The word communist, repeating itself through Anton’s sentences, was a reiteration of responsibility and goodness; and Martha could feel the exaltation that seemed to be the natural air of this small dirty room heighten. At the same time there was something lacking. It was, after all, a very empty room with Jackie Bolton and William gone. They were not, tonight, ‘the group’. They were five people.
Marjorie said hurriedly: ‘Comrade Anton, I think we ought to recruit more comrades because it seems to me – I mean, the things you are saying … there ought to be more of us.’
Comrade Hesse smiled gently at her confusion, but at once collected himself. ‘It does not matter how many we are. When Lenin began, there were probably no more than we are here.’
Instantly they were transported into the very heart of their vision: during the last few decades when people in the West have suddenly become communists, they have always been contemporaries of Lenin. They felt themselves to be in a vast barbaric country (though not their own) sunk in the sloth of centuries, members of a small band of men and women with rifles in their hands, prepared to die for the future. They pictured themselves, moving fugitive from one hiding-place to another; saw the mob of ragged workers storming the Winter Palace; heard Lenin say: ‘Comrades, we will now proceed to build socialism.’
Andrew said gruffly: ‘I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone if I say that no one here is Lenin.’
They laughed and the mood was broken.
Anton did not laugh. His face tightened, and he said: ‘If two communists find themselves together on a desert island, or in a city where no other communists exist, then their duty is to work together, to analyse the situation, to decide on the basis of their analysis what is to be done.’
‘We are all in agreement with you,’ said Marjorie excitedly, looking for confirmation at the others, who nodded.
‘But I do think we should recruit more people,’ said Jasmine. ‘We all know people who are ripe.’
‘You can’t recruit just any Tom, Dick or Harry,’ said Anton.
They felt awkward. They were sitting here now because they had been touched by that great world conflagration which was the Revolution; they might just as well, they felt, have been unlucky and not met people who could have inspired them into understanding. There must be dozens, hundreds of other people waiting for the touch of the holy fire. But if Anton did not share the feeling, did it mean he thought they, too, were unworthy to be sitting here at all? What else could it mean?
Andrew said with the gruff disapproval that told the others he was in total disagreement with Anton: ‘We have obviously got to recruit more people. We can’t run a communist group with five people.’ He took in half a dozen breaths of smoke from his pipe, let it out through clenched teeth, and said: ‘I know a couple of lads from the camp who’ll muck in.’ He then occupied himself with tapping, examining, handling his pipe, giving all his attention to it. They had come to understand this was his way of controlling his temper; and now knew that he was more than usually irritated with Anton.
Martha said hastily: ‘We all know people, don’t we?’ – glancing with apprehension at Anton, as they all did, who remarked: ‘Before bringing anyone here, they must first be discussed and approved of by the whole group.’
‘The whole group,’ said Andrew, ‘five people. Of whom one, myself, is in the RAF and an outsider; one an enemy alien; one’ – he smiled affectionately at Marjorie – ‘a newcomer from Britain, and we all know that our Colonials regard everyone from Britain as wrong-headed. One’ – here he gave a comradely nod at Martha – ‘has recently behaved in what people regard as a scandalous manner. In fact the only person here who is absolutely sound, respectable and without blemish is Jasmine. I think we should bring some more people in, see how things go, and then make a decision.’
‘See how things go,’ said Anton, handing the phrase back to them. ‘That is what we have been doing, and look at the results. We must do either one thing or the other – have a properly organized communist group, with rules and discipline, or we should stop this play-acting.’ He spoke with impatient contempt.
‘We can’t have a properly organized group without people to organize,’ said Jasmine. Anton was silent, and they understood that he would rather the group were disbanded.
‘But we’ve got all these organizations on our hands,’ said Martha. ‘We’re irresponsible to suggest dropping them.’
‘No one’s suggested dropping them,’ said Anton. ‘If you’re referring to Aid for Our Allies, Sympathizers of Russia and the Progressive Club, then all we need is to have a coordinating discussion once a week. We don’t need an apparatus of organization for that.’
