The first systematic mass murder of defenceless innocents in the Second World War was not by the Nazis, but by the Soviet Union, just over a year before the USSR became Britain's official best friend.

Despite its economic progress, Central Europe is still very much embroiled in the past.

Russian president Vladimir Putin might be biting off more than he can chew with his aggressive stance toward the United States and other countries.

The Polish film Katyn is patriotic, inspiring dialogue reflection on common experiences definition of common values and virtues, and the emergence of civil society.

May Day provides a good chance tocatch up on the history of the communist movement.

It is always wise to question one"s first principles, especially when a Daily Mail columnist pronounces that 'the Cold War as a struggle to the death between Good (Britain and America) and Evil (the Soviet Union) was seriously mistaken", one sits up.

In the end there is only one standard by which the trial of Hussein and other Baathist leaders should be judged: did it or did it not compile a true record of Hussein's crimes?

Review of Stalin: A Biography, by Robert Service, and Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him, by Donald Rayfield.