Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain: Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation 9789048551859

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Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain

Heritage and Memory Studies This ground-breaking series examines the dynamics of heritage and memory from a transnational, interdisciplinary and integrated approach. Monographs or edited volumes critically interrogate the politics of heritage and dynamics of memory, as well as the theoretical implications of landscapes and mass violence, nationalism and ethnicity, heritage preservation and conservation, archaeology and (dark) tourism, diaspora and postcolonial memory, the power of aesthetics and the art of absence and forgetting, mourning and performative re-enactments in the present. Series Editors Ihab Saloul and Rob van der Laarse, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Advisory Board Patrizia Violi, University of Bologna, Italy Britt Baillie, Cambridge University, UK Michael Rothberg, University of Illinois, USA Marianne Hirsch, Columbia University, USA Frank van Vree, NIOD and University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation

Elke Weesjes

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Danny Sabella Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 663 4 e-isbn 978 90 4855 185 9 (e-pdf) doi 10.5117/9789463726634 nur 694 © Elke Weesjes / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2021 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

For Danny and Nino Sabella And in memory of Andy Durr and Alun Howkins



Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 1 Introduction Cradle Communists and Oral History

9 11

Part I 2 Under the Party’s Wing Communist Youth Organisations 1920-1956 Foundation years Class Against Class and Popular Front The Spanish Civil War The Second World War Promising years: 1945-1948 Isolation: 1948-1956 3 Out of the Shadows Communist Youth Organisations 1957-1968 The ban-the-bomb movement The politicisation of youth The student movement The anti-Vietnam War movement Old guard vs. new guard 4 Fragmentation and Demise Communist Youth Organisations 1969-1991 Gender roles, sexuality and the feminist movement The anti-racist movement The gay rights movement The final years

29 32 36 40 44 49 54 65 69 77 84 90 98 107 112 121 137 152

Part II 5 From Heroes to Villains The Second World War and ‘1956’ Resistance and war trauma ‘1956’ 6 Private Spheres Communist Home Life Politics at home Cultural upbringing Child-rearing mores 7 Public Spheres Neighbourhood, School and Work School and education Work and careers Anti-communism – MI5 and the BVD Working mothers Money and poverty Summer camps and holidays Friendships and relationships

159 165 180 187 188 197 200 215 223 234 240 243 247 250 254

8 Epilogue Looking Back

259

9 Afterword

267

List of Abbreviations

273

Bibliography

275

Index

287

Acknowledgements I owe thanks to many people who helped me complete this book. First, I’d like to acknowledge the people who agreed to be interviewed for this project. This book would have been less rich without their willingness to share their oftentimes intimate and very personal experiences growing up in a communist family. Unquestionably, their words are among the most captivating and insightful in this book. I am also enormously grateful to Margreet Schrevel, who hired me as an intern in 2001. At the time, she worked as a research officer at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam and needed an assistant to help with her project about communist family life in Cold War Holland. She taught me everything I needed to know about oral history, memory studies, and the history of the Dutch communist movement. She provided me with the methodological knowhow to expand the project and make it my own. Whilst Margreet retired many years ago, her colleagues at the International Institute of Social History have continued to provide me with practical support and useful feedback during my many visits over the years. Likewise, my research was greatly helped by numerous archivists and librarians at the Labour History Archive and Study Centre (People’s History Museum) in Manchester and the Working Class Movement Library in Salford. As this project progressed, a number of friends and colleagues provided various forms of intellectual and emotional support, including the late Andy Durr and Alun Howkins, who are both sadly missed, Ian Gazeley, Kevin Morgan, Lucy Robinson, Mark Fonseca Rendeiro, Nerina Visacovsky, and Jolie Breeden. My friend Paul Mishler gave me the courage and confidence to further expand my project after a seven-year hiatus. Our many conversations helped the writing process immeasurably. Paul has also introduced me to a larger network of historians within the international communist movement, and by doing so, he has provided me with a community. I further broadened this network through my work as an editor of Twentieth Century Communism – A Journal of International History. I’d like to thank my fellow editors for the invitation to join their board and their encouraging words with respect to my research. Matthew Worley deserves special recognition in this regard. Aside from reviewing this manuscript and offering careful and incisive comments, he also read and provided feedback on several research papers that sprung out of my oral history project. His methodological and theoretical insights pushed me to sharpen my core arguments.

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I’ve presented portions of the research conducted in this book to a number of audiences, including conferences at the University of Reading, the University of Greenwich, and the University of Sussex, and the work-in-progress series at the International Institute of Social History and Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. In each instance, I benefited from feedback from the audience, organisers, and fellow participants, who spurred me to clarify my arguments and rethink some of my conclusions. Ruth Charnock, my brilliant friend and editor, read every single word of this book with an incredible level of care and precision. An author herself, she not only provided me with thoughtful comments, but also shared her knowledge of academic publishing and guided me through the entire process. My manuscript also benefited from the thoughtful comments of my editors at Amsterdam University Press, who took a chance on me and my work. The anonymous reviewers provided encouraging and constructive feedback that greatly improved the book. I’d like to thank my parents, Sietze and Janny Weesjes, my aunt Greetje Weesjes, my siblings, Marie-José, Siebrand, and Maaike, my brother and sister-in-law, Lennart and Gonnie, and all my nieces and nephews for showering me with love and affection. Similarly, I’m grateful for the support I’ve received from my family-in-law here in the United States. Finally, I’d like to thank my husband, Danny Sabella, for his help, support, patience, and love during the writing process, for being one of my biggest fans, and for creating this book’s cover art. Furthermore, he looked after our beautiful son, Nino Sabella, so I could dedicate my time to writing this book. For a five-year-old, Nino was incredibly understanding about the fact his mum was glued to her computer at all hours of the day. In order to express my appreciation to my husband and son for creating the circumstances in which I could finish this book, I dedicate it to them. Elke Weesjes

1 Introduction Cradle Communists and Oral History Abstract Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain offers a comparative analysis of the Dutch and British communist movements in the twentieth century and interrogates how far Moscow and/or indigenous social, political, economic and cultural factors influenced the experiences of communist parties and their members. Informed by oral history and memory studies, it draws on a series of interviews with 38 British and Dutch cradle communists, auto/biographies, archival materials, and existing historiography of both movements. Chapter One discusses the oral history project this book is based on, examines the variables that influence participants’ experiences, discusses similarities between the two communist movements as well as national peculiarities, and briefly surveys the different trends that can be observed within communist historiography in both countries. Keywords: Communist Party of Great Britain, Communist Party of the Netherlands, oral history, comparative research, cradle communists

I never felt as though I lived in two separate worlds. I even went to a Christian club – my mother felt doing so was important. We also had a Bible at home, one of those thick ones, with really thin pages. The Christian club was a children’s club, which was part of the Maranatha Church in Overschie. We would first pray, then we would read from the Bible, and sing. Afterwards we would do fun things. We would make mittens, play games, that kind of stuff. The children from my school went there, so I wanted to go too. My father said, ‘Can’t you think of anything else?’ But my mother said, ‘You should go, you’ll learn a thing or two’. But I didn’t get along with the woman who ran the club, because she said that communists were really bad people. I was always fighting with that woman,

Weesjes, Elke, Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain: Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463726634_ch01

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Growing Up Communist in the Ne therl ands and Britain

but I kept on going to the club nonetheless because all my girlfriends were going and we would have a good time together. There was also a Christmas celebration. And at Christmas we would get an orange. That was such a treat. Because we didn’t have much money at home (Mieke b. 1948, Rotterdam).

Mieke grew up in Overschie, a neighbourhood in Rotterdam. Her mother was raised in a socialist working-class family and became involved in the communist resistance during the Second World War. Her father, a carpenter, joined the Communistische Partij van Nederland (CPN; ‘Communist Party of the Netherlands’) in the 1950s and whilst active and always ready to organise a strike, he was never quite as passionate about communism as Mieke’s mother. Despite her political dedication, Mieke’s mother nonetheless wanted her daughter to have a ‘normal’ life and do what other children did, even if this meant attending a Christian club. Mieke, who looked up to her mother as an inspiration, recalled that her parents never forced her to join any communist organisations, but she did anyway and eventually became very active in her local CPN. Her brother – who was, according to Mieke, somewhat embarrassed about his parents’ political views – did not join the party, and his decision was respected by the family. Mieke remained a member until the end. When the party was disbanded in 1991, a large photograph of her and her mother, both crying, was published in the newspaper. Mieke is one of 38 cradle communists I interviewed for a comparative oral history project conducted between 2001 and 2019 about rank-and-file communist family life in Britain and the Netherlands during the Cold War. This book interprets these accounts within a larger framework in order to construct a collective past and, as such, it is inspired by both oral history and memory studies. In their book Oral History and Public Memories, editors Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes discuss oral history and the construction of social and cultural memory. They note that there are many examples where the latter does not engage with the former. Hamilton and Shopes explain this phenomenon by pointing out that oral history emerged as a widespread practice in relation to the democratising of history in the 1960s and was fuelled by decolonisation and social movements. In contrast, the ‘memory turn’ in scholarship was prompted by the Jewish Holocaust memory ‘industry’ and twentieth century wars, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union, and was therefore usually associated with trauma. Consequently, memory studies, they argue, moves away from the local focus of oral history, to a national

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stage, much larger than can be encompassed by the memories of individuals. Additionally, Hamilton and Shopes explain that historians who work within memory studies interrogate the broader social and cultural processes at work in remembrance and are equally concerned with other (auto) biographical sources, whereas ‘oral historians privilege the individual respondent and focus necessarily on his/her agency in the world’, an approach which often ‘fetishizes the interview process and fails to understand the interview as but one form of memory-making’.1 Agreeing with the latter, I have integrated oral history methods into the wider context of memory studies. Participants’ testimonies in combination with archival research and (auto) biographical sources were used to portray collective experiences, without losing sight of the uniqueness of each and every story. As illustrated through participants’ accounts, Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain showcases communists’ struggles to establish community and define their identities within the specific cultural, social, and political framework of their countries during the Cold War and beyond. By analysing the political and non-political aspects of participants’ lives, the book examines how much these experiences were the product of their indigenous social, political, and economic circumstances. In terms of the latter, comparing two very different countries was necessary, as doing so exposed how communists, their parties, and associated organisations adapted to their national circumstances. Scholars in the field of British communism, such as Kevin Morgan, Gidon Cohen, Andrew Flinn, Norman LaPorte, and Matthew Worley have urged the international community of communist historians to engage in comparative research. Despite many challenges associated with a comparative approach, including language, geography, and the availability of comparable sources, they firmly believe that the possibilities and limitations of communism can only be truly understood if compared across different national boundaries. These scholars, who have shaped contemporary communist historiography, have published a number of important volumes and organised international conferences, bringing together samples of the work produced in the fields of communist biography and prosopography.2 By doing so, they mean to encourage a 1 Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, ‘Introduction’, in Oral History and Public Memories, ed. by Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes (Philadelphia: Temple University, 2008), pp. x-xi. 2 For example, Agents of the Revolution. New Biographical Approaches to the History of International Communism in the Age of Lenin and Stalin, ed. by Kevin Morgan, Gidon Cohen, and Andrew Flinn (Bern: Peter Lang, 2005). The academic peer reviewed journal, Twentieth Century Communism – A Journal of International History, first published in 2009 is also worth mentioning. Founded by, among others, Matthew Worley and Kevin Morgan, and published

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cross-fertilisation between the historians of communist parties in different countries and challenge the myth of monolithic communist dictatorship by emphasising national differences within the international movement. Yet studies that actually compare two or more national movements remain sparse. Aside from its comparative approach, Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain is also distinct in that it uses a child’s perspective – or rather the adult memory of childhood experience filtered through time. Children were born into a life rather than choosing it and, as expected, I found them to be less defensive in their responses than their parents. Even those who were initially somewhat defensive let their guards down during follow-up interviews and shared very intimate details about their upbringing. Due to the sensitive nature of the information they provided, and the fact that the communist community has always been rather small in both countries, some requested I use a pseudonym to protect their identities. For the sake of parity, I therefore decided to use pseudonyms for all my participants. Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain adds nuance to the picture painted by the sociologist Jolande Withuis for the Dutch context, and historians Thomas Linehan, and to a lesser extent, Raphael Samuel for the British context.3 Examining communist family life and communist mentality ‘from below’, all three authors have described communists as inflexible, emotionally distant and unavailable, overbearing, and physically unaffectionate. All three build up a picture of a group with rigid moral codes and values whose members deliberately isolated themselves, politically and socially. In my own sample, only three Dutch and two British participants by Lawrence and Wishart in London, this interdisciplinary journal publishes internationally themed issues to encourage readers to draw connections and comparisons between different periods and different communist movements. 3 Raphael Samuel, ‘The Lost World of British Communism’, New Left Review no. 154, November/ December 1985, Raphael Samuel, ‘Staying Power: The Lost World of British Communism, Part Two’, New Left Review no. 156, March/April 1986, Raphael Samuel, ‘Class Politics: The Lost World of British Communism, Part Three’, New Left Review, no. 165, September/October 1987, Thomas Linehan, Communism in Britain, 1920-39: From the Cradle to the Grave (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), Jolande Withuis, Opoffering en heroïek: de mentale wereld van een communistische vrouwenorganisatie in naoorlogs Nederland 1946-1976 (Amsterdam: Boom, 1990), Jolande Withuis, De jurk van de kosmonaute. Over politiek, cultuur en psyche (Amsterdam: Boom, 1995), Jolande Withuis, Erkenning. Van oorlogstrauma naar klaagcultuur (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2002), Jolande Withuis, Na het kamp, vriendschap en politieke strijd (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2005), and Jolande Withuis, Raadselvader. Kind in de Koude Oorlog (Amsterdam: Bezige Bij, 2018).

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shared experiences that somewhat matched these authors’ observations and findings. Over the years, many Dutch participants with positive recollections of their childhood have voiced discontent with the way communist family life has been portrayed in existing literature. These feelings weren’t shared by British participants as the new generation of historians mentioned above have expanded on Samuel’s line of inquiry. These historians, including Morgan, Cohen, and Flinn, have applied a prosopographical approach and, based on an impressive collection of 3,000 autobiographical questionnaires and more than 100 recorded interviews with former Communist Party members, they explore who joined the Communist Party and why, and what this commitment meant in their lives. The first book that arose from this project, Party People, Communist Lives. Explorations in Biography, was published in 2001, and a second book, Communists and British Society 1920-1991, was published in 2007. In the latter, which is regarded as one of the fullest accounts of the British Communist Party, Morgan, Cohen, and Flinn integrate the private and the political, depicting the lives of ‘ordinary’ members of the CPGB. 4 The authors and those historians who have been working in the same field, such as Matthew Worley, Geoff Andrews, and Evan Smith, have added nuance to and expanded the picture painted by Samuel. They have underlined the many variations of local communisms and explored the changing nature of communists’ interpretations of the ideology and their relationship with Moscow. Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain is firmly placed within the latter trend and particularly hopes to expand on Withuis’ ground-breaking research. Rather than contradict, this book sets out to compliment prior studies into communist mentality and identity. After all, there were those among communist parents who were slavishly obedient to their parties, isolated themselves socially, and followed Soviet pedagogical practices to the letter.5 Yet, in my sample, they were a very small minority. 4 Kevin Morgan, Gidon Cohen and Andrew Flinn, Communists and British Society 1920-1991. People of a Special Mould (London: Rivers Oram Press, 2007). 5 It is of note that this rigid culture was absent in some Dutch communist organisations, such as the Organisatie voor Progressief Studerende Jeugd (OPSJ; ‘Organisation for Progressive Studying Youth’), but dominated in others, such as the Dutch communist women’s organisation, the Nederlandse Vrouwenbond (NVB; ‘Dutch Women’s League’) which is the focus of Withuis’ first work, Opoffering en heroiek. Almost all of my Dutch participants recalled that their mothers were members of the NVB on paper but weren’t particularly active as they didn’t feel at home in this organisation. This could explain the discrepancy between my f indings and those of Withuis.

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Aside from interpreting 26 Dutch and twelve British participants’ oral testimonies, I also analysed ten interviews from Phil Cohen’s illuminating record of the experiences of children of Communist Party members brought up in 1950s Britain, Children of the Revolution.6 The majority of my participants and those interviewed by Cohen grew up in cities with relatively large concentrations of communists: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, London, Liverpool, and Manchester. They were born between 1932 and 1956 and their parents were part-time communist activists or organisers. Their parents, who generally belonged to the working or lower middle classes, considered themselves to be representatives of the working class despite the fact they were often much more culturally and politically educated than most members of that class.7 As observed by Raphael Samuel, class was ‘a moral rather than a social signifier’ […] ‘measured not by occupation or income but by allegiance’.8 6 I have analysed the following interviews conducted by Phil Cohen: Jude Bloomf ield (b. 1953, London), Ann Kane (b. 1942, Yorkshire), Martin Kettle (b. 1949, Liverpool), Mike Power (b. 1944, London), Michael Rosen (b. 1946, London), Alexei Sayle (b. 1952, Liverpool), Nina Temple (b. 1956, London). See: Phil Cohen, Children of the Revolution. Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1997). 7 In 2001, I assisted Margreet Schrevel, who was a research officer at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, with her project about communist family life in Cold War Holland. The project was inspired by two works on the lives of communist children: Phil Cohen’s Children of the Revolution. Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain, and Judy Kaplan and Linn Shapiro’s book about the American communist movement, Red Diapers. Growing up in the Communist Left (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998). Together, Schrevel and I interviewed 22 men and women who grew up in communist families in Cold War Holland. Schrevel published an article based on our findings. See: Margreet Schrevel, ‘Rode luiers, hollands fabrikaat. Communistische gezinnen in de jaren vijftig’, Holland Historisch Tijdschrift Vol. 36, No. 4 (2004), pp. 327-352. Since then, I have continued and expanded this research and used the findings for my PhD work (Children of the Red Flag – Growing up in a Communist Family during the Cold War – University of Sussex, 2012). Wherever possible, I did follow-up interviews in recent years to investigate if participants’ attitudes had changed as time went by and their circumstances changed. The initial and follow-up interviews lasted approximately two to three hours. Contacts were made through the International Institute of Social History and the Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex. Snowball sampling techniques were used to identify further participants that fit my criteria. As mentioned in the Introduction, the majority of Dutch participants grew up in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague. Amsterdam and, to a lesser extent, Rotterdam and The Hague were traditional communist bulwarks. Based on industry and the composition of the workforce, the British equivalent of these Dutch cities are London, Manchester, and Liverpool. Most of the participants’ parents and the parents of those interviewed by Cohen grew up in these cities. They were born between 1932 and 1956 and were raised in a communist family, without excluding parents who joined or lapsed whilst the children were growing up. I included families where only one parent had a Communist Party membership, but in those few cases, the other parent was a sympathiser. 8 Raphael Samuel, The Lost World of British Communism (London/New York: Verso, 2006), p. 171.

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I found that this attitude towards class complicated my research, as it turned out that those who truly belonged to the working class, especially those in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations, had different experiences and held different views from those who were in fact middle class. However, both groups did experience financial hardship – brought on by unstable employment due to communist activism, party-related financial responsibilities (either self-imposed or demanded by the party), or being employed by the party and paid a very low wage9 – which somewhat justified middle-class communists’ self-categorisation as working class. It should nonetheless be noted that, among the Dutch sample, there were more participants who truly belonged to the working class, which could explain some of the discrepancies between the British and Dutch experience. Furthermore, the British sample’s average age is slightly lower, with more people born in the early to mid-1950s. In the context of the Cold War, even a few years age difference translated into wildly discrepant experiences. The latter became clear when interviewing siblings who were born four or five years apart. Generally, those born before 1950 and who remember the events of 1956 – i.e. Khrushchev’s revelations about Stalin and the Soviet invasion of Hungary and associated anti-communist attitudes – had an altogether different experience from those participants who were born after 1950. The slight unevenness of the samples and the bias introduced by using interviews collected and edited by a third party were taken into account when I interpreted and compared the data. Similarly, the specific challenges of oral history were carefully considered, including participants’ tendency to be nostalgic and subjective, as well as the fallibility of memory. The followup interviews, in certain cases conducted eighteen years after the initial interview, show that memory is also subject to revision. Instead of becoming milder, participants had grown more critical of their parents’ choices, which I relate to the fact that they felt more comfortable talking to me a second time around, but also to the fact that their parents had all passed away and they themselves were now elderly. Indeed, memories and our views on past experiences are refashioned by new information, suggestions from others, and by shifts in our emotional state of mind, ageing, and the passage of time.10 9 A handful of participants’ parents were employed by the party as editors, journalists, administrative workers, and booksellers. These occupations were technically white-collar, but the party paid usually even less than minimum wage. 10 See: Ronald Grele, Envelopes of Sound. The Art of Oral History, Second Edition (Chicago: Precedent, 1985), Robert Perks, Alistair Thomson, The Oral History Reader, Second Edition (London: Routledge, 2006), and Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past. Oral History, Fourth Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

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Curiously, male and female participants spoke mostly about their fathers during the initial interview, even when their mothers had also been active in the communist movement. Mothers’ political activities generally slowed down when they started families, which most likely explains participants’ tendency to focus almost solely on their fathers when reflecting on a communist upbringing. I therefore asked participants to discuss their mothers during their follow-up interview. When prompted to do so, it became clear that their mothers were politically active, much more so than non-communist working-class mothers. Yet they often filled a supportive role, ensuring that their husbands could dedicate their time to politics. As illustrated by Mieke’s account, some mothers were equally or more active than their husbands and, whenever this was the case, parents found it difficult to balance politics and family life. Nevertheless, only one participant felt that politics came first and the family came second. Despite many variables that influence participants’ experiences – including the aforementioned socio-economic circumstances and age, but also gender, and parents’ party loyalty – the individuals’ accounts are connected and there are numerous similarities, some subtle, other obvious. In addition, there are significant variations between the two countries, with British communists being more moderate in their outlook, more integrated into the wider labour movement, and more likely to stray ideologically. In the Netherlands during the late 1940s and 1950s, virulent anti-communism crowded out rational thinking. Cold War attitudes and associated hatred and fear led to an outburst of physical violence against Dutch communists after the Soviet invasion of Hungary. In Britain, on the other hand, a violent persecution of communists never occurred. Naturally, aside from causing victims to withdraw within their own communities, the shared experience of persecution defined Dutch communists’ identities. Considering the forces that caused Dutch communists to withdraw, it would be fair to argue that, whereas communist parties and their organisations were largely responsible for political isolation during the Cold War, individual communists were generally not to blame for being socially isolated. On the contrary: communists and their families made many attempts to integrate into society. Dutch communists’ social isolation was further exacerbated by the political-denominational segregation of society, also known as ‘pillarisation’. From the birth of the Dutch state and nation in the sixteenth century, society was divided into three different pillars: a Catholic pillar, which consisted of formal members of the Catholic Church; an orthodox Calvinist pillar, which united members of several orthodox Protestant churches; and a third pillar, which was more secular and included the majority of those who identified as

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Dutch Reformed (a liberal Protestant doctrine), liberals, and a small group of non-practising Roman Catholics. In addition, a social democratic pillar appeared at the end of the nineteenth century.11 These four pillars had their own institutions: newspapers, broadcasting corporations, trade unions, schools, hospitals, building societies, universities, sports clubs, and choirs. Every pillar, which united people from all classes, amounted to a subculture (sometimes isolated) within society. As the Cold War intensified in the 1950s, pillars, already not particularly welcoming to outsiders, closed their ranks to keep communists out. Dutch communists were therefore compelled to create their own – unofficial – pillar with a newspaper, choir, sports clubs, several youth organisations, a women’s organisation, magazines for the whole family, a film organisation, a publishing house, a union, and camping sites. Within this relative isolation, communists were more likely to adhere to the communist ideology than their British peers who weren’t actively kept out of non-communist cultural organisations.12 Still, much like its British equivalent, the Dutch communist movement as a whole was too small to be self-sufficient, and its members and their children interacted with non-communists on a daily basis, in their schools and neighbourhoods. In fact, participants’ parents encouraged relationships with non-communists, and wanted their children to blend in and ‘be normal’. To that end, parents mixed Soviet ideology with Western values and culture. When looking at the structuring of family life and related child-rearing practices, friendships, and leisure activities, communists themselves, rather than the party, decided which elements of Soviet pedagogy and culture were adopted, if any at all, and blended into their own Western working-class culture. In terms of participants joining communist organisations, an interesting difference emerges between both countries. Due to the extent of the experienced isolation brought on by pillarisation and Cold War attitudes, in combination with the tremendous sacrifices made by communists during the Second World War, Dutch cradle communists, as compared to their 11 Due to their historically hostile relationship, Dutch communists were excluded from all social democratic organisations and were therefore forced to form their own pillar. 12 It should be noted that, with the increasing rise of Cold War tensions and the CPGB’s announcement of opposition against the Marshall Plan, the Labour Party and trade union establishment went on the offensive against communists and tried to keep them out of trade unions. Their campaign intensified after the seizure of power by communists in Czechoslovakia in February 1948. Their efforts resulted in the institution of bans on communists holding office in several trade unions, including the Transport and General Workers’ Union. Furthermore, Prime Minister Clement Attlee announced a ban on communists holding ‘sensitive posts’ in the civil service. See: Steve Parsons, ‘British Communist Party School Teachers in the 1940s and 1950s’, Science and Society, Spring, Vol. 61 No. 1 (1997) 46-67, (p. 46).

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British peers, felt more inclined to join communist organisations and remain a member of the party even though their commitment to and faith in communism had waned. Dutch participants felt morally obliged to carry the political torch passed on by their parents, especially in those cases where a sibling had already refused to do so. Yet, as illustrated by Mieke’s story, none of the participants indicated that parents had expressed anger when one of their children decided not to join the movement. When the latter occurred – and almost all participants had at least one sibling who didn’t join, and in quite a few cases they themselves decided not to become active – it didn’t break up the family. Overall, communists’ allegiance to their family unit appeared strong and no participant was disowned for not joining the movement, though some participants could sense disappointment when they didn’t. Rather than their children’s membership of the Communist Party, parents appeared more concerned with instilling a sense of solidarity among their offspring. ‘Don’t be selfish’, ‘be aware of your social surroundings and the needs of the most vulnerable in society’, and ‘stand up for the rights of the oppressed’ were among the life lessons parents passed on. Whilst many participants moved away from communism even before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, they never lost sight of these lessons. Many admitted to feeling ‘allergic to politics’, especially after the parties disbanded, but solidarity continued to be their guiding principle. They remained active – usually not within any political party, but in local contexts such as neighbourhood committees, or social justice initiatives, such as the international women’s rights movement, Greenpeace, and Amnesty International. Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain is divided into two parts. Part I – Chapters Two to Four – examines and compares the social and political history of the communist youth movement in Britain and the Netherlands. Exploring communist youth organisations’ varying levels of political isolation, these three chapters move chronologically across some 70 years of radical youth activism and provide a much-needed framework for understanding the political lives of the participants and their parents, and the two countries’ national peculiarities, without rehashing party histories. Unlike the CPGB and CPN, which history has featured in myriad publications, the communist youth movement in both countries has received little to no academic attention.13 This gap in communist historiography 13 Ger Harmsen published an excellent study of the Dutch youth movement between 1853 and 1940, which detailed the early history of the communist youth organisation, De Zaaier (‘The Sower’), later renamed as the Communistische Jeugdbond (CJB; ‘Communist Youth League’), see:

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needs closing as communist youth organisations and their programs were an important factor in the development of a communist culture in Western countries. In his study into communist children’s organisations and youth culture in the United States, Paul Mishler observes that an examination of Communist Party youth activities is ‘a window into that political culture’.14 In Britain and the Netherlands, these activities were largely organised by the British Young Communist League (YCL) and its Dutch equivalent, the Algemene Nederlandse Jeugdverbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’). It was within these organisations that communist children, including the majority of the participants, were socialised into the values and mores of the communist community. The YCL and ANJV provided its members with a community of peers – and potential partners – and a place where they could feel safe when anti-communist sentiments flared up. In all, membership of these youth organisations shaped communist children’s political and cultural identity during their formative years.