‘But you’re talking as if we have to decide whether or not there is a communist party? But the vote was taken last year. This is a communist party.’
‘We’ve just been running around like a lot of chickens – without discipline, without analysis, like chickens.’
‘We’ve been meeting, we’ve been discussing, we’ve taken decisions,’ said Marjorie, sounding positively tearful.
‘Decisions? We’ve taken decisions and no one has obeyed them. We’ve been a bunch of anarchists.’
‘The way to end anarchy,’ said Jasmine, ‘is not to abandon organization, but to strengthen it.’
‘I must say that that is my opinion,’ said Andrew. ‘I cannot see how Comrade Anton can suggest a new vote or decision now. We voted once before. Formally this is a communist group. Now let us make it one.’
Anton was silent. At last he said: ‘Very well.’ He was silent again, and said: ‘We have a committee. I suggest the committee meet. Jackie’s gone …’ His expression said plainly how pleased he was that this was the case. ‘But there’s Andrew, myself and Jasmine.’
‘But there are three committee members for five people,’ said Martha. Anton shot her an angry glance.
‘The committee’s silly,’ said Marjorie. She blushed at her own agitation, while Anton smiled towards her. ‘I consider it is not correct to have a committee while there are so few of us,’ she said in a responsible way. The others smiled at each other, with fondness.
‘Very well,’ said Anton, ‘but first, before recruiting cadres – that is, if we do recruit them, we’ve got to reorganize our existing responsibilities. We have to do something about the Aid for Our Allies.’
‘We’ve got control of it in our hands,’ said Jasmine. It was the last time she was to speak in Jackie Bolton’s voice. The ghost of Jackie Bolton was exorcized, and for ever, by the way Anton said: ‘Yes, yes, yes, we have control of it.’
The triple ‘yes’, was the nearest he ever got to humour: it was in fact an ironic, critical deadly assent that always made people shrink inwardly. ‘That’s nothing to congratulate ourselves about. There’s nothing easier than to get control of organizations. Any fool can do it. It’s a question of understanding the psychology of a crowd, or a public meeting. If a drunken fool wants to make himself important and play the revolutionary, it’s not a matter to congratulate ourselves on.’
Jasmine’s face was burning. At moments when Marjorie showed distress, Anton seemed almost to protect her until she had recovered, but it appeared he felt no such chivalry for Jasmine. He continued to stare at her, while he said: ‘I think it is likely that Comrade Bolton has wrecked that organization. It remains to be seen whether he has completely wrecked it. It will certainly never be the same again. We have to see what we can do. The first thing is that there must be a respectable secretary.’
When anyone but Anton used the word ‘respectable’, it was with a small smile like a jeer; Anton used it like a measure of status. ‘The former committee was ideal, Perr, Forester, and Pyecroft were the right officials. Comrade Bolton saw fit to force their resignation against the unanimous decision of this group.’
‘But now that Trotskyist Boris Krueger is in control – and he will be, since he’s a friend of that old fuddy-duddy Gates, we’ll have to get it out of his h
ands,’ said Marjorie.
Anton said: ‘Yes, yes, yes.’
Jasmine asked at last: ‘Have you reassessed Boris’s character, Comrade Anton?’
‘I see no reason why Kreuger should not be in control.’
Again Jasmine said, querulous and puzzled: ‘But Comrade Anton, he’s a Trotskyist.’
There was a long uneasy silence. For the months of what they all privately thought of as ‘Jackie Bolton’s régime’ neither Anton nor Andrew had demurred when Jackie had jeered at Boris and his wife. The jeer had been collective, and automatic.
Anton said at last: ‘Boris is an opportunist and so is his wife. But he’s quite capable of running Aid for Our Allies.’
