1st Edition

I Saw Democracy Murdered The Memoir of Sam Russell, Journalist

By Colin Chambers, Sam Russell Copyright 2022
284 Pages 28 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

284 Pages 28 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

284 Pages 28 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

I Saw Democracy Murdered is the memoir of Sam Russell (1915–2010), a communist journalist and a British volunteer with the anti-fascist Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. The book covers his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, his time as a journalist at The Daily Worker and The Morning Star newspapers, and his later disillusionment with Stalinism. In his capacity as a... Read more

Preface

Introduction

Francis Beckett

1. The Road to Spain

2. Fighting Franco

3. From Rifle to Typewriter

4. Defeat in Spain

5. The World Goes to War

6. Wartime Britain

7. Back at the Worker

8. Believing the Unbelievable

9. The ‘Secret’ Speech

10. Trouble in Moscow

11. Farewell to Moscow

12. Meeting Che

13. Democracy Murdered

14. Back in Spain

15. Epilogue

Appendix: Letters from Abroad

Postscript: MI5 and My Family

Ruth Muller

Biography

Colin Chambers is a former journalist and Literary Manager of the Royal Shakespeare Company (1981–1997) and is Emeritus Professor of Drama at Kingston University, London, UK. His stage writing includes co-authoring Kenneth’s First Play and Tynan, and adapting David Pinski’s Treasure. Among his books are: Other Spaces: New Writing and the RSC; The Story of Unity Theatre; Peggy: The Life of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent (first winner of the Theatre Book Prize); Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company; Here We Stand: Politics, Performers and Performance – Paul Robeson, Isadora Duncan, and Charlie Chaplin; and Black and Asian Theatre in Britain: A History. He edited The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre and Peggy to Her Playwrights: The Letters of Margaret Ramsay, and co-edited Granville Barker on Theatre.

Sam Russell (1915–2010) was a Communist journalist who began his career reporting from Spain during the Civil War in which he had been wounded, fighting as an anti-fascist volunteer for the International Brigades to defend the Republic. He remained with The Daily Worker and its successor, The Morning Star, for more than 40 years, becoming Foreign Editor and covering many of the key historical events of the century.