Ger Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd. Onstaan, ontwikkeling en teruggang van de Nederlandse jeugdbeweging tussen 1853 en 1940 (Assen: Van Gorcum and Comp N.V., 1961). Margreet Schrevel has written two informative articles about the Dutch communist youth organisation the Uilenspiegelclub, which catered to children between eight and fifteen, see: Margreet Schrevel, ‘Romy Schneider’ en ‘Stalina’ samen in een club: De communistische kinderorganisatie Uilenspiegelclub 1953-1964’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis Vol. 25 (1999), pp. 1-24, and Margreet Schrevel, ‘A Dutch Mix of Scouts and Pioneers: The Uilenspiegelclub Children, 1953-1964’, Socialist History, Red Lives, Issue 21 (2002), pp. 1-10. The Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’) and the much smaller OPSJ have not received any attention aside from two non-academic publications created to celebrate the fortieth and fiftieth anniversaries of the ANJV. See: De duizend daden. Een geschiedenis van het Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond 1945-1985, ed. by Tamara Blokzijl, Corita Homma, and Willem Walter (Amsterdam: ANJV, 1985), Wij hebben er geen spijt van. Een boek over strijd, actie, vriendschap en solidariteit uit de 50-jarige geschiedenis van het ANJV, ed. by Nel van Aalderen (Amsterdam: Comité Herdenking 50 jaar ANJV, 1995). In Britain, Mike Waite wrote an outstanding thesis on the history of the Young Communist League, and published several articles based on this (unpublished) thesis. The articles primarily covered the 1960s. See: Mike Waite, ‘Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll (and Communism) in the 1960s’, in Opening the Books. Essays on the Social and Cultural History of the British Communist Party, ed. by Geoff Andrews, Nina Fishman, and Kevin Morgan (London: Pluto Press, 1995), pp. 210-224, and Mike Waite, ‘The Young Communist League and Youth Culture’, Socialist History, Issue 6 (1994), pp. 3-16. Geoff Andrews dedicated a chapter to the impact of the YCL on the Communist Party in the 1960s and early 1970s, in Geoff Andrews, Endgames and New Times. The Final Years of British Communism (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2004). Lastly, Graham Stevenson wrote the ‘Anatomy of Decline: The Young Communist League 1967-86’, which is available on his own website: https://grahamstevenson.me.uk/2008/12/31/anatomy-of-decline-the-young-communistleague-1967-86/ (Accessed on March 26, 2021) 14 Paul Mishler, Raising Reds. The Young Pioneers, Radical Summer Camps, and Communist Political Culture in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 2.

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Whereas Part I discusses the extent of political isolation experienced by communist youth organisations and analyses their attempts to collaborate with non-communists, Part II examines the extent of social isolation experienced by communists and their children, and their attempts to mix Soviet ideology and culture with Western values and traditions. This part kicks off with a chapter dedicated to the impact of the Second World War and its aftermath, and the events of 1956, as these events definitively shaped participants’ lives and have informed virtually all of their experiences. The remaining chapters in Part II explore the private and public life of Dutch and British communists in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s and investigate what politics meant in these communists’ lives. Aside from the aforementioned pillarisation of society, the German occupation and communist resistance, and virulent anti-communism during the height of the Cold War, there is another important difference between the Netherlands and Britain that has proven decisive in terms of shaping communist identity. Much more so than in Britain, communism in the Netherlands was a hereditary affair. Dutch participants come from long lines of socialists, anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, and communists. Communism, or at least radical thought, was in their blood, so to speak. Unlike the majority of Dutch participants who had at least one communist grandparent, the British participants were often ‘only’ second generation communists.15 British parents usually came from a non-political or religious background – only a very small minority were raised in socialist families. An explanation for this can be found in the fact that the CPGB was much younger than the CPN. The Sociaal Democratische Partij (SDP; ‘Social Democratic Party’), the CPN’s predecessor, was founded in 1909, eleven years before the foundation of the CPGB and sprouted out of a home-grown Marxism that predated the Russian Revolution. In Britain, on the other hand, Moscow instigated the foundation of the Communist Party. There also appeared to be a much more powerful and influential orthodox Marxist tradition in the Netherlands than in Britain. Dutch participants’ radical roots can be traced back as far as the 1880s with grandparents who supported the anarchist Domela Nieuwenhuis. In this context it is important to acknowledge that, compared to the Netherlands, Britain had industrialised very early and by the time that large sections of the Dutch working class became influenced by revolutionary ideologies like anarchism and Marxism, the British working class was already firmly anchored in a more moderate 15 Parents often joined together with other siblings. There are many examples of British participants who have a communist uncle or aunt.

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socialist tradition. Communism, like anarchism, was unable to get a strong foothold within the British labour movement. On the contrary, despite its size, the CPN was able to mobilise large non-communist yet revolutionary sections of the working class, for example, anarcho-syndicalists. Therefore, the CPN, unlike the CPGB, was considered a real threat and was right from its foundation dealt with accordingly, which had an overall isolating effect. Another reason for the fact that the CPGB was not considered a threat is related to the British political culture; its two-party system based on disproportionate representation made it incredibly difficult for it to survive as a small party. The Dutch political landscape, on the other hand, has been characterised by segmentation intensified by a voting system based on proportional representation. Small parties like the CPN can still have a lot of influence on the politics of their nation, which is why, throughout the twentieth century, Dutch authorities were vigilant when it came to Dutch communists and tried to control and undermine the CPN as much as possible.16 With regard to the hereditary nature of communism in both countries, my findings correspond with Samuel, who notes that communism in Britain ‘seemed to run in families, though laterally, within a single age band, rather than as in Labour homes, as a hereditary affair’.17 Similarly, Morgan, Flinn and Cohen state: ‘[t]he relatively brief appearance of communism in British political life does suggest, either that not too much should be made of its hereditary aspects, or that what was inherited was not necessarily a party affiliation, but a looser package of values, cultural reference points, and political practices which in a longer perspective were not coterminous with any single institution’.18 Figures show that only a quarter of all British communists had parents who themselves were party members or active in 16 For a full discussion on the political history of the CPN see, for example, A.A. De Jonge, Het communisme in Nederland. De geschiedenis van een politiek partij (Den Haag: Kruseman, 1972), Ger Verrips, Dwars, duivels en dromend. De geschiedenis van de CPN 1938-1991 (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 1995), Gerrit Voerman, De meridiaan van Moskou. De CPN en de Communistische Internationale 1919-1930 (Amsterdam: L.J. Veen, 2001). For a full discussion of the political history of the CPGB see, for example, Noreen Branson, History of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1927-1941 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1985), Noreen Branson, History of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1941-1951 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1997), John Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis, and Conflict: The CPGB 1951-68 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2003), Geoff Andrews, Endgames and New Times. The Final Years of British Communism 1964-1991 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2004), and Willie Thompson, The Good Old Cause. British Communism, 1920-1991 (London: Pluto Press, 1992). 17 Samuel, The Lost World of British Communism, p. 63. 18 Morgan, Cohen, and Flinn, Communists and British Society 1920-1991, p. 261.

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other labour movement organisations whereas for example, in France, much like in the Netherlands, two-thirds of party members came from left-wing families and half had at least one family member in the French Communist Party. Morgan, Cohen, and Flinn find an explanation for this discrepancy in the ‘relatively modest proportions and weak sub-cultural characteristics of the CPGB and Britain’s wider activist left’.19 Yet the Dutch Communist Party, compared to the French Communist Party, was also rather small and had very little influence. Nonetheless, there was a much higher degree of continuity within the Dutch communist movement. Interestingly, the Dutch situation also shows that modest proportions and weak subcultural characteristics are not necessarily linked. As mentioned above, despite its size, the communist movement in the Netherlands was more evolved in the 1950s and 1960s and enjoyed a much more rich and varied cultural tradition than its British counterpart. There was a time the British communist movement did cater to the whole family. In his book Communism in Britain 1920-1939. From the Cradle to the Grave, Linehan suggests that ‘[f]or those who opted to commit fully to the communist way of life it would offer a complete identity and reach into virtually all aspects of life and personal development’.20 If it ever did offer a complete identity from the cradle to the grave, which is difficult to judge based on Linehan’s very short timeframe of nineteen years, in postwar Britain, the communist movement no longer offered such an identity. Indeed, being a communist ‘from the cradle to the grave’ was, even for its most faithful followers, no longer possible, simply because many cultural organisations in Britain had ceased to exist. In the first twenty years of its existence, the CPGB catered for the whole family; at the age of eight, children could join the Young Pioneers,21 and parents could read about rearing a healthy cradle communist in the Worker’s Child. After the war, together with the Young Pioneers/Young Comrades Club, the Worker’s Child was disbanded and the CPGB became less family-oriented. By contrast, the majority of the Dutch participants read the Uilenspiegel, which was a communist family magazine that contained a children’s page, and were members of the Uilenspiegelclub which was geared towards children between eight and fifteen and organised weekly meetings and summer camps. 19 Ibid., pp. 250-251. 20 Linehan, Communism in Britain, 1920-39. From the Cradle to the Grave, p. 1. 21 In 1925, inspired by the Pioneers movement in the Soviet Union, the British YCL created communist children’s sections alongside YCL branches named the Young Pioneers League (renamed the Young Comrades League in 1926). It is unclear when the Young Comrades League was disbanded, but there is no evidence of its existence after the Second World War.

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The discontinuation of the Young Comrades Club in Britain meant that British participants had to wait until they turned fourteen before they could enter the first level of party structure – the YCL. Once in a communist youth organisation, it was a natural step to join the next level of party structure, ultimately leading to party membership when turning eighteen, without this being a conscious decision. The majority of participants who joined a communist youth organisation joined the party, but there were significantly less British participants who joined the YCL, which translated into a smaller number of participants joining the CPGB. As noted above, the moral pressure to join communist organisations described by Dutch participants was also largely absent in Britain, and non-communist youth organisations weren’t closed off for communists either, like they were in the Netherlands. All of these factors explain why communism in Britain lacked a strong hereditary aspect. The role the CPN played in the resistance in general and participants’ parents war traumata in particular, together with a strong tradition of anti-communism, which was most visible in 1956, motivated Dutch participants to join the movement and become politically active. Part II is brought to a close with an Epilogue in which participants look back on their childhood and evaluate their political upbringing. It particularly focuses on participants’ feelings and thoughts on the years around the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Some participants felt that they grew up with a lie and look back in anger. A few directed this anger towards their parents, others to the party, and again others to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the majority of participants, Dutch and British alike, look back positively and have managed to make peace with their parents’ choices. Ultimately, this book argues that rank-and-f ile communists were never ‘just communists’. Yes, in theory they shared the same encompassing worldview that supposedly provided them with all the answers. But, in practice, communists were diverse and had different needs and priorities.22 22 The experiences of my participants suggest that when describing a communist mentality or identity, a clear distinction should be made between a relatively small militant inner-core and a much larger group of more moderate rank-and-f ile communists. The label ‘Stalinist’ isn’t used in this book, as this term is somewhat misleading. After all, militant communists in Britain and the Netherlands didn’t refer to themselves as Stalinist, unlike other identifiers on the left, and in the context of these two countries, the term is largely pejorative. In regard to the more moderate rank-and-file communists, another sub-group emerges – that of the bohemian communists. These were often artists, writers, or academics and had an altogether much looser interpretation of the communist ideology than their blue-collar peers. Among my sample, there were two participants, one Dutch and one British, whose parents could be characterised as bohemian.

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Consequently, they also had different interpretations of the communist ideology – interpretations that fit their personal and national circumstances, but also the time. Aside from their politics, they had many identities and allegiances. For example, they were also members of a nation, a social class, a gender group, a family, a local community, and a racial or ethnic group, and had varying levels of allegiance to these groups or social constructs. And sometimes these allegiances jeopardised or even trumped their commitment to the Communist Party and the Soviet Union.

2

Under the Party’s Wing Communist Youth Organisations 1920-1956 Abstract This chapter examines and compares the social and political history of the communist youth movement in Britain and the Netherlands between 1920 and 1956. It looks primarily at the histories of the British Young Communist League (YCL) and the Dutch Communistische Jeugdbond (CJB; ‘Communist Youth League’) and its post-Second World War successor the Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’). The chapter details these organisations’ relationships with their respective communist parties and explores the impact of the Class Against Class phase, the Popular Front strategy, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the entry of the Soviet Union into the war on the Allied side, and finally the Cold War on the popularity of these communist youth organisations. Keywords: Young Communist League, Communistische Jeugdbond, Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond, anti-fascism, Cold War

Maybe our political activities were not that important, but we felt we were part of the international revolutionary movement, who strived for a new society. We would march through Amsterdam, singing The March of Millions. And even though we were marching with only 50 members, it felt like we were with millions.1

Against the backdrop of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, humanitarian concerns about children, especially working-class children, increased in momentum. Reformers introduced new laws that improved children’s access to health 1 Henk Gortzak, Hoop zonder illusies. Memoires van een communist (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1985), p. 41.

Weesjes, Elke, Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain: Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463726634_ch02

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care and education. In most industrialised countries, schooling became compulsory and the age allowable to leave school was slowly increased. In the Netherlands, the latter was set at twelve in 1900, and in England and Wales it was raised from ten to fourteen in 1918. Reformers were influenced by new theories about adolescence, such as those by American psychologist G. Stanley Hall. In his 1904 work, Adolescence. Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education, Hall suggests that adolescence, a time of ‘storm and stress’, yet rich with potential, lasted from the ages of fourteen to 24.2 The way these years were spent would determine the success or failure of the adult-to-be. As such, youth organisations, such as the Boy Scouts, the Girl Guides, and a number of religious and secular youth groups sprung into existence around the turn of the twentieth century to provide children with guidance, protection, and structure during this period of turmoil and difficulty. In the Netherlands, the first socialist youth organisations emerged around 1885 in Amsterdam, Den Haag, and throughout Friesland and Groningen.3 In 1901, orthodox Marxist Henriette Roland Holst helped form De Zaaier (‘The Sower’), a socialist youth league for male and female workers that was initially affiliated to the Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij (SDAP; ‘Social Democratic Workers Party’). After the Bolshevik Revolution, De Zaaier changed its name into Communistsche Jeugdbond (CJB; ‘Communist Youth League’). In Britain, the first socialist youth organisations grew out of the Socialist Sunday School movement, including the Young Socialist League which was founded in 1911 and active in London. After the foundation of the Comintern in 1919, the Young Socialist League, together with a number of other socialist youth groups, merged to form the Young Communist League (YCL). In the early years, members of the CJB and the YCL – predominantly working-class boys – were convinced that a world revolution was imminent, and together with adult communists, they worked hard towards that goal. Naturally, the ties between the youth organisations and their respective communist parties were strong. Likewise, their ties with Moscow were 2 Granville Stanley Hall, Adolescence. Its Psychology and Its Relation to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1904). 3 Hugh Cunningham, ‘Youth in the Life Course – A History’, in The History of Youth Work in Europe. Relevance for Youth Policy Today ed. by F. Coussé, G. Verscheiden and H. Williamson (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2012), H. Worms, ‘De internationale socialistische jongeliedenorganisatie’, De Nieuwe Tijd. Sociaaldemokratisch Maandschrift, Volume 13 (1908), 186-194 (p. 318), and Ger Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd. Onstaan, ontwikkeling en teruggang van de Nederlandse jeugdbeweging tussen 1853 en 1940 (Assen: Van Gorcum and Comp N.V., 1961), pp. 24-27.

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equally strong. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, the Soviet Union was seen as without fault and was a shining beacon of hope for communists, young and old. Although the movement in those years appeared uniform in both countries, within the privacy of their own offices and homes, communists did have heated debates about Moscow’s perfectness. The Dutch party’s early years were especially characterised by strife. Some members found it difficult to give up on the party’s perceived vanguard status within the international communist movement, an issue that caused friction and eventually a schism within the party. Due to the fact that the foundation of the Dutch Communist Party predated the Bolshevik Revolution, the CPN’s original leadership, David Wijnkoop, Willem van Ravesteyn, and Jan Ceton, considered themselves better Marxists than most Comintern officials. Unsurprisingly, this attitude didn’t only cause friction within the CPN, it also poisoned the party’s relationship with Moscow, especially after 1924 when the Comintern began to Bolshevise foreign communist parties.4 The early CJB was characterised by a similar hubris among its members and the tiny organisation’s pretences of trendsetting kept it from growing until the 1930s. Because its numbers were so small, as illustrated by Henk Gortzak’s quote above, and its membership so hard-core, adopting detrimental guidelines from Moscow didn’t affect the CJB. The British YCL on the other hand, which had tried to expand among the working class, was susceptible to Moscow’s antics. It suffered numerical setbacks every time it was forced to implement a line that didn’t apply to their national context, most notably Class Against Class. In the 1930s, with the adoption of the Popular Front strategy, the two organisations blossomed and gained new members from outside the communist movement. This influx allowed both the organisations and their members to find their own identity, an identity that was suitable for and influenced by their national contexts. Aside from the dark period surrounding the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the movement as a whole grew, both in size as well as in standing, within Dutch and British society. Membership, for instance, began to appeal to all young people who wanted to play their part in ridding the world of fascism, and not just young workers. The British and Dutch communist parties and their organisations emerged from the Second World War with expectations of playing a role in post-war society because of their anti-fascist domestic activities, and because of the 4 A.A. De Jonge, Het communisme in Nederland. De geschiedenis van een politiek partij (Den Haag: Kruseman, 1972), pp. 36-37, and Gerrit Voerman, De meridiaan van Moskou. De CPN en de Communistische Internationale 1919-1930 (Amsterdam: L.J. Veen, 2001), p. 355.

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role the Soviet Union had played in the war against fascism. This was not to be. The emergence of the Cold War, which had both domestic and foreign expressions, isolated communists in the two countries during this period – both by society and, to a certain degree, by themselves. Subsequently, British and Dutch communists developed an us-versus-them mentality, which in turn, isolated them even further.

Foundation years The Young Communist International (YCI) held its first congress on November 20, 1919, just months after the foundation of the Comintern. Delegates of youth organisations from fourteen European countries attended the meeting in Berlin, where the newly founded YCI headquarters were located. Together they decided that the YCI should focus on three spheres of activity: improving the economic position of youth, fighting against militarism, and campaigning for socialist self-education.5 Delegates also discussed whether the YCI should join the Comintern. Some felt that doing so would endanger independence of national organisations and instead proposed that the YCI should be a sister organisation to the Comintern. They were, however, not in the majority and a seventeen to eight vote decided that the YCI would indeed join.6 Debates about independence, particularly related to that of the youth organisations’ relationships with emerging communist parties throughout Europe, continued during the first years of the YCI. There was a division between those who wanted to operate somewhat independently from Moscow, and those who insisted on centralism in the communist movement. Comintern officials ended the tensions once and for all when they terminated the YCI’s second congress – held in Germany in April 1921 – and demanded the meeting should take place in Moscow. YCI leadership buckled under the pressure and the YCI headquarters were moved to Moscow where the organisation’s second official congress was reconvened in June 1921. The Soviet Young Communist League, known as the Komsomol, became the dominant force within the YCI. From there on, the youth organisations affiliated to the YCI were expected to adopt the political program of their 5 A Short History of the Young Communist International (N.P., Young Communist League, 1928), pp. 5-6. 6 Victor Privalov, The Young Communist International and its Origins (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1921), p. 126.

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respective communist party as their own and were only allowed to mobilise youth behind party politics and party endorsed initiatives.7 Meanwhile in the Netherlands, the Sociaal Democratische Partij (SDP), an orthodox Marxist party founded in 1909, changed its name into the Communistische Partij in Nederland8 (CPN) out of solidarity with the Bolsheviks, who had founded the Russian Communist Party earlier that year. The CPN joined the Comintern immediately after the latter’s establishment and Lenin gave CPN leader David Wijnkoop a seat on Comintern’s executive committee (ECCI).9 The CPN’s youth organisation, De Zaaier, joined the Young Communist International (YCI) in 1920 and changed its name into Communistische Jeugd Bond.10,11 As briefly discussed in the Introduction, the formation of the British Communist Party, the CPGB, was directed and sponsored by the Comintern. Similarly, the formation of the British YCL in 1921, bringing together a number of radical left youth organisations, including the aforementioned Socialist Youth League, was prompted by the YCI.12 Following the YCI and Comintern, the CJB and YCL adopted democratic centralism as their method of operating, which gave both organisations a quasi-military aspect. Members, who were predominantly male, were urged to join trade unions and, when they turned 21, to become members of their communist party.13 It was clear from the outset that the principle purpose of both youth organisations was to act as a party recruitment agency. The extremely sectarian CJB never had enough members to be very influential. Voerman notes that, after declaring solidarity with the Russian Revolution in 1917, De Zaaier’s membership grew from 100 members to 285 members in 1920, when it changed its name to CJB. This is hardly an achievement to write home about, especially when compared to sister organisations in Scandinavia and Eastern and Southern-Europe that saw a 7 Voerman, De meridiaan van Moskou, pp. 155-156, Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd, p. 217. 8 In 1935, it became the Communistische Partij van Nederland (‘Communist Party of the Netherlands’). 9 Voerman, De meridiaan van Moskou, p. 65. 10 De Zaaier was initially founded in 1901 as a social-democratic youth organisation affiliated to the more moderate Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij (SDAP; ‘Social Democratic Workers Party’), but it radicalised in the first ten years of its existence and became a youth wing of the SDP. 11 Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd, p. 214. 12 Thomas Linehan, Communism in Britain, 1920-39. From the Cradle to the Grave (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 45. 13 CP/YCL/1/1 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre), 1926 Statutes and Rules of the YCL. Adopted at the Fourth National Congress 1926 pp. 3-5, and Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd, p. 216.

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much more significant membership increase in the same period.14 Most CJB members lived in Amsterdam and were the children of Communist Party members or sympathisers. Its member make-up changed somewhat after 1925, when the CJB began to actively recruit young workers by distributing pamphlets and their publication De jonge communist in factories, workshops, and shipbuilding yards.15 Harmsen remarks that some students joined the CJB, but not many, as it was not much more than an insignificant trade union for young people and lacked appeal for non-working youth. Though the CJB was not the vibrant communist youth organisation the YCI had in mind, it had a dedicated core of activists who worked tirelessly to cater to the needs of working youth, whose circumstances had deteriorated significantly as a result of the economic crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s.16 It should be noted that during these years, the CJB was much more active than the CPN, which had been paralyzed by internal conflict.17 The YCL was slightly more successful in the years following its foundation. By 1924, the league had about 500 members organised into 31 branches and was selling 6,500 copies of its publication The Young Worker.18 The YCI – which had particularly high hopes for Britain as it was deemed to have significant revolutionary potential – was not, however, impressed 14 Voerman, De meridiaan van Moskou, p. 70. 15 Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd, p. 223. 16 Ibid., p. 224. 17 In the years following the Bolshevik revolution, the Comintern leaders Zinowjew and Radek had a tense relationship with founders of the Sociaal Democratische Partij (SDP; ‘Social Democratic Party), David Wijnkoop, Willem Van Ravesteyn, and Jan Ceton. As noted above, the SDP was founded in 1909, changed its name to Communistische Partij in Nederland (CPN; ‘Communist Party in the Netherlands) in 1918, and joined the Comintern in 1919. The three founders did not see the Russian communist leaders as examples, but as equals, and from the first moment of the foundation of the SDP, Lenin and other important Bolsheviks kept in close contact with Wijnkoop, Van Ravesteyn, and Ceton. This special relationship became an obstacle in subjugating the Dutch communist party to the Comintern. Wijnkoop, Van Ravesteyn, and Ceton considered themselves better Marxists than most Comintern officials, which caused the aforementioned friction with Zinowjew and Radek. After Lenin’s death in 1924, under the influence of Stalin, the Comintern began to ‘Bolshevise’ the foreign communist parties with the aim to make them obedient instruments of Moscow. The opposition against Wijnkoop, Van Ravesteyn, and Ceton within the CPN – mostly led by students and intellectuals – made use of these new developments and asked Moscow for help to get rid of the three men. In 1925, the latter resigned as party leaders, and were expelled a year later after a heated debate about finances. A few months after their expulsion they founded a new party, Communistische Partij Holland Centraal Comité (CPH-CC; ‘Communist Party Holland Central Committee’). The period 1925-1929 marked a low point for the Dutch communist movement, as the rivalry between the CPH-CC and the CPN weakened both parties. 18 Mike Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity. A Case Study: Young People and Communist Politics in Britain 1920-1991, Unpublished MPhil thesis (Lancaster University, 1992), p. 62.

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with the YCL’s achievements. It reprimanded the YCL for not attracting enough new members and developing into a mass organisation. The YCI instructed the CPGB to reorganise its youth organisation, and heeding the YCI’s call, the party appointed William Rust as the new YCL secretary in 1923. Rust, who would work full-time in the YCI secretariat in years to come, was one of the most rigorous and inflexible advocates of Moscow’s line, writes Andrew Flinn.19 Two years after his appointment, in October 1925, Rust, along with eleven other activists, was imprisoned for being a member of the CPGB and charged with sedition. These arrests were an attempt by the British government to weaken the labour movement in its preparation for the impending General Strike. Rust served a prison sentence of a year and gained both credibility and popularity due to this victimisation by the state. The May 1926 General Strike, which lasted for nine days, caused a dramatic but very brief increase in YCL membership.20 The league published a bulletin called The Young Striker and worked on behalf of the miners. In return, many young miners joined the YCL. At its fourth congress in Sheffield, in December 1926, Rust announced that the league’s membership had tripled since 1925, from 500 to 1,800. The congress report sounded optimistic about the future of the league: The majority of the delegates were attending a national congress of the league for the first time. Fully half of them were young miners who in most cases had joined the league since the General Strike. The Young Communist League has overcome its infantile weaknesses and is now a real and effective organisation, playing its special part in the class struggle. This Congress has proved that the policy and methods of the YCI are correct that the only way to build an effective young workers movement is by active participation in the class struggle. Fight against the capitalist offensive, the treachery of the reformists, unemployment, capitalist militarism and colonial oppression.21

These hopes to establish an effective and lasting young workers mass movement were soon crushed – by March 1927, the YCL had lost between 75 and 90 percent of its new recruits.22 19 Andrew Flinn, ‘William Rust: The Comintern’s Blue-Eyed Boy?’, in Party People, Communist Lives. Explorations in Biography (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2001), 78-101 (p. 83). 20 Ibid., p. 84. 21 A Congress of Young Fighters. A Report of the 4th Congress of the Communist League of Great Britain (N.P. YCL of Great Britain, 1926), p. 3. 22 Linehan, Communism in Britain 1920-39. From the Cradle to the Grave, p. 52.

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Class Against Class and Popular Front Both the CJB and the YCL adopted Moscow’s Class Against Class line in 1928, which in practice meant that members had to isolate themselves from non-communist working-class youth, including anarchists, Trotskyists, socialists, and social democrats. In fact, communists now branded the latter ‘social-fascists’ for paving the way for fascism.23 Interestingly, this new sectarian and militant directive did not cause as much harm for the CJB as it did for its peers abroad. As mentioned above, the organisation – stubborn and set in its ways – saw itself as an elite vanguard that would play a leadership role not just for youth, but for the international communist movement. Whereas other communist youth organisations seized the revolutionary momentum in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, the CJB refused to grow. Harmsen explained that the CJB’s delusional sense of self-importance was fed by the authorities who considered the organisation and its predecessor, De Zaaier, as a threat and dealt with members accordingly. Measures taken by the authorities to prevent gatherings of communist youth were often overblown. So much so that on several occasions the police officers who were mobilised to prevent disturbances outnumbered attendees.24 Due to the CJB’s internal divisions, its leadership’s arrogance, and prevailing political dogmatism among members, the organisation failed to attract new members.25 Therefore, the Class Against Class line had virtually no impact on the CJB.26 The same was true for the CPN, which did see a drop in membership in the late 1920s, but this was the result of a schism within the party and subsequent rivalry between two groups, rather than adherence to Moscow’s new line. The YCL also struggled with a lack of appeal. Unlike the CJB, it had been able to attract new members, but were unable to keep them interested. The organisation was considered too formal and lacked vibrant branch life, which was present in most other political youth organisations, such as the Labour League of Youth, which was the youth organisation of the Labour Party.27 Some individual YCL members injected zest by organising activities like cycling, rambling, and cricket sessions, but these kind of leisure 23 Hugo Dewar, Communist Politics in Britain. The CPGB from its Origins to the Second World War (London: Pluto Press, 1976), p. 78. 24 Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd, p. 131. 25 The organisation was divided about who to support, the CPN or the CPH-CC. 26 Voerman, De meridiaan van Moskou, pp. 70-72. 27 Michelle Webb, The Rise and Fall of the Labour League of Youth. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis (University of Huddersfield, 2007).

