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lan Winnington died in East Germany on 26 November 1983. He was 73. He was born in London in 1910 and served as press officer of the CPGB before becoming chief sub-editor on the Daily Worker and then one of its correspondents. Winnington travelled to the Far East in 1948 and accompanied the People's Liberation Army in its march to Peking. In 1950 he went to Korea to report on the war and its impact, a task which occupied him until 1954. In 1954 renewal of his British passport was refused. It was alleged that he had engaged in the interrogation of British POWs. Moreover, his claim that germ warfare had been used against the communists caused indignation in some western circles. The decision against renewal was not lifted until 1968. Meanwhile, after a period in Peking, Winnington had made his base in East Berlin where he settled in 1960.
Apart from his newspaper reports, Winnington produced pamphlets, such as I Saw the Truth in Korea (1950). He engaged in travel and anthropological research, an interest revealed in his Slaves of the Cool Mountains (1950). He wrote detective stories, including Catseyes (1967) and Berlin Halt (1970). Winnington also left a posthumous autobiography called Breakfast with Mao (1980).
He was one of those remarkable figures who attached himself to communism when still young and served it on the international rather than the domestic scene for the remainder of his life. More needs to be known of his activities and at present I am collecting information on all aspects of his career. Anyone who can offer any leads, however slight or tenuous, is encouraged to contact me at the Department of History, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TN.