by Bill Bailey
But now the pressure was easing. The Party was coming out into the open more, with the Daily Worker and the People's Daily World functioning without any major hindrance. The press was relaxing its pressure against the Party, and it was time for a new appraisal of my political affiliations. The Hungarian uprising became the straw that broke the camel's back. Goddamn it, I said, I've had it. I've had enough. Enough. Enough. I stayed around long enough. No one could say I quit the Party while it was under attack. No one could say I kicked the Party while it was down and helpless, and no one could say I abandoned the pursuit of socialism. As far as I was concerned, those in charge of leading us on the road to socialism had abandoned me.
It was a Monday afternoon. The air was crisp and clean as I walked down Market Street toward the waterfront. The multitude of newspaper racks along Market Street all displayed banner headlines about Hungary. Most papers had pictures on their front pages of the Russian tanks and the people along the route cursing and screaming. I stopped for traffic to cross at Third Street when I ran into Walter.
Walter was a member of our seamen's Party group. He was also a member of the state Party committee. My greeting to him was friendly. We were both heading in the same direction, and our pace slackened. "Are we meeting in the same place Wednesday?" he asked.
"Walt, I don't know and I don't give a damn. I've attended my last meeting with the Party," I said.
"What?" he asked, shocked.
"Just what I said. I've attended my last Party meeting. That's it for me. I've had enough of the Party's stupidity and bungling. I'm out of it as of now. Get me? Now."
"It comes as a surprise, you quitting," he said. "I can understand these other weak characters folding, but, hell, not you. What brought all this on?"
"I won't go into the many years of Party bungling since that's water under the bridge. But what's happening in Hungary at the present time is too much to stomach."
"But, Bill, the CIA is involved in it up to their ass. That's where you should take your anger out, not on the Party."
"I don't see 'CIA' written all over the tanks, but I do see the Russian symbol."
"The tanks are there, Bill, to protect the workers' best interests. It's a CIA-inspired revolt that was meant to provoke the Soviet Union. Can't you see things as simple as that?" he asked.
"Baloney. It's some more from some characters who just refuse to allow sunlight to penetrate into what up to now has been a cave of darkness. I can understand some people being paranoid, especially when their country is surrounded by people they consider their enemies, but I'll be goddamned if the millions of Hungarian working men and women are supposed to be the enemies of the Russian people just because they came out into the streets to demonstrate to correct some wrongs."
"No," said Walt, "they are not really the enemies, but the agents among them are whipping up the fears of the people."
"I don't buy that line, either. I have always believed and have always preached that when the people can no longer have their grievances addressed through what channels they have, when all the doors of expression close shut on them, the next thing is to take to the streets and demonstrate. The Hungarian people had a grievance and none of the bureaucrats gave a damn about them or their hardships. So the Hungarians did what we have been telling everybody else to do, they hit the bricks. And damn it to hell, the one people that they idolized, the Russians, come at them with tanks and guns and everything they can get their hands on to beat the hell out of them. That's brotherhood? Or socialism? I don't know what you call it, but I call it the worst act of double-crossing and skulduggery I can think of. No sir, that's it for me. I've had it. No more will I sell the Russian form of socialism to anybody."
"Okay," said Walt, "I'm not going to stand here and waste my time trying to convince you you're wrong. But you are wrong, you know, and one day when this all blows over and the real truth comes out, you'll see how ridiculous your theory is."
"Yeah, like it was when Stalin took out all the generals and had them shot just because they had better ideas on how to run the army and Stalin thought they were conspiring to overthrow him. Then we watched a country almost get wiped out by the Nazi invasion, and we wondered how many more Russian soldiers would have lived had Stalin not removed and killed the generals. No, Walt, the Party can't make it under this sort of crap and dishonesty. It's about time I stop deluding myself that everything is great in the land of socialism. It's now clear that everything's all screwed up."
That night I told my girlfriend, in whose house I was staying, that I had resigned from the Party. She was not a Party member, although she had been asked on numerous occasions to join. "So you quit," she said. "How do you feel about it after so many years as a dues-paying member?"