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activities were not instigated or organised by the CPGB or YCL leadership, and overall the league lacked an individual identity apart from the CPGB and the necessary pizzazz to keep young people engaged.28 Considering these circumstances, it shouldn’t be surprising that the adoption of the Class Against Class line was the final nail in the league’s coffin. The decline in membership accelerated to such extent that the organisation had virtually ceased to exist by 1930. In August of that year, its national membership was between 200 and 300, reports Thorpe, and in some places the YCL had to be rebuilt from the ground up.29 Fortunately, the circumstances in the mid-1930s were favourable for doing so. The influence of the economic crisis and yet another shift in Comintern policy known as the Popular Front strategy – which encouraged collaboration with non-communists and ended the period of isolation brought on by the Class Against Class line – increased the league’s membership dramatically.30 The London YCL, for example, saw its numbers grow from 370 in November 1933 to 540 by May 1934.31 Nationally, its membership continued to rise to an estimated 1,500 members divided over 35 branches in 1936. It developed a sense of its own identity apart from being a mere youth section of the CPGB, although it remained politically subordinate to the party.32 It was also during this period that the YCL began to see the benef its of youth culture and leisure activities. Waite notes that in the 1930s, social life became an important part of many YCL branches. He quotes Rose Davies who was a member of the Manchester YCL at the time: There was a great social life at the ‘Challenge Club’ as we called it. Dances every night, very popular […] we had to keep fit and then after the keep fit classes we’d all go to the local chip shop […] The thing I hated most was selling Challenge – but if you didn’t go out on Tuesday night selling, when you came to the dance on Saturday you’d be scared stiff, because 28 Linehan, Communism in Britain 1920-39. From the Cradle to the Grave, pp. 58-59. 29 Andrew Thorpe, ‘The Membership of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1920-1945’, The Historical Journal, 43, 3 (2000), 777-800 (p. 783). 30 Kenneth Newton notes that ‘periods of high unemployment are usually accompanied by an increased rate of recruitment into the communist party’. He points out that ‘industries which have a high proportion of communists in their ranks tend to be economically unstable’. See: Kenneth Newton, The Sociology of British Communism (London: The Penguin Press, 1969), p. 32. In terms of YCL membership the link between economic crisis and the increase of popularity is also undisputable. 31 CP/YCL/19/8 October 1936 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre). 32 CP/YCL/19/8 YCL London (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre).

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people like Monty Rosenfield [a well-known activist in the Cheetham YCL] would tell you off.33

Aside from dances, YCL members recall having drama groups, football games, jazz bands, gym groups, socials, and rambling clubs. As illustrated by Davies’ experiences, some members may have reluctantly performed their political duties, yet they were introduced to politics nonetheless. And for some, their involvement in the YCL in the 1930s was the starting point of a lifetime of political activity, observes Waite.34 Under influence of the Popular Front strategy, the CJB tried to form a united front of working youth. This attempt to work together with non-communist working-class youth organisations was largely unsuccessful, mainly because it had spent so much effort undermining and belittling those same organisations in the years before. It was therefore to be expected that radical working-class youth were not enthusiastic about working with the CJB. Subsequently, the CJB fizzled out and its last congress was held in May 1936 in Hilversum. It was off icially dissolved in 1938.35 The YCL proved to be more successful in collaborating with other youth organisations than its Dutch counterpart. In the early 1930s, the YCL proposed united front factory activities and formed an alliance with the Co-operative Youth.36 The league began to regard itself as a broad organisation of revolutionary youth instead of a communist youth party and to encourage its members to become active in a variety of youth organisations. Morgan writes that by the late 1930s, young communists were present in the Labour League of Youth, the University Labour Federation, the National Union of Students, and the League of Nations Union Youth Movement. Prompted by John Gollan, then secretary of the YCL, these organisations, but also others including the Student Christian Movement and the Young Methodists, developed a working political relationship through the British Youth Peace Assembly. Together they fought for humanitarian and political causes. According to Morgan, the YCL and the larger youth movement it had helped shape were ‘in many ways a microcosm of how the Communist 33 Mike Waite, ‘The Young Communist League and Youth Culture’, Socialist History, Issue 6 (1994), 3-16 (p. 6). 34 Ibid., p. 7. 35 Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd, p. 329. 36 Congress Supplement Seventh National Congress YCL July 7-9, 1933 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre).

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Party envisaged a Popular Front developing in Britain’.37 Perhaps as a result of its more successful implementation of the Popular Front strategy, in many areas, the YCL had more members and was more active than the local CPGB.38 The YCL’s efforts to unite youth against rising fascism were particularly fruitful. The Manchester YCL for example, rallied local youth to drive Blackshirts out of Cheetham, the city’s main Jewish district.39 The London YCL was also involved in a number of noteworthy anti-fascist activities. In 1934, League members and other protesters disrupted a large British Union of Fascists (BUF) meeting in Olympia, a conference centre in West-Kensington. The paramilitary wing of the BUF attacked protesters outside of this venue, which damaged leader Oswald Mosley’s image and isolated the BUF from its following. Two years later, the East London Federation Committee of the YCL led a large-scale campaign against fascism. It printed 20,000 leaflets, organised four ‘Mighty Youth Rallies’, and arranged six lectures in the centre of London, with speakers including future party leaders Harry Pollitt and John Gollan. Throughout the 1930s and during the war years, much of the pressure for physical resistance to fascism in London’s East End came from young communists. One of the highlights of this fight was the league’s participation in the legendary Battle of Cable Street on October 4, 1936. 40 During this event in the East End, the Metropolitan Police – sent to protect a BUF march – clashed with anti-fascist demonstrators, including communists, anarchists, and Jewish and socialist groups. About 100,000 residents signed a petition that urged home secretary John Simon to stop the march, but instead of doing so, he sent police. Phil Piratin, a member of the CPGB’s East End branch, organised opposition forces. Chanting, ‘They shall not pass’, an estimated 20,000 anti-fascist demonstrators gathered to stop the march of about 3,000 fascists, which were protected by about 6,000 police officers. Mosely abandoned the march after a number of altercations between BUF members and anti-fascists; however, rioting between the police and protestors continued. Heralded a hero, especially among fellow

37 Kevin Morgan, Against Fascism and War. Ruptures and Continuities in British Communist Politics, 1935-41 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), p. 40. 38 Mike Waite, ‘Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll (and Communism) in the 1960s’, in Opening the Books: Essays on the Social and Cultural History of the British Communist Party, ed. by Geoff Andrews, Nina Fishman, and Kevin Morgan (London: Pluto Press, 1995), 210-224 (p. 210). 39 Morgan, Against Fascism and War, p. 39. 40 London District Committee Bulletin no. 3 (October 14, 1936), CP/YCL/19/8 YCL London (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre).

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East End Jews, Piratin was elected to Stepney Borough Council a year later and became chairman of the borough’s Communist Party. 41 Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, a peculiar and unexpected development had taken place. In several Dutch cities, including Den Haag, Utrecht, Haarlem, Groningen, Leeuwarden, Rotterdam, and Zaandam, working-class dance clubs were established by former CJB members with the intention to unite youth, provide cultural development, and build a ‘peaceful’ and ‘happy’ future. In October 1938, these dance clubs and a number of pre-existing clubs were brought together in a progressive youth movement, the Nederlandse Jeugd Federatie (NJF; ‘Dutch Youth Federation’), which had an extensive cultural program. Unlike the CJB, the NJF was hugely successful, writes Harmsen, and boasted 3,000 members within the f irst two years of its existence. 42 The Dutch Communist Party was nevertheless apprehensive about this initiative. Its newspaper, Het Volksdagblad, wrote that the NJF lacked political substance, and members spent too much time on culture and leisure. What the youth of the day really needed, according to the writer of the article, was a ‘united front against fascism and war’. 43 The NJF leaders heeded this advice to a certain extent and tried to strike a balance between culture and politics. By 1938 it had once again embraced Marxism-Leninism as its guiding principle and confirmed its ties with the CPN. 44 The Spanish Civil War The CJB, and later the NJF and the YCL, devoted much time to Spain, where the civil war between the elected Spanish republicans and Francisco Franco’s nationalists had broken out in July 1936. In August 1936, the German Communist Party called on members in exile to go to Spain in order to support the republic. The international communist movement, led by the Comintern, followed suit, and began to send volunteers to Spain. The first International Brigades were formed in October of that same year and in total about 35,000 volunteers of 53 nationalities fought in Spain between 1936 and 1939. Whilst not every volunteer was communist, communists did dominate the Brigades. 45 41 Francis Beckett, Enemy Within. The Rise and Fall of the British Communist Party (Woodbridge: The Merlin Press Ltd, 1998), pp. 105-107. 42 Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd, pp. 330-332. 43 Het Volksdagblad, October 20, 1938, p. 8. 44 Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd, p. 332. 45 Nederlandse Vrijwilligers in de Spaanse Burgeroorlog, https://spanjestrijders.nl/internationale-brigades (Accessed on: March 27, 2021).

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The YCL’s secretary John Gollan was sent to Spain to investigate the situation and at home the league founded the Aid for Spain Movement. Together with members from 30 other organisations in Britain, the YCL set up committees that sent food, clothing, money, and medical supplies to Spain.46 One of these organisations was the Labour League of Youth, which against the Labour Party’s initial policy of non-intervention, had joined the communists in their fight against fascism. Waite observes that the Labour League of Youth and the YCL had a great deal in common in those years. In fact, when the YCL paper Challenge was launched in March 1935, it was aimed not only at its own members, but also at the Labour League of Youth and the Independent Labour Party Guild of Youth.47 The Labour Party had instructed its branches to abstain from involvement in anti-fascist activity since most of these efforts were organised by the CPGB. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Labour Party – anxious to maintain a certain level of political respectability – had consistently refused Communist Party affiliation and even punished local parties for failing to expel communist members. However, the appeal to join the fight against fascism was too great for many members of the Labour Party, especially among youth, writes Michelle Webb. Labour League of Youth members joined the Brigades while others worked at home in support of the republicans. 48 Ted Willis, who had joined the South Tottenham Labour League of Youth in the 1930s, was one of them. Willis identified a growing left-wing feeling among rank-and-file members and to further this radicalisation, he and a number of likeminded individuals launched a magazine called Advance!, a left-wing rival to The New Nation, the official mouthpiece of the League of Youth. The editors of Advance! called for, among other things, a united front with the communists. Willis soon became a leading activist in the Aid for Spain Movement and helped organise the collection of money, foods, clothes and medical supplies for republican areas and recruit members to join the International Brigades. 49 Within the League of Youth, frustration about the Labour Party’s unwillingness to support rank-and-file initiatives to aid Spanish republicans grew. Webb notes that overall ‘the Labour Party underestimated the extent 46 CP/YCL/01/07, We March to Victory: Report of the National Council to the 9th National Conference YCL 1937 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre). 47 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 95. 48 Webb, The Rise and Fall of the Labour League of Youth, p. 69. Moreover, the YCL 1936, Eighth Congress report confirms these close ties with the Labour League of Youth, CP/YCL/01/05 1936, (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre). 49 Webb, The Rise and Fall of the Labour League of Youth, pp. 69-72.

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to which the Spanish Civil War had galvanized the young and did nothing to harness this activity’. For some, including Willis and his followers who joined the Young Communist League in the late 1930s, the frustration became too much to bear and they left. Others were expelled from the League of Youth for their anti-fascist activities. Charlie Matthews for example, was expelled for demonstrating against fascists at Hammersmith Town Hall. He decided to join the YCL instead and continued his fight against fascism in Spain as a member of the International Brigades. Matthews, who survived the civil war, was one of 2,000 volunteers dispatched by the YCL and the CPGB to fight in Spain. Many YCL members who joined the Brigades were injured and 126 died in action.50 Those who had fought in Spain were seen as heroes: They were the best our youth movement has known and it is with the greatest love, pride and grief that we place their work on record. Love and pride at the brave part they have played – grief at the many who have died, and whose graves are scattered all over Spain. Today there is hardly a big branch of our league, which does not hold as its proudest possession a memorial banner to one of their numbers who has fallen. We fiercely resolve never to let their memory die, and to live up to the sublime example they have set the democratic youth of Britain.51

About 600 Dutch volunteers joined the International Brigades in spite of the fact that they – and in cases where they were married, their spouses – lost their Dutch citizenship by fighting for a foreign state, as stipulated in the Dutch Nationality Law.52 Upon return, it was difficult for volunteers to find jobs because employers had to apply for a work permit in order to hire a stateless person. It was also difficult to travel abroad without a passport and so those who had volunteered to fight in Spain were not able to flee the country on the eve of the German occupation several years later. Finally, 50 Tom Buchanan, Britain and the Spanish Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 122, and Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 102. 51 CP/YCL/01/07 1937 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre). 52 In the period between 1945 and 1949, 94 Dutch members of the Brigades regained their citizenship through a ‘renaturalisation’ process. After 1949, under the influence of the Cold War, this process became much more difficult since those requesting renaturalisation had to indicate their political affiliation. If the person in question had a subscription to the communist newspaper, or a CPN poster in their window, their request was denied. See: Nederlandse vrijwilligers in de Spaanse Burgeroorlog, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, https:// spanjestrijders.nl/nederlanders (Accessed on March 27, 2021).

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they were suspected of left-wing sympathies during the German occupation and singled out as dangerous elements in society.53 The International Institute of Social History has collected biographies of hundreds of men and women, including many young communists, who fought on the side of the republicans in Spain or served as medical personnel. According to this database, which is a work-in-progress, five known CJB members volunteered to fight in the brigades.54 Among them was Denijs van Roijen, the secretary of the CJB in Leiden.55 In March 1937, at the age of 26, Van Roijen arrived in Spain where he joined the Eleventh Battalion of the International Brigades. According to eyewitnesses, he was a brave and exemplary fighter who did not cease his political activities whilst there. He was promoted to the rank of corporal and served until 1938, when the decision was made to pull back the International Brigades. Together with another 120 Dutch volunteers, Van Roijen arrived in Roosendaal on December 5, where he and his fellow fighters were told that they had lost their Dutch citizenship. Like so many other volunteers, Van Roijen’s name was added to a list of subversive elements compiled by the Dutch intelligence agency, the Centrale Inlichtingendienst. When this list fell into the hands of the Nazis in 1941, Van Roijen, who in the meantime had joined the communist resistance in Leiden and Rotterdam, was arrested. He was deported to Neuengamme concentration camp in Northern Germany in June 1941 where he would do hard labour for nearly three years. In April 1945, Nazi officials evacuated Neuengamme and loaded about 9,000 prisoners, including Van Roijen, onto four ships in Lubeck. Here they were held for several days with no water or food. Allied forces were under the impression that the ships contained Norway-bound fleeing Nazi officials and the Royal Air Force subsequently bombed three of the four ships. Van Roijen was one of the approximately 7,000 prisoners who did not survive the raid.56 53 https://spanjestrijders.nl/nederlanders (Accessed on March 27, 2021). 54 The CJB was on the brink of disbanding and had only few members around the time of the Spanish Civil War, which most likely explains these low numbers. Nonetheless, there were many young communists among the 600 volunteers who fought in Spain. 55 Gerard du Bruin, Theo van Laar, Johan Verberne, Denijs van Roijen, and Joop Zwart joined the brigades. It is not clear if Joop Zwart had officially left the CJB when he joined the brigades, but his biography indicates that he had become disillusioned with the Comintern after he spent about a year at a YCI school just outside of Moscow. After returning to the Netherlands in 1930, he joined the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Henk Sneevliet. Verberne went missing during the Aragon offensive in 1938. Du Bruine, who suffered from mental health issues, was arrested by the Nazis. Like Van Roijen, he was deported to Neuengamme and later transported to Bernburg, a euthanasia centre, where he was gassed. See: https://spanjestrijders.nl/bios (Accessed on March 27, 2021). 56 Biography of Denijs van Roijen. IISG – Nederlandse Vrijwilligers in de Spaanse Burgeroorlog (Accessed on March 27, 2021).

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Like in Britain, those communists who had fought in Spain were seen as heroes and role models for young Dutch communists. So much so, that, after the Second World War, the most active and loyal members of the Algemeen Nederlands Jeugd Verbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’) were organised in an elite squad, called the Cristino Garcia Brigade. Garcia had fought in the Spanish Civil War in a special unit of the Spanish Republican Army which performed attacks behind nationalist lines. After the war ended in 1939, Garcia managed to escape to France where he joined the communist resistance against the Nazis. In 1945, he returned to Spain to work with resistance groups to oust Franco, but was arrested in October of that year. He was executed in February 1946 and instantly became a hero for young communists. Those few Dutch comrades who were selected to join the Garcia Brigade needed to have stamina, a thorough knowledge of socialist theory, and total commitment to the communist cause, just like Garcia.57 The Second World War Through their fight for popular causes and successful collaborations with other youth groups, the YCL and NJF enjoyed a significant influx of new members.58 Their popularity was, once again, short-lived and many new members left immediately after the Nazi-Soviet pact was signed in August 1939. The NJF dissolved when Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, although some individual branches stayed intact. These branches had been working-class dance clubs before merging into the NJF and had not been established by CJB members. After the disbandment of the NJF, it was decided these branches should go back to their original independent form, as they would make good fronts for resistance activities.59 Rotterdam based NJF member, Cor van Dijk, recalled that this decision was made in May 1940: I was sent to Amsterdam for a meeting where we discussed our situation in light of the German occupation. We decided to continue our existence as individual cultural organisations, whilst focusing on the production 57 IISG ZK 66335 Garcia Brigade 1, 1948, no. 12, Garcia Brigade 2, 1949, no. 3-4 (International Institute of Social History). 58 Interestingly, as noted by Webb, despite Willis and many other leaders and rank-and-file members leaving the Labour League of Youth and joining the YCL, the latter’s membership did not increase significantly. Willis described it as a mystery, ‘rather like Pharaoh’s dream of the seven thin cows who ate the seven fat cows and grew no fatter’ (Webb, The Rise and Fall of the Labour League of Youth, p. 76). 59 Harmsen, Blauwe en rode jeugd, p. 333.

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of underground publications. In the summer of 1940, we printed four issues of a publication called De Jonge Werker (‘The Young Worker’). From then onwards we began to focus on the underground publication of De Waarheid (‘The Truth’).’60

De Waarheid, the clandestine newspaper of the communist resistance, replaced Het Volksdagblad, the CPN newspaper, after the latter had been banned by Dutch authorities on May 10, 1940, following the German invasion. After the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, fascists and communists were branded by authorities as one and the same enemy.61 This didn’t stop individual communists from engaging in anti-fascist activities, but it did make for a peculiar situation. The first issue of the De Waarheid came out on November 23, 1940, and the paper soon became instrumental in the fight against the German occupiers. Without a doubt, the pinnacle of communist resistance during the time of the Nazi-Soviet pact was the February Strike of 1941, a protest against the raids held by the Nazis in Amsterdam’s Jewish neighbourhood in which 425 Jewish boys and men were arrested and deported. Tens of thousands of people participated in this general strike, held on February 25 and 26 in Amsterdam and surrounding towns, which was the first – and only – direct action undertaken by non-Jewish citizens against anti-Jewish measures of the Nazis in occupied Europe. During the strike, nine people died, and 24 were wounded. In the months following the strike, about 500 communist resistance fighters were arrested. Four communists were executed in March, one died after being deported to Dachau, and another communist died while imprisoned in Rheinbach prison.62 Due to the mass arrests after the February Strike and strict monitoring of communists from that moment onwards, the Dutch communist resistance against the Nazis came to a standstill until Germany invaded the Soviet Union. A new momentum to rebuild the resistance presented itself when the Nazi-Soviet pact came to an end in June 1941 and the CPN announced 60 Hansje Galesloot and Susan Legȇne, Partij in het verzet. De CPN in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Amsterdam: Pegasus, 1986) p. 37. 61 It should be noted that already in 1933, fascist, anarchist, socialists, communist, and antimilitarist organisations appeared on a list of ‘dangerous organisations’, published by the Dutch government. In 1938 this list was extended. Civil servants were not allowed to be a member of any of the listed organisations, which included the Communist Party, its youth organisations, and cultural organisations (See: Bro N8/35 IISG, Lijst van voor Ambtenaren Verboden Organisaties, 1938). 62 Galesloot and Legȇne, Partij in het verzet. De CPN in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, pp. 78-92.

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full support for the allies. In tandem, the arrests and deportations of communists intensified, and hundreds of communists were deported to camps in Germany. Despite the risks involved, communist resistance quickly grew into a well-organised and effective national movement that remained active for the remainder of the war. These resistance groups, which primarily emerged around De Waarheid, were especially appealing for youth who were attracted by the excitement of it all, and by the idea of helping their fatherland. It was within the resistance that young men and women were first introduced to communism, and many joined the ANJV, the CJB/NJF’s successor, after the war. Most documents related to the resistance were destroyed during the war by either communists themselves, or by the Nazis. What we know about communist youth active in the resistance is therefore mostly based on oral testimonies, biographies, and autobiographies. In his biography, Marcus Bakker, who helped found the ANJV in 1945, describes joining the clandestine CPN in 1943, at the age of twenty. He grew up in Zaandam, where his father worked at the local abattoir ran by the Verdonk family: The Verdonks were our neighbours; they were communists. The majority of the staff at the abattoir was ‘left,’ but the butchers were well-known communists. They always made sure that there was a copy of De Waarheid at work.63

Through his communist neighbours, Bakker, whose parents were socialists, became involved in the resistance. His activities first included the theft and distribution of ration stamps. Upon joining the Communist Party, he became cell leader in his local resistance: Being a member of the resistance wasn’t easy. Whoever joined was likely to die. I wasn’t thinking about that though. I was twenty years old and for me the resistance was something quite romantic, something exciting.64

Gerard Böver, who had been raised in a communist family, lived in Amsterdam during the war. His recollections show that resistance work was often a family affair, and regardless of age – he was twelve years old when the Second World War broke out – children were expected to do their part: 63 Marcus Bakker, Wissels. Bespiegelingen zonder berouw, (Utrecht: De Haan, 1983), p. 11. 64 Ibid., p. 25.

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When the first issue of the underground Waarheid came out, I hid a stack of papers in my school bag. I was told to drop them off at a man’s house, and he took them to his work. The clandestine CPN was popular in my neighbourhood and because people knew I was doing some resistance work, I was approached by a member of the communist resistance – this was in 1944 – who asked me to assist him and some other people in setting up a youth group. This initiative was necessary to recruit more young people into the resistance. Our activities focused primarily on the distribution of illegal papers and collecting money for the solidarity fund, ‘t Sol. At night we would put up news bulletins, which were especially geared towards youth. These bulletins would, for example, urge young people not to work in Germany.65,66

In Britain, the CPGB newspaper, the Daily Worker, was also banned from publication and its premises were seized in January 1941, leaving Challenge – the YCL paper – as the only regularly published legal communist paper. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the British Communist Party also announced full support for the war. Many CPGB and YCL members served in the army and the communist movement became popular and respectable. The YCL’s membership grew exponentially, from 2,000 in 1935, to 4,600 in 1938, and – after a small dip during the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact – to 16,000 members by 1943.67 The fascist threat was effectively used for propaganda purposes: I am an ordinary sort of chap. I left school at fourteen, did a dead-end job on a delivery round, and now I am working in an arms factory down south. I am a member of the YCL. Why did I join? I’ve read a lot about fascism, and, like you, I have seen it spread all over Europe. And I have seen what sort of life it holds out for young people like you and me. Hitler and his crowd smashed up the workers’ organisations. It was good-bye to any chance of better wages and conditions for them. I have got ideas of what I want for myself and the world. I want the chance of a decent 65 A lot of youth were lured into working in Nazi-Germany during the Dutch famine of 1944-1945 for some extra food for their family. 66 Wij hebben er geen spijt van. Een boek over strijd, actie, vriendschap en solidariteit uit de 50-jarige geschiedenis van het ANJV, ed. by Nel van Aalderen (Amsterdam: Comité Herdenking 50 jaar ANJV, 1995), p. 18. 67 Linehan, Communism in Britain 1920-39, p. 60, and Peter Barberis, John McHugh, and Mike Tyldesly, Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organisations (London and New York City: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003), p. 172.

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education and prospects. I am not selfish, though. I am prepared to carry out my duties and responsibilities to the nation. I know there isn’t any guesswork about it; socialism is at work in Russia and it has given the people everything and more than it promised. How the people fulfil their side of the contract is seen in their wonderful fight against Hitler’s hordes. I saw those two lives in front of me, the sort of life I’d get if fascism won and the sort I’d get if the people won, I knew which one I wanted, and I decided to fight for it.68

These propaganda efforts were also aimed at recruiting women to the cause: You’ll hate being a girl if you let Hitler win. Women aren’t even to have their homes anymore. Their children are taken away to be trained in killing. Under fascism, women and girls are degraded, treated like slaves. I don’t want that life. I want to have the same chances as a man to get the same pay if I do a job well. That’s the life I am going to fight for. That’s why I joined the YCL.69

During these years, the YCL had become increasingly more attractive for both males and females, though it remained a youth organisation dominated by boys and young men. Compared to 1922, its new rules and statutes were noticeably less strict. Membership for instance, opened up to all young people who wanted to play their part in ridding the world of fascism, and not just young workers. Aside from the more traditional activities like public speaking, political instruction and education, and efforts to foster and bring out latent powers of leadership, there was also time for new leisure activities, including picnics, film shows, and amateur dramatics.70 With this new program, the YCL became much more in tune with other left-wing youth organisations. Within the Labour League of Youth, for example, time was divided equally between recreation and education.71 During the second half of 1944, the clandestine CPN decided to add a special supplement for youth to De Waarheid. Due to its popularity, this supplement became an independent paper called Jeugd (‘Youth’) with the mission to unite young people in their fight against fascism. Soon after the first issue was published, youth groups began to form around Jeugd 68 Gladys Jones, We Young Communists (London: London Caledonian Press ltd., 1942) pp. 2-3. 69 Jones, We Young Communists, pp. 3-4. 70 Ibid., p. 11. 71 Webb, The Rise and Fall of the Labour League of Youth. pp. 51-52.

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throughout the country. These groups of young people helped those in hiding, distributed food and ration stamps, collected money, and assisted the armed resistance.72 After the war, these local groups merged into the ANJV, a broad and progressive youth organisation that would continue its fight for peace.

Promising years: 1945-1948 As the war came to an end, Dutch communist youth, following CPN example, came up with the idea to form one progressive united youth movement, similar to that of the NJF, to prevent the reformation of the 230 youth organisations that had existed before the war.73 In 1945, Jeugd made an appeal to young socialists and communists to unite into one organisation: Something needs to happen. We’ve been desperate and deprived of too many things for too long. We want to play sports, go camping, study, we want to go forward! We want equal chances for everyone, we want opportunities, we want to be free and happy. In order to achieve this, we must create one large movement that anyone can join.74 72 Arie Bakker and Jan Brasser, De CPN in het verzet (Zaandam: CPN district Zaandam, 1975), p. 10. 73 Upon liberation of the Netherlands in May 1945, CPN leader Paul de Groot convinced the party’s central committee that the CPN should not return as a national party. Instead, he urged his fellow party members to form a new organisation in which communists would work together with society’s progressive organisations and churches. De Groot’s ideas should be understood within the context of the Doorbraak (‘The Break Through’). During the Second World War, Dutch cultural and political leaders were imprisoned by the Nazis in a prison camp called Sint Michelssgestel. It was here that these leaders developed the idea to form a people’s movement which would unite progressives of all pillars and break through barriers separating the secular pillar from the Catholic and Calvinist pillars to become a broadly progressive party. The initiative was thwarted by the ‘early’ liberation of the southern Netherlands in 1944. The south is predominately Catholic and by the time the rest of the country was liberated (in May 1945) the Catholic pillar was already firmly re-established. In 1945, De Groot, inspired by De Doorbraak, enthusiastically began to plan the founding conference of the Vereniging van Vrienden van de Waarheid (‘Society of Friends of the Waarheid’) which would replace the CPN. A short period of confusion ensued. Communists in the south and in the west, as well as the French and Belgian sister parties, objected to the Groot’s proposition. This criticism of former party executives, along with De Groot’s realisation that the Dutch political situation was actually quite different than expected – i.e. the Doorbraak had failed – moved him to change his mind. The planned founding conference became a party conference and the CPN was re-established on May 12, 1945. Surprisingly, De Groot was elected parliamentary leader. See: Galesloot and Legȇne, Partij in het verzet, pp. 251-260, and De Jonge, Het communisme in Nederland, p. 85. 74 Onder de loupe, Orgaan voor studerende jongeren, June 1945, Vol. 1, No. 9, p. 1.

