PERSONAL COLUMN
The wearing of the red
STELLA FitzTHOMAS HAGAN Perhaps I am unique in my blend of special knowledge—of communists, of Irish history, and of Russians. Special knowledge of all three together must be pretty rare, anyhow. And in this past year, these three elements have meshed together very strikingly in my mind, some fifty years of experience and study suddenly jigsawing into a clearish pic- ture of what goes on, as I read the news- papers. There is nothing surprising in the fact that when Moscow did at long, long-last perceive that Ireland could be of use, and 'cadres' were released for specifically Irish activity. the thing got off the ground quickly —this was inherent in the Irish situation, which is a stinker from any and every view- point. But the pity of it is that scarcely any- one over here knows anything at all about. Irish history and the Irish situation, which made 'confusion worse confounded' all too easy, this being af course the object of the exercise.
I was born into a Marxist household. My father was one of the founders of the British Communist party and editor of its weekly journals and Sunday newspaper (until they were ordered to start a daily, and chucked him in the dog-house for a dozen years or so), and for many years this country's sole expert on the Marxist Dialectic and also the only leading Marxist to be also an expert on Irish history. I was suckled, weaned, reared on the Dialectic and on Irish history. And when I left the university, in the depth of the depression, the only paid work available was teaching English to Russians at the Soviet trade delegation, embassy, consulate, and later military mission—I went on teaching them English for nearly twenty years, and then the Poles and Bulgarians for another twenty years, off and on, and was assistant editor at the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR for ten years along the way. As for Ireland, my Fabian Society pamphlet in 1941, and my historical novel in 1959, were highly praised by all sections of Irish opinion, from the Northern Whig to the Limerick Leader, so I may claim a fairly balanced outlook.
All my childhood and adolescence were bound up with the party, one way and another. My father remained loyal to the end to the idea of communism and a devoted unselfish party, always convincing himself that brutish or senseless or dishonest behavi- our was merely the result of personal stupid- ity among his comrades here or among the issuers of the regularly-arriving directives. He died some months before Hungary. Russia's action then, and even more in Czechoslovakia twelve years later, would have shown him at last how completely they had conned him. Or so I believe. He might have done much more good in the world, but for that monstrous confidence-trick, which has deceived and bemused half mankind.
It was always just taken for granted that I was part of 'the movement', but all the same my father was meticulously exact in giving me the other side's viewpoint, encour- aging me to see all round things and judge for myself. There was no fuss whet! I found first the Socialist Sunday School and then the Young Communist League boring and silly, and walked out on them, or when I did not actually join the party after all. The fact was, having been on duty every Sunday and many Saturdays, taking the collection at out- door meetings, from the age of four, I had had my bellyful of meetings of any kind by the age of eight.
However, my not having joined did not seem to make any practical difference (apart from my not being at meetings), since the party simply assumed that of course I was a member. My denials merely caused them to look knowing and say they realised I had to say so. I joined the sison, left it, joined the Labour party, became a Labour councillor, but still nothing would convince the communists I was not one of their card- carriers, which I had not the least intention of being—though at that period more from sheer boredom with them than from dis- agreement in basic principle; This fixed belief of theirs more than once resulted in my being absolutely hijacked to more or less secret 'fraction' meetings, that is get-togethers of `undercover' party mem- bers from non-communist organisations, especially the Labour party. Sheer curiosity led me to go along with this hijacking, and it proved most interesting. The memory of it has become especially interesting recently, as I recall the personnel.