"I suppose I should be feeling uncomfortable about it, like I copped out. Or at least that's what I think some of my friends would say. But, do you know, I feel that a very heavy weight has just been lifted from me. I feel lighter, like I have just been handed a whole new set of freedoms that I never had."
"Like what?" she asked.
"Like now I can talk to a lot of people I was prevented from talking to before. You know, all those people who were on the Party list of people not to associate with. Now I don't have to look over my shoulder for fear that someone will report me to the Party. It's such a shame that so much time has been wasted and so many decent people pushed to one side because their views differed from that of some Party bureaucrats. Well, that crap is over and done with."
Exactly three days later I was sitting down to dinner at her house, having worked all day in a hold of a ship, unloading frozen tuna fish from a Japanese reefer ship. A knock came at the door. She got up to answer it. My back was to the door.
When she opened it she faced two neatly-dressed young men. "Yes," she said. "What is it?"
"We would like to talk to Mr. Bailey," one said.
"And who shall I say is calling?" she asked politely.
"Just tell him two agents of the FBI."
"I don't think Mr. Bailey is anxious to talk to any members of the FBI," she replied.
"Well, we would sooner hear it coming from him, if you don't mind," he quickly replied, with a bit of sarcasm in his voice.
I marveled at Betty trying to protect me and at her dislike for these snoopers, but I felt she had contributed enough to this show and I should get up and relieve her before she slammed the door in their faces.
"Yes, I'm Bailey. What is it?"
"Bill," said the guy who was doing all the talking, "we just wanted to congratulate you on leaving the Party. It took a lot of courage. We thought that now you're out of the Party you would like to sit down and talk with us."
"Why don't you guys get lost? I'm not talking to anybody. Get the hell away from this door," and I slammed the door and returned to the table to finish my dinner. "Can you imagine that?" I said to Betty. "I'm only a couple of days out of the Party and they got the news already. Now that's a good communication system they got rigged up."
Chapter XXIV: Et Tu, Brutus
I have seen many changes in this world of ours since that evening in the early `30s when 15 of us crammed into that small room in the run-down tenement house on the West Side of New York City. I took an oath, along with nine others, to serve and defend with all my heart and energy the best interest of the working class. I pledged to work and struggle among my fellow workers to ease their burden of servitude and economic slavery and to convince them to bring about a new world order through a system that would bestow on them their dignity and ownership of the means of production. I pledged to work to bring about a better, more worthwhile life for all of us.
I look back at that dingy room in the basement where we sat crowded together listening to the unit organizer tell 15 "old-timers" that this was "a great month for recruiting. At our branch of maritime workers we will initiate ten new recruits tonight. The Party across America is reporting an increase in people joining like never before."
While he talked, I scanned the room. It was truly a working-class shack. It had an ample supply of folding chairs and a three-drawer dresser. A few pictures adorned the walls. Two were pictures of a young girl, apparently a relative. Two were of the chairman and some friends. A makeshift desk consisting of two packing crates with a smooth piece of lumber spanning them gave the room some semblance of authority and order. Behind this desk sat the chairman. On the dresser rested some literature which would be offered for sale at the end of the meeting.
As the chairman, Clay, administered the pledge, he called on all the people in the room to stand. As he read the words from a card, we all repeated them, exhilarated like never before by the importance of what was happening here and now. When it was over and before we took our seats, Clay spent a moment congratulating us on our induction. He told us that we were now members of a worldwide movement of workers, farmers, intellectuals and middle class who were dedicated and organized to bring about a new order of change in the world, and that no matter where we traveled, we would surely be meeting our brothers and sisters all united in the same efforts. I felt privileged that I was to be part of this great cause and was ready to go out into the world and help bring about those great and noble changes.
Changes have been swift since then and some most devastating. But one could spend hours or days in discussion, or write pages and pages of analysis of past mistakes or shortcomings of the Party, but then what? What one must think about is, where do we go from here? Do we join the cabal of "I told you so" crowd in proclaiming that only capitalism can offer hope, peace and charity to the mass of people? Do we believe that socialism is but a myth, an unobtainable, impractical dream that shall always remain a dream? If we follow that illogical thinking, then surely peace, brotherhood and everlasting security will never be achieved because it tells us to do nothing: capitalism, in its "benevolent" nature, will solve all our problems.
