Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER

80 YEARS AGO on June 22, 1941, the armies of Nazi Germany swept across the frontier of what was then the Soviet Union along a front exceeding a thousand miles.
Over three million soldiers, including Finnish troops to the north and Romanian troops to the south, with thousands of tanks and aircraft to the fore and fortified by the war industries of already occupied countries, constituted the Nazi attacking force.
Brutality against civilians was to be unconfined. Hitler’s hopes were high given his low opinion of the Soviet peoples’ ability to resist. The invasion followed a series of devastating blitzkrieg strategies beginning with that against Poland in September 1939.

The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON

JOHN ELLISON looks back at Labour’s opportunistic tendency, when in office, to veer to the right on policy as well as ideological worldview

JOHN ELLISON recalls the momentous role of the French resistance during WWII
