was given the impression that he had fallen foul of a dangerous conspiracy and, such was the fear transmitted by the police officer, that for a time he tried playing both ends against the middle, all the time fearful of what we might do to him if we discovered he was a police informer. In fact, we used him to feed back the most remarkable stories! In the end he emigrated to America.”
When I was very young, reading, or carrying books written by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, or Mao was a capital sin, and being a members of any communist organization was a death sentence, and nobody was allowed to travel to Russia, Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, or Cuba, and peoples returning from those countries were taken to jail. Many friends of mine who studied at the University of Patrice Lumumba in Moscow became prisoners. I think we are coming back to those old days again. I carry my head cap, my T-shirt and my bag of the Socialist Party with me most of the time, and I don’t care
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