Learn from history? No, repeat it!

It's 1943. We're at a socialist meeting. I won't tell you whose meeting it is just yet. Four years into the Second World War. For two years the Nazis have been systematically killing Jews. They've organised the slaughter into a modern industry. Trains from all over Europe deliver cattle truck-loads of Jews to the death factories. Of those who survive the journey some - all children under 12 - are killed immediately. The others are worked and starved and beaten near to death. Then they're gassed.

British imperialism, at war with Germany, decides to do what Jewish groups have been asking for. They bomb the rail approach to Auschwitz. And more - they systematically bomb railway lines across Germany.

Back to our meeting. The speaker stands up, to considerable applause from the assembled comrades.

"Comrades. There is one thing above all else that we must say tonight. Stop bombing German railways! Stop this bloody war!"

Cheers from the front row.

"It's a war about British imperialism. Britain and her ally America are responsible.

"The British ruling class are a disgusting bunch of hypocrites. Churchill: no way! Britain helped boost and stabilise Hitler in the '30s. If Britain had taken in enough Jewish refugees before the war, there would be fewer Jews on mainland Europe. Britain, even now, is stopping the Jews getting into Palestine, killing and interning those who do. Britain is the same - and worse - than the Nazis!"

A neatly orchestrated spontaneous chant of "Churchill, no way!" arises from the floor.

"And why are they really bombing? Not because they want to save anyone from the gas chambers! Because the railway lines are important to their military campaign. The humanitarian motive is just a mask. How do we know the Jews are really being killed? It could just be bourgeois war propaganda. Hitler isn't Genghis Khan - to say so is an insult to every one of the victims of that genocidal Mongolian monster. There was only one Genghis Khan!

"Of course the ruling class say Hitler is a genocidal maniac. They would say that, wouldn't they? Before Britain declared war on Germany, Hitler hadn't attacked a single Jew. British imperialism has killed a lot more people than Hitler has - it's Britain and America that are responsible for what Hitler's doing to the Jews.

"And these imperialist governments are killing German civilians. Last week, the bombers 'accidentally' killed 50 Jews. The week before, 100. Some saviours! They are destroying the German economy, bombing Germany back to the Stone Age.

"Socialists must say to the Jews - Don't be tools of British imperialism! Wait for the German opposition to stop Hitler and join us in a principled campaign. Unite around the slogans: Stop the Bombings! Stop the War!"

Rapturous applause. One hundred and seventy copies of top-selling pamphlet Stop the War sold to the eager punters. Several young people join the party.

Who organised this marvellous meeting?

Take your pick... Might it be the CPGB? The Anti-Anti Nazi League? The Socialist Workers' Party? The League of Unprincipled Bandits Against (One) Imperialism? The Socialist Labour Party? The Who-Cares-If-It-Helps-Build-The-Party Party?

Moving on, we have contributions from the floor. Just a few, mind - wouldn't like to encourage debate.

A comrade stands up. He addresses the meeting, broadly accepting the policy of the first speaker. But he likes to think he's the sophisticated type. So he dresses his policy up. "Stop bombing rail lines", he says, but "Save the Jews" too. "Bombing kills Jews too!", "Bombs will only help Hitler", "Leave Hitler to the German opposition", "Yanks out", "Socialism is the only answer", "Britain keep out of Europe". All the possibilities nicely covered. Oxymorons R-US?

And he was from... the Socialist Party? Fuckwits for International Socialism? Armchair Generals for Pleasant Wars? Workers' Power? Incoherents Against Compromise? Morons for Marxism?

Enough fun. It's now November 1939. This is a real meeting, or near enough. On 1 September 1939 the German Army invaded Poland from the West. On 3 September Britain declared war on Germany. Two weeks later, Stalin sent his army in from the east. The German and Russian soldiers met as the friendly allies the Stalin-Hitler pact (August 1939) had made them, and divided Poland between thmselves.

Our meeting is that of a small political party, which for four to five years has been frantically agitating against Hitler and Hitlerism, advocating an alliance of the USSR and the British Empire against Nazism and German imperialism.

But now they've changed sides.

"Who started this war? Britain! Britain declared war first: Britain is the war-monger! Hitler, now that he is an ally of the USSR, only wants peace.

"Germany is a victim of the Versailles Treaty, dictated in 1919 by the imperialist victors of World War One. Now, those imperialists make war to destroy Germany.

"They don't give a damn about Poland! They should make peace!

"We must organise the broadest possible peace movement against this war.

"Poland? What Poland? Poland is already done for, finished. There is nothing left to fight about!"

This is a meeting of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The story about the Poles being finished, so what was there to fight about, comes from the historian Brian Pearse (Labour Review, April-May 1959), a member of the CPGB at the time.

Karl Marx famously commented that history tends to repeat itself: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

The Whitehall Theatre would be proud to present the British "Left".

The ultra-left German pre-Hitler's victory Stalinists argued that the Nazis and the Social Democrats were the same - that is, if the Social Democrats weren't worse. Trotsky argued back.

A woman stands facing two men. The first, she has just discovered, is slowly poisoning her. If she doesn't stop him, in time, she will die. The second has a gun at her head and is squeezing the trigger. She cannot beat off both simultaneously. She has to choose which of them she will go for first. Which one will she choose?