We cannot say that socialism did not work in the Soviet Union. The fact is, they did not have socialism in the Soviet Union, nor did they practice it. The true meaning of socialism for me is a harmonious, classless society with a social organization based on a collective or governmental ownership of the means of production, with a democratic distribution of all goods derived from such collectivization. While the aim of the Russian Revolution and the Soviet government may have been pursuing those noble goals, somewhere along the rocky road bureaucracy got the better of them and the only thing the masses got was lip service and more dogma.
Many of the people who left the Party in the United States for one reason or another never abandoned their principles, but continued by various methods to pursue those aims. When I left the Party as the Russian tanks moved down the streets of Budapest, I found new avenues opened to me as never before. I have been privileged to speak in the classrooms of many colleges and high schools across the country. I discovered I could communicate with students, creating a rapport with young people which gave me a shot in the arm to do more of it. I have spoken to audiences before the screening of the documentaries Seeing Red, about the American Communist Party, or The Good Fight, about the Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War. I have been interviewed on numerous television and radio networks. I have written numerous articles on the Spanish Civil War, on labor, and on war and peace. I have been invited to Spain to film a six-hour documentary by Granada Television about the Spanish Civil War and to participate in a documentary on the International Brigades called El Portado. I have conducted waterfront walking tours for hundreds of people interested in the maritime trade union struggle and the history of the San Francisco General Strike.
I've participated in the fight for women's and minorities' rights, offered support on the picket lines for workers' job demands and marched in demonstrations for peace up the main streets of our city.
I am proud that in my lifetime I have helped in many ways to make a difference in the economic and political lives of people who needed that extra bit of support to make a difference. But while much has been gained in those struggles, it falls on a heavy heart to know that many of those gains have been lost in the past ten years. Our union movement has been split and weakened, and our political hopes and aspirations have been disappointed.
The struggle to hold on to what we still have goes on as we strive to gather new forces in what seems to be a never-ending uphill battle to bring about a more rewarding way of life for all humankind. I have never doubted our ability to move mountains when we have to. We have done it before, and we will do it again. The new generations entering the arena will have to come up with new definitions of democracy and socialism and will perhaps devise new methods of achieving those aims.
My generation fought against fascism and depressions and for equality. Those battles go on, but now there are new battles, as well--battles to save the universe from smog, filth, and disease; to protect the ozone, and to prevent the disappearance of the greenbelt. The new generations will make a difference if they seize the opportunity and pick up where my generation tired out.
I have tried to lead my life by following a belief that has guided my passage. This I sincerely recommend for all to follow: to witness an injustice and do nothing--that is the biggest crime.
Bill Bailey was born in Jersey City and grew up in Hoboken and New York's Hell's Kitchen. He went to sea in 1929 and maintained a career in the Merchant Marine until he was "screened out" during the McCarthy era. He fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War and organized workers in New York, Virginia, California, and Hawaii. In 1953 he began work as a longshoreman, retiring in 1975 to write, lecture, and appear in documentary and feature films.
Through his organizing, speaking, and writing activities, Bill Bailey advocated fundamental social change that would eliminate injustice, discrimination, and oppression. His entire life was dedicated to a vision of society where the needs of people come before profits. His autobiography, published in 1993, The Kid from Hoboken, chronicles this lifetime of commitment.
A freelance writer since 1930, Bill Bailey wrote for and edited trade union publications, composed novels and contributed to anthologies. He was interviewed for dozens of publications, including Studs Terkel's The Good War (New York: Ballantine, 1984), Al Richmond's A Long View from the Left (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972), and Bruce Nelson's Workers on the Waterfront (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988). He was featured in several documentary films, including Seeing Red, The Good Fight, Growing Up in the Depression, and Between the Wars. He appeared in the BBC's six-part series Granada and in the BBC's The UnAmericans. In addition, he played roles in feature films On the Edge and Guilty by Suspicion.
Bill Bailey died in San Francisco on February 22, 1995.
The Kid from Hoboken
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