Cold Light

by Frank Moorhouse

  There was some clapping.

  But Edith thought she heard someone mutter, ‘Oh, Jesus.’

  Standing up, Turner told the gathering that although the Party secretariat had closed discussion of the report at all levels of the Party, he wanted to remind them that the earlier Party reading list included: (a) the CPSU resolution; (b) an abridged version of the 20th Congress secret speech; and (c) the statement by the Political Committee. He said, ‘These documents can be had from me if anyone still wants them. But don’t say I said so.’

  Some laughter.

  Turner held their attention. He had an easy personal style – a head of house at school type, who was one with the boys.

  Frederick didn’t comment on Turner’s minor insubordination, but Mortimer came in and said that any more widespread, unmanaged discussion of the 20th Congress would only lead to unprincipled gossip and the breaking of the Party into factions.

  There was now an outbreak of side conversations and Frederick made another attempt to control the meeting, asking that the discussion be ‘horizontal’ not ‘vertical’. Someone called out, again with sarcasm, ‘In preference to circular.’

  Laughter.

  Others were saying that Stalin’s actions were required and inescapable, given the conditions at the time. ‘Stalinism was the cleansing of the Party.’

  Someone said, ‘We’re losing members and do not really have a correct line from the leadership. There’s indecision. Tactically, the leadership should not have shown surprise; should not have been caught out.’

  Seated beside her, Janice was shaking her head. She turned to the person on the other side of her, and said, ‘We’re losing control of this.’

  New people were now arriving, carrying their beer bottles and wine flagons.

  Frederick looked at his watch and then said, in a closing voice, ‘The important Melbourne writer, Judah Waten – who, by the way has rejoined the Party this month – said recently that he believed that the Russian revolution was the greatest achievement of the international working class and must be preserved at all cost. I agree with him. That said, I declare the formal part of this meeting closed.’

  There was clapping, but it was not unanimously strong.

  Edith glanced around. At the beginning there had been some air of solidarity, but now she saw that most – especially those who had not spoken – seemed to know that they had lost their reason for existence. The conversational tone was sombre in places and angry in others.

  She felt that she’d had enough. She stood up and was about to slip away when a young scholar from the English Department, whom she had met – Bob Brissenden – began strumming his guitar, which won him the attention of the gathering.

  Someone turned off the overhead lights and put on the desk lamp.

  Brissenden told everyone that he had picked up a song while studying in England. He strummed his guitar and said, ‘A song by Tom Lehrer.’ He then began to play and sang:

  ‘And we will all go together, when we go

  What a comforting thought that is to know . . .

  Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak . . .

  When the air becomes uranious, we will all go simultaneousth

  Yes, we all will go together, when we go.’

  As he reached the last line – ‘Yes, we all will go together, when we go’ – there was clapping and cheering.

  Frederick, who was now leaning against the wall, drink in hand, said loudly, ‘Keep the sound down. We don’t want complaints.’

  Brissenden was strumming his guitar and there were suggestions for songs from those there. Someone suggested ‘The Internationale’, but there was murmuring of dissent and a couple actually said loudly, ‘God, no.’

  Edith leaned over and said goodnight to Janice, handing her the glass she had been using.

  Janice said, ‘I knew calling this meeting was an error. A serious error.’

  ‘Looking at the rate of drinking, I think no one will remember the meeting tomorrow.’

  Edith went down the steps and out into the warm night air. She stood in the grassy quadrangle of the new University House. Menzies had said that University House resembled a dull seaside block of flats. She said she thought not. She looked around. It was an Australian interpretation of an English university college, using the Cambridge college arrangement of rooms clustered on stairwells rather than in corridors. She liked it. The birch trees would grow to maturity; the fish in the pond were already alive and well, and overfed.

  She looked up to the lighted windows of the party and could faintly hear the guitar and the singing – it was now a lusty singing, although she thought that it sounded like the singing of passengers on a sinking ship.

  She heard the words of a song start up. ‘Where working men defend their rights, that’s where you’ll find Joe Hill.’

  She had heard the song before, but never sung like this. They were now singing it more as a lament.

  It occurred to her that these sorts of gatherings of communists and their supporters were being held around the world – with their guitars and singing. The same songs would be sung.

  She felt then that she was witnessing the end of communism as it had been known.

  That was why she had wanted to be there: she felt there may never be such revolutionary beliefs nor gatherings like this ever again.

  Nerve Case

  In the New Year, Janice summoned her on the telephone with urgency in her voice. This time to come to their house in O’Connor; something they rarely did. ‘Fred’s in a bad way, but I won’t talk over the phone.’

  ‘Is it an accident?’

  ‘No, I’ll tell you when you get here.’

  Edith took a taxi.

  They now lived together in one of the former RAAF houses, which had been moved there to ease the housing shortage. She had asked Frederick why, when he could get her a grand house, he and Janice live in a prefabricated, very basic house. Unsurprisingly, he had said that revolutionaries did not live in grand houses.

  Janice met her at the door and said, almost conspiratorially, ‘The Party has expelled him.’

  Edith shook her head. ‘No. How ghastly.’

  Janice mimicked her voice. ‘How ghastly.’