My working hours were mostly spent in various buildings of the Soviet Embassy and Trade Delegation, where the rank of my many hundreds of pupils, through the years, ranged from ambassador or chargé d'affaires down through attaches and trans- lators and secretaries to drivers and door- keepers, cooks and cleaners. Really a very complete and adequate cross-section, includ- ing for instance a Hero of Leningrad (wounded eleven times in the siege) on the one hand, and on the other an alarming little pasha of an Armenian who produced as a suitable textbook a gaudy quarto paper- back entitled Luring Lips. From upper and middle and lower levels, I got to know Soviet attitudes very well—with plenty of eye-openers, which gradually seeped in amongst my already existing but shelved doubts re Leninism and Stalinism, and ulti- mately helped to confirm them entirely. For instance, I once asked a Soviet cultural counsellor why it was that they courted the hostility of writers by not joining in the Universal Copyright Convention. He shook his head firmly, saying, 'because we never did: Rather slowly, I realised that his 'we' was an equation of the Soviet regime with the Tsarist—which, indeed, he admitted, when I put the point to him.
My family connection with our local Leninists gave me plenty other such pointers, too. They still went on believing I was a member (I did not actually join until I was turned forty, and then stuck it only till Hungary, when my lapsing went unnoticed in the rush), and they spoke freely in my presence, though I often tried to prevent it. For instance, a book `by So-and-So' was published and widely sold; later the same author published something quite contra- dicting it; this was explained by the remark, re the first book, 'Oh well, the script came over in Translatese to be put into better English, and then someone had to sign it— it happened to be So-and-So's turn.' (That one really did shock me, though I had thought myself hardened.) During the war, my father made a come- back out of the party dog-house, and in the exhilaration of it he took out a party card for me as a 'member at large' (for all I know, that may be unique too), which was more or less meaningless, as I never went to any meetings; but it gave him pleasure. Then I suddenly took against some of the grosser stupidities of the cold war, and did actually join a local party branch. And on instructions from the branch com- mittee, I also joined the Connolly Associa- tion, which seemed reasonable in view of my longstanding special interest in and knowledge of Irish history. These two organisations are not openly affiliated, but are very closely connected, by cadres-in- common. At that time there was constant semi-friction because of the party's habitual contempt for Irish viewpoints, which obviously derived from the lack of any directive on the subject, and from the offi- cial Moscow 'Line' that 'Irish opinion does not matter, because they are only a minority of the English—Ireland is just a province and of no importance'. (This was said to me personally by a Soviet Deputy Minister, incredible as it may sound.) Plainly, the Line did a sudden volte-face on this point about two years ago. Nowa- days the Connolly Association is palsy- walsy with such bodies as Sinn Fein or the Wolfe Tone League, whereas in my time with them these were approximately man- kind's chiefest enemy. And nowadays Pravda and Tass keep shedding tears of blood (or ketchup) over the Woes of Ire- land, while Moscow-Loves-Dublin articles erupt in the Irish papers and trade delega- tions between Dublin and Curtain countries stream to and fro. I do not believe that any of this has anything whatever to do with the actual troubles of Ireland, which merely happened to be luckily available for use.
As for my own actual membership, it must have been about the least satisfactory either of the organisations ever had in their lives (except for a few book reviews). Sell- ing `lit,' or collecting signatures to petitions, reduced me literally to tears; rather than `get on the knocker' I would gladly burn at the stake. Still, come Hungary and the resulting turn-up (about which the chief Politburo wallah said to us, 'I don't know what you mean, comrades: I am not aware of any crisis'), we were presently allowed to indulge in rules-revision. Amendments were to be discussed at the 1957 Special Congress.
Well, of course, the 'special congress' turned into a mere conference, and its steer- ing committee ruled out rules-revision, and it was all quite pointless except that I was able to lapse without fuss, which was what I wanted, on account of not disturbing my father's memory. But the false persona they had created for me still persisted, I was still nauseatingly 'congratulated' for speeches I had never made, articles I had never written. So I changed my name and have avoided all political contacts ever since. But now first Czechoslovakia and then Ireland have been too much, more than I can bear in silence. How is it that the Lenin- ist classic fragment-and-infiltrate tactics are now seemingly not recognised for what they are? How is it that the threadbare old jargonising is not spotted fon what it is? Can it be possible that our youth and our present establishment actually want all this textbook-Leninism to succeed, would actually like to live in Leninist-regimented style here?
Previous page
