Josh’s older sister’s farvourite game was ‘Party Meeting’ she played it with her friend Simone. Vera and Simone were the party leaders, teddy bears and younger brothers were the rank and file:
“Tonight,” said Simone, “we will hear a report on the Negro Question from our junior member, who” – she scowled at me – “needs considerable education on the subject.” She tapped her slide rule of Vera’s desk and nodded at me to begin.
“The Negro Question’s getting a lot better,’ I said. “Because before they wouldn’t even let Jackie Robinson play in the majors. But now we’ve got five Negroes just in the Dodgers alone.” I counted them off on my fingers.
“There’s Jackie, and Campanella behind the plate, and Newcombe and Black on the mound, and this season Junior Guilliam at second base. And he might even win Rook of the Year.”
Vera and Simone looked at each other, shaking their heads and making tsk tsk sounds through their closed lips.
“I think we have to bring him up on charges,” Vera said.
“White Chauvinism if I ever heard it,” nodded Simone.
“Don’t you know that even if they let Negores play a stupid game and get traded for money like slaves, they’re still lynching them in the south?” Vera asked me. “Haven’t you read your own father’s articles on the Emmett Till case?”
“And what about Male Chauvanism?” said Simone, waving her ruler at me. “Did you ever stop to think that all your previous ballplayers are men? What about the plight of the colored woman?”
“He’s left deviationist and right opportunist both at the same time,” said Vera.
“Clear cause for explusion.” said Simone”
That is from one of the almost 50 accounts from the children of communistsin Red Diapers. Having so many short accounts, gives a real depth to the book. There’s a tapestry of experiences, with common threads, but also real differences.
I’m fascinated by the history of the Communist party of America, particularly in the 1950s, when the organisation was so persecuted. Partly because it is so foreign to the way I do politics, their way of organising wasn’t just not my cup of tea, it was clearly counter productive to growing. The party line was often ridiculous (particularly during the war, my grandfather left the British Communist Party over the Nazi-Soviet pact, and the pro-war line that followed wasn’t any better). Despite all these reservations, the Americans of the 1940s and 1950s I most admire were all in the Communist part. It was the only game in town – no one else was prepared to fight.
I loved these child eyes view of the fight. Both for the politics – in some tenements in New York everyone was either linke (Left) and Communist or rechte (right) Socialist – and for the common threads of childhood. Many of the children write about how terrified they were once Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed, they knew their parents were communists, would they be put to death too? Communist children didn’t just have common fears they developed their own sub-culture. rather than ‘pinky swears’ they’d say “By my Pioneer Honour, Touch Red” – and each child would touch something red.
There are some terrible parents, of course, and some awful hypocrisy. One girl’s father spent his time doing party work, and when his wife (who earnt all the money) was back late he asks his 11 year old daughter where the food is kept, and demands she makes his coffee. Mostly I think the communism and the parenting skills weren’t particularly related, the good parents would have always been good parents, the bad parents would always have been parents. Although I suspect for some children, the more their fathers (the most controlling, abusive behaviour in these accounts were always from the fathers) portrayed themselves as righteous, the harder it would have been for the child to understand their behaviour within the family.
There were some really sweet family moments as well. One of the writers came from a Finnish-American community, where the Party had run the annual Christmas Eve event. One year, the party leaders decided that the consumerism and Christianity of the ceremony was a problem, so instead there was a winter celebration without presents. When they got home their parents gave them presents, and told them not to tell anyone. Years later they learned that every single one of their friends’ parents had done the same thing.
The most heart-breaking memoir was from Bettina Aptheker. I’d heard of her, she was involved in the Berkley Free Speech Movement. When the right accused her of being a communist, she wrote a letter back saying “Yes, I am a communist, and I’m proud to be a communist.” She’s one of the many figures of the 1960s that I admired, without knowing too much about.
When I am in my late twenties an older comrade whom I dearly love confides in me. She tells me that in the early 1950s she had been instructed by the party leadership to question women in the Party about their sexuality. In particular she was to ask them if they’d ever had a homosexual liaison. If the answer was yes she was instructed to ask them to voluntarily resign from the Party of face expulsion. “Even if it was only once,” the comrade says to me. “Even if they had since married.” She goes on, explaining “It was to protect the Party from potential informers. If they were desperate enough to hide their sexual encounters, the FBI could force them into becoming informers.” There is a silence into which I say nothing. “I’m so ashamed of myself,” She tells me. “It was wrong.” Now as I remember this comrade’s confession I think that I must have known of this as a child. I must have heard these discussion around me known the consequences of my feelings for women as I reached adolescence: to be made an FBI informer or be expelled from the party/my family, to be cast out.
I am going to read her memoir, I want to know more about her story.
Bettina Aptheker, is not the exception, most of the contributors are still fighting for a better world, in their different ways. Communists have largely been written out of American history, and their legacy ignored. Few people mention that the almost all the young northern white people involved in the Civil Rights Movements were red diaper babies. Carl Bernstein, who contributed to the book, is rarely placed within his radical, fighting legacy. Many of the writers gain real strength from their heritage. The sense that we are all part of a long chain of resistance has particular meaning when the link is so intimate. It gives them direct access to the strength and hope we can all draw from the history of those who fought back.