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In terms of gender, the movement’s preparation committee did not exemplify the equality it so clearly strove for. Only one woman, Gré Breeuwer, was represented in its nine-person committee and this set the tone for at least another two decades.75 Until the late 1960s, boys and men would also dominate the Dutch communist youth movement.76 Though the new movement’s adage was ‘unity and cooperation’, there was some early discord between the two main players – social democrats and communists – about the ANJV’s main focus. Communists felt it should be a militant anti-fascist and anti-capitalist youth organisation, while social democrats preferred a cultural organisation.77 Despite this initial friction, the ANJV came into being on June 15, 1945. Later that year, it joined the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), an umbrella organisation for left-wing, anti-imperialist youth that had been founded in London on November 10, 1945. Two years before, the Young Communist International had been dissolved along with the Comintern. After the war, the WFDY, under leadership of former YCI leader Alexander Shelepin, filled the void left by the YCI. The WFDY shared its main principles with those of the ANJV. Much like the latter, the WFDY wanted to unite youth who were willing to fight for freedom and against war and fascism. In 1955, the WFDY claimed to have 85 million members in more than 300 youth organisations in 97 countries.78 The CPN did extremely well in elections in the period 1946-1948. They won 10.57 percent of the votes in the 1946 parliamentary elections, which resulted in ten seats in the Dutch House of Commons. The provincial elections and the local council elections, both held in 1946, were also a triumph for the CPN. In the provincial elections it received a total of 11.41 percent of the votes, which meant that for the first (and the last) time communists were represented in every Dutch province. The communist newspaper De Waarheid had approximately 300,000 subscribers, making it the biggest and most popular Dutch newspaper.79 The ANJV was equally successful in the first three years 75 Ibid. 76 The majority of participants were members of the ANJV and estimated that about one-third of membership was female. 77 Marjolein Koole and Margreet Schrevel, ANJV voorlopige lijst van het archief van het ANJV 1945-ca.1982 (Amsterdam: IISG, 1988). 78 Central Intelligence Agency (1956), The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) – A Compilation of Available Basic Reference Date, Affiliations and Parallel Organizations, Strength, Officers, Addresses, Publications. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP7800915R000600140009-1.pdf (Accessed on March 27, 2021). 79 Ger Verrips, Dwars, duivels en dromend. De geschiedenis van de CPN 1938-1991. (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 1995), p. 234.

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of its existence and boasted around 15,000 members between the ages of eight and 30, yet had been under fire since its inception. During an ANJV congress in October 1945, one of the speakers, Joop Jansma, said to the crowd, ‘We’ll fight against capitalism and for democracy. The voices of 15,000 youth will rupture reactionaries’ eardrums’.80 The Protestant newspaper Trouw wrote the next day that before the congress, the ANJV had denied being communist, but Jansma ‘took off his mask’ and the organisation showed its ‘true colours’. The article’s author went on to say, ‘Hopefully its misguided members will draw their conclusions’.81 Marcus Bakker, communist youth organiser, was outraged: The ANJV aimed to be an organisation that united anti-fascist youth from all different backgrounds, we wanted to keep the group of young people who were active in the resistance intact. They came from a variety of political backgrounds, but the fight against fascism united them.82

It is worth remembering that the WFDY struggled with similar issues: shortly after the onset of the Cold War, the organisation was accused by the US State Department of being a communist front and it saw a sudden decrease of members. Those who remained belonged to organisations in socialist countries, national liberation movements, and communist youth organisations.83 Soon after the publication of the Trouw article, it became abundantly clear that the ANJV’s lofty goals involving the unification of anti-fascist youth were unrealistic. The ANJV wanted to be part of the Nederlandse Jeugd Gemeenschap (NJG; ‘Dutch Youth Community’), a federation of youth organisations belonging to different pillars. The NJG had been founded in 1946 with the objective to re-educate youth. It was widely felt that moral standards had dropped during the war years and this decline had an especially harmful impact on youth. The NJG opposed the ANJV’s wish to join its ranks, because the two did not share the same views and ideas. Whereas the ANJV wanted 80 De duizend daden. Een geschiedenis van het Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond 1945-1985, ed. by Tamara Blokzijl, Corita Homma, and Willem Walter (Amsterdam: ANJV, 1985), p. 16. 81 Trouw, October 10, 1945, as cited in De duizend daden, ed. by Blokzijl, Homma and Walter, p. 16. 82 De duizend daden, ed. by Blokzijl, Homma and Walter, p. 16. 83 Central Intelligence Agency (1956) The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) – A Compilation of Available Basic Reference Date, Affiliations and Parallel Organizations, Strength, Officers, Addresses, Publications. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP7800915R000600140009-1.pdf (Accessed on March 27, 2021).

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to change the balance of power in Dutch society, the NJG set out to protect and strengthen it. The internal structure of both organisations was also completely different. The ANJV, led by youth, practised direct democracy – a drastic departure from the CJB’s democratic centralism – while the NJG was much more traditionally organised and led by adults.84 The most important reason, however, for the NJG’s refusal to let the ANJV join, was that the latter did not approve of the passage ‘for Queen and country’ in the memorandum of association of the NJG. The ANJV reportedly also objected to the orange circle in the NJG logo, which referred to the royal family.85 Looking back, Joop Wolff, who was an ANJV member at the time, remarked: ‘That whole thing with the NJG was absolutely ridiculous. I still don’t know if that orange circle around the name NJG, was the real reason. I had no problem with orange circles, nor did anyone else I knew’.86 Others too, were convinced that the organisation’s issues with the monarchy were not the reason the ANJV’s request to join the NJG was declined. The real reason, according to Marcus Bakker, was that the Cold War had started and anti-communist sentiment had increased in political parties and their youth organisations.87 Under influence of these developments, non-communist youth began to lose faith in their ANJV membership and many left. By 1947, it had lost about one-third of its membership, whilst other youth organisations were prospering.88 And the truth of the matter was that, although the ANJV tried to be a broad organisation, it was the CPN that was in charge. All the important positions within the ANJV were taken by CPN youth.89 In addition to the ANJV and Perikles – an organisation for progressive students founded in 1945 – a communist organisation for progressive secondary school students, the Organizatie van Progressief Studerende Jeugd (OPSJ; ‘Organisation of Progressive Studying Youth’), was created in November 1947. The OPSJ catered to secondary school students between fourteen and eighteen years old; a group that had been largely out of reach until then. Many ANJV members of that age were already working full-time and their focus and interests were different from their peers who were still 84 ANJV leadership was older than the average member, but young enough to be classed as youth or young adults. 85 Jacob Poortstra, ‘Jeugd en zedelijkheid na de oorlog’, in In fatsoen hersteld. Zedelijkheid en wederopbouw na de oorlog, ed. by Hansje Galesloot and Margreet Schrevel (Amsterdam: SUA, 1987) 29-64, (pp. 40-45). 86 De duizend daden, ed. by Blokzijl, Homma and Walter, p. 16. 87 Ibid., p. 15. 88 ‘De mantelorganisaties van de C.P.N.’, De Volkskrant, 30 Januari, 1947, p. 5. 89 Ibid., p. 18

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in school, while Perikles was a communist organisation for adult university students. OPSJ branches were established throughout the country and it began publishing its own magazine, first named De Poort (‘The Gate’) after the school gate, then Studie en Strijd (‘Study and Struggle’). During its first congress, held in December 1948, it was posed that fighting for the good cause also included studying, achieving academic excellence, and using the knowledge gained to further the fight of the working-class movement. By 1955, the OPSJ had about 1,000 members nationwide. Throughout the next decades, the ANJV and the OPSJ worked closely together and had many overlapping activities.90 The YCL, which had also joined the WFDY in November 1945, enjoyed significant popularity in the immediate post-war years and membership doubled in the period 1946-1948.91 This growth is interesting as it doesn’t reflect the developments in the CPGB, which saw a decline in membership after 1943. Aside from YCL membership, Challenge sales rose from 11,500 per week in 1946 to a steady 16,000 two years later. The league, like the ANJV, was dominated by males both in terms of leadership and members and fought for wage increases for all young workers, better working conditions, training schemes for every industry, a 40-hour work week, 100 percent trade unionism, housing programs, raising the school leaving age to sixteen, adequate provision of gymnasiums and sports fields, voting rights at eighteen, and cutting the armed forces to 500,000.92 Unlike the ANJV, the league’s program and organisational structure – still based on democratic centralism – had not undergone any drastic changes. Throughout the war years, Challenge had urged its readers to stand up against fascism and reported on the efforts of European youth in the resistance movement. After the war, the fight against fascism within and outside of Britain continued. Progressive youth was called upon to ‘raise their voices to demand the end of Franco’s reign of terror in Spain’.93 Closer to home, YCL members actively opposed Mosley and his followers. On May 1, 1948, a fascist rally took place in London, where Mosley gave his first open air speech since the Second World War. This demonstration coincided with a May Day march, resulting in a huge clash 90 De duizend daden, ed. by Blokzijl, Homma and Walter, pp. 30-32. 91 This book does not discuss the YCL’s and ANJV’s activities within the context of the WFDY, such as members’ travels to WFDY festivals abroad. 92 Bill Brooks, For Peace and Socialism. Pamphlet of speech written by Bill Brooks and delivered during the Fifteenth National Congress of the Young Communist League, March 1948 pp. 5-6 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre). 93 Britain’s Fighting Youth Weekly, February 10, 1945, Vol. 11. No. 6 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre)

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between anti-fascists and the police during which several YCL members were arrested.94 Similar YCL clashes – often together with members of the 43 Group, an anti-fascist group organised by ex-servicemen after the Second World War – occurred all over the country. Annie, who was born in 1932, grew up in Yorkshire, and had joined the Bradford YCL when she was fourteen years old, said: I remember going to Bradford when the fascists came to speak at a place which was like Hyde Park Corner. I think Mosley was speaking. A group of Jewish people had come from Leeds and together we stopped the fascists from speaking.

It is worth mentioning that a fascist threat such as Mosely and his Union Movement – a far-right political party that stressed the importance of developing a European nationalism founded in 1948 – was absent in the Netherlands. This is not to say that the fight against fascism didn’t continue there, it was however mostly focused on fascism abroad.

Isolation: 1948-1956 By the end of the 1940s, the ANJV was shrinking, reflecting a more general situation where communists were marginalised. The events of 1948 – the communist assumption of power in Prague and the second military offensive undertaken by the Netherlands against the Republic of Indonesia (which was heavily opposed by the CPN and the ANJV) – were among the reasons that many non-communists left the ANJV. After this mass exodus of members, the ANJV entered a period of at least a decade that was characterised by severe isolation. A speech given in 1948 at the third ANJV congress illustrates the organisation’s drastically changed situation. Riddled with cryptic language, it is a prime example of Cold War rhetoric: We, the ANJV; a democratic organisation, allow our members who are communists, freedom of speech, they [ANJV members who held a Communist Party membership card] should have the right to express their feelings and thoughts. So why are we accused of being a satellite organisation? Why are people so scared of an organisation like the ANJV? Why does the NJG demand that the ANJV should be banned? […] It is obvious that they 94 Challenge 1948 Vol. 16, no. 19.

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try to create suspicion and undermine our work, yet all we do is fight for happiness and an acceptable standard of living. They try, by spreading political lies, to distract people from what is really important, which is the fight democratic organisations like ours fight for the youth of today. These youth who can’t find a home to live in, who waste valuable time serving in the army, are being blinded by the fantasised events that are supposed to have happened in Czechoslovakia.95

Both the ANJV and the YCL, whose membership existed primarily of men of draft age, opposed conscription and condemned Dutch and British military interventions around the world. Many young ANJV members refused to fight in Indonesia, a decision treated the same as desertion. Those guilty of draft evasion or desertion were despised by society and risked imprisonment. Jan Maassen, interviewed for the ANJV fiftieth anniversary publication, remembered: ‘I refused to serve in Indonesia. Our unit was supposed to embark on September 16, 1946, but many soldiers didn’t return to the barracks from their embarkation leave. I was one of them and was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison’.96 Others who did decide to serve were instructed by the ANJV to be active within the army. Brochures informing fellow soldiers that the Dutch invasion of Indonesia was fundamentally wrong were distributed by communist service men, who, whenever they got caught, were severely punished. ANJV member Ratio Koster was one of the first to be arrested for distributing the organisation’s periodical in army barracks in Indonesia. The article that featured on the front page of the particular issue Koster had left in toilets and other public places featured the headline ‘Don’t turn our boys into SS officers’. Koster was remanded in custody for three months and eventually sentenced to three years in prison.97 It appears that, when not involved in active conflict, communist soldiers were not punished as harshly as Ratio Koster. The majority of male Dutch participants interviewed for this book served in the army in the 1950s and 1960s. None of them were imprisoned for reading communist literature while serving, and most recalled doing so openly. They did however report that they were not promoted, were regularly reprimanded for communist activities, were separated from other known communists, and kept away from US army units: 95 ANJV Archive, Congresses ’45, ’46, ’48, ’50, ’52, ’54. Diverse no. 12. Anonymous Speech ANJV Congress 1948 (International Institute of Social History). 96 Interview Jan Maasen in: Wij hebben er geen spijt van, ed. by Van Aalderen, p. 75. 97 De duizend daden, ed. by Blokzijl, Homma and Walter, pp. 41-42.

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After finishing school, I had to join the army and ran into quite a few problems. It already started on the first day. Upon arrival, I saw some OPSJ posters on the walls and of course, I was blamed for it, even though it was clear I could not have done it as I had only just stepped into the army barracks. I immediately received a lecture. Later, I was transferred to Ermelo and again, they warned me not to try to interfere with the ANJV in Amersfoort. There was a communist in our group, but he wasn’t very active. Only when you talked to him, you realized he was one of us. I arrived with another communist from Rotterdam. We were separated right away and I did not see him again for the next eighteen months (Guus b. 1943, Rotterdam). Of course I had to join the army at a certain point […] I wasn’t treated differently because I was a communist. And it was very clear I was a communist, because I continued to read De Waarheid. I do remember that an American army unit came to our base and my unit was supposed to patrol. I was told to go home, which I wasn’t sad about at all (Leo b. 1952, Amsterdam).

Compared with the experiences of younger participants, those who were born in the 1930s and served in the army in the 1950s faced significantly more adversity. ANJV member Arend (b. 1934, Finsterwolde) served in the army from February 1954 to August 1955: During those eighteen months, I was relentlessly exposed to anticommunism and was punished on several occasions for trying to stay true to, and educate others about, my political convictions. When I came out of the army, I went straight to a CPN meeting. On my way out, the secretary said to me, ‘Arend, can you take that stack of 50 newspapers?’ I answered, ‘What do you want me to do with those?’ And he said, ‘Sell, of course’. ‘Absolutely not’, I said. I explained that I needed some time to adapt to life outside of the army and attend meetings for some time so I could get the ‘feeling’ back. Otherwise I could not go door-to-door to sell papers. The secretary said, ‘If that’s the case, you are not a real communist’. I went home, got my membership card, and handed it in. For a brief moment in time, I left the party.

While there is no evidence that YCL members were arrested or punished for distributing their publication among soldiers, there was concern about the impact of communist propaganda on young men in the army, and some called for a ban of the Daily Worker during the Korean War:

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I would not stop the Daily Worker preaching communism until it was black in the face, or denouncing capitalist and socialists and Tories with equal venom, but have we any right to send young men to fight while a newspaper is advocating mutiny and sabotage? I think it is wrong and, much as I regret it, I think the government ought to give a warning to the Daily Worker that it must not do this or it will be banned. I am sorry to say that I had to make the same suggestion in 1939. I was glad when the Daily Worker was given back its liberty. However, I find something terribly indecent, terribly revolting, in its columns these days. If we are at war with Russian imperialism, then this paper is an agent of that power. I suggest to the government that they should give this matter their consideration.98

The Daily Worker, however, was not banned. YCL member, Pat (b. 1937, Manchester), who served in the Royal Air Force, recalled that the paper was openly distributed among young men doing their national service. Nevertheless, he too experienced discrimination in the military: I was in the RAF doing my national service, and because I had finished at school and had got a place to go to Oxford [University], was automatically put forward for a commission for officer training. So I was sent on various courses and usually did OK. But once they had narrowed it down to a relatively small group, they then started doing security checks and at each of those stages in the process I was suddenly told, ‘Sorry that’s it’. This then stayed on my file so, whenever I arrived at a new posting and went to see someone, I ended up meeting the camp education officer for an interview who would start reading my papers and ask, ‘Why didn’t you apply for a commission?’ I’d say, ‘Just read on a bit’. There was no question but that it was discrimination. You rapidly learned that the first thing you did when you arrived at your new posting was to look around for the other comrades, because there were bound to be quite a number of them there. They were also doing their National Service and there weren’t all that many of these non-sensitive bases that they could be sent to. I remember at RAF Hospital Ely we started a Daily Worker 98 MP Sir Arthur Baxter, Defence (Government Proposals), HC Deb, September 14, 1950 vol. 478 https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1950/sep/14/defencegovernment-proposals#column_1322 (Accessed on March 27, 2021), and Evan Smith, Tory anti-communism in the early 1950s, New Historical Express, 2 July, 2015, https://hatfulofhistory. wordpress.com/2015/07/02/tory-anti-communism-in-the-early-1950s/ (Accessed on February 9, 2019).

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round after we’d argued with the officer in charge who said we weren’t allowed to do it.99

During these years, the YCL found itself increasingly stigmatised as ‘the domestic agent of an enemy power’, notes Waite.100 To be fair, as the polarities of the Cold War began to develop, the YCL – much like the ANJV – adopted a stance of uncritical solidarity with the government of the Soviet Union. This pro-Soviet stance was accompanied by a very negative attitude towards all of the established political parties. Once again, the YCL and the ANJV were, aside from condemning right-wing conservative parties, also highly suspicious of the political left. The report of the seventeenth congress of the YCL illustrates this attitude: This 17th Congress of the YCL realises the serious and immediate danger of a Third World War, the preparations for which are being sped up every day by the American and British warmongers. […] Britain is threatened not by the Soviet Union but by the traitor Tory class and their friends, the Labour leaders. How dare these people talk of patriotism and loyalty to Britain when they attack every vital interest in our country? Is it their policy that has led us to the edge of war? To fight for peace is to fight against slavery to American imperialism. To stand for peace and friendship with the Land of Socialism, is real patriotism.101

About the ‘Land of Socialism’ the report notes: ‘The very existence of the Soviet Union, which grows stronger every day, is a beacon light guiding the working people of the world, showing that it is possible to overthrow capitalism, and that once power rests in the hands of the workers, society can advance prosperity and happiness can be assured’.102 The report goes on to call for cooperation with youth, irrespective of their political, religious, or other beliefs, who is willing to fight for peace. Unsurprisingly, this call fell on deaf ears, as most non-communist youth did not want to be associated with an organisation that had such distorted and one-sided views of the Cold War. Nonetheless, the YCL remained hopeful that a collaboration with other radical youth was just around the corner. In 1952, during its nineteenth 99 Phil Cohen, Children of the Revolution. Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1997), p. 83. 100 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 119. 101 We Fight for Peace, Report of the 17th Congress of the YCL May 1950, p. 1 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre). 102 Ibid., p. 9.

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congress, then YCL secretary John Moss enthusiastically declared that striking developments had taken place in the Labour League of Youth. The latter had just had a conference in Filey at the time of this writing: The Filey Conference showed that Labour League of Youth members are demanding a socialist policy to beat the Tories. […] The campaign of the Surrey Federation of the Labour League of Youth against the education cuts, the solidarity shown in Lancashire with the apprentice strikes and the protest of the London Federation against the ban on foreign delegates coming to the Sheffield Festival all show the rising tide of feeling. New opportunities exist for unity between the Labour League of Youth and the YCL.103

Moss admitted that too little had been done by the YCL to come together with the Labour League of Youth and suggested that the YCL should actively connect with the League of Youth for joint discussion and action against the Tories and their policy. Webb confirms that the League of Youth was radicalising around this time, calling for socialism, and asking why ‘leaders have put a gag on discussion of politics, or rather, anything which might be considered critical of the official policies of the Labour government?’104 The League of Youth was declining rapidly during these years, from more than 500 branches in the 1930s to less than 150 branches in the 1950s, a decline brought on by the lack of progress towards an alteration of its structure and the failure to produce the democratic movement its members desired.105 Though there were some joint meetings and education sessions organised by local YCL and League of Youth branches, ties between the two struggling organisations were nonetheless not strengthened until the 1960s.106 The Labour Party was intent on thwarting any potential threat of communist infiltration, a threat that was in hindsight inflated, yet very real for those senior members of the Labour Party who had experienced the desertion of the Advance! faction of the League of Youth to the YCL in the 1930s.107 103 John Moss, Free Britain’s Youth, report of the 19th National Congress YCL Oct. 1952, pp. 11-12 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre). 104 Webb, The Rise and Fall of the Labour League of Youth, p. 98. 105 Ibid., pp. 99-101. 106 Webb notes, for example, that in Stockport, joint meetings of the Labour League of Youth and YCL were taking place in a local pub in the early 1950s. See: Webb, The Rise and Fall of the Labour League of Youth, p. 96. 107 Ibid.

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During the 1952 YCL congress, aside from admitting its failure to establish fruitful relationships with other radical youth, Moss also acknowledged that more should be done to attract young women and felt that Challenge should take the lead. He urged its editors to devote more space to the problems and interests of girls and young women. The next chapter will detail the ways in which this call was only partially heeded. Women remained a minority and were largely seen as politically inferior in what remained a very masculine, if not patriarchal, environment until the 1960s. Waite has estimated that over the years of its existence, around 24 percent of its members were female, a higher percentage than in the CPGB. A plausible explanation for this discrepancy, according to Waite, is the fact that most YCL members were between fourteen and eighteen, and therefore less likely to be married or have childcare responsibilities.108 Despite their rapid demise and internal shortcomings, the YCL and the ANJV did not cease to fight with unflagging zeal for several causes that were deemed unpopular. These included support of North Korea in the Korean War, demilitarisation and decolonisation of the colonies (British Malaya, New Guinea), the campaign against the German rearmament, and opposition to the Marshall Plan. Other more commonly acceptable causes included the fight against fascism and better rights for young workers.109 As Cold War tensions mounted, persecution of young communists intensified. A 1951 law which banned communists from becoming civil servants also affected ANJV members. They experienced great difficulty when trying to f ind a job in the public as well as the private sector. In addition, they were kept out of trade unions. One of the participants interviewed for this book, Jacob (born 1937, Amsterdam), held on to a letter from the Algemene Bedrijfsgroepen Centrale (ABC; ‘General Union of Workers in Miscellaneous Industries’), a union he was a member of, for all these years. The letter, dated April 1, 1959, contained the following message, and illustrates how communists were excluded during the height of the Cold War: The Amsterdam departmental board informed the Executive Committee that you distributed De Waarheid on February 27 last at the Amstel Brewery. During a conversation between you and the departmental board members J.J. de Vries and Koch, it was established that you have ties with 108 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 290. 109 Challenge, Vol. 18. Issue no. 15 (April, 1953), and De duizend daden, ed. by Blokzijl, Homma and Walter, p. 43.

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communist organisations and that your distributing of De Waarheid was not incidental. Based on article 4 part 3 c 1 of our statutes, the executive committee is entitled to remove a member based on membership of, affiliation to, or any form of support of an organisation or league that has been listed as incompatible with ABC membership. Membership and support, in which ever shape or form, of the Communist Party or one of its front organisations is incompatible with ABC membership and therefore you have been removed from our member list.110

Communists, young and old, were not only kept out of many organisations and committees, they were also subjected to constant monitoring by the Dutch secret service.111 The psychological and emotional impact of this invasion of young communists’ privacy will be discussed in detail in Chapter Seven. In Britain, there were also bans on communists in the civil service, and there are a few examples of cultural organisations and trade unions that excluded or tried to exclude communists.112 However, even at the height of the Cold War, the treatment of young communists in Britain was not by any means as harsh as it was in the Netherlands, where an extraordinary number of bans had been introduced by the Dutch government and its institutions to keep communists out. That said, British and Dutch communists were both isolated by society and, to a certain degree, isolated themselves during this period. As a result, they developed an us-versus-them mentality, which in turn, isolated them even further. The Cold War came to a head in 1956. Khrushchev’s revelations about Stalin and the Soviet intervention in Hungary had a tremendous impact on the international communist movement. The ANJV’s official statement about Hungary, in line with that of the CPN, emphasised that the Soviet army was not only entitled to invade Hungary to end the terror in the streets of Budapest – its actions were also justified. This terror, according to its 110 Algemene Bedrijfsgroepen Centrale letter, participant has donated this document to the author. 111 Jos Van Dijk, Ondanks hun dappere rol in het verzet. Het isolement van Nederlandse communisten in de Koude Oorlog (Soesterberg: Aspekt, 2016), pp. 85-88. 112 Waite reports that a Bristol scout was removed for holding a YCL membership in the early 1950s. See: Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 123. In terms of trade union membership, Steve Parsons, who studied the British Communist Party School Teachers in the 1940s and 1950s, found that communists lost their seats in the National Union of Teachers, as a result of a Conservative anti-communist crusade led by Lord Vansittard in the late 1940s, early 1950s. See: Steve Parsons, ‘British Communist Party School Teachers in the 1940s and 1950s’, Science and Society, Spring, Vol. 61 No. 1 (1997) pp. 46-67.

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statement, was caused by foreign intervention by imperialist powers – mainly Germany and the United States – who tried to reinstate capitalism in Hungary. The Soviet army acted on behalf of the Hungarian government and, in line with the agreements of the Warsaw Pact, was obliged to intervene in order to prevent a ‘horrible Third World War’.113 The events of 1956 sparked a series of violent acts against communists. In the early hours of November 5, a mob destroyed the ANJV headquarters – among many other CPN buildings – in Amsterdam. All the windows were smashed, and typewriters, printers, musical instruments, flags, banners, and furniture were thrown out of the building and set on fire.114 ANJV members did not go down without a fight and showed up with baseball bats and metal bars: On Sunday November 4, 1956, during a CPN film morning in Cinema Royal, people asked me to go to our headquarters. Together with 30 other people we defended our building. I was asked because they knew I was a strong man from a good communist family. I was there when this mob attacked us (Jacob b. 1937, Amsterdam).

Within three weeks after the attacks, the ANJV had collected more than 4,000 guilders, enough to repair the damage.115 This sudden and singular eruption of violent anti-communism had two results. It caused the last non-communist members that had stuck with the ANJV to leave the organisation, and it brought the communist members who remained even closer together – internal quarrels and disagreements were put aside in favour of unity.116 Solidarity was very important to survive in such a hostile environment. An ANJV member interviewed for the organisation’s fiftieth anniversary publication reflected on the invasion as follows: In the ANJV there was a sense of security, a feeling of belonging, being surrounded by like-minded people. They had the arguments and explanations and helped me through this very difficult time. I felt secure. There

113 ANJV archive 13. 7 th ANJV congress discussie materiaal (International Institute of Social History). 114 Jeugd, November/December 1956, Vol. 12, No. 10. 115 Jeugd, December/January 1956, Vol. 12, No. 11. 116 A similar trend is visible in the CPN, writes A. A. De Jonge in Stalinistische herinneringen (Den Haag: Kruseman, 1984) p. 98.

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was a common sense of justice. But yes, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, which made me responsible, guilty, and above all an accessory.117

Although it did not spark physical violence, the events of 1956 did cause another signif icant drop in YCL membership.118 Some of the members who decided to leave joined Trotskyist organisations, while others moved towards the New Left. The YCL leadership was divided about the Soviet interventions in Hungary and officially condemned the first invasion on October 24, but condoned the second invasion of November 4.119 Its stance was thereby inconsistent with the official CPGB line, which supported both interventions. For many YCL members who decided to stay on, the events of 1956 formed the end of league’s uncritical solidarity with the Soviet Union and the CPGB. It is important to stress that, whereas the events of 1956 strengthened the ANJV’s internal cohesion and its ties with the CPN, quite the opposite occurred in the YCL. This very different response can be explained by the level of anti-communist violence and the intensive legal persecution of communists in the Netherlands, which slowed down any attempts to become independent from the CPN. As these factors were largely absent in Britain, the YCL had less need for close ties with the CPGB. Subsequently, differences between the party and the YCL grew stronger in the latter half of the 1950s and the league increasingly began to move away from under the party’s wing. This tension between the two would only increase in the 1960s, a time of change and radicalisation.

