Len Wincott (1907 – January 1983) was an English sailor, mutineer and communist activist who later defected to the Soviet Union.
In September 1931, as part of its attempts to deal with the Great Depression, the new National Government launched cuts to public spending.
Sailors of the Atlantic Fleet, arriving at Invergordon (on the Cromarty Firth in Scotland) in the afternoon of Friday 11 September, learned about the cuts from newspaper reports.
Wincott – then a 24-year-old able seaman serving on the heavy cruiser Norfolk, organised meetings which prevented the vessel from moving for two days.
[4] Wincott mentions in his memoirs that he was aware of being followed and of his letters being read, he named one of the informers as disaffected shipmate, Terry Gentry.
[6] After spending nearly eleven years in labour camps he was only rehabilitated during the onset of Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation campaign in 1956.