Bill Bland

Born on April 28th 1916, Bland paid a visit to the Soviet Union at the age of 21, in 1937, and thereafter dedicated his entire life and activity to the advancement of socialism and communism.

In rejection of the main trends in British Communism from the mid-1950s, Bland was a strong defender of Stalin. Subsequently, after nearly a quarter of a century of membership, he was amongst the small group of Communist Party members in the very early 1960s that first began to break away from the Party over what they saw as the revisionism of its strategic programme, the "British Road to Socialism".

Bland was for many years, up to 1990, Secretary of the Albanian Society and also appears to have had links in later years with both the New Communist Party and the RCPB (ML).  

He died on March 13th 2001 and a memorial meeting was organised by the Stalin Society and held at Conway Hall on Sunday, April 22^nd 2001.