117 Wij hebben er geen spijt van, ed. by Van Aalderen, p. 167. 118 Callaghan notes that between January 1957 and January 1958 the YCL lost half of its members. See: John Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis, and Conflict. The CPGB 1951-68 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2003), p. 76. 119 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 300.

3

Out of the Shadows Communist Youth Organisations 1957-1968 Abstract This chapter examines and compares the social and political history of the communist youth movement in Britain and the Netherlands between 1957 and 1968. It looks primarily at the histories of the British Young Communist League (YCL) and its Dutch equivalent, the Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’). The chapter details these organisations’ changing relationship with their respective communist parties as the Cold War began to thaw, and their quest for their own identity. It explores members’ successful and not-so-successful attempts to collaborate with non-communist radical youth on important political issues, such as nuclear disarmament, student rights, and the Vietnam War, in a bid to break through their social and political isolation. Keywords: Young Communist League, Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond, Ban-the-Bomb movement, student movement, anti-war in Vietnam movement

I think that, until 1956, the YCL was in effect just a branch of the party, but it did have an independent existence and independent leadership. […] As the political divisions within the party opened up, these were reflected in the YCL and the YCL tended to take a much more critical view [than the CPGB]. There was always a sort of workerism in the party and the YCL, it was a cultural thing – ‘We are the party of the working class’. […] But that was by no means to say that when new members from middle-class backgrounds joined [the communist movement] they were somehow not really entitled to be there. I never came across that (Pat b. 1937, Manchester). In the 1960s, the student movement really made an impact on the ANJV and turned it upside down. There was barely any working youth at the

Weesjes, Elke, Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain: Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463726634_ch03

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time. And [middle-class] students and working youth didn’t always get along. Some ANJV members had a bit of an arrogant mentality towards students. There was friction, that’s for sure (Mark b. 1950, Amsterdam).

British and Dutch youth growing up in the late 1950s and 1960s had an altogether different experience from any generation before them. With full economic recovery and the welfare state firmly established in both countries, Baby Boomers stayed in school longer and had more money to spend on clothes, cosmetics, records, magazines, and visits to the cinema. These changes not only benefited the middle and upper classes; the lives of working-class youth also changed, albeit less dramatically. Gradually, working-class youth – male and female – began to join the ranks of students and white-collar workers, which broke down class boundaries.1 From the mid-1950s, the terms ‘teenage’ and ‘teenager’ came into widespread use in the Netherlands and Britain alike. Increasingly, youth began to distinguish themselves from children and from adults, and instead, gravitated towards their contemporaries. Whereas children were previously expected to morph into their parents, teenagers began to develop their own distinct tastes. This individualisation went beyond fashion, style, and music. Tired of the political, ideological, and cultural conformism so characteristic of the immediate post-war period, young people began to break with their family’s occupational, religious, and political traditions in the second half of the 1950s. They felt less drawn to their country’s traditional youth movement and were more likely to become involved in sport and dance clubs or join non-organised groups such as nozems, pleiners, dijkers, and their British equivalents, Teddy Boys, rockers, and mods.2 As a result, traditional youth organisations, including Boy Scouts and Girl Guides groups and some of the more conservative political and religious organisations, lost the appeal they 1 This process was very gradual indeed. It wasn’t until the 1970s and 1980s that higher education in both countries truly opened up for working-class youth and it took even longer before working-class young women were able to enjoy the same educational opportunities, see: Matthew Worley, ‘Marx–Lenin–Rotten–Strummer: British Marxism and Youth Culture in the 1970s’, Contemporary British History, 30:4 (2016), 505-521, (p. 509). 2 Nozems was a term to describe rebellious youth in the 1950s and 1960s, often aggressive and considered problematic by authorities in the Netherlands. As a subculture, nozems (also called dijkers in Amsterdam after the Nieuwendijk where they roamed around) are comparable to Teddy Boys in Britain and greasers in the United States. Pleiners (after Leidseplein, a square in Amsterdam where they used to congregate) were much like nozems though instead of rock ‘n roll, they listened to jazz and beat music, had enjoyed more education, and had artistic aspirations. Much like Mods, pleiners used scooters to get around. The distinctions between these groups dissipated over time and by the mid-1960s they became part of a much larger counterculture.

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had held during the Interbellum and immediate post-war period, and saw a decrease in membership.3 These organisations’ self-proclaimed duty was to keep teenagers on the straight and narrow, especially after the wartime’s immorality and sexual indulgence. A return to 1930s values – values that condemned materialism, individualism, drinking, smoking, and sexual behaviours, and promoted asexual comradery, self-control, strong work ethics, and a love for nature – was therefore warranted. But this world no longer existed and its values and the organisations that held on to them were unappealing to teenagers who wanted to enjoy their newfound status and wealth and look towards the future instead of dwell on the past. 4 They didn’t share the fears of the generation born before the war nor were they obsessed with the Red Scare. Quite the opposite, by the mid-1960s, working-class and middle-class youth had become increasingly politicised and drawn towards Marxism. The powerful combination of the educational, political, and cultural changes of the late 1950s and 1960s, and a temporary easing of tensions between the East and West after the disastrous events of 1956, benefited the Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’) and the Young Communist League (YCL). For the first time in years, according to the ANJV’s seventh congress report, the future looked bright and full of promise: The last three years have been extremely hard on our organisation, but we have shown great initiatives and successfully organised many events like the Summer of Friendship, the World Youth Festival and the ANJV Campaign for Peace. We recruited 700 new members in the last three months and Jeugd [‘Youth’; ANJV magazine] sales rose by 716 which proves once again that we are a powerful and active organisation of working-class youth.5

YCL membership stabilised during the late 1950s. From 1961 onwards, it moved sharply upwards and increased from 1,387 in 1958 to 4,019 in 1962.6 Though it didn’t necessarily understand teenagers, the league was able to 3 Hans Righart, De eindeloze jaren zestig. Geschiedenis van een generatieconflict (Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 1995), p. 85, and Ronald Fraser, 1968. A Student Generation in Revolt (New York City: Pantheon Publishing, 1988), pp. 13-28. 4 Righart, De eindeloze jaren zestig, p. 85, and Brian Harrison, Seeking a Role. The United Kingdom 1951-1970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 261. 5 ANJV Archive 13. 7th Congress 1958 (International Institute of Social History). 6 Kenneth Newton, The Sociology of British Communism (London: The Penguin Press, 1969), p. 161.

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connect to their culture nonetheless. So recalls Mike Power, who joined the South East London YCL in 1959 at the age of fifteen: What we were doing was trying to set up a piece of the action for ourselves. In December 1963 the Beatles played at Lewisham Odeon and Challenge, our paper, had a picture of the Beatles on the front page and an interview with them by Tom Spence. We got 500 copies of Challenge, went down to the Odeon and sold 250 copies, which we thought was fantastic. But the truth is that we were on the outside looking in – we weren’t really integrated with young people.7

Whilst the YCL was trying its best to use popular culture to attract and maintain new members, the ANJV was having a difficult time shaking off the sectarian attitudes it had adopted over the course of the 1940s and 1950s. As illustrated by Pat and Mark’s very different accounts of the 1960s, Dutch cradle communists in the ANJV weren’t particularly welcoming to newcomers from middle-class backgrounds in the 1960s, and ANJV leaders weren’t in touch with popular culture. This discrepancy is largely related to the extreme isolation Dutch communists had experienced during the height of the Cold War – an isolation that had fostered a pattern of heightened suspicion regarding others’ motives and intentions.8 Another important factor, as pointed out by Mark, is that during the 1950s and 1960s, the working class in Britain did not decline as dramatically as it did in the Netherlands. During these years, the CPGB and the YCL remained firmly rooted in the working class and there was no need to be overly protective over these roots. Meanwhile, Dutch communists, whom so firmly identified with the then-declining working class, were initially adamant to keep middle-class elements out of the organisation. Despite its suspicious and standoffish attitude towards middle-class youth, the ANJV was capable of collaborating with radicalised youth from different classes and religious backgrounds on important political issues, such as nuclear disarmament, student rights, and the Vietnam War. Both the YCL and the ANJV were active in their respective Ban-the-Bomb and student rights movements, and played important parts in the early protests 7 Phil Cohen, Children of the Revolution. Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1997), p. 176. 8 For example, according to some Dutch participants, it was common knowledge that the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD; ‘Domestic Security Services’ – Dutch Intelligence Agency) employed students to infiltrate communist youth organisations in the 1960s, which explains some of the distrust between old and new members.

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against the war in Vietnam. It was through these activities that they were able to break through their social and political isolation once and for all. In both countries, young communists, regardless of class or upbringing, had one important thing in common – they all held out hope for a revolution. However, unlike the generation of communists discussed in the previous chapter, they weren’t quite sure if this revolution would occur in their lifetime.

The ban-the-bomb movement Following the United States and Japan, modest protests calling for nuclear disarmament began in Britain, mid-1957. Two events that occurred in October of that year intensified these protests. The first was the successful launching of the Russian satellite Sputnik-1 on October 4, 1957. The fact that the Soviets had accomplished this scientific advancement first fed fears that the United States military had generally fallen behind in developing new technology. Subsequently, this Soviet space milestone escalated the arms race and raised Cold War tensions. The second event, which took place only six days after the launch of Sputnik, was a fire at Windscale Piles, a pair of nuclear reactors on the northwest coast of England. The fire was the worst nuclear accident in British history. It caused widespread contamination of the local countryside and wastage of local products, and alerted the nation to the dangers of radioactivity. Influential people such as novelist and playwright J.B. Priestly and philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Bertrand Russell attacked Western leaders’ lack of accountability with regards their possession and control of nuclear weapons. Russell famously published an ‘Open Letter to Eisenhower and Khrushchev’ in the New Statesman on November 23, 1957 in which he pointed out that the interests the United States and the Soviet Union held in common were of far greater importance than the matters on which they diverged. He described the danger of world destruction now both East and West possessed nuclear weapons and argued that proliferation was inevitable if the United States and the Soviet Union would not disarm immediately. Russell urged Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower to meet and discuss disarmament and consider the conditions of co-existence. To the surprise of many, the letter prompted a response from Khrushchev who indicated that peace could indeed be served by such a summit. The Soviet leader explained that the Soviet Union had only developed nuclear weapons in order to defend itself against the United States which controlled

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an ever-growing arsenal of weapons. John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State, replied for Eisenhower, and proclaimed that his country had held onto weapons to shield itself from the communist urge for world domination. Dulles pointed out that the Soviet Union had never renounced the use of force to solve international affairs, as underlined by its invasion of Hungary in 1956, before denouncing every word that Khrushchev had written. Eventually, the two superpowers adopted an agree-to-disagree stance following the correspondence. When it became clear that international agreement was not forthcoming, public opinion refocused and it was widely felt that Britain should take action alone. Myriad campaigns against the production and testing of the British H-bomb, as well as the US H-bomb patrols over British skies, followed.9 Priestly, Russell and others including Kingsley Martin, Canon John Collins, Michael Foot, and Peggy Duff, launched Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in February 1958, during a mass public meeting in London. Instead of being a homogenous group, CND was an ad-hoc coalition of several political traditions, remarks Frank E. Myers.10 Collins and Priestly were pacifists, Russell identified with liberal internationalism – a tradition that has argued for the establishment of international institutions to arbitrate international disputes – and Martin and Foot came from the tradition of international socialism. Myers also mentions another tradition that was not represented on the executive committee but would have a profound influence on CND in years to come – nonviolent direct action. Inspired by Ghandi, a group representing this tradition, called the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War, joined CND in 1958.11 Whilst CND would become quite the political force in years to come, it struggled with maintaining internal cohesion and formulating clear policies and tactics due to its diverse nature.12 Thompson observes that unlike CND’s leadership, the majority of its followers did not necessarily identify with a more comprehensive left-wing outlook 9 Caroline Bamford, The Politics of Commitment. The Early New Left in Britain 1956-1962. Unpublished thesis. University of Edinburgh, 1983, pp. 183-190. 10 Frank E. Myers, ‘Dilemmas in the British Peace Movement since World War II’, Journal of Peace Research Vol. 10 No. 1/2, (1973), 81-90 (pp. 82-88). 11 Ibid. 12 As observed by Jodi Burkett, there was no official membership of the organisation until 1967 and therefore it is nearly impossible to accurately gauge their number. What is known, is that by 1960, 450 local CND groups had been formed and that the Aldermaston marches, organised yearly, were attracting an increasing number of people, culminating in an estimated 150,000 in 1961 (Jodi Burkett, ‘The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Changing Attitudes towards the Earth in the Nuclear Age’, The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 45. No. 4 (2012), 625-639 (p.628).

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beyond nuclear disarmament, and saw themselves as moral rather than political actors.13 The CPGB was against British nuclear weapons, but did not declare its support for unilateral disarmament until May 1960. Nonetheless, a minority of people in the YCL welcomed the formation of CND and joined its activities, including the first Aldermaston March in 1958.14 This caused friction within the YCL and its national secretary John Moss reportedly told those members who wanted to march that they could only participate to sell Challenge.15 His warning did not stop YCL members from fully participating in the march and other CND activities. The editors of Challenge seemed equally unconcerned by Moss’ criticism. They printed a large picture of the Aldermaston March on the cover of the magazine’s May issue in 1958. The CPGB’s initial apprehension was primarily related to the fact that it viewed CND as a rival to its own peace organisations – the British Peace Committee and the Youth Peace Committee. Furthermore, within the party, CND was viewed as a distraction from what was really important: disarmament negotiations between the superpowers.16 The YCL’s campaign against the British hydrogen bomb had already started in 1957, when it collected 50,000 signatures against the bomb, and called a meeting as the first step of a larger campaign to mobilise young people all over the country to stop US H-bomb patrols flying over Britain, and stop the building of US rocket bases on British soil.17 This campaign, like so many other YCL initiatives, was glaringly one-sided as it only focused on ‘capitalist’ nuclear powers. Logically, after the CPGB declared its support for British unilateral disarmament and communists became off icially active in CND, some CND supporters felt it was highly contradictory for a party that so firmly identified with a nuclear power, the Soviet Union, to be part of the campaign. However, as Thompson points out, ‘CND was mostly made up of people whose political memories did not go back beyond 1957 and for them, raking over the past of such a helpful organisation 13 Willie Thompson, The Good Old Cause. British Communism, 1920-1991 (London: Pluto Press, 1992), p. 116. 14 Aldermaston marches were annual anti-nuclear weapons demonstrations organised by CND in the 1950s and 1960s and took place on Easter weekend between the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, England, and London, over a distance of 52 miles. 15 Mike Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity. A Case Study: Young People and Communist Politics in Britain 1920-1991, Unpublished MPhil thesis (Lancaster University, 1992), p. 301. 16 Thompson, The Good Old Cause, p. 116. 17 Challenge June 1957, Challenge March 1958.

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composed of estimable and impressive individuals seemed irrelevant and mean-spirited’. He also notes that CND was not advocating Soviet or American unilateral nuclear disarmament and therefore there was no immediate incompatibility.18 The fact that the majority of non-communist CND members apparently had no problem with communist participation, did not take away from a certain bewilderment felt among communists active in CND: There was a strange strain of pacifism and it seemed contradictory. This was expressed when they (fellow YCL members) were in CND because they thought it was all right for the Russians to have the bomb because it was the People’s Bomb as opposed to the American or British bomb. They were vaguely pacifist. They didn’t want us to have guns or things like that and yet they were perfectly happy with the Russians stomping all over Hungary.19

As soon as communists began to play a role in CND, the organisation was accused of being controlled by Moscow and classed as subversive. For this reason, some communists felt it was better not to emphasise their political affiliation while partaking in CND activities: From 1961 onwards, I went to all CND demonstrations. I was very much aware of debates whether my father could be a public communist in CND. There was this fear among CND members, who were often accused of being communist by outsiders, to actually have communists in CND. I sensed it was better to keep quiet about being communist (Madeline b. 1948, Yorkshire).

Regardless of these issues, YCL members organised many activities, demonstrations, and meetings, and made quite an impression on non-communist CND supporters. In the first two years of its existence, CND depended on the strength of the Labour Party. Its strategy to achieve unilateral disarmament, was based on the idea that instead of urging Britain to withdraw from NATO, which had agreed to integrate tactical nuclear weapons into its own defensive strategy, CND should wait until the Labour Party won the 18 Thompson, The Good Old Cause, p. 118, and Bamford, The Politics of Commitment. The Early New Left in Britain 1956-1962, p. 191. 19 Interview with Alexei Sayle, in Phil Cohen, Children of the Revolution. Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1997), p. 45.

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elections and could influence NATO from within.20 However, the Labour Party was defeated in the 1959 elections, which meant CND had to revise its strategy.21 From 1960 onwards, CND began to actively oppose British membership of NATO.22 This change in strategy did not resolve the internal quarrels and problems between the different political groups represented in CND. A recurring topic of debate was the organisation’s lack of theory and strategic vision. In his book on the crisis and decline of the New Left, Nigel Young argues that the New Left as a whole struggled with this issue.23 Organisations like the YCL were able to take advantage of this situation and many CND members turned to the Old Left ‘to put their emotions into political perspective’.24 This presented an excellent opportunity for the YCL to rebuild its membership base, and restore its credibility that was so deeply damaged by the events of 1956. Doing so proved rather difficult and demanded a more critical stance toward the Soviet Union. When the Soviets exploded the world’s largest nuclear device to date over the Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya on October 30, 1961, many young communists were dismayed. Some YCL members took part in a sit-down protest against the bomb at the Russian Embassy in London, organised by CND.25 Others left the YCL over this matter. The Hempstead YCL for example resigned en masse when Khrushchev announced the nuclear tests. Those who stayed and remained active in CND acutely realised that they differed politically from the CPGB, which had been pushing for a pro-Soviet line as soon as it became active in CND in 1960.26 By 1965, CND membership had shrunk to a few thousand. Aside from the CPGB’s negative influence on the movements’ identity and integrity, there were a myriad of reasons why the movement was only successful for a short period of time. As noted above, CND was too heterogeneous and failed to produce a coalition based on one coherent ideology. Another reason for CND’s political weakness was its failure to attract support within the working class, which was necessary for it to have a lasting impact on British politics.27 Aside from these internal factors, there were external factors 20 Myers, ‘Dilemmas in the British Peace Movement since World War II’, pp. 81-83. 21 Ibid., p. 83. 22 By the end of 1960, NATO deployed 2,500 US tactical nuclear weapons in Western Europe. 23 Nigel Young, An Infantile Disorder? The Crisis and Decline of the New Left (Abingdon: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), p. 141. 24 Myers, ‘Dilemmas in the British Peace Movement since World War II’, p. 84. 25 Young, An Infantile Disorder?, p. 157. 26 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 302. 27 Myers, ‘Dilemmas in the British Peace Movement since World War II’, pp. 86-87.

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that contributed to the movement’s demise. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 underlined the potential reality of a nuclear war, but at the same time convinced people that the superpower leaders would never let a disaster like that happen. The Test Ban Treaty of 1963 – which banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere – was a major win for CND, yet it also caused further dwindling of support. Lastly, the anti-war movement’s focus on the Vietnam War began to eclipse concern about nuclear weapons. After Cuba, CND demonstrations became more ritualistic. The movement gradually disappeared, leaving a political vacuum that was crucial to the renewed growth of many Old Left groupings in the late 1960s, including the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and YCL.28 In the Netherlands, the impetus behind the ban-the-bomb movement came from the Pacifistische Socialistische Partij (PSP; ‘Pacifist Socialist Party’), which, inspired by CND, founded the Comité 1961 voor de Vrede (‘Committee 1961 For Peace’) on New Year’s Day of 1961. Comité 1961 was a collaboration of ten organisations and stood for unconditional rejection of nuclear armament in the West and in the East, and campaigned against the stockpiling of nuclear weapons in the Netherlands.29 Much like the YCL, the ANJV had already formed its own anti-nuclear campaign a year prior, when it became public knowledge that nuclear weapons were stored in the American section of Soesterberg military airbase. On December 16, 1960, following the Aldermaston example, eight ANJV members embarked on a symbolic bicycle ride from Volkel via Soesterberg to Amsterdam to protest against nuclear weapons. Volkel Air Base was chosen as a starting point as rumours were going around that United States Air Force nuclear weapons were stored there.30 The protestors had attached large signs to their bikes that warned people about the dangers of stockpiling nuclear weapons in a densely populated country containing slogans like ‘Breng de regering aan het verstand geen atoomkoppen in ons land’ (‘Get this into the government’s thick scull, no nuclear warheads in our country’). The group didn’t get 28 Young, An Infantile Disorder?, p. 157. 29 Comité 1961 was a collaborative initiative of the Quakers, Doopsgezinde Vredesgroep (‘Baptist Peace Group’), De Derde Weg (‘The Third Way’ – a peace movement founded in 1951 that did not want to choose between East and West as the two only two options), the Pacifistische Socialistische Partij (PSP; ‘Pacif ist Socialist Party’), Werkgroep van Anti-militaristische Studenten (WAS; ‘Workgroup of Anti-militaristic Students’), Socialistische Jeugd (SJ; ‘Socialist Youth’), Algemene Nederlandse Vredesactie (ANVA; ‘General Dutch Peace Action’), Internationale Vrouwenbond voor Vrede en Vrijheid (‘International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom’), Socialistisch Perspectief (‘Socialist Perspective’), and Kerk en Vrede (‘Church and Peace’). 30 In 2013, this rumour was finally confirmed by former presidents Ruud Lubbers and Dries van Agt.

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far. They were arrested by local police in Arnhem – about 33 miles away from Volkel – and reportedly held and questioned by the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD; ‘National Security Agency’) for five hours.31 The authorities’ response to the protest did not deter others from following. In the spring of 1961, hundreds of young people gathered in Volkel to cycle to Amsterdam, where they protested against nuclear weapons for three days. In 1962, the number of participants doubled and each subsequent year the protest bicycle ride expanded.32 Forging alliances with other youth groups was initially difficult. Many pacifists and social democrats shared the same reservations CND members had about collaborating with communists. They deemed it a contradiction to fight for disarmament together with youth organisations known for having strong ties with the Soviet Union. However, some anti-militarist Christian youth organisations were willing to explore a possible partnership and other youth groups followed suit. The PSP, which dominated Comité 1961, agreed to incidental collaborations with the ANJV and other communist youth organisations, such as the Organisatie voor Progressief Studerende Jeugd (OPSJ; ‘Organisation for Progressive Studying Youth’). In 1964, the ANJV participated in a protest, organised by Comité 1961, against nuclear weapons. The protest attracted about 5,000 people, which was much more than the numbers that had showed up to prior protests. The ANJV was credited with the event’s success, which motivated Comité 1961 to include the ANJV more prominently in its activities.33 By mid-1964, the ANJV had forged successful working partnerships with the Pacifistisch Socialistische Jongeren Werkgroepen (PSJW; ‘Pacifist Socialist Youth Workgroups’), the Werkgroep van Antimilitaristische Studenten (WAS; ‘Workgroup of Anti-militaristic Students’), the antimilitarist Christian youth workgroup, Kerk en Vrede (‘Church and Peace’), and the Socialistische Jeugd (SJ; ‘Socialist Youth’). These groups were represented among the 1,500 people who participated in the 1964 Volkeltocht.34 The ANJV’s successful relationships with non-communist youth should be understood in the context of the Communistische Partij van Nederland (CPN; ‘Communist Party of the Netherlands)’s new autonomous position 31 De Waarheid, ‘Fietstocht tegen A-basis Volkel – BVD hield jongeren 5 uur vast’, De Waarheid, December 19, 1960, p. 3. 32 Archive ANJV 98 (International Institute of Social History). 33 Archive ANJV 98 (International Institute of Social History) and De duizend daden. Een geschiedenis van het Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond 1945-1985, ed. by Tamara Blokzijl, Corita Homma, and Willem Walter (Amsterdam: ANJV, 1985), pp. 28-30. 34 Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst, no. 743.764.

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within the international communist movement. After 1958, the CPN had become increasingly independent from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and made it clear on many occasions that the party gave national activities priority over international activities. The latter were only important to the CPN if they also served a national purpose. De Jonge calls this process, which was visible in most Western communist parties after 1958, ‘de-Russification’. However, not many communist parties took it as far as the CPN, whose quest for independence resulted in an actual split from the Soviet Union and the wider international communist movement.35 The CPGB on the other hand remained a ‘pro-Soviet’ party although, according to Falber, ‘British communists too began to look more closely at Soviet politics and were less ready to fall in line with its switches’.36 In November 1960, a large conference with representatives from 81 communist parties took place in Moscow to discuss the deteriorating relationship between the CPSU on one side and the Chinese Communist Party and its ally, the Albanian Communist Party, on the other. Whilst it became clear the split within the international communist movement was irreversible, the conference succeeded in keeping up an appearance of unity to the outside world.37 This unity came to an end when the Chinese Communist Party, in a June 1963 letter to all communist parties, declared the Soviet Union its enemy. The Chinese party’s denunciation of Khrushchev and the rest of the CPSU leadership as revisionists marked the beginning of twenty years of hostility between China and the Soviet Union.38 The majority of communist parties, including the CPGB, backed the CPSU in the Sino-Soviet conflict. The CPN’s general secretary Paul De Groot was an exception in this matter. In response to the aforementioned letter, he denounced the Chinese party and condemned the Soviet Union. During a speech in May 1965 he went a step further and accused Khrushchev of revisionism and called him a renegade. De Groot’s criticism had a liberalising effect on the party, benefited its youth organisations, and helped lift the Dutch communist movement out of its isolation.39 In terms of its stance on nuclear weapons, 35 A.A. De Jonge, Het communisme in Nederland. De geschiedenis van een politieke partij (Den Haag: Kruseman, 1972), p. 146. 36 Reuben Falber, ‘The 1968 Czechoslovak Crisis: Inside the British Communist Party’, Socialist History Occasional Papers Series no. 5 (Preston: Lancashire Community, 1996), p. 4. 37 De Jonge, Het communisme in Nederland, p 142. 38 Ger Verrips, Dwars, duivels en dromend. De geschiedenis van de CPN 1938-1991 (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 1995), p. 384. 39 Arthur Stam, De CPN en haar buitenlandse kameraden. Proletarisch internationalisme in Nederland (Soesterberg: Aspect, 2004), pp. 220-221.

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for example, the CPN had been only against the British and American bomb in 1959, but by 1963 it condemned all nuclear weapons, including the Soviet Union’s. The CPN’s newfound autonomy from the Soviet Union took away many of the initial reservations non-communists had about working together with the party and its organisations. As a result, young communists were able to play a more prominent role in Comité 1961 during its peak in the early 1960s. That said, Comité 1961’s popularity was short-lived and decline set in during the second half of the 1960s. It struggled with the same problems as CND and was eventually dissolved in 1969. Comité 1961’s limited objective did not provide enough basis for further activities especially when people became increasingly concerned with the Vietnam War. 40 The ANJV organised its final Volkel protest ride in 1964 and began to focus its attention on Vietnam instead. 41

The politicisation of youth Despite young people’s protest against nuclear weapons, overall, teenage culture was by and large innocent and apolitical. This changed in the mid-1960s when a distinct counterculture emerged, a harbinger for the revolutionary events that would take place later that decade. Explaining the causes and consequences of these events, Arthur Marwick stresses the importance of convergence, of the way factors came together to create the unique conditions of that decade. These explanatory factors include events such as the Vietnam War, economic expansion, the dramatic increase of the number of teenagers, the renewal of Marxism and the joining of Marxism and ideas of sexual liberation, the realisation that women’s roles go beyond passive wives and mothers, and the Dadaesque and revolutionary views of the Situationists. 42 On the European continent, groups of nonconformists were appearing in the early 1960s, inspired by Dadaism. The most important of these groups were Provo, which originated in the Netherlands, and the Situationists in 40 International Institute of Social History. Summary of archive Comité 1961 voor de vrede. https://search.iisg.amsterdam/Record/ARCH00304 (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 41 Wij hebben er geen spijt van: een boek over strijd, actie, vriendschap en solidariteit uit de 50-jarige geschiedenis van het ANJV, ed. by Nel van Aalderen (Amsterdam: Comité Herdenking 50 jaar ANJV, 1995), p. 149. 42 Arthur Marwick, The Sixties. Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c. 1958-c. 1974 (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 24.