I dunno. I’ve been spending a lot of time with a member of my family who is a red diaper baby and was a Communist as an adult. (She had a huge falling out with her parents over her conversion to Maoism, though. Also, I’m actually not sure whether she’d call herself a communist anymore. I think she might, if she were pressed, out of loyalty.) And my sense is that while maybe she gains strength from her heritage, she’s also got a huge sense of disillusionment and, although I doubt she’d use this word, political despair. The thing is, while she was very involved in lots of social justice struggles, those were always means to an end, and the end was global revolution. And I think that what happened to the Soviet Union, and even more importantly what happened in China, makes it hard to have faith in revolution anymore. I think that any politics that doesn’t have that kind of sweeping promise seems a little empty to her, where as small, incremental changes seem more meaningful to politically-active members of my family who don’t come out of a revolutionary tradition.
You mention that red diaper babies were really involved in the civil rights movement, but you don’t mention the corollary to that, which is that they were really influential in second-wave feminism. I think there are interesting questions about how that has influenced the development of American feminism. People have argued, for instance, that a lot of rad-fem theory is basically communism, but with gender substituted for class.
I don’t know. It’s a really interesting subculture, but I think that I’m less attracted to it than you are. It seems incredibly insular, and there’s a fortress-like quality about it. It’s like being a member of a strict and socially-ostracized religious sect. There’s a strength to that community bond, which allows people to be brave in the face of all sorts of persecution, but it comes with a pretty big price.
it’s a subject i warm to, being fairly crimson on the pink-to-red spectrum of diaper color. my dad’s sister was a very prominent bigwig, can’t recall her title, in the American Communist Party. their father was an old-school IWW “wobbly” and most of the brothers, like their dad, were union boilermakers. the entirety of my dad’s side of the family have always been hardcore leftists going back as far as there was such a thing, i think. i won’t mention what mischief dad got up to, but suffice it to say that with this pedigree my family has a pretty fat FBI dossier.
that being said – the current incarnations of the RCP, RCYB, ANSWER and so on are not my cup of tea. i’m far more into the black than the red as far as my personal politics go. what is of particular interest to me though is that my mom, who came from a VERY conservative methodist/lutheran background, was probably the biggest feminist of them all. dad’s family was quite patriarchal, even though his sisters were themselves very liberated. i guess there was something about being so isolated in her community that really radicalized mom, and perhaps attracted her to my dad. i acquired my leftist politics from my dad, pretty much; but i learned almost everything about feminism from my mom, and i guess that’s no surprise.
Bettina Aptheker. I’d heard of her, she was involved in the Berkley Free Speech Movement.
And the daughter of Herbert Aptheker, prominent Communist popularizer, historian, and free-speech lightning-rod. I met him once, about a year before he died; a charming and interesting man.
Carl Bernstein . . . is rarely placed within his radical, fighting legacy.
Well, other than in his autobiographical report on growing up in a Communist family during the loyalty-oath purges: Loyalties: A Son’s Memoir.
Red Diaper babies is a pretty interesting subject. I’ve known a few, most of whom came south in the sixties. All remain radicals of one stripe or another but otherwise run the gamut. There are a couple of books I would recommend to get a participant’s view of party life from the fourties through the fifties: “A Fine Old Conflict” by Jessica Mitford, “The Romance of American Communism” by Vivian Gorenick and “The Autobiography of an American Communist” by Peggy Dennis. Related but more narrowly focused “We Are Your Sons” by Robert and Michael Meeropol (Rosenberg).
W B Reeves – I actually read this as research on Jessica Mitford, because I’m writing something about her life. But thanks for the other suggestions, they sound really interesting. (Can I infer from your comment that you were involved in the Freedom Movement in the South in the 1960s? If so – Wow).
Sorry Sally, I didn’t mean to imply that everyone felt the same way. I meant to quote from one piece about that strength, but I couldn’t find it. One of the criticisms I’d make of the book is that with 50 contributors and no index it’s very hard to find anything.
Kevin – I’m not suggesting that communism never gets mentioned. I’m just saying that prominent communists either don’t get the current recognition they deserve (someone like Paul Roebson), or the fact that they were communist gets ignored (think Arthur Miller or Woody Guthrie). It’s treated as an embarassing little secret. I was reading an article about the CRC (a communist front civil rights group) and it said that most of the leaders were either African Americans, or Jewish Communists, from New York or California. Then it said there were exceptions like the English writer Jessica Mitford. While technically accurate it’s pretty misleading. Jessica Mitford was a close to a Jewish, Communist from California as you can be and still be born as a member of the English aristocracy (she was communist and from California, and her second husband was Jewish). It’s as if the only way to recognise the achievements of the CRC is to deny that it was a communist front organisation, rather than to say, yes it was a communist front organisation and it did all these great things.
Maia, I hope your copy of A Fine Old Conflict had the same hilarious cover that mine did.:) Decca’s daughter Dinky was actually one of our local RDs here in Atlanta for many years.
Being born in 1956 in the deep South, I was privileged to grow up in the midst of the Civil Rights revolution and it was a social revolution if that phrase has any meaning at all. I can’t claim to be a veteran though, unless being tagged as a whacko for advocating civil rights at my Jim Crow elementary school counts. The public schools in Atlanta were’nt really integrated until my first year of high school. The late Yolanda (Yokie) King was one of my schoolmates.
I also have had the privilege of being trained by and working with people who were veterans of the struggle and worked directly with M.L. King, most of whom are not widely known outside of movement circles since they continued to labor in the field while others built careers.
If you’re interested, you can check out this article:
http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_REPORT/erarchive/2005/May/May 2/firstperson.html
Interesting to read of an environment where Socialism was considered on the right!
Evidently you’re not too cognizant of either European or global political history since 1917.
Maia, the link I left earlier appears to be broken. Try this one:
http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_REPORT/erarchive/2005/May/May%202/firstperson.htm