My Mother the Communist

My mother was brought up in an orphanage because her father a confectioner became an alcoholic and lost his job, ended up looking for work when ships came in and needed dockers to unload the cargo. My mother, although working class, was well-read but also a bit eccentric, she had come to the erroneous conclusion that only communism (equality in her mind) could bring peace. It was in one of the papers she read I learned about Roosevelt’s knowledge of the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack. I was about twelve years old when she dragged me to a meeting where two Russian “workers” would attend. They painted a wonderful picture of life in Russia and showed still films of happy workers at tractor plant extolling the wonder of the communist regime. They also showed us the homes of the workers and later how happy the land workers were breaking out into dance in their national dress. I was very young at the time but was not sold on this display of happiness, mother said I had no imagination. My mother continued to believe in communism until the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in 1956.