Len Wincott (1907 – January 1983) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

sailor, mutineer and communist activist who later defected to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Childhood and early naval career

Len Wincott was born in poverty in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

in 1907. Having few other options, he joined the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

as a

boy seaman A boy seaman (plural boy seamen) is a boy who serves as seaman or is trained for such service. Royal Navy In the British Royal Navy, where there was a need to recruit enough hands to man the vast fleet of the British Empire, extensive regulati ...

in 1923 after time at the training centre for boys at

Shotley Shotley is a village and civil parish south-east of Ipswich in the English county of Suffolk. It is in the Babergh District, Babergh district and gives its name to the Shotley peninsula between the Rivers River Stour, Suffolk, Stour and River ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. Despite the low pay and low peacetime prospects, the navy provided him with a degree of security. His service record up to the end of 1929 is at

The National Archives National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention. Conceptual development From the Middle Ages i ...

(piece ADM 188/861) and shows a model seaman.

Invergordon mutiny, September 1931

In September 1931, as part of its attempts to deal with the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, the new National Government launched cuts to public spending. Navy spending cuts were translated into a 10% pay cut (matching 10% cuts across the board for public sector workers). However, the cuts were not applied equally to all ranks. Sailors of the Atlantic Fleet, arriving at

Invergordon Invergordon (; or ) is a town and port in Easter Ross, in Ross and Cromarty, Highland (council area), Highland, Scotland. It lies in the parish of Rosskeen. History The town built up around the harbour which was established in 1828. The area ...

(on the

Cromarty Firth The Cromarty Firth (; ; literally "kyles

traits Trait may refer to: * Phenotypic trait in biology, which involve genes and characteristics of organisms * Genotypic trait, sometimes but not always presenting as a phenotypic trait * Personality, traits that predict an individual's behavior. ** ...

of Cromarty") is an arm of the Moray Firth in Scotland. Geography The entrance to the Cromarty Firth is guarded by two precipitous headlands; the one on the north high and the one on the ...

in Scotland) in the afternoon of Friday 11 September, learned about the cuts from newspaper reports. Wincott – then a 24-year-old able seaman serving on the heavy cruiser ''Norfolk'', organised meetings which prevented the vessel from moving for two days. The mutiny lasted two days (15–16 September 1931). Wincott, with another able seaman –

Fred Copeman Frederick Bayes Copeman OBE (1907–1983) was an English volunteer in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, commanding the British Battalion. He is also notable for contributing to London's air raid defences during the Second ...

– became a member of the ''Norfolk''s strike committee. After the mutiny the Royal Navy imprisoned dozens of the ringleaders and dismissed hundreds more, Wincott among them.

Communist Party activist

Shortly after being discharged from the Royal Navy, he became involved with the Communist Party speaking at meetings up and down Britain. Wincott mentions in his memoirs that he was aware of being followed and of his letters being read, he named one of the informers as disaffected shipmate, Terry Gentry. Partly as a result of being under surveillance by

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

, he decided to defect to the

in 1934. In his memoirs he claims to have done so on the advice of

Harry Pollitt Harry Pollitt (22 November 1890 – 27 June 1960) was a British communist who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from July 1929 to September 1939 and again from 1941 until his death in 1960. Pollitt ...

the General Secretary of the

British Communist Party The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

, who reportedly assured him that it was only a matter of time till the whole world became Communist, and that he was lucky to jump the queue.

In the Soviet Union

In the Soviet Union, Wincott was given the status of a hero and received

VIP A very important person (VIP or V.I.P.) or personage is a person who is accorded special privileges due to their high social rank, status, influence, or importance. The term was not common until sometime after World War II when it was populari ...

treatment. Soviet propaganda elevated him to a symbol of the British working class, struggling for their rights. He settled in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

where he joined the Anglo-American section of the International Seamen's Club. His job here was to indoctrinate Western crew members on shore leave into the virtues of Communism. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he survived through the nearly 900 days

Siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad was a Siege, military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 t ...

, but shortly after the war his luck ran out. In 1946, he was accused of being a British spy and duly arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

. After a

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt (law), guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a d ...

he was sentenced to a long term in the

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

. At one time he was in the same labour camp as

Victor Louis Victor Louis (; 10 May 1731, Paris – 2 July 1800, Paris) was a French architect, disqualified on a technicality from winning the Prix de Rome in architecture in 1755. Life He was born Louis-Nicolas Louis in Paris. He did not adopt the name V ...

. After spending nearly eleven years in

labour camps A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...

he was rehabilitated during the onset of

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

de-Stalinisation De-Stalinization () comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power, and his 1956 secret speech " On ...

campaign in 1956. After his release, he became a friend of Donald Maclean and contributed articles for the Anglo-Soviet Friendship Society magazine.''All Them Cornfields and Ballet in the Evenings'' p. 131. Apart from a visit to England in 1974 Wincott spent the rest of his life in the Soviet Union. He met and married his fourth wife in the

and he died in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

in January 1983. According to his last wishes, his ashes were scattered over Devonport Harbour.

Sources

*Len Wincott, ''Invergordon Mutineer'', Weidenfeld, London 1974 – memoirs *

Alan Ereira Alan Ereira is a British author, historian and documentary filmmaker. He is a Professor of Practice at the University of Wales, Trinity St. David. Life Educated at Kilburn Grammar School and at Queens' College, Cambridge (1962-1965), where he ...

, ''The Invergordon Mutiny'', Routledge, London 1981 – popular account of the mutiny by a

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

producer * John Miller, ''All Them Cornfields and Ballet in the Evenings'', Hodgson Press, London, 2010 – autobiography
"Naval mutineer"
Memoirs held at

Churchill Archives Centre The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wincott, Len 1907 births 1983 deaths Royal Navy sailors Communist Party of Great Britain members People from Leicester British defectors to the Soviet Union British people imprisoned in the Soviet Union English people imprisoned abroad Soviet rehabilitations British mutineers Foreign Gulag detainees