A Ripple from the Storm

Martha was thinking uncomfortably: It’s all very well, but all this time Anton has been sitting here, listening and watching but he waited until Jackie actually left before exploding like this.

Andrew said comfortably: ‘You are quite right, comrade. But things have happened very quickly, and they’ve got out of hand. Now we must pull ourselves together. And I wish you would make a statement of some kind that we could use as a basis for discussion.’

‘Got out of hand,’ said Anton impatiently. He had a way of isolating an idiom, listening to it, and giving it back to them for consideration. ‘Got out of hand is correct. If things have ever been in our hands. We are running the progressive bodies in the town. But how? Why? Above all, how?’

‘Well, well,’ said Andrew gruffly. ‘Well, well, well.’

‘Perhaps, Comrade Anton, you could make an analysis and we could discuss it,’ said Marjorie hurriedly. Anton patently softened as he glanced at her. Marjorie’s small, fair fragility, her intense sincerity, seemed to put her, for Anton, outside ordinary criticism. They all felt it; so, obviously, did he, for now Comrade Anton collected himself from his moment of weakness, gave his cold circling glance around the room and said: ‘We are supposed to be communists. Yes, that I believe is what we call ourselves. I’m not going to analyse the situation, comrades. That is something which is serious and will take time and thought. But I am now going to explain what the word communist means, and we can then, if we consider it desirable, begin to analyse the situation.’ Again he collected them all into his concept of nobility by the circling sweep of his eyes. ‘A communist, comrades, is a person who is utterly, totally, dedicated to the cause of freeing humanity. A communist must consider himself a dead man on leave. A communist is hated, despised, feared and hunted by the capitalists of the world. A communist must be prepared to give up everything: his family, his wife, his children, at a word from the Party. A communist must be prepared to work eighteen hours a day, or twenty-four hours, if need be. A communist is continually educating himself. A communist knows that in himself he is nothing, but in so far as he represents the suppressed working people he is everything; but he is not worthy to represent the working people, unless every moment of his life is dedicated to becoming worthy of them. The working people of the world are the inheritors of all culture, all knowledge, all art, and it is our task to explain this to them, and they will not listen to us unless we ourselves are people they can respect.’

Here the three women looked towards Andrew who was after all just as much of a communist as Anton. He was leaning comfortably back on his bench, pipe in his mouth, contemplating Anton and nodding from time to time.

‘A communist,’ Anton said, ‘must remember that if he has personal weaknesses, it will be laid at the door of the Party.

A communist must always order his private life in such a way that the Party cannot be blamed for it. A communist must so respect himself that when he goes to the workers he is not afraid to look them in the eyes.’

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 hands,’ 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.