Guilt stirred in them. After all, Boris had been a personal friend. They had liked him – in a former incarnation. But Anton’s attitude was more than an insult to them; it was frivolous. For months they had abused Boris Krueger and his ally Solly Cohen. They had even (if it is possible to cut people with whom one constantly sits on committees) cut them both. So whether or not Anton had seen fit to reassess his estimate of Boris it was too late. Andrew spoke. When he did so it was in a change of role: after all, he too had concurred with Jackie, called Boris a Trotskyist. Now he spoke ironically: ‘Comrade Anton, you might have expressed yourself on this point before. And the fact is that any proposal we make on any committee, Boris always is in opposition. That goes for Solly Cohen and for Betty Krueger. Will you please consider that fact for a moment?’
‘Boris has been trying to keep Help for Our Allies moderate, and to restrict its activities to its purpose, which is to raise money for the Soviet Union. Also to run this magazine, which we all agree is a good thing, combining factual propaganda and fund-raising. In my opinion Boris’s line has been right and ours wrong.’
He now steadily regarded them. They were too confused to say anything.
‘But aren’t they Trotskyists then?’ asked Marjorie earnestly, blushing.
It was a remarkable fact that none of the girls knew what a Trotskyist was; they had accepted it as a term of abuse. For that matter, they knew nothing about Trotsky, except that he had tried to wreck the Russian Revolution. They associated the word with something destructive, negative, oppositionist for opposition’s sake – with the cautious temporizing of the Perrs, Foresters and Pyecrofts, with the tendency of Boris and Betty to insist continuously on not alienating the citizens of the town by being too extreme; and with the way Solly Cohen would come to all their meetings and rise to make speeches about the Soviet Union full of facts and figures which contradicted their own. It was a fact more remarkable than any other that ‘the group’ spent most of their time plotting ways to circumvent the ‘Trotskyists’ though the people they called Trotskyists’ had little in common, and were in fact hostile to each other. Between the ‘Perrs, Foresters and Pyecrofts’ and people like Solly Cohen and Boris there was mutual contempt; and in fact there was a gap much wider between the first group and the second, than between Solly and Boris and themselves. Above all, between the attitudes of mind of the mass of the people living in the Colony, either white or black, and the small number of people that made up the ‘Trotskyists’ and ‘the group’ was a gulf so deep that from the other side of it the various sects making up the Left were practically indistinguishable, and described impartially as ‘Reds’ and ‘Bolshies’.
Now, for over an hour, the five people in this room discussed what their ‘correct attitude’ should be to the ‘Trotskyists’ and emerged with the following conclusions: that they should be watched; that they should not be allowed to gain control of anything; that they should not be allowed to know that the group existed; that they should be ‘exposed’ at public meetings when they made statements detrimental to the honour of the Soviet Union. They were all deviationists, social democrats, left-wing sectarians, right-wing temporizers – these terms were flung about at random and without further definition. Simultaneously, however, they should be ‘worked with’ and ‘made use of. As for Boris Krueger, he was misguided but fundamentally sincere (Solly Cohen was not sincere) and should be given to understand that they, the group, considered him appropriately placed on whatever position he might be able to get for himself on the Aid for Our Allies Committee.
It was now ten o’clock, and Andrew had to catch his bus to the camp. He rose, putting his warm pipe away as if it were a friend with whom he intended to have further, private conversation.
Anton said: ‘Yes, but we have not come to any fundamental decisions.’
‘What decisions?’ asked Jasmine, who imagined, as they all did, that their firmness of mind about the Trotskyists amounted to a decision about policy itself.
‘Comrades,’ said Anton, ‘there are at the moment five of us. It appears that we consider it necessary to recruit further cadres. We should know what we want to recruit them for. I suggest we each now give a brief account of our responsibilities and party work.’
Andrew, still standing, took the pipe out of his pocket and lit it.
‘Comrade Andrew – since you seem to be in such a hurry.’
‘Comrade Anton, I don’t organize the bus service. However, I’ll shoot: in camp I run the library. I think I may say it is the best library of any camp in the Colony. Except the camp outside G—, which is run by another communist. I have all the progressive and left-wing literature available, and my collection of the British and French classics is, considering how hard it is to get them now, not bad at all. I run twice-weekly lectures on British literature and poetry, and they are attended by anything up to a hundred of the lads. I run a weekly study class on the development of socialism in Europe, attended by about twelve men. I run a weekly Marxist study circle attended by six. I’m on the committee of Aid for Our Allies. I do a great deal of self-education. I think that’s all.’
