Ben Brogan's claim that Ralph Miliband was on the wrong side of "the struggle between freedom and communism" has been rebutted by Norm. There's more to add.

First, the attempt by the right - we can add Douglas Murray - to identify Marxists with Soviet apologists is very silly. There's a big strand within Marxism of libertarianism and even anarchism, which loathed the Soviet Union. For example, with the space of a few pages, Trotsky describes Stalinism as "vileness", "degeneration", "moral decay", "barbarism" and "lagging behind a cultured capitalism". In the Marxian circles I moved in in the early 80s, the debate wasn't about the merits of the Soviet Union, but rather about how best to describe its many inadequacies.

Secondly, let's ask: what sort of freedom did the pro-capitalist opponents of the Soviet Union in the mid-20th century believe in?

It certainly wasn't freedom for homosexuals, who suffered brutal repression. Nor was it freedom for young men. The slavery that was National Service did not end until 1963 - and some died during this time. Nor was there freedom for women; tough divorce laws and the legality of marital rape violated the basic principle of self-ownership. Nor was there free speech; not only did we have repressive libel laws, but also theatre censorship until 1968. Nor even was there some of the economic freedoms which today we take for granted; even the Tory governments of 1951-64 had exchange controls, laws against Sunday trading, more central planning than we have now, and public ownership of many of the commanding heights. Remember, Hayek dedicated the Road to Serfdom to "socialists of all parties", who ignored him for 30 years.

And this is not to mention Pinochet or McCarthyism...

Now, I'm not claiming here any moral equivalence between Stalinism and Conservatism. Instead, I'm making two points.

First, it is just plain stupid to pretend that the Cold War was a fight between Marxism and freedom. Many Marxists supported freedom and opposed the USSR, and many conservative Cold Warriors were enemies of freedom.

Secondly, it's not just Communists who had some evil ideas in the mid-20th century.

So, here's my offer to Ben Brogan and Douglas Murray. If you stop pretending that all Marxists are opposed to freedom, I'll not accuse Tories of murdering Alan Turing.