  She looked at Janice. Why the mocking tone? But she didn’t pursue it. Janice must have been shaken too.

  Janice held her there at the door. ‘He’s inside. He won’t leave the house. I called you because he asked for you.’

  Janice now opened the door to her. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Perhaps something stronger.’ Frederick was not in the kitchen. She assumed he was inside somewhere.

  As Janice took a bottle of gin from the cupboard, she said, ‘They’ve expelled Staples, Walshe and Palmer. And others, mainly the intellectuals.’

  Edith didn’t recognise the names.

  ‘Turner?’

  ‘Not Turner or Murray-Smith. Yet. Expect that they’ll resign. Turner and Murray-Smith are the problem – they’re organising opposition to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary. Some of the bloody intellectuals got Fred to sign a letter saying it was brutal suppression – saying that it showed Stalinism was alive and well.’

  ‘Why not Turner or Murray-Smith?’

  ‘Fred reports to Sydney. Turner and Murray-Smith to Melbourne. Murray-Smith has stolen Overland, the Party literary magazine. Evidently he secretly registered it in his own name. I think there’s some funny business between Murray-Smith and Turner. Janice did not elaborate. She made gin and tonics. No lemon. No ice.

  ‘Where’s Frederick?’

  Janice indicated with her head that he was somewhere inside the house.

  Edith asked, ‘How?’

  ‘What do you mean, how?’

  ‘How did they expel him? How was it done?’

  ‘We received a knock at the door. It was Alf Watt. He was editor of Tribune for a while. He’s a Party organiser like Frederick. He wouldn’t come inside the house. He said he had to speak to Fred
and would I get him. I called Fred, who came to the door. Standing there, Watt said he’d been sent to inform Fred that he’d been expelled from the Party. Fred was so shaken he couldn’t speak at first. I said to Watt, “On what grounds?” Watt said factionalism. Fred said to Watt, “For Christ’s sake, won’t you come into the house instead of standing there like a telegram boy?” Watt wouldn’t move. As a charge, factionalist is about as bad as you can get – especially for someone working for the Party. Fred then said shouldn’t he have been present at the meeting that expelled him? Watt said no, Fred should know that the charge was the most heinous of Party crimes – said it was about Fred’s association with the anti-Party Outlook group, “among other matters”. Watt wouldn’t speak to me or look at me. He handed Fred the letter of expulsion, asked for certain documents that Fred held – Watt had a list – and asked for the keys of the new Party car. We invited him in again, but he said he’d wait outside until Fred had packed up the documents. He had an empty suitcase. Fred did as asked, and Watt drove off. He must have travelled from Sydney on the train. Fred’s been in the Party thirty-five or more years. Longer, I think.’

  ‘Is it okay if I go in and see him?’

  Janice nodded. ‘He’s in the bedroom.’

  She went inside and Janice followed her. She found Frederick in his day clothes, but in bed.

  She sat on the bed and for the first time in her life took her brother’s hand. No, she must have held his hand when they had met in the Hotel Canberra those years earlier. He looked grim, maybe even crazy, but as always he was clean-shaven. There was a bottle of Scotch and a glass beside the bed. She held his hand between both her palms.

  ‘You should have got in first – resigned,’ she said.

  He stirred and looked at her with bewilderment. ‘Resigning one’s commission is the equivalent to disobeying an order in some armies.’

  He began to speak in a rambling voice, not looking at either of them, staring somewhere towards the ceiling. ‘I’ve never done anything else with my life other than Party business – socialism – from the time I wake in the morning until I’m asleep.’

  His voice was weak, almost frightened.

  There was a letter on his bedside table and she picked it up. She thought it would be the expulsion letter.

  It was from Queensland, signed by a name she couldn’t decipher. ‘Dear Fred, this is for you personally. What nonsense is this, Fred, about your disagreeing with the Party about Hungary? Do you seriously suggest that Russia should permit the vultures of imperialism to roost on her doorstep? What is right, old chap, is what advances the cause of the international working class; what is wrong is what retards it. You know what saved me, Fred?’ Then, in capital letters the person had written, ‘KNOWLEDGE OF THE CLASS STRUGGLE.’

  It was from another world. Shaking her head, she put the letter back.

  Fred still talked to the ceiling. ‘They explained how the rebellion started with students and young workers . . .’

  ‘Who?’ she asked softly.

  Janice broke in and said, ‘He keeps talking about the invasion of Hungary.’ She said it without sympathy. ‘He’s getting it all from Lambert.’

  All these names.

  Fred rambled on, ‘In Budapest, the students took a manifesto for reform to a radio station and requested it be broadcast. The program included demands such as elections, freedom to speak out, and the abolition of the secret police. They’d elected a twelve-year-old girl to read out their demands. The secret police arrived and shot her through the head. Lambert was there – he told me about it on the telephone from London.’

  He now looked at Edith.

  He said, ‘Sartre has left the Party. He said it has become “le parti des fusilleurs”.’

  Edith silently corrected her brother’s French pronunciation. She asked him if he wanted a drink. He nodded and she poured him a Scotch. She lifted her gin and clinked his glass and tried to joke, ‘To the cult of alcohol.’