‘Good,’ said Anton. ‘You may leave.’
‘Thank you,’ said Andrew, and departed with visibly controlled exasperation.
‘Marjorie,’ said Anton.
‘I’m a librarian for the Sympathizers of Russia and Help for Our Allies.’
‘Good, but you are developed enough to take on more. Martha.’
‘I’m on the committees of Help for Our Allies and Sympathizers of Russia and the Progressive Club, and I’m organizing the sales of The Watchdog.’
‘Good. That seems well balanced. You are not to take on any more. And you should attend to your self-education. Jasmine?’
‘I’m secretary for Sympathizers of Russia, Help for Our Allies, the Progressive Club. I’m organizing the exhibition of Russian posters and photographs. I’m librarian for the group and group secretary.’
Martha and Marjorie laughed. Anton did not laugh. He said: ‘Since I am an enemy alien and am forbidden political activity, my list is scarcely as impressive as Jasmine’s.’ He was examining Jasmine critically. ‘Comrade,’ he said, ‘this must stop. This is nothing but slackness. No one can be secretary of more than one organization and do it efficiently. You will hand over the secretaryship of the Sympathizers of Russia to Matty, and the secretaryship of Aid for Our Allies to Marjorie.’
‘It is, after all, a question of elections,’ said Martha.
And now Anton stared at her. ‘Comrade,’ he said, ‘a communist can always get himself elected. We are always the best people for the job. We are always reliable, punctual, and prepared to work harder than anyone else. If we are not better than anyone else, we are not communists at all. We do not deserve the name.’
He began collecting his papers together. ‘I declare the meeting closed.’ he said.
‘But, comrade, we have made no decision about these people we are going to draw into the group.’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Anton, moving towards the door.
‘But we have taken a decision to bring them in.’
‘Not more than one person each,’ said Anton. ‘I shall give a lecture on the broad outlines of dialectical materialism. That means there will be no more than ten of
us, at the outside. We must keep control of what we are doing. We must stop all this girl-guide running about. We are revolutionaries. So called.’
Marjorie said, affectionately mischievous: ‘Anton, you should have more tolerance for us. We must seem pretty poor stuff to you after your experience, but you don’t bother to hide it.’ She was blushing again, because of the effort it took her to tease him.
He allowed himself to smile. Then his face stiffened, and, looking before him at the dirty wall, he said in a soft exalted voice: ‘Yes. It is hard to become a real communist, a communist in every fibre. It is hard, comrades. I remember when I first became a communist, I was given some words to learn by heart, and told to repeat them whenever I became filled with doubts or despondency.’ He raised his voice and quoted: ‘Man’s dearest possession is life; and since it is given to him to live but once, he must so live as to feel no torturing regrets for years without purpose; so live as not to be seared with the shame of a cowardly and trivial past; so live that, dying, he can say: All my life and all my strength was given to the finest cause in the world – the liberation of mankind.’ His face was strained with exaltation. He turned and went out, without speaking.
‘But I know that,’ said Marjorie, aggrieved. ‘I’ve got it written out and pinned over my bed.’
‘So do I,’ said Jasmine.
‘We all know it by heart,’ said Martha. They all felt misunderstood by Anton, and held to be smaller and less heroic than they were. ‘It was the first thing of Lenin’s I ever read,’ she added.
‘Well, we’ll have to live up to it,’ said Jasmine, speaking, as usual, in her demure, almost casual way.
The three young women went together through the park, talking about the Soviet Union, about the Revolution, about ‘after the war’ – when, so it was assumed among them all, a fresh phase of the Revolution would begin, in which they would all be front-line fighters, fighters like Lenin, afraid of nothing, and armed with an all-comprehensive compassion for the whole of humanity.