Sir Roger Scruton: “Sparks of Freedom” exhibition
Sir Roger Scruton took part in covert operations in Eastern Europe in the second half of the 1980s. “Sparks of Freedom” exhibition on now in Czech Republic.
Konstantin Kisin: communists have not thought through how a communist society would work.
Konstantin Kisin was brought up in the Soviet Union. His family experienced what it was really like.
Jung Chang says that a single word cannot describe how evil Mao was.
Jung Chang on Mao. She says that no single word is adequate to describe how evil he was. So she finds another way.
Konstantin Kisin: the worst people rise to the top under communism.
Konstantin Kisin was brought up in the Soviet Union. His family, like millions of others, was severely damaged by the regime.
The Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17th September 1939. Irena Godyń, 14, was there.
How many 14-year-old girls have taken part in vicious battles? Irena Godyń, currently approaching 100 years old (May 2026), did. She lived near Grodny, in what was then Poland. It was close to the border with the Soviet Union which invaded Poland in September, 1939. This is a clip taken from an interview with her which we will be publishing soon. The battle was just the beginning of her extraordinary experiences. She is one of only three people we have been able to interview who was sent to the Soviet Gulag – the forced labour prisons often in remote, freezing parts of the Soviet union. She survived but only just. Other members of her family did not.
Why do communist regimes always end up becoming terror states?
Wherever there have been communist regimes there has been terror. It happened in the Soviet Union, in China, in Romania and so on and on. Why? Konstantin Kisin was born in the Soviet Union and answers this question.
What do you think of Lenin?
We asked people what they think of Lenin and then got the views of his biographer, Victor Sebestyen.