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France and Italy. 43 Provo emerged around the charismatic bohemian artist Robert Jasper Grootveld, an Amsterdam-based anarchist who was inspired by the art movement Fluxus – an international group of artists, musicians, poets, and writers who aimed to integrate art into life, using everyday materials and experiences. In the spirit of Dada, Fluxus created often tongue-in-cheek interdisciplinary events to bring about social and economic change in an art world that was deemed too elitist. Modern technology was important for artists involved in this movement. All happenings – a term coined by the American artist Allan Kaprow, one of Fluxus’s founding members, in 1959 – were filmed and, wherever possible, broadcasted on television. Grootveld organised the first of a series of happenings in 1961, an anti-smoking campaign. He defaced cigarette advertisements in Amsterdam with the letter K (for kanker, ‘cancer’), for which he was arrested and detained for two months. Nicotine addiction, according to Grootveld (who himself was a heavy smoker) was the symbol of compulsive consumerism and middle-class contentment. Whilst working as a window cleaner on Amsterdam’s Leidseplein, a square known for its nightlife, Grootveld had witnessed police arresting young people for smoking marijuana, something he deemed innocent and harmless, on several occasions. These people would then be taken to the police station, also on Leidseplein, that was lit up by a large neon cigarette advertisement, a harmful product that causes cancer. Grootveld felt that this situation, which prompted his protest, was contradictory and unjust. The publicity generated by Grootveld’s detainment increased his popularity in and outside of the Dutch capital. Soon, he was drawing crowds of young people to the Spui square in the centre of Amsterdam where he organised weekly anti-smoking happenings. Among the spectators was Roel van Duijn, who had been active in the ban-the-bomb movement. Van Duijn was amazed by these happenings which he characterised as stimulating and unusual, though he admitted that Grootveld was a bit of a charlatan. Grootveld’s happenings were theatrical and humorous with a critical undercurrent, and received significant media attention. 44 Most of Grootveld’s followers were apolitical. Van Duijn was somewhat of an exception in that respect – a middle-class pacifist and anarchist, politically active, and a product of the newly founded student movement. As noted in the introduction to this chapter, prior to this point, universities were breeding grounds for the future elite, where students were protected from 43 Marwick, The Sixties, p. 481. 44 Righart, De eindeloze jaren zestig, pp. 189-199.

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any changes in society. Very slowly, universities became more accessible for lower-middle and working-class youth. The total number of students rose throughout the sixties and so did the percentage of students subsidised by the government – which resulted in social mobility. 45 This new breed of students was going to change the very nature of universities. Van Duijn and Grootveld crossed paths again in 1965. Together they founded Provo, an anarchist counterculture movement that used nonviolent bait to provoke violent responses from authorities. Its manifesto declared its foundation was ‘a desperate attempt to change society’. Its manifesto predicted the movement’s inevitable demise: ‘Though Provo is aware it will be defeated, it will nevertheless take every opportunity to provoke society’. 46 And provoke it did. The first issue of its namesake magazine, published in July 1965, contained a nineteenth century manual for homemade explosives, and a firecracker to help the bourgeois reader become a convincing anarchist terrorist. The publication was immediately seized by the police and its editors; among them Roel van Duijn and known anarchist Rob Stolk, were arrested. 47 The ANJV, which regardless of its newfound popularity had remained a rather old-fashioned and pragmatic organisation, did not really understand Provo’s tactics: Their campaigns were absurd. I remember that they handed out currants against capitalism. Currants against capitalism, how ridiculous is that? We at the ANJV couldn’t help but making fun of them (Bart b. 1946, Amsterdam).

It took ANJV members some convincing before they could see the importance of developing a partnership with Provo and vice versa. It was their shared fight against fascism and anger about Dutch collaboration during the German occupation that ultimately forged mutual understanding and respect between Provo and the ANJV and laid the foundation for further collaborations during the protest against the war in Vietnam in years to come. The ANJV’s never-ceasing fight against fascism had lost popularity in the 1950s, as there was a consensus in the Netherlands that, with the post-Second World War creation of a welfare state and the recovery of the 45 James C. Kennedy, Nieuw Babylon in aanbouw. Nederland in de jaren zestig (Amsterdam: Boom 1995), p. 155. 46 Righart, De eindeloze jaren zestig, p. 199. 47 Ibid., pp. 199-200.

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Dutch economy in the 1950s, the threat of fascism had been resolved. 48 This attitude changed in the 1960s under the influence of the widely publicised 1961 Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem, and the 1965 publication of Jacques Presser’s seminal work, Ondergang: De vervolging en verdelging van het Nederlandse Jodendom 1940-1945 (‘Extinction: The Persecution and Destruction of Dutch Jewry 1940-1945’). Both the book and the trial heightened awareness of the crimes of the Holocaust, and underlined the shameful role of the Dutch in the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands. It also increased the significance of and respect for the resistance, including the communist resistance, especially among Dutch youth who had been born after the war. They felt cheated by their elders who had, until then, underplayed Dutch collaboration with the enemy. Because they had kept quiet about this, youth began to believe that these hidden fascist tendencies had poisoned Dutch post-war politics. These suspicions formed an important incentive to intensify the fight against fascism and radicalise politically. The latter was to be accomplished, Dan Stone argues, by overthrowing their parents’ generation’s morality and values, which, in the eyes of many Baby Boomers, had induced Nazi collaboration and allowed for the rise of fascism. 49 The protests against the May 1966 wedding of Princess Beatrix to Claus von Amstel – a German who had been a member of the Hitlerjugend before his conscription into the Wehrmacht in 1944 – was very much a manifestation of these sentiments among youth. The wedding understandably caused a lot of anger and resentment among the Dutch public and Provo seized it as a chance to provoke. On the day of the wedding, on March 10, 1966, a demonstration took place at the Dokwerker (‘Longshoreman’), a statue in Amsterdam’s old Jewish neighbourhood which had been erected in commemoration of the 1941 February Strike. The fact that youth and sympathising adults gathered at this monument, where communists held yearly gatherings to commemorate the February Strike, may well signify an increased respect for the communist role in the resistance – a role that had been marginalised as a result of Cold War attitudes – and an overall identification with communism. This demonstration grew quickly in size, attracting people from different walks of life who gathered to protest the wedding. Some of them wore white Stars of David with the number six million, others carried banners that read ‘Long Live the Republic’. The demonstration moved towards inner-city Amsterdam and, when the royal 48 Dan Stone, Goodbye to All That? The Story of Europe since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 60. 49 Ibid., p 113.

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gilded carriage passed by, members of Provo exploded smoke bombs. Fights between police and demonstrators followed until deep into the night. Nine days later, this time unprovoked, there was another confrontation between the Amsterdam police and Provo. The police disrupted an exhibition of images of police violence during the royal wedding, organised by Provo, which resulted in a mini-riot. It soon became clear that these riots were only a build-up to something much bigger.50 The police and whomever condoned the police’s harsh treatment of protesters were quickly labelled ‘fascists’. The whole ordeal surrounding the royal wedding reinforced the idea that fascism was still very much present in Dutch society. Following youthful revolutionary leftists in other Western European countries, Dutch youth began to use the terms ‘fascist’ and ‘fascism’ to differentiate between right and wrong. Jolande Withuis has referred to the reintroduction of anti-fascist rhetoric and activism as modieus antifascisme (‘fashionable anti-fascism’). Indeed, an unintended effect of this trend was that the term ‘fascism’ lost its meaning over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, which would make the later fight against a real fascist threat in the 1980s all the more difficult. Nonetheless, as the only Dutch party whose fight against fascism had never ceased since the 1930s, the CPN, as well as its organisations, gained popularity among dissatisfied youth, and was often the motor behind their anti-fascist activities.51 About a month after the royal wedding, there was another violent altercation on the streets of Amsterdam. On June 13, 14, and 15, construction workers – among them many CPN members – were in the capital protesting the Sociaal Fonds Bouwnijverheid (‘Social Fund for the Building Industry’) which had proposed a two percent administrative charge on vacation pay for non-union construction workers. As communists were not allowed to join any of the mainstream unions, they would lose two percent of their vacation pay. To prevent this injustice, they had come out to protest in large numbers. On June 13, disturbances took place inside of the building where construction workers collected their vacation pay. Chaos and fighting ensued inside and outside the building. Around 2,000 workers gathered outside and, when the police arrived, they rioted. The bricklayer Jan Weggelaar died during the violence, which further escalated the situation.52 Fights continued 50 Righart, De eindeloze jaren zestig, pp. 218-219. 51 Jolande Withuis, Na het kamp. Vriendschap en politieke strijd (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2005), pp. 282-284. 52 De Volkskrant (June 14, 1966, p. 1) reports another death but there is no information about this individual’s name or the circumstances during which he died.

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throughout the night. The next morning, an article about Weggelaar’s death appeared in De Telegraaf, a right-wing newspaper, which stated that he had died of a heart attack. Many construction workers refused to believe Weggelaar had died of natural causes, as eyewitnesses saw police officers beat him with batons just before he collapsed.53 In response, communist union man, Klaas Staphorst, swiftly put together a demonstration against police brutality in the old Jewish quarter. Construction workers refocused their anger on De Telegraaf and the author of the article on the death of Weggelaar. It should be noted that De Telegraaf had never been popular among the working class, as it was known for always choosing the employers’ side in work disputes. Furthermore, the paper had collaborated with the German occupiers in the Second World War, whereas more respectable papers had either gone underground, or temporarily ceased publication. After the war, De Telegraaf received a 30-year publication ban for publishing Nazi propaganda during the German occupation, a ban that was already reversed in 1949. This reversal was illustrative of a much larger tendency where those who had collaborated with the enemy were seemingly quickly forgiven and enabled to resume their jobs, while communists were persecuted and their role in the resistance conveniently forgotten. In the immediate post-war period, instead of enforcing the ban on De Telegraaf, the government was more concerned with trying to ban De Waarheid, the newspaper of the resistance. Unable to do so, the government moved to boycott the communist paper after 1948.54 These injustices formed the backdrop to the anger felt by protesting construction workers in the spring of 1966. On June 14, a large group of angry workers attacked the Telegraaf building located in inner-city Amsterdam and another riot erupted. Provo and other angry youth, including ANJV members, joined the workers in their fight, during which cars were set on fire, windows were broken, and shops were damaged. More than 80 people were wounded during the disturbances.55 The ANJV, together with a large number of progressive student and youth organisations, including Provo and the social democratic student organisation Politeia, signed a petition against the police brutality that had taken 53 The report of the medical examiner confirmed that Weggelaar suffered from a heart defect which had caused a massive heart attack. See: De Volkskrant, June 15, 1966, p. 2. 54 This boycott entailed for example that Waarheid journalists were not given permission to attend government press conferences. See: Jolande Withuis, Raadselvader. Kind in de Koude Oorlog (Amsterdam: Bezige Bij, 2018), p. 64. 55 De Volkskrant, June 14, 1966, p. 1, and June 15, 1966, and Algemeen Handelsblad, June 14, 1966, p. 2, and Het Parool, June 14, 1966, p. 1.

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place during the riots. The organisations declared their solidarity with the construction workers’ protest, and called upon Amsterdam’s youth to sign the petition and support Weggelaar’s family by attending his funeral en masse.56 After the funeral, which took place on June 16, 1966 and was attended by a large number of people, peace was restored in Amsterdam.57 Meanwhile in Britain, it was relatively quiet in the f irst half of the 1960s. Like in the Netherlands, most new radical ideas came out of the art movement and art colleges were important hubs of political discussion and debate. Another breeding ground for new ideas were universities, but this was only after 1962 and in moderation. Compared to other countries, British students radicalised late. Small groups of (ultra) left students were organised within universities, but they did not have a great deal of influence and only voiced their ideas through student newspaper articles or student union speeches and failed to reach a broader audience. Contrary to other countries such as the United States, West-Germany, Italy, and France where students responded to social conflicts, state repression, political dictatorships, and authoritarianism, there was no direct cause for British students to radicalise around. Eventually, it was the war in Vietnam and the position of the Labour Party on this war that would provide students with a motive, and subsequently a broad and strong student/youth movement developed around the protests against the war.58 After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War tensions began to ease, opening up potential political space for the communist left. In Britain, the Labour Party won the election in 1964 and Harold Wilson became prime minister. Many people, especially young people, believed Wilson and his government were going to make a difference and would produce much wanted change in politics and society. And to be sure, a number of liberalising social reforms were passed through parliament during the first and second Wilson ministry (1964-1970), including the near abolition of capital punishment, liberalisation of the abortion law, decriminalisation of sex between men in private, the abolition of theatre censorship, and the Divorce Reform Act. The voting age was reduced from twenty-one to 18 in 1969, the proportion of council houses increased from 42 to 50 percent, and crucial steps were taken towards stopping discrimination against women 56 Jeugd, June 1966. 57 Het Parool (June 17, 1966, p. 7) reports that hundreds of people attended the funeral, De Waarheid (June 17, 1966, p. 1) reports that thousands of men and women paid their last respects to Weggelaar. 58 Marwick, The Sixties, pp. 57-60 and p. 560.

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and ethnic minorities.59 For the first time in British history, more money was allocated to education than to defence, and the Open University was founded to give students of all ages and classes the opportunity to obtain a degree through part-time study and distance learning. In comparison, Wilson’s outlook on foreign affairs was not as progressive. He felt strongly about maintaining Britain’s world role by keeping the Commonwealth united and nurturing the Anglo-American alliance. Wilson’s government, especially during his first three years in office, struggled to stave off the devaluation of the pound. As its collapse would imperil the dollar, impact American prosperity, and ultimately endanger the American effort in Vietnam, the United States provided a rescue package for the pound in the summer of 1965. Jeremy Fielding observes that the United States’ financial aid to Britain gave them a degree of leverage in their attempts to impose their aspirations for British diplomatic and military commitments on the Wilson government.60 This development left Wilson between a rock and a hard place over Vietnam. He disappointed President Johnson by refusing to commit troops to the Vietnam War, whilst alienating many at home with his failure to condemn the American intervention in that county. Aside from Vietnam, young people were also angry about the Labour Party’s refusal to intervene militarily in then-Rhodesia, when Ian Smith’s minority Rhodesian Front government declared independence. Youth – both students as well as working youth – radicalised against the government and turned to revolutionaries like Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin for inspiration.61 With this came a renewed interest in Old Left organisations like the YCL. In turn, the YCL made a significant effort to align its politics and publication with rebellious youth culture.

The student movement British students, inspired by powerful student movements abroad and Marxism, began to demand change at universities. They aimed their discontent at 59 Wilson’s second term witnessed a growing concern about immigration to the United Kingdom. Exploiting people’s fears about newcomers, Enoch Powell made his famous Rivers of Blood speech during which he criticised mass immigration, which caused a political storm, and led to the Powell’s dismissal from the Shadow Cabinet by Conservative Party leader Edward Heath. 60 Jeremy Fielding, ‘Coping with Decline: US Policy toward the British Defense Reviews of 1966’, Diplomatic History Vol. 23, No. 4 (Fall 1999), 633-656 (p. 644). 61 Fraser, 1968. A Student Generation in Revolt, pp. 108-110.

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the National Union of Students (NUS), which lacked credibility because of the ‘no politics’ clause in its constitution and a leadership that was unwilling to back any demonstrative action. Students affiliated with the CPGB were the motor behind the campaign to politicise and empower the NUS, writes Caroline Hoefferle. The party had formed a National Student Committee in 1963 to coordinate activities among students. Willie Thompson, a student organiser and National Student Committee member, clarifies the party’s interest in the student movement in an October 1965 pamphlet, Notes on Communist Work among Students. He explains that, in order to fulfil the party’s 1951 programme British Road to Socialism which strove for left unity and an alliance with Labour, the party should embrace students as future leaders of society and offer political leadership to student activists. According to Thompson, the CPGB should leaflet universities and protest gatherings, provide speakers for their student societies, and ensure that the Daily Worker was available in university libraries and common rooms. Furthermore, the party should address issues concerning students, including student representation in university decision-making, student union autonomy, and foster international student solidarity.62 A year after Thompson’s pamphlet was published, Communist Party student organiser Fergus Nicholson invited prominent student union leaders to a meeting to discuss a new student organisation. Hoefferle notes that these leaders, including David Adelstein from the London School of Economics (LSE), David Triesman from the University of Essex, and Anna Ford from the University of Manchester, had been attending NUS meetings and were frustrated with its apolitical stance. Instigated by Nicholson, and together with a small group of YCL members, Young Liberals, and some Trotskyists, these student union leaders created the Radical Student Alliance (RSA). Its aim was to seize control from the moderates in charge of the NUS.63 The communist input in this first broad student organisation was strong, with key players including Martin Jacques and Alan Hunt, who would become the motor behind many of the progressive reforms within the CPGB in the 1970s.64 The RSA manifesto stressed that students have the right to full control over their unions and effective participation in all decisions that 62 Caroline M. Hoefferle, British Student Activism in the Long Sixties (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), p. 69. 63 Alan Travis, ‘Student Rebels Were ‘Frighteningly Radical’, The Guardian, May 30, 2000, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/may/31/freedomofinformation.politics (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 64 Geoff Andrews, Endgames and New Times. The Final Years of British Communism (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2004), p. 53.

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affect them. The RSA worked within the NUS to get the ‘no politics’ clause in its constitution repealed, but also together with individual student unions to encourage activism. The RSA’s first meetings were badly attended according to Triesman, who described the discussions that took place as ‘dour as hell’ and ‘deadly serious’, because ‘the revolution was bound to take place the following week’.65 Fortunately, according to Triesman, the RSA began to inject some humour into their speeches to liven up the meetings. This decision paid off and RSA meetings began to attract hundreds of students from different universities.66 A month later, the RSA organised its first protest in response to a governmental decision to increase overseas student fees. Students, faculty, and prominent leaders in higher education were united in their opposition to this decision and many felt it was racist, because it affected many students who had come to Britain from developing countries in the hope to obtain quality affordable education provided by British universities. The NUS did not take action on the issue, which prompted the RSA to organise its own rally of 3,000 students in London, on February 3, 1967 and a National Day of Action, on February 22 where, nationwide, an estimated 100,000 students participated in marches, meetings, rallies, strikes, and other forms of protest.67 The following month, students occupied the LSE, as a reaction to the school’s decision to ban a protest meeting brought on by the appointment of Sir Walter Adams – former principal of University College Rhodesia – as the school’s new director.68 Students opposed Adam’s appointment because of his links with Ian Smith’s racist regime in then-Rhodesia. A meeting to discuss action against Adams’ appointment was organised on January 31, 1967 by David Adelstein, president of the Student Union, and Marshall Bloom, president of the Graduate Students’ Association. Though the meeting was officially banned by the school’s director, Sir Sydney Caine, 600 students turned up anyway. To keep students out of the lecture theatre where the meeting was scheduled to take place, Caine had all of the light fuses removed and posted porters around the theatre. A scuffle followed and an elderly porter by the name Edward Poole fell and died of a heart attack. Adelstein and Bloom were subsequently suspended, and a boycott and sit-in ensued on March 13. The occupation of the LSE, which should be understood as a general protest against the lack of democracy within the school, received 65 Caroline M. Hoefferle, British Student Activism in the Long Sixties, p. 69. 66 Its 1967 conference attracted 400 student delegates from 108 colleges. 67 Fraser, 1968. A Student Generation in Revolt, p. 109, and Caroline Hoefferle, British Student Activism in the Long Sixties, pp. 68-70. 68 Adams was the principal of the University College of Rhodesia from 1955-1967. Many students felt that he represented the evils of Ian Smith’s government.

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national support from students all over the country, the NUS, and the RSA, as well as from prominent adults such as Bertrand Russell. The NUS and RSA organised a demonstration march on March 17, in which about 2,000 students marched down Fleet Street in support of the occupation and in solidarity with Bloom and Adelstein – victims of injustice. After nine days, the occupation came to an end when the school’s administration decided to suspend the penalty on Adelstein and Bloom.69 Whilst the students were unable to stop Adams from taking up his new post, the occupation was nonetheless deemed successful. It was widely held that social and political change was imminent. Jacques who joined the CPGB at the age of eighteen and was aff iliated to the YCL, was a student at Manchester University in 1967. He felt that these protests were different from anything he had experienced prior to this moment: I felt something really big was happening, suddenly there was a New Left emerging which was not defined by the old traditions or the old issues – it was thinking in a new way and bringing in people who had all these new ideas. In the past I’d been the initiator, now I felt I had to stand back and learn.70

However, the RSA disbanded after only eighteen months of existence. One of the reasons for its collapse, according to Triesman, were sectarian differences between Leninists, Trotskyists, and libertarian anarchists who could no longer find common ground.71 After its demise, the YCL remained keen to support students’ initiatives and tried to connect demands for academic freedom and democracy to the movement for political change within society as a whole. In other words, it considered the struggle in universities as part of the larger struggle for socialism: Indeed, the political progress towards socialism is necessary to fully satisfy these students’ demands. Therefore, a closer relationship between the progressive sections of the labour movement and the working class with students and other groups in society would enable both workers and students to combine their own campaigns more tightly into a common struggle.72 69 Marwick, The Sixties, p. 563, and Caroline M. Hoefferle, British Student Activism in the Long Sixties, p. 50. 70 Fraser, 1968. A Student Generation in Revolt, p. 143. 71 Ibid., p. 111. 72 CP/YCL/9/12 Red Flag Merseyside YCL magazine Vol. 2 No. 1 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre).

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The editors of Red Flag, the Merseyside YCL magazine that published this statement, closely followed students’ activities. It published lengthy articles on sit-ins at the universities of Liverpool and Warwick, and called on its readers to support students in their fight for institutional democracy.73 The number of students who were actually politically active were surprisingly few, something which is often overlooked when discussing the student movement of the 1960s. However, through sit-ins, a relatively small number of radical students – among them YCL members and members of the CPGB’s National Student Committee – were able to command the support of students who were usually moderate and perhaps even politically apathetic.74 The latter formed an excellent recruitment pool for the YCL, which tripled its membership between 1958 and 1965, from 1,387 to 4,276.75 Evan Smith notes that, although Trotskyist organisations such as the International Socialists (IS) and the International Marxist Group (IMG) benefitted the most from student radicalism of the late 1960s, the YCL was nonetheless also influenced by the students and especially the young women who joined around this time. Smith also observes that, beyond their influence in the YCL, these recruits were also the motor behind the rising interest in Gramscism and Eurocommunism within the CPGB in the mid-1970s, as a means to connect cultural radicalism of the new social movements with the party’s emphasis on trade unionism and labourist politics, and the call for party program reforms.76 Surprisingly, especially in light of the relatively early rebellion around Provo, Dutch students radicalised even later than their British contemporaries. It wasn’t until 1969 that students in the Netherlands organised large-scale protests. In that year, they occupied the Katholieke Hogeschool van Tilburg (‘Catholic Polytechnic of Tilburg’) and the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA; ‘University of Amsterdam’). Much like Britain, the Netherlands lacked strong politicising and radicalising factors such as the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement in the United States, De Gaulle’s administration in France or a fascist past like in Italy and West-Germany. The immediate cause of the occupation of the Hogeschool in Tilburg was its board’s refusal 73 Ibid. 74 Thomas Linehan, Communism in Britain, 1920-39. From the Cradle to the Grave (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 286. 75 Kenneth Newton, The Sociology of British Communism, (London: The Penguin Press, 1969), p. 161. 76 Evan Smith, ‘Are the Kids United?: The Communist Party of Great Britain, Rock Against Racism, and the Politics of Youth Culture’, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Vol. 5, No.2 (Fall 2011), 85-117 (p. 95).

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to implement a proposal to democratise the school’s management. The proposal, written by four professors, five assistants, and twelve students, was denied by the school’s director, a decision that sparked the occupation of the director’s office on April 28, 1969. The board closed the school and the students re-christened the Hogeschool the Karl Marx Universiteit. The occupation did not last long; after seven days the school’s board gave in without any reservations and accepted the proposal. The occupation of the UvA, which started soon after on May 16, proceeded less smoothly, though it was only child’s play compared to Paris, where student protests in 1968 had sparked a major general strike involving millions of workers. During a speech, the university’s director ridiculed the students’ demands for participation in the institution’s daily management, which prompted 600 students and non-students to occupy the building. Via an unstable airlift, called Ho Chi Minh Brug (‘Ho Chi Minh Bridge’), communist construction workers supplied the occupants with food and water. The UvA was renamed the Domela Nieuwenhuis Universiteit, after the Dutch socialist-anarchist leader. Adding to the drama and tapping into the anti-fascist zeal of students, a f ilm about the Nazi occupation and the communist resistance was shown to the occupiers, in an attempt to underline the unity between young intellectuals, i.e. students, and the revolutionary proletariat, i.e. communist construction workers. On the fifth day of the occupation, riots broke out in the inner city and, in response, the Mayor of Amsterdam decided to clear the university. The UvA board and the occupants were unable to reach an agreement and the occupation ended without any direct outcome. On a larger scale however, this protest did contribute to the intended changes. Whilst the government objected to students’ methods, it agreed with the underlying cause. As such, student participation in universities’ management was stipulated in the 1970 Wet Universitaire Bestuurshervorming (‘Act of University Reform’). Compared to other countries where similar laws were passed, this act provided students with a generous amount of managerial responsibility within universities.77 Aside from domestic ‘fascism’, such as the undemocratic systems in higher education and police brutality, the ANJV also tried to mobilise students and radicalise working youth in the fight against a more traditional fascism, such as the fight against the Francoist regime in Spain, the rearmament of West-Germany that had started in the mid-1950s, and the mass murder that was taking place in Indonesia under General Soeharto. In their efforts, 77 Kennedy, Nieuw Babylon in aanbouw, pp. 168-173, and Righart, De eindeloze jaren zestig, pp. 159-166.

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the ANJV often found an ally in left student organisations such as Politeia, the PSP, the Studenten Vakbeweging (SVB: ‘Student Union’), and Provo.78

The anti-Vietnam War movement In Britain, the opposition to the war in Vietnam had already begun in the 1950s, when the British Vietnam Committee – founded by communist sympathiser, Commander Edgar Young – and CND had raised the issue and held protests.79 The movement intensified after the United States began bombing North Vietnam and introduced ground troops in 1965. These actions sparked protest demonstrations at universities nationwide, and the establishment of the British Council for Peace in Vietnam (BCPV). The latter was formed by people associated with CND, and largely dominated by the Communist Party. Aside from being active in the BCPV, the YCL was also the motor behind the formation of the Youth for Peace in Vietnam Movement (YPVM), an alliance of fourteen youth organisations founded in the first half of 1966.80 The YPVM was less diplomatic than the BCPV, which believed that by campaigning for peace in Vietnam without taking sides, it could unite the widest political support. Despite its name, the Youth for Peace in Vietnam movement left little doubt over where its sympathies lay, taking a pro-National Liberation Front (NLF) stance. On July 3, 1966, 4,000 people, including 2,000 YPVM members, demonstrated outside of the United States Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square. A resolution demanding an end to bombings and the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam was presented to embassy officials. Before joining the rally, the YPVM had marched – chanting ‘Victory to the Vietcong’ – from London’s East End to Downing Street to drop off letters for the Prime Minister calling for Britain to dissociate itself 78 ‘Solidair met Spaanse Democraten. Betoging in Hoofdstad’, De Waarheid, December 14, 1966, p. 1. ‘Verbod van Voorstelling’ De Waarheid September 25, 1968, p.4. ‘Anti-Soeharto Demonstratie’ Algemeen Handelsblad, October 7, 1968, p. 2. ‘Van Hall geeft toestemming voor demonstratie’, De Waarheid April 8, 1966, p. 3. 79 Sylvia Ellis remarks that the anti-Vietnam War movement in Britain was largely middle-class and altruistic as British protesters were not faced with the draft. However, the war in Vietnam allowed them to criticise the Labour government for betraying their social democratic ideals. See: Sylvia Ellis, ‘Anti-Vietnam War Movement Britain’, in The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. 1500 to the Present, Vol. 2 (Hoboken, John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 2009), pp. 218-219. 80 Report of the National Council to the 26th National Congress and Festival of Socialism 1967, CP/YCL/04/06 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre), and Sylvia Ellis, ‘Anti-Vietnam War Movement Britain’, pp. 218-219.

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from US policy in Vietnam.81 The demonstration at Grosvenor Square ended in a confrontation with the police. The crowd became agitated after John Gollan, at the time general secretary of the CPGB, had urged people to disperse and break up the demonstration. Scuffles followed which caused the police to intervene and 31 arrests were made.82 That same year, a small group of Trotskyists founded the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC), ‘in order to promote a public resistance to Wilson’s policies and mobilise support for the Vietnamese struggle’.83 The BCPV was not particularly happy with the formation of the VSC and felt that this new organisation would narrow the base of opposition to the war because of its support for the NLF – support which was even more overt than that of the YPVM. The VSC’s approach was completely the opposite of that of the BCPV, according to Tariq Ali, one of the VSC’s founders: The BCPV believed in discreet pressure politics. Those who pulled the strings inside the organisation supported the Vietnamese, but secretly and in whispers. In public they were simply for peace. We wanted a lasting peace and felt that this could only come about through a Vietnamese victory. We therefore stressed our solidarity with the Vietnamese struggle and planned a series of demonstrations to emphasise our way of doing things.84

The first VSC demonstration took place on October 22, 1967. Despite the fact that organisations like the BCPV and CND had not supported VSC’s call for a demonstration, about 10,000 people had gathered that day to march to the American Embassy. Though it ended in a number of small riots with the police, the demonstration was considered incredibly successful. The next protest was larger and more violent. On March 17, 1968, around 25,000 people marched from Trafalgar Square to the American Embassy. The crowd reportedly broke through police lines and occupied the area in front of the embassy. Mounted police arrived soon after, and a two-hour fight ensued, which ended when the VSC leadership decided to evacuate the square. The 81 Reuters Historical Collection: UK Anti-Vietnam Demonstrators Hand In Letters At American Embassy and Australia House 1967: https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVABSLY62XBVUIUMVLWY8O0UZZKZ-UK-ANTI-VIETNAM-WAR-DEMONSTRATORS-HAND-IN-LETTERS-ATAMERICAN (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 82 ‘1966 Arrests in London after Vietnam rally’ BBC on this day July 3, 1966: http://news.bbc. co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/3/newsid_2757000/2757911.stm (Accessed on March 29, 2021) and ’31 held in embassy clash’ The Daily Mirror, July 4, 1966, p. 20. 83 Tariq Ali, Street Fighting Years. An Autobiography of the Sixties (London: Verso, 2005), p. 187. 84 Ibid., p. 199.

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next day, the Guardian reported 300 arrests and 86 injured.85 After this fierce protest, Ali, who had previously not been affiliated to any political organisation, notified two Trotskyist comrades that he wanted to join the Fourth International. Whilst waiting for his acceptance, he read Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution. Thoroughly impressed by this work, he felt sad that this man had been anathematised by Stalinism.86 Indeed, orthodox communists considered ‘Trots’ to be traitors, in the same league as fascists, and blamed them for anything that undermined the Soviet regime. When YCL member, Phil Cohen, confessed to his mother, a devout communist, that he was reading a book by Isaac Deutscher, a Trotskyist from 1933 to 1938, ‘She almost spat out the words, “Not that dirty Trot?”’ Cohen remembered being angry about this reaction and felt that ‘the CPGB seemed incapable of having a dialogue with ideas different to its own’.87 Within the YCL, this negative view of Trotskyism began to change in the 1960s. In 1968, Cogito, the theoretical and discussion journal of the YCL, published a study of Trotsky and Trotskyism by Monty Johnstone. The editors noted in the issue’s introduction, ‘Such is the neglect of the subject of Trotsky by the communist movement that Monty Johnstone has had to start from scratch’.88 This particular issue of Cogito, solely devoted to Trotsky, was of significant importance. It showed willingness on behalf of the YCL to leave sectarian differences behind and to start focusing on common ground – Marxism and the protest against the war in Vietnam – in order to unite with radicalised youth. The YCL and the CPGB decided to support the next VSC demonstration on October 27, 1968. Ali recalled the moment he realised the Communist Party had joined the protest: As we were about to start, a few extremely tough-looking and burly men came to the front and linked arms with me on both sides. I was slightly nervous and a number of IS and IMG comrades were also close by to prevent a mishap. But these were London dockers and had been sent by the Communist Party to stay close to me throughout the long march to Hyde Park. I was extremely moved by their protective presence and made a mental note to thank the old party.89 85 ‘300 arrested after Vietnam protests’, The Guardian, March 18, 1968: https://www.theguardian. com/theguardian/2010/mar/18/vietnam-war-protests-london-trafalgarsquare (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 86 Ali, Street Fighting Years, p. 261. 87 Cohen, Children of the Revolution, pp. 28-29. 88 ‘Editorial’, Cogito. Theoretical and Discussion Journal of the YCL, 1968, p. 2. 89 Ali, Street Fighting Year, p. 305.

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The YCL’s support of the VSC did not mean that it had given up on its own Vietnam initiatives, which by this time included Medical Aid for Vietnam, and an active role in the World Youth Campaign for Action for the Victory of the Vietnamese People.90 Vietnam was also the focal point of the YCL’s twenty-sixth national congress and Festival of Socialism in May 1967, two events that took place simultaneously at Derbyshire Miners’ Holiday Centre in Skegness, which was, according to the league’s leadership, a triumph. Many young people went on this ‘holiday with a difference’, that featured several events of solidarity and support for the Vietnamese people. Aside from discussions and lectures on Vietnam, communism, socialism, and Trotskyism, the organisers also planned some lighter entertainment. The Kinks performed at the Saturday dance, there was an international folk concert, and visitors were able to enjoy onsite facilities including a swimming pool, nightclub, roller skating rink, bars, and a cinema.91 This festival/ congress was a product of The Trend – Communism campaign that had started in 1967 and attempted to marry politics and culture, and make socialism fashionable. This initiative is illustrative of changing interests within the CPGB. The party began to consider youth culture as a site of political struggle, and therefore importance.92 With the Trend campaign, the YCL was hoping to unite various progressive elements of society that were looking to change Britain and transform this mass rebelliousness into Marxist-Leninist revolutionism. However, as noted by Smith, the people behind the Trend recognised that youth did not experience ‘exploitation’ necessarily through economic conflict, which is why it also emphasised other spheres of social conflict, such as racism, homophobia, and sexism.93 With this goal in mind, it organised a mass distribution of leaflets in schools and youth clubs in a bid to win recruits, among increasingly radicalising and politicising youth. Mike Power (1944) noted that the YCL’s new strategy had quite an impact and had an almost cathartic effect on members: In 1967 we produced this leaflet The Trend – Communism, it was a fourpager, we produced a million copies for a membership drive and we 90 CP/YCL/17/04 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre). 91 CP/YCL/04/06 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre) and Mike Waite, ‘Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll (and Communism) in the 1960s’, in Opening the Books. Essays on the Social and Cultural History of the British Communist Party, ed. by Geoff Andrews, Nina Fishman, and Kevin Morgan (London: Pluto Press, 1995), 210-224 (pp. 218-219). 92 Worley, ‘Marx-Lenin-Rotten-Strummer: British Marxism and Youth Culture in the 1970s’, p. 506. 93 Smith, ‘Are the Kids United?’, p. 95.

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got thousand new members.94 If you look at that leaflet today – it had a picture on it of a young woman in a stripy skirt which was below her knees, not how things actually were then, and a middle-age bloke playing a trumpet, which wasn’t the rock and roll of the time. […] We started up Trend clubs, there was one in Wembley where a group called the Bow Street Runners used to play. They became very popular with 4-5000 young people turning up every week. […] The great thing about the YCL in the 1960s, which actually helped a lot of people like me to unload themselves of the worst of the baggage of communism of the 1940s and 1950s, was that it began to seriously question the class party line – we knew that young people did not go along with that and attempted to somehow at least address what was going on.95

In the Netherlands, the ANJV founded the equivalent of the Youth for Peace in Vietnam Movement in 1965. Communist teenagers had been in touch with revolutionary Vietnamese youth from 1947 onwards, and when the conflict in Vietnam intensified in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the first steps were taken to start a solidarity campaign to support the Vietnamese in their struggle. Dutch people who had experienced the Second World War were initially largely unwilling to join this initiative against the American invasion of Vietnam, due to a moral obligation to support their liberators who, in their eyes, freed the Dutch from the Nazis. People born during or just after the German occupation were less inclined to blindly support the United States in all its endeavours, and joined the Dutch Vietnam solidarity movement. Other segments of society joined the protests against the war in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1967, the US bombings in North Vietnam were condemned in the Dutch House of Commons, though it wouldn’t be until December 1972 that the government openly criticised the United States’ involvement in Vietnam.96 On September 25, 1965, 800 people from f ifteen left-wing youth organisations, including the ANJV, attended the inaugural meeting of the Jongeren Komitee voor Vrede en Zelfbeschikking voor Vietnam (JKVZV; ‘Youth Committee for Peace and Independence for Vietnam’) in Amsterdam. The JKVZV’s f irst protest in October 1965 involved a picket-line outside of the American consulate on Amsterdam’s Museum Plein that lasted nine days and nights – one minute for every ten American soldiers 94 The actual number of leaflets was much less, approximately 400,000. 95 Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 176. 96 Kennedy, Nieuw Babylon in aanbouw, p. 77.

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in Vietnam.97 On October 29, a teach-in was organised by the Dutch student union and PSP to educate people about the situation in Vietnam, and two weeks later a JKVZV demonstration took place. Another, more symbolic, JKVZV action was the Plastic Contra Napalm Campaign. Plastic was collected for the Vietnamese people to protect them against napalm attacks:98 I remember we collected 10,000 meters of plastic for the Vietnamese. This was of course a symbolic gesture. We presented the plastic to a delegation of the Vietnamese Liberation Front in Paris. The Vietnamese gave us a token of their appreciation – rings made from the wreckage of US planes that had been shot down. This gave us a tremendous buzz, I thought it was fantastic (Mark b. 1950, Amsterdam).

Much like the British Campaign for Peace in Vietnam, the ANJV wanted to achieve broad political support and were therefore cautious with their slogans. They had just come out of a long period of extreme isolation, and were afraid to lose their newfound popularity by shouting ‘Johnson is a Murderer’, a chant preferred by Provo and the SJ, which were both part of the JKVZV alliance. Aside from endangering its new position, the ANJV also feared the legal consequences associated with this particular chant, as the Dutch penal code includes a criminal defamation law protecting foreign heads of states.99 Consequently, whenever demonstrators began to chant ‘Johnson is a Murderer’, police officers were compelled to make arrests. Many people received fines and, in some cases, ended up in prison for a few days. This only aggravated the crowd, who often turned their anger towards law-enforcement and likened officers to Nazis and fascists.100 Despite the ANJV’s objections to the chosen chant, it was not cautious in expressing sides in terms of the conflict in Vietnam. The ANJV’s 1966 brochure Ons Werk (‘Our Work’) clearly states that calling for peace in Vietnam was not enough and called upon youth to support the Vietnamese Liberation Front: 97 Jeugd, October 1965, p. 5. 98 ANJV archive 97 (International Institute of Social History). 99 The Netherlands is one of eighteen OSCE states that maintain criminal defamation laws protecting foreign heads of state according to a recent report: Defamation and Insult Laws in the OSCE Region: a Comparative Study March 2017, Commissioned by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media: https://ipi.media/criminal-defamation-unduly-limits-media-freedom/ (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 100 Kennedy, Nieuw Babylon in aanbouw, p. 158.

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We have to f ight against those people who, in the name of pacif ism, object to both the actions of the American army as well as those of the Vietnamese liberation fighters. These people discredit the Vietnamese struggle for independence. We are of the opinion that there is only one enemy and that is the United States.101

The war in Vietnam further intensified throughout 1966 and Dutch opposition against American intervention grew accordingly. Vietnam became the most discussed topic in Dutch media and protest groups mushroomed all over the country. These developments caused significant radicalisation, but also a broadening of the anti-war movement. Provo, SJ and several radical antimilitarist Christian and anarchist groups left the JKVZV and formed Aktiegroep Vietnam (‘Action Group Vietnam’) on April 21, 1966. The group was an example of this radicalisation and called for more rebellious protests. Their well-attended demonstrations often ended in violent clashes with the police and received much media attention. Some activists raised the issue that the riotous demonstrations had diverted attention from the war in Vietnam, while others pointed out that change could only be brought about through serious confrontation with the authorities.102 In the meantime, yet another committee against the war in Vietnam was established that gained much broader support among the Dutch population than the JKVZV and Aktiegroep Vietnam, and especially attracted middleclass professionals. Former communist Piet Nak, who had been instrumental in the 1941 February Strike against Nazi persecution of Jews in Amsterdam, formed the Amsterdamse Vietnam Comité (‘Amsterdam Vietnam Committee’) early 1967. Nak and his committee organised two successful demonstrations in May and October of that same year, which, combined, drew more than 25,000 people from all ages and walks of life. Nak was well-respected and was able to reach segments of the Dutch population who had not protested the war thus far but had been feeling increasingly anxious about the United States’ hard-line approach. He cleverly drew comparisons between the US military presence in South Vietnam and the German occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War and even implied that those who did not protest against the Vietnam War had probably been inactive 101 ANJV brochure Ons Werk 1966/1967, Bro 500/5 fol. (International Institute of Social History). 102 Rimko van der Maar, ‘“Johnson War Criminal!”: The Vietnam War Protests in the Netherlands’, in Between Prague Spring and French May. Opposition and Revolt in Europe 1960-1980, ed. by Martin Klimke, Jacco Pekelder, and Joachim Scharloth (Oxford/New York: Berghahn, 2011), 103-115, (pp. 104-105).

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bystanders during the German occupation too. Considering the fact that Dutch collaboration and lack of resistance during the war years was widely discussed in this period, Nak’s statement was controversial yet effective. Nak’s committee, comprised of lawyers, psychologists, teachers, church ministers, and university professors, had decided to avoid slogans that could lead to arrests, and the demonstrations were much more peaceful and decent compared to those organised by Aktiegroep Vietnam. Nak’s approach led to tensions between anti-Vietnam War activists, the more radical activists felt that Nak steered the protest into a bourgeois direction. The CPN and the ANJV didn’t want to have anything to do with Nak and his committee either, not only because he was former-CPN but also because the party considered his initiative an attempt to win over the young workers to the PSP – which Nak had joined since leaving the Communist Party – and to isolate the CPN, notes Rimko van der Maar.103 A final string of Vietnam War protests took place after the US invasion of Laos and Cambodia in 1970 and the fierce bombing of North Vietnam in 1971. The latter moved the ANJV to organise a Popnacht voor Vietnam (‘Pop Music Night for Vietnam’), together with, among others, the youth organisations of the Protestant Anti-Revolutionaire Partij (ARP; ‘Anti-Revolutionary Party’) and the liberal Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD; ‘People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy’). During the event, eighteen bands performed and 35,000 guilders were raised. Its success spurred the youth groups to form a more permanent alliance in 1971, called Komité Jongeren voor Vietnam (‘Youth for Vietnam Committee’). The following year, the alliance, now uniting 27 youth and student organisations, coordinated a Vietnam rally where both the leader of the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA; ‘Labour Party’) and the CPN delivered a speech. This was the first time since the Second World War that representatives from both parties worked together in such public fashion.104 Nevertheless, Cold War attitudes continued to surface. The ANJV was accused by the Federatie van Jeugdgroepen (FJG; ‘Federation of Youth Groups’) of controlling the alliance. An article in Vrij Nederland – a left-wing magazine that was founded as a clandestine newspaper during the Second World War – claimed that the ANJV ensured that people from other youth organisations were officially in charge of Komité Jongeren voor Vietnam, 103 Rimko van der Maar, (2008), ‘The Right to be Right. The Vietnam Movement in the Netherlands’, in Lion and Dragon. Four Centuries of Dutch-Vietnamese Relations, ed. by John Kleinen, et al. (Amsterdam: Boom, 2008), 191-211 (p. 196), and Rimko van der Maar, “Johnson War Criminal”, p. 107. 104 ANJV archive 98 (International Institute of Social History).

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whilst ANJV members would take the position of secretary. By doing so, communists were in charge of all incoming information.105 The FJG left the alliance soon after. Its accusations, however, did not affect the unity between the remaining groups, underlining just how much the political climate had changed. A mass demonstration in Utrecht on January 6, 1973, in response to the Christmas bombings of North Vietnam, marked the pinnacle of the anti-war movement’s success. More than 50,000 people gathered to protest the war in Vietnam, forming the largest demonstration since the Second World War.106 Aside from a few exceptions, such as the Medisch Comité Vietnam (‘Medical Committee Vietnam’), most Vietnam solidarity organisations were disbanded after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on January 26, 1973. Through its activities in the Vietnam movement, the ANJV had been able to come out of isolation. The organisation and its members were respected by supporters of the Komité Jongeren voor Vietnam, and more importantly, the ANJV was f inally recognised by authorities as a bona fide youth organisation. The latter was, for example, illustrated by several city councils’ decision, including that of Amsterdam, to stop excluding the ANJV from subsidy. Naturally, this was a tremendous victory for the ANJV which had not been eligible for any subsidy for twenty years. 107 It is worth noting that the YCL was never recognised and accepted as a mainstream youth organisation, and never received support through the Youth Service.108 Once eligible for subsidies, the ANJV was able to function independently from the CPN, whereas the YCL remained financially tied to the CPGB.

Old guard vs. new guard The ANJV went on to experience a steady growth throughout the sixties and early seventies, which was reflected by a rise in membership and growing number of branches.109 Without providing the exact membership numbers, most likely a remnant of Cold War fear and paranoia, all annual congress 105 De duizend daden, ed. by Blokzijl, Homma, and Walter, pp. 56-57. 106 ‘Kilometers lange stoet Vietnam betogers’, Het Parool, August 8, 1973, p. 3. 107 Archive ANJV 16, Report twelfth congress 1969 (International Institute of Social History). 108 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 330. 109 In the period 1960-1972, the ANJV opened six new branches: Archive ANJV 13, Report seventh congress 1960 Report, Archive ANJV 16, Report thirteenth congress 1972 (International Institute of Social History).

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reports throughout the 1960s, until 1974, indicate a growing membership.110 In De duizend daden (‘The Thousand Deeds’), a book written by former ANJV members for the organisation’s fortieth anniversary in 1985, the editors confirm that the ANJV hardly ever published any membership figures. The only two figures ever revealed were ‘the magical number of 15,000’ in 1945, and a very rough estimate of 10,000 members in 1975.111 Whereas the majority of ANJV members in the 1940s and 1950s were working youth, in the 1960s and 1970s new members were often students, either in secondary school or college. Many of these new students came from non-communist middle-class backgrounds, which in some cases, as noted in this chapter’s introduction, caused friction with the members who came from working-class communist families: I could not help feeling a little annoyed when people from higher classes decided to become communist to rebel against their conservative rightwing parents or just because it was a fashionable thing to do and consequently, I became less active. I thought to myself, if they like canvassing and bill posting so much, be my guest (Janny b. 1946, Amsterdam). I despised those students who all of a sudden pretended to be working class (Bart b. 1946, Amsterdam).

Aware of these feelings among the old guard, the ANJV and OPSJ leadership urged its members to be more inclusive and make sure new recruits would feel at home within either organisation. Jeugd also tried to be more appealing to a wider readership and went through a transformation during the early 1970s – its content becoming more culture forward and its layout more attractive and colourful. Still, compared to other popular magazines, Jeugd was not nearly as radical or progressive as it set out to be. In Britain, the YCL also experienced a clear growth in the 1960s and reached its peak in 1967 with 6,031 members. Its newfound popularity was short-lived: two years later, its membership had dropped to 3,686.112 110 Archive ANJV 16, Report thirteenth congress 1972 (International Institute of Social History). The annual report of 1967 states that the Deventer branch recruited 30 new members during a Vietnam rally, and Amsterdam gained 55 new members in two weeks. In 1972, the ANJV as a whole gained 580 new members and in 1974, it recruited 750 new members. Unfortunately, the annual reports do not reveal anything about members leaving the organisation. 111 De duizend daden, ed. by Blokzijl, Homma, and Walter, p. 73. 112 Graham Stevenson, ‘Anatomy of Decline: The Young Communist League 1967-86’: https:// grahamstevenson.me.uk/2008/12/31/anatomy-of-decline-the-young-communist-league-1967-86/

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Waite associates this sudden decline with the organisation’s lack of internal cohesion. Following traditionalists within the party, hardliners within the league were against the Trend campaign which they considered a distraction from what really mattered, politics.113 They also objected to the revamping of Challenge, which had become a trendy magazine with psychedelic fonts and famous bands on the cover. A split occurred between these hardliners who wanted a small but effective organisation focusing on political education and trade union activism, and another more moderate group who wanted to make the YCL into a mass organisation for ordinary young people.114 Peter (b. 1954, Cambridge) remembers the detrimental effects of this split on a local level: I was quite political and joined the YCL in Cambridge when I was fourteen. Unfortunately, the YCL was dominated by some horrible Stalinist students. Cambridge student groups were very important for the party, very influential, intellectually and politically. A whole sway of people joined the Communist Party under the influence of Martin Jacques. The International Socialists, almost the whole membership, joined the Communist Party between 1968 and 1971. Lots of student organisers and all sorts of other groups joined. They joined the party but not the Cambridge YCL, because it was run by these Stalinists.

Nina Temple (b. 1956, London) who was raised in a communist family and became very active in the YLC has similar recollections: I had joined the YCL in my neighbourhood; it had about 35 members including some nice young men and it was very much a social activity. I became the Westminster YCL social organiser and started running a disco on the estate above the laundry which was quite successful with about 200 people coming along. It was all going swimmingly – this was in the late 1960s – but disaster struck when the branch was taken over by Stalinists. The new group got rid of the branch secretary by saying he was a poofter. The whole thing changed completely. I was at a YCL disco on the estate with a lot of my friends and suddenly the music went off and Fergus Nicholson

(Accessed on March 26, 2021) 113 Waite, ‘Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll (and Communism) in the 1960s’, p. 219. 114 Ibid., pp. 219-221.

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gave a speech about why Russia was right to invade Czechoslovakia. I was mortified and embarrassed, so that was the end of the YCL disco.115

Nicholson belonged to a small but influential group within the YCL who defended the Soviet actions in Czechoslovakia on August 20, 1968 to halt Alexander Dubcek’s Prague Spring. The CPGB expressed reservations about the Soviet intervention, but the YCL’s official stance on this went much further. This stance, in stark contrast with Nicholson’s, was one of solidarity with the Czechoslovak government and the country’s Communist Party, and rejected what they called a Soviet invasion. In October 1968, Cogito dedicated a special supplement to the situation in Czechoslovakia which not only condemned the invasion and called for an immediate unconditional withdrawal but was also very self-critical: Too often we have presented only the positive and not developed our own view of what is negative. Too often we have kept our private doubts and reservations to ourselves and have for the sake of diplomacy and solidarity, not expressed our full views to our comrades working in Socialist countries. This is a lesson then for us in the YCL, to learn and the leadership is generally more guilty than ordinary members. Never again must we keep our private criticism to ourselves because this is perhaps our greatest disservice to our friends, and our contribution to the tragic events of August.116

Independently from their communist parties, which were considered too hesitant in taking a clear stance on the matter, all over the world communist youth organisations issued statements condemning Soviet actions in Czechoslovakia, and expressing deep dismay and protest against the invasion which, according to these organisations, seriously violated the norms for the relations between sovereign states and Socialist countries. Additionally, young communists protested outside of Soviet embassies: I got arrested outside of the Soviet Embassy in 1968, when I was fourteen, demonstrating against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. A party member acted as my solicitor (Peter b. 1954, Cambridge).

115 Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 95. 116 CP/YCL/21/1 Cogito supplement 4, 1968 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre).

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Interestingly, the ANJV did not publish a statement condemning the Soviet invasion. Perhaps the ANJV did not feel the need to distance itself from the party, since the CPN, which had been exceptionally hostile to the Soviet Union at the time, had already published a manifesto which declared that the armed invasion of Czechoslovakia was the Soviet Union’s most disgraceful breach of the principals of Leninism.117 During these years, the ANJV appeared preoccupied with Provo’s political aspirations. After successful collaborations between Provo and the ANJV in the 1960s, the relationship between the two went sour after the Vietnam movement had wound down in the early 1970s. Perhaps it was clear that Provo and the ANJV were just too different and that members of Provo, regardless of their leftist ideals, could never be won over to the side of the communists. Provo’s political ambitions were seemingly the final nail in the coffin. In 1966, Provo had decided to stand as a candidate for the local elections in Amsterdam under the slogan, ‘Have a Laugh, Vote Provo’. 13,105 citizens had a laugh and voted Provo, which resulted in one seat on the city council. Four Provo members, Roel van Duijn among them, took this seat in turns. Provo as a political party was far ahead of its time – it focused on environmental issues, such as pollution, and wanted to improve the city’s habitability in terms of parks and housing, and criticised mass consumerism. They came up with frivolous but sometimes potential ‘white plans’, like the ‘white bicycle plan’ which proposed the purchase of 3,000 white bicycles that could be used by anyone who needed transport. Other plans included the ‘white chicken plan’ which proposed that police officers retrain as social workers, and the ‘white children plan’ involving socialist-inspired childcare facilities. Provo’s playfulness and tongue-in-cheek campaigns did not translate into politics and the decision to become a political party was the beginning of the end. As noted by Hans Righart, Provo should be understood as part of the counterculture of the 1960s and it could not politically express itself without renouncing its origins. Whilst on the city council, Provo did not want to compromise, nor did it want to take small steps to achieve its goals, which is key to any council’s policy.118 Provo split up on May 15, 1967. Two years later, Van Duijn and Grootveld founded another political party, the Kabouterbeweging (‘Gnome Movement’), which focused, much like Provo, on consumerism and environmental issues, and was active in Belgium and the Netherlands. The Kabouterbeweging did better than Provo and won five seats on the Amsterdam city council after a successful local election in 1970. 117 ANJV archive 35, Correspondence 1967-1968 (International Institute of Social History). 118 Righart, De eindeloze jaren zestig, pp. 236-239.

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In that same year, the movement created the Oranjevrijstaat (‘Orange Free State’), an alternative state within the borders of the Netherlands, a parody of a real state with a government, a national newspaper, second-hand stores, organic food stores, and squatted homes for members. Roel Van Duijn was a recurring object of ridicule in Jeugd. The ambivalent attitude of the ANJV toward someone like Van Duijn, exemplified the difficulty the ANJV had with embracing counterculture on a more general level. An especially critical article about the Kabouterbeweging appeared in October 1970. Its author accused Van Duijn of being solely focused on publicity rather than solutions for real problems that needed addressing. The Kabouters’ policy on housing shortage was highlighted as an example of the movement’s overall ridiculousness: Instead of campaigning against the Minister of Public Housing’s policy of ever increasing rent and submissive obedience to the demands of real estate agents, the Kabouters think the answer to this problem is squatting a few empty houses. It appears that, by ignoring the political roots of the problem, Van Duijn has no intention to change the situation. But what can one expect from someone who first lived in a villa in Buitenveldert [an affluent area in the south of Amsterdam], before buying a canal boat in the centre of Amsterdam. Roel van Duijn misleads his followers who are critical about society and want change and pushes them into an unrealistic direction, only because he wants to keep his seat on the council.119

From interviews with former ANJV members, it is clear that the author’s views were representative of the wider ANJV. Though the organisation had experienced a period of popularity and had been able to successfully collaborate with rebellious youth and radicalised students on several issues, it was not in sync with the cultural changes of the time. Its members were too pragmatic to fully understand people like Van Duijn. And regardless of its admirable intentions to attract new members from non-communist, middleclass backgrounds, middle-class people with socialist ideals were never fully trusted and always looked down on, as exemplified by the statement about Van Duijn. Nonetheless, the ANJV did gain many new members from non-communist backgrounds throughout the 1960s, although it struggled to cater to these new members and adjust to the organisation’s new, more

119 ‘De schijn van Roel van Duijn’, Jeugd, October 1970, p. 6.