  Neither smiled. Janice did not clink glasses. It was too soon for humour.

  Frederick drank his straight down, and coughed on it. He said, ‘When they were discussing the first expulsions in Sydney, I didn’t think I would ever be expelled. I told them that the Control Commission had a special duty. I said that the correct procedure was that an effort should be made to explain the matter to the guilty members, comrades to comrades – perhaps, to find them a task to which the waverers might be psychologically fitted, to keep them in the Party. Everyone knows how irreconcilable Lenin was with those who deviated from the correct Party line, I said, but at the same time, Lenin first demanded the most intimate Party contact with people who’d shown indecision about the Party line. Those for whom it was possible to return to the Party path. I said all this to them in Sydney.’

  He held out his glass for a refill and she poured another nip. He went on, ‘Lenin advised that such people should be patiently educated without the application of extreme methods. Do you know how they responded to that? At the next Central Committee meeting – I was there – Sharkey delivered a report that confirmed no-discussion, the hard line. Then, like robots, each member in succession, including me, stated, “I agree with Comrade Sharkey.” Except Blake.’

  Edith asked how many people were at the Central Committee.

  ‘Oh, I suppose about forty. It was held in the small hall, doors locked. We were all standing – not Blake – who, by the way, is editor of Tribune. He didn’t support the no-discussion position so did not repeat the mantra “I agree with Comrade Sharkey”.

  ‘A Central Committee member – I forget who – then went to the rostrum and said dramatically, “Everyone here has said they agree with the leadership, but there was one very important exception – Jack Blake.”

  ‘Then Blake spoke out and said that he felt compelled to outline why he thought the invasion should be discussed. They were all standing there in the hall, and as he said this the other Central Committee members gradually moved away from him, leaving him in a little island by himself. They did. I did.

  ‘Sharkey then made an attack on Blake, claiming that he had “politically deteriorated” and that he had become a “disruptor”. He was then sacked from his editorship by Sharkey.

  ‘But he has not resigned from the Party. He’s working as a cleaner. He’s older than me, but we joined the Party around the same time – in the Depression. He was out of the mines. He’s one of the smartest men I’ve known. We’d both seen how the Australian workforce had lost its pride – grown men collecting rotten fruit from garbage bins. We saw it all: food being burned and dumped by the big companies while families were getting sick from hunger; kids with rickets.

  ‘After he joined the Party, they saw how smart he was and they sent him to Moscow for training, and he came back and worked for the Party for the rest of his life until now.

  ‘I went to Moscow for cadre training after him – in the late thirties.’

  Janice said, ‘I can’t take any more of this.’ She left the room.

  Edith was unsure what it was Janice could not stand. ‘What did you do at the meeting – about Blake?’

  Frederick wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. You heard what Khrushchev did at the Congress when asked that question?’

  She nodded. She remembered that from the report of the secret speech – he had ‘remained silent’.

  ‘I said that it was all in the secret speech – the difference between Lenin and Stalin. What characterised Stalin was an entirely different relationship with people. He didn’t have Lenin’s traits – patient work with people; stubborn and painstaking education of them; the ability to convince people to follow him without using compulsion, but rather through the ideological influence on them of the whole collective. I did this as an organiser. I was patient; I was painstaking; I always went back to the Snowy River workers – faced the migrants from the Soviet republics who had come here. I was jeered at. Spat on.’

  He shook his head. She could see his t
ears. ‘It made me stronger.’

  There was a miserable contradiction in these last words. They were from another Frederick, not the one lying on his bed.

  She let go of his hand and picked up his Scotch and offered it to him.

  Frederick didn’t take it. She put it down on the bedside table. She found herself caressing his hand. He then said, again more to himself, in a tone that was neither contempt nor affirmation, perhaps echoing her mocking words at the café, ‘Long live the victorious banner of our Party. Long live Marxism-Leninism.’

  She thought that he sobbed.

  Then he seemed to become angry with her, even though she had said nothing. ‘For God’s sake, Edith, we weren’t playing party politics the way Labor and the Liberals are. We were not out to change the government. We were out to change the world, the system, the nature of things, to what Australians wanted to make of this country right from the start.’

  Then he said, ‘The Central Committee is still Stalinist. If they could, they would’ve shot me or sent me to a work camp. The secret speech, by destroying the myth of Stalin’s infallibility, inadvertently destroyed, as well, the infallibility of the leadership system in all the national communist parties. The suppression of the Hungarian revolt has exposed the falsity of the claim that the communist state is a proletarian state. Lambert said that during the uprising, workers arrested the secret police – the AVH – and stuffed money in their mouths and hanged them in public. The AVH had been running concentration camps where people were worked to death.’

  Did she like her brother? She had not looked down on him for being in the Party, but she supposed she considered him misguided, blinded by ideology. Who wasn’t?

  He shouted out, ‘We were the first to be right about Fascism, yet we were the last to be right about Stalin. I wish they would shoot me.’

  He frowned. ‘I have been lied to by people I trusted in the Party. As a consequence, I have lied to other people, who trusted me. A lifetime of being lied to and then of spreading the lies.’