Communism and other issues
The Independent on Sunday described Murray in 2003 as an "admirer" of Stalinism. Murray wrote in his 1999 Morning Star column about Stalin:
Next Tuesday is the 120th anniversary of the birth of Josef Stalin. His career is the subject of a vast and ever expanding literature. Read it all and, at the end, you are still left paying your money and taking your choice. A socialist system embracing a third of the world and the defeat of Nazi Germany on the one hand. On the other, all accompanied by harsh measures imposed by a one-party regime. Nevertheless, if you believe that the worst crimes visited on humanity this century, from colonialism to Hiroshima and from concentration camps to mass poverty and unemployment have been caused by imperialism, then [Stalin's birthday] might at least be a moment to ponder why the authors of those crimes and their hack propagandists abominate the name of Stalin beyond all others. It was, after all, Stalin's best-known critic, Nikita Khrushchev, who remarked in 1956 that 'against imperialists, we are all Stalinists'.
In 1999, Murray said of KGB spy Melita Norwood: "She herself says that she has no regrets and I do not see why she should. She took advantage of the position that she was in to give her side a bit of help in the international class struggle. The strength of the Soviet Union was a huge factor in favour of world peace, something which has become more obvious in its absence today. Those who contributed, however slightly, to that strength did all of us a service." When asked about these comments by The Times in 2019, he said "The Cold War is over. I would under no circumstances condone anyone acting as Melita Norwood did today."
In 2008, Murray identified "one of the successes" of the "nationalities policy of the Soviet Union" as being the promotion of "the cultural, linguistic and educational development of each ethnic group, no matter how small or how historically marginalised." This comment was criticised by author Edward Lucas in The Guardian who accused Murray of ignoring "the Chechens, Crimean Tatars and other victims of Stalin's murderous deportation policies." In a short history of the CPGB, published in 1995, Murray wrote: "That things happened in the USSR which were inexcusable and which ultimately prejudiced Socialism's whole prospect is today undeniable. Whether Communists in the capitalist world could or should have done more than they did is much more contentious". In 2016, Oliver Kamm commented in The Times: "In short, Mr Murray believes that British communists in the 1930s were justified in backing the Great Terror, the Moscow Trials and the Ukraine famine. Mr Murray predictably supports the most nightmarish totalitarian state in the modern world". Murray was a critic of David Miliband in his role as Foreign Secretary, arguing that his stance on the 2008 Georgian crisis revealed him as a "neoconservative", whose approach had "made it abundantly clear where he stands on the great divide in world politics today. He is for the US empire." The Labour MP Tom Watson said that he was surprised that Murray was in the Labour party given that he is an "avowed Stalinist".
In 2003, Murray warned the Communist Party's Executive Committee of what he claimed was a "clear desire of the USA to effect 'regime change'" in North Korea, stating that "Our Party has already made its basic position of solidarity with Peoples' Korea clear". In response to a letter published in The Daily Telegraph from Conservative MP and Defence Spokesman Julian Lewis, he replied that he had made no secret of his political beliefs.
Murray is a vocal critic of Israel. He stated in a 2012 speech that "Palestine stands today undefeated and unbowed despite the bloody aggression by one of the greatest military powers on earth" and that "we have a message for the Israeli embassy, the Israeli government ... every time you kill a Palestinian child, you are digging your own graves".
Writing about the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting, Murray said: "The barbarism we condemn in Paris is minute compared to the barbarism wrought by imperialism across the planet in the last 13 years and we must condemn that."
