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ciding that our level of political awareness was inadequate, said we should
have more Political Education . Frank despised theory, and left taking the
RAF comrades with him - that is, the ones who had started with us.
Another reason took a long time to see. Most of us had come to socialism
by way of literature - night classes, personal and private adventures with
books; we at any rate were soaked in the Great Tradition - which was
European here, not merely British. In short, we found the language and
slogans of Communism increasingly infantile, though we would not have
said so. Within two years after the group began, most of its members
were new, and soon the organization itself slowly fell apart. Which did
not mean we did not think of ourselves as Communists. Frank Cooper
had been posted back to England, he said because of his politics: perhaps,
perhaps not. Some pilots had finished their training and had gone - new
ones arrived. Many refugees , attracted because of the intellectual poverty
of Salisbury, came to the Race Relations and Left Club meetings. In
short, only a few of the original members, the founders, were left.
Now I wish I had photographs, but we were too busy and, in any
case, too high-minded for such
petit bourgeois
activities. I can imagine it:
"I'd like to take a snap of us all, do you mind?" What sneers, what jeers.
Besides, the photograph could fall into the hands of the CID. We were all
paranoid - pleasurable, on the whole: it gives one importance to think the
Secret Service are preoccupied with your doings.
No photographs, but I did see myself not long ago. At a big meeting
in London, I forget what for, there she came, skipping down the aisle, a
young woman vibrating with physical energy and the confidence that
comes of feeling oneself in control, dark-eyed, dark-haired with a red
mouth - bright lipstick having come back into fashion . She held a pile of
leaflets, and was dealing them out as she came to the young people with
her. She emanated the debater's combativeness. At a word she would face
her antagonist, eyes fixed on an invisible prompt, and irrefutable facts and
figures would be propelled from her mouth by the force of her pure
conviction. Her sincerity was perfect. There she was. There I had been.
She was a member of some fascist group, and she had come to heckle and
shout. No , no, I am not saying Communists are the same as Fascists,
heaven forbid . We believed in the infinite perfectibility of humankind,
the imminent triumph of kindness and love - our myth was the same as
the religious one, so how could we be the same as racists, cynics and op–
pressors? When those Keepers of Accounts in the skies remark, "Well, in
Jact
the atrocities, the murders and the destruction caused by the
Communists were much more than those of the Nazis and Fascists," will
They put on our side of the scale that weight engraved, Good Intentions?
An interesting little debate .. .