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popular, status. In fact, until the 1980s, it continued to see itself primarily as a youth wing of the CPN, despite its newly gained financial independence. During the first three decades of its existence, the ANJV had always encouraged its members to vote communist. Around election times, support for the CPN was a priority. On the contrary, the YCL set out to be more than an enrolment agency for the CPGB and was much more subtle than the ANJV – which tended to bully its members into joining the CPN – and didn’t rely as much on propaganda to convince youth to vote communist. No matter how hard it tried, the ANJV was too serious, didn’t understand youth culture, and politicised associated interests. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s the use of marijuana was quite common in the Netherlands, as it was in most other industrialised countries. In an article about smoking weed, it was once more Van Duijn who was chastised. Van Duijn had reportedly stated that the revolutionary class existed mainly out of people who like to ‘smoke a bit of weed every now and then’. The author of the following Jeugd article was outraged by Van Duijn’s allegations: Comments like these are clear attempts to convince people that using drugs is something progressive. Which is of course utter nonsense. It has always been those in power, for example the colonial oppressors, who were actively smoking opium.120

The YCL had an altogether different approach. Waite discusses an anecdote about the league and drugs, which not only showcases its progressiveness, but also its relationship with the CPGB, both in sharp contrast to the ANJV: The three leaders of the YCL decided to hold a meeting on the question, ‘Should drugs be legalised?’ Gollan heard of this, and summoned the YCLers. They had made an agreement to enter his room in an exaggerated parody of a military march, and then to salute in mock subordination. Gollan went into spluttering apoplexy, telling his deputy to ‘deal with them.’ The YCLers were told that if they went ahead and held the meeting they would be expelled. In spite of being ominously reminded that ‘the party could close down the league’, they left the King Street offices in the same ridiculous march, and decided to call the party leadership’s bluff. No action was taken.121

120 Ibid. 121 Waite, ‘Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll (and Communism) in the 1960s’, p. 217.

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Despite the hardliners within its ranks which would continue to endanger the organisation’s internal cohesion, overall, the YCL was much more capable of capturing the imagination of young people than its Dutch counterpart. Whereas the YCL, as aptly illustrated by the anecdote about drugs, became increasingly independent from the CPGB over the course of the 1960s, the ANJV remained an extension of the CPN. ANJV member Bart Luirink recalled: ‘We were so uptight about the relationship with the CPN. Bizarrely, it was the party who summoned us to become more laid back in our policies and its overall organisation’.122 It wasn’t until the 1970s and 1980s that the ANJV would finally loosen up, and truly connect with radicalised youth in their fight against racism, and for women’s and gay rights.

122 De duizend daden, ed. by Blokzijl, Homma, and Walter, p. 37. The ANJV would change its outlook on the use of marijuana and in the late 1970s and early 1980s, members were smoking during meetings and in the ANJV office, during office hours. Eventually, this behaviour was no longer condoned, and members and staff were encouraged to enjoy weed in their free time, but not while at work. See Jeugd, June 1987, p. 13.

4

Fragmentation and Demise Communist Youth Organisations 1969-1991 Abstract This chapter examines and compares the social and political history of the communist youth movement in Britain and the Netherlands between 1969 and 1991. It looks primarily at the histories of the British Young Communist League (YCL) and its Dutch equivalent, the Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’). It explores these organisations’ roles in the feminist, anti-racist, and gay rights movements in the final two decades of their existence, and details their changing relationship with their respective communist parties as the Cold War came to an end. Keywords: Young Communist League (YCL), Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV), feminism, gay rights, anti-racism

Young people who come into contact with us, and they are many, choose not to join us partly because we don’t have our house in order yet and partly because of the minority of ‘revolutionary Marxists’ who rant on endlessly about the glories of the Soviet Union or the Bulgarian wheat harvest at the YCL meetings, rather than grapple with the dilemma that feminism, lesbian and gay liberation and the black community pose to the established structures, theories and practices of the YCL. The YCL must change if it is to continue in existence (Mark Ashton, b. 1960 Oldham – d. 1987 London).1

The 1970s are often characterised as sober and gloomy, a prolonged anti-climax to the swinging 1960s. The oil crisis of 1973 led to widespread 1 Mark Ashton, general secretary of the YCL, in a letter to the Morning Star published March 21, 1986, as quoted by Graham Stevenson, ‘Anatomy of Decline: The Young Communist League 1967-86’: https://grahamstevenson.me.uk/2008/12/31/anatomy-of-decline-the-young-communistleague-1967-86/ (Accessed on March 26, 2021).

Weesjes, Elke, Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain: Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463726634_ch04

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unemployment in most industrialised countries, which was only exacerbated in the early 1980s by the worldwide economic crisis. Young people, especially, struggled to find employment, and class antagonisms – largely absent in the 1960s – resurfaced within this segment of the population in Britain and the Netherlands. Consequently, notes Matthew Worley with regards the British context, youth culture began to fragment, and the class struggle intensified.2 Similar trends are visible in the Netherlands. Simultaneously, or as response to, widespread unemployment and intensifying class antagonisms, the extreme right gained support in both countries. The Young Communist League (YCL) and the Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’) took advantage of these developments and produced statements aimed at this disaffected generation, while their magazines, Challenge and Jeugd (‘Youth’) respectively, ran articles that reported on the emergent punk and squatting movements, and associated music. In addition, both organisations rallied behind the feminist and gay rights movements, and accelerated their f ight against fascism and racism. Though class polarisation intensif ied in this period, the communist movement as a whole in both countries began to embrace single issues that were not necessarily rooted in class struggle. By now the belief that a worldwide revolution was a possibility had fully dissipated. This broadening focus away from Moscow and beyond class struggle, while condemned by some hardliners, opened up space for closer links between the parties and anti-racist, feminist, and gay politics.3 In a parallel development, membership demographics changed significantly in both countries. Among new CPN members in the early 1970s there were just as many workers as there were artists, students, and unemployed. In Britain, the CPGB remained popular among the skilled workers and continued to have significant influence in the trade unions. 4 Additionally, over the course of the 1960s, it had attracted new members, including students and feminists. In terms of these newcomers, Geoff Andrews observes that the CPGB was a party of contradictions – it was patriarchal with conservative attitudes, yet it was also a site of innovation and change 2 Matthew Worley, ‘Marx–Lenin–Rotten–Strummer: British Marxism and Youth Culture in the 1970s’, Contemporary British History, 30:4 (2016), 505-521, (p. 508). 3 Lucy Robinson, Gay Men and the Left in Post-War Britain. How the Personal Got Political (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 97, and Ger Verrips, Dwars, duivels en dromend. De geschiedenis van de CPN 1938-1991 (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 1995), pp. 445-449. 4 Geoff Andrews, Endgames and New Times. The Final Years of British Communism (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2004), p. 15.

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that provided feminists, students, and gay activists with a space for their agendas.5 Aside from broadening its focus beyond class struggle, another crucial factor that attracted new members and facilitated collaborations with social movements in both countries, was the parties’ decision to condemn Soviet actions in Czechoslovakia in 1968. As discussed in Chapter Three, the CPN had already distanced itself from the Soviet Union – and the international communist movement as a whole – in the early 1960s, but its stance about Czechoslovakia further solidified the idea that CPN had permanently broken its ties with the Soviet Union. For the CPGB, which had gradually moved away from automatic support for Soviet actions, the condemnation of the Soviet intervention was a first sign that change was in the air. As a result of these two developments, the YCL and ANJV’s efforts to connect with social movements in the 1970s and 1980s were overall more successful than during the decades prior. The YCL and the ANJV had learned their lessons and a new generation of members, among them many from noncommunist and non-working-class backgrounds, were more adept in forging working relationships with youth than the generation of young communists before them. In a way the tables had turned; during the final two decades of their existence, the ANJV and the YCL had become increasingly independent from their communist parties – though the YCL remained financially dependent on the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) – and were able to influence their parties’ political agenda, instigate internal reform, and promote alliances with new social movements, most notably the gay rights, feminist, and anti-racist movements. Especially in Britain, heated debates within the YCL about direction in form – a mass organisation for ordinary people or a small but effective organisation focusing on politics and trade union activism – spilled over into the party.6 Within both communist movements, discussions that focused on the nature and strategy of communism and its ability to modernise and adapt to changing patterns of working-class experience led to new initiatives and exciting changes. Unfortunately, these discussions and related changes also led to fragmentation, as underlined by Mark Ashton in his letter published by the Morning Star. Ashton was the general secretary of the YCL between 1985 and his untimely death in 1987. As members of the YCL – formed by their activities in the Vietnam, Ban-the-Bomb, and student movements – began to move into the party in 5 Ibid., pp. 14-15. 6 Mike Waite, ‘The Young Communist League and Youth Culture’, Socialist History, Issue 6 (1994), 3-16 (p. 13).

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the 1970s, support for reform away from Marxism-Leninism and toward Eurocommunism and Gramscian ideology grew stronger, yet met with much resistance among hardliners. Gordon McLennan, who joined the YCL at the age of fifteen and served on the YCL executive committee from 1942 to 1947, became the CPGB’s general secretary in 1975, and saw it as his main task to end the war between the traditionalists and the Eurocommunists, a task that was, in hindsight, impossible. He was nonetheless a strong and outspoken leader, who supported a cautious move toward Eurocommunism, and openly condemned the Soviet Union for trying to dictate policy to communists abroad.7 Nina Temple took over from McLennan in 1990 and was the party’s last general secretary. She had joined the YCL at the age of thirteen, was active in CND and the anti-Vietnam War movement, and became the league’s general secretary in the late 1970s. Temple – a reformist who had sided with the Eurocommunists in the party, before the politics which it incorporated had failed to reform Western European communist parties within the frame of the communist ideology – had pledged to abandon the movement’s old authoritarian principles and instead ‘transform it into a force that is feminist and green, as well as democratically socialist’.8 She wasn’t, however, able to do so within the context of the CPGB: When I took up the job of CP secretary in January 1990, I thought there was a ten percent chance of anything useful coming out of it and a 90 percent change of there being no point at all. It was a horrible moment of realisation that, however much we had fought Stalinism and tried to uphold democratic values, we were within the framework of the communist parties, with all that meant; and that the Communist Party could not be reformed – it had to go.9

Similar developments were taking place in the Netherlands where reformists in the CPN were less vocal supporters of Eurocommunism and Gramsci, yet many of their ideas were indeed in line with Eurocommunists elsewhere. 7 Willie Thompson, The Good Old Cause. British Communism, 1920-1991 (London: Pluto Press, 1992), p. 185 and Francis Beckett, ‘Gordon McLennan Obituary’, The Guardian, May 23, 2011: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/may/23/gordon-mclennan-obituary (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 8 ‘Woman to Lead British Communists’, Tampa Bay Times, January 15, 1990: https://www. tampabay.com/archive/1990/01/15/woman-to-lead-british-communists/ (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 9 Phil Cohen, Children of the Revolution. Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1997), p. 98.

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Friction between those who wanted change and militant traditionalists also damaged the CPN’s internal cohesion. Former general secretary, Paul de Groot, represented the old guard and remained the party’s most powerful man until the late 1970s. As honorary member of the CPN’s executive committee, he continued to inject himself in party business with detrimental consequences. At a time where most European communist parties were slowly distancing themselves from the Soviet Union, including the CPGB, De Groot urged the CPN’s executive committee to seek a rapprochement with Moscow in 1975. Following De Groot’s ill-conceived advice, ties were strengthened between the CPN and the Soviet Union, and remained that way after De Groot lost his honorary seat on the committee in 1977. In that year, the CPN suffered a tremendous defeat in the general elections and lost five seats in the Dutch House of Commons. It regained one seat in the 1981 general election, a sign of hope which ignited attempts to modernise and rejuvenate the CPN. The party’s three seats were taken by two women and one man, all under 40, who had been active in the feminist and student movements in the 1960s and 1970s.10 Lawyer Ina Brouwer, who came from a conservative liberal family, succeeded Marcus Bakker as CPN’s parliamentary leader. Gijs Schreuders, former Organisatie voor Progressief Studerende Jeugd (OPSJ; ‘Organisation for Progressive Studying Youth’) secretary and cradle communist, had studied Dutch language in Amsterdam and had been active in several social movements in the 1960s.11 The final seat was taken by social worker Evelien Eshuis, who came from a middle-class family. She was the first openly gay member of the Dutch House of Commons and was known for wearing a pink triangle badge at work.12 She had joined the CPN in 1972 and was regarded the representative of the feminist wing of the party. Female comrade and former student activist, Elli Izeboud, an organisational sociologist, was chosen general secretary and would serve in that capacity until the party’s disbandment in 1991. Under her leadership, the party intensified its support for the feminist and gay rights movements, a focus which caused a rift between the traditional working-class core and 10 Gijs Schreuders Biography on Parlement.com: https://w w w.parlement.com/id/ vg09lln6d4zi/g_h_gijs_schreuders (Accessed on March 29, 2021), Ina Brouwer Biography on Parlement.com: https://www.parlement.com/id/vg09llmoaazy/i_ina_brouwer (Accessed on March 29, 2021) and Evelien Eshuis Biography on Parlement.com: https://www.parlement.com/ id/vg09llnbt3zw/e_l_evelien_eshuis (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 11 Gijs Schreuders was known for his active opposition of the CPN’s pro-Soviet line and left the Dutch House of Commons after Brouwer visited Moscow in 1983. 12 ‘CDA Homovriendelijk’, Trouw, May  21, 2003: https://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/cdahomovriendelijk~b53c2f4d/ (Accessed on August, 16, 2021).

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new middle-class members.13 Working-class members felt further alienated from their party when the CPN decided to rid itself from Marxism-Leninism in 1984 and adopt so-called Marxism-feminism as its guiding principle. Subsequently, internal cohesion crumbled and the final years of the CPN were characterised by schisms and quarrels between reformists and the old guard. By 1986, for the first time in its 70-year history, communists had altogether disappeared from the Dutch House of Commons.14 Following a very similar path, by the mid-1980s, the ANJV and the YCL were weakened due to internal debates between those who wanted to return to trade union work and working-class struggle, and those who envisioned a broad organisation for radical youth. These quarrels and a general lack of direction contributed to a massive decline in membership, though it should be noted that other youth organisations, particularly youth wings of political parties but also radical left independent organisations that had enjoyed popularity in the 1960s, also struggled during this time. The ANJV fared better than the YCL, and peaked in the early 1980s. The YCL’s membership, on the other hand, had been steadily decreasing from 1967 onward.

Gender roles, sexuality and the feminist movement As reiterated throughout the previous chapters, until the 1960s, the ANJV and the YCL alike were dominated by men and there was not enough recognition of women’s oppression as a major political issue – ‘a blind spot that led to many examples of what today would be seen as sexism in the organisation’, writes Mike Waite in the context of the YCL.15 In theory, women were seen as equals, but in reality only a few women held high positions within the Communist Party and its youth organisations.16 Overall, women were grossly underrepresented in the YCL and ANJV, yet the experiences of these female 13 As discussed by Evelien Eshuis in an interview with the author, many working-class communists in Amsterdam embraced feminism as a guiding principle without any objection, though working-class communists in the north of the Netherlands had their reservations about the party’s new course. This suggests there were also geographical differences at play. 14 Verrips, Dwars duivels en dromend, pp. 445-467 and p. 497. 15 Mike Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity. A Case Study: Young People and Communist Politics in Britain 1920-1991, Unpublished MPhil thesis (Lancaster University, 1992), p. 266. 16 Kevin Morgan, Gidon Cohen, and Andrew Flinn. Communists and British Society 1920-1991. People of a Special Mould (London: Rivers Oram Press, 2007), pp. 147-148, and Verrips, Dwars Duivels en Dromend, pp. 427-444. This discrepancy between the Marxist-Leninist ideals regarding gender equality and its reality in practice was typical for the wider European communist

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members in each organisation were very different. In the YCL, women were seen as tea and cake-makers and, whenever they featured in Challenge, it was often in a sexualised way. Exemplifying this tendency, Waite mentions a health and beauty competition for female YCL members than ran through the early fifties in Challenge. Photos of the winners, often in sensual pin-up poses, were printed under headlines full of sexual innuendo.17 Similarly, throughout 1956, the editors decided to put seductive-looking women on the cover of Challenge.18 In Jeugd, this type of sexualisation of female peers was completely absent and their roles were much less gender-specific, though women weren’t represented in the leadership ranks either. Women in the YCL voiced their discontent with the way they were treated and portrayed. In 1953, Lily Rye, a member of the Lambeth YCL, called on her female peers for action. Under the heading, ‘Show the Boys’, Rye’s letter was published in ‘Girls’ Corner’, a small intermittently published column dedicated to women’s issues in Challenge: I think that it is about time that the attitude of some of the boys in the YCL regarding girls was changed. They seem to think that the girls are not capable of carrying out the same political activities as themselves. They are inclined to think that we are only capable of bringing cakes and making tea at branch night, and also sitting sewing and knitting for bazaars. I know that we can do more than this, so come on, girls, let’s show them.19

Rye’s call for action was heard by other women. Eve Harle, national vice chairman YCL Southampton, wholeheartedly agrees with Rye’s frustration in her letter to ‘Girls’ Corner’: I agree with what Lily Rye wrote recently to ‘Girls’ Corner’ about the attitude of some lads in the Young Communist League towards their girl comrades. In a capitalist society, the recognised place of a woman is in the home, where her life usually becomes one long drudge of cleaning and cooking. She is not thought capable of having any serious thoughts as movement. See: Alice Schuster, ‘Women’s Role in the Soviet Union: Ideology and Reality’, The Russian Review, 30(3), (1971) pp. 260-267. 17 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 275. 18 Waite notes that perhaps the editors wanted to take readers’ minds off the controversy on Hungary that was splitting the communist movement (Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 276). 19 Letter to ‘Girls’ Corner’, ‘Show the Boys’, Challenge, February 1953, p. 3.

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regards life in general and often in an election votes the way her husband tells her. We, as young communists, reject this idea and believe that women have every right to take their place alongside men, and determine their future. We girls did not join the league so that we could perform the art of tea making. We joined because we believed in the ideas of socialism and wanted to work for them.20

The sexualised portrayal of women in Challenge also met with resistance. In response to the 1956 cover girls, two young women from Liverpool, wrote: Cover girls have nothing to do with beauty and are concerned only with the titillation of the erotic senses and by so doing help to deprave the minds of young people and divert them from the realities of politics and class struggle.21

A few articles published in the ANJV magazine Jeugd around the same time, also show early feminist thinking. Interestingly, and contrary to adult communist publications such as Vrouwen (‘Women’), the fight for women’s rights was not presented as a secondary aspect of the wider class struggle. Articles called for equal pay for equal work; equal educational opportunities, especially in vocational and technical education; equal career opportunities; more childcare facilities, laundromats, household services, and communal kitchens, to enable mothers to pursue a professional career; and equal legal rights. Furthermore, the country’s religious leaders are chastised by Jeugd editors for promoting gender discrimination and female submission. Though printed during the height of the Cold War, in a time of desperate isolation and communist persecution, these articles call for a broad movement of progressive women who are willing to fight for their rights.22 It would take another decade before the feminist second wave would begin in the Netherlands and a broad women’s movement was formed. A main focus of the Dutch feminist movement was the right to abortion, a fight widely supported by communist women. Whereas abortion in Great Britain was already fully legalised in 1967, the Dutch Termination of Pregnancy Act wasn’t passed until 1984. From the early 1970s until the mid-eighties, the fight for abortion was featured regularly in Jeugd and readers were kept 20 Letter to ‘Girls’ Corner’, ‘We are Equals’, Challenge, March 1953, p. 3. 21 Letter to the Editors, ‘Cover Girls’, Challenge, December 1956, p. 4. 22 ‘8 Maart Vrouwendag’, Jeugd, March 1956, p. 2, ‘Meisjes in ketelpak?’, Jeugd, November 1956, p. 3.

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updated about – and encouraged to partake in – related activities, rallies, and protests.23 The issue was so important to the wider Communist Party that the 1981 election poster of CPN leader Marcus Bakker carried the slogan, ‘It’s a Woman’s Decision. Legalise Abortion. Vote CPN. Marcus Bakker’.24 It was within the context of this fight, as well as the fight for better and more affordable childcare provision that the most meaningful and long-lasting collaborations with non-communist women were formed.25 Under the influence of the growing feminist movement, Challenge phased out its pin-up style photography and began to appreciate female members and their political potential. By the mid-1960s, the paper began to deal with topics such as sexism and gender inequality as stand-alone issues that needed to be addressed more actively than just promoting a Soviet example. However, parallel to the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, this development was somewhat reversed. The availability of contraception, most notably the pill, and new ideas surrounding sexual liberation and free love, were celebrated in Challenge magazine. After a brief period of a more sober looking Challenge, the magazine – still run by men – celebrated sexual liberation in a variety of unfortunate ways, observes Waite. Photographs of young women in seductive poses are accompanied by slogans like ‘Are you Getting it Regularly? Make sure by taking out a subscription’ and ‘Dangerous Stuff. Make sure to get a copy’, ‘Care to Make Me Happy? Then send a contribution to Challenge’s development fund’.26 An October 1969 issue of Challenge featured two photos of semi-naked girls, which prompted several letters of protests, some of which were printed: It seems a really un-Marxist attitude towards women for the YCL to adopt. […] How can we campaign for equal rights for girls when you are reducing us to not much more than so many cattle in a cattle show? 23 The first article that discussed women’s right to abortion was published in Jeugd in 1971, (‘Abortus’, Jeugd, November/December, 1971). 24 Jeroen de Vries (designer), ‘De vrouw beslist zelf’ (Amsterdam: Heierman, 1981). 25 Some of these relationships did not last beyond the fight for abortion. The old guard represented in the Nederlandse Vrouwenbeweging (NVB; ‘Dutch Women’s Movement) and the British National Women’s Advisory, especially found it difficult to embrace feminism. Nonetheless, some long-term members of the Communist Party, including Florence Keyworth in Britain and Ina Prins in the Netherlands were admired by young second-wave feminists and vice versa. Together, they attempted to transform the parties’ relationship to women (Andrews, Endgames and New Times, pp. 50-51 and Marianne Wittebol, Vrouwen op herhaling. Een hernieuwde poging tot een communistische definiëring van vrouwenrechten. Vrouwenstrijd in de CPN tussen 1945-1960, Unpublished Manuscript (University of Amsterdam, 1985). 26 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 277, and Challenge, 1968, No. 7, p. 3.

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In response to these letters, the editorial board defended its choice by stating that: Women’s bodies are attractive, interesting, and visually exciting. How bad. […] Sex is a natural, healthy desire. There is no earthly reason why a revolutionary youth magazine should not use it to help project our ideas in an attractive way. […] We want better sex, not less sex, with socialism. […] Hands up all Challenge readers who think that a nude body in its natural state is disgusting, that a partly clad, shapely young woman is repulsive?27

In the following year, the debate intensified as provocative images of nude females continued to appear in Challenge. By this time there was a consensus that the magazine had gone ‘just too far in attempting to popularise communism as part of young people’s lives by linking it to popular images and ideas, without distinction or selection’, according to Graham Stevenson, who had joined the YCL in 1967.28 Subsequently, nudes permanently disappeared from the magazine during the 1970s. The debate surrounding sexism and the celebration of sexual liberation that unfolded on the pages of Challenge was illustrative of a much larger development taking place in most Western industrialised countries in the period between the sexual revolution and the arrival of the feminist second wave. During this period, the ‘rules’ of sexual intercourse had changed but equality had yet to catch up. The ‘liberation’ that came with the introduction of the pill was often only applicable to men who no longer had to pay the price for sex with a shotgun marriage. For women, however, the sexual revolution came with puzzling contradictions. Whereas for many men, commitment was no longer desirable, promiscuity among women remained a cause for alarm. On the other hand, women who objected to free love or nude photography, such as that displayed in Challenge, were quickly accused of being puritanical or prudish. 29 In 27 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 279. 28 Graham Stevenson, ‘Anatomy of Decline: The Young Communist League 1967-86’: https:// grahamstevenson.me.uk/2008/12/31/anatomy-of-decline-the-young-communist-league-1967-86/ (Accessed on March 26, 2021). 29 In hindsight, there is a consensus among women that the years after the sexual revolution but before the feminist second wave were perilous for many. These conflicting attitudes surrounding sexuality echo those surrounding the first sexual revolution of the 1920s, where for example in the young Soviet Union, female Komsomol members who were not sexually active or interested in casual sex were branded as ‘petty bourgeois’. Women who were reluctant to

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comparison, in the 1960s and early 1970s, Jeugd was much less daring and provocative than its British equivalent. Its editor in those years, Johan (b. 1943, Amsterdam), explained that he and his colleagues were very careful not to publish ‘raunchy’ photographs and refrained from using innuendo. However, as late as 1977, Jeugd ridiculed Christian Democratic Party leader Dries van Agt’s anti-porn crusade, indicating that they too felt that pornography was progressive and an expression of sexual liberation.30 Sexual health was important within the ANJV and, from its foundation onward, the organisation provided its members with sex education, though this was largely done at meetings and summer camps. Cradle communist Rie Honselaar-Nordholt became a member of the ANJV in 1945 and served on its board as ‘second secretary’. She recalled that Dr. Herman Musah, a famous Dutch sexologist who was involved in the foundation of the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Sexuele Hervorming (NVSH; ‘Dutch Society for Sexual Reform’) was a recurring speaker during ANJV summer camps. ‘He was very popular’, recalled Honselaar-Nordhold, ‘because he was able to provide sexual education in a very straightforward and clear fashion’.31 Most Dutch communists were members of the NVSH, formerly known as the Nieuw-Malthusiaanse Bond (‘New-Malthusian League’), and were exposed to progressive sexual health literature at home, as families subscribed to the NVSH magazine.32 In addition, Vrouwen, the publication of the communist women’s organisation, the Nederlandse Vrouwenbeweging (NVB; ‘Dutch Women’s Movement’), ran articles about contraception, abortion, and childbirth on a regular basis, starting in the early 1970s.33 However, whereas Challenge, throughout 1969, published straightforward and technical articles about different methods of contraception and how to engage in free love in early utopian socialist bohemian communities and communes in Western countries often received the same treatment. They indicated in their memoirs and diaries that, instead of feeling empowered, they felt used and weakened by the new sexual freedom (See: Frances Lee Bernstein, The Dictatorship of Sex. Lifestyle Advice for the Soviet Masses (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011), p.36, and Linda Gordon, The Moral Property of Women (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002), p. 132. 30 ‘Bezint eer gij begint’, Jeugd, June 1977, p. 8. 31 Wij hebben er geen spijt van: een boek over strijd, actie, vriendschap en solidariteit uit de 50-jarige geschiedenis van het ANJV, ed. by Nel van Aalderen (Amsterdam: Comité Herdenking 50 jaar ANJV, 1995), p. 23. 32 See: Elke Weesjes, ‘Distributing Condoms on the Factory Floor: Communists and Sexual Health in the Netherlands’, Twentieth Century Communism, Vol. 20, No. 20, pp. 45-78. 33 See for example: Vrouwen, 24(1), 1970/1971, Vrouwen, 25 (2), 1971-1972, Vrouwen, (24) 5, 1971.

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use them, similar articles were absent in Jeugd until the late 1970s.34 Johan recalled that instead most ANJV members were informed, either through NVSH brochures, communist literature, lectures on the subject, or word of mouth. Still, accidents happened: We told each other where you could get condoms. Because a lot of boys and girls were fooling around in the ANJV. In fact, our campsite was patrolled to ensure boys and girls were sleeping separately. You weren’t allowed to sleep in the same tent. And if people were caught, you were in trouble. The parents were the driving force behind these rules. They often said, ‘They can go to camp, but I don’t want my daughter coming home pregnant’. And some parents would come to the ANJV headquarters, cussing and screaming, whenever it did happen (Johan b. 1943, Amsterdam).

Johan also noted that there was much more respect towards women and a sense of equality within the ANJV and the wider communist movement, as compared to what he saw outside of the movement. Other ANJV members shared his feelings: I had a lot of fun in the ANJV. I was on the board of our local club. We had a clubhouse adorned with wall art. We had outings, and I particularly liked organising things. I still enjoy doing that. I feel that within the ANJV I could utilize many of my talents. I never had the sense that I wasn’t taken seriously as a woman or that I was side-lined (Annette b. 1946, Krommenie).

Annette did observe that, in terms of female sexuality, some members were hopelessly old-fashioned and overprotective. These patriarchal attitudes – also characterised as ‘macho demeanour’ by other members – were especially present among older members of the ANJV, illustrative of the generational shift in values: I recall one instance where we went to Czechoslovakia, on an organised trip. Roel Walraven, the ANJV’s national secretary, was there too. He was quite a bit older than me, as most ANJV secretaries were in those days. We were at a party at the hotel and I was having the most wonderful time. There were some Cuban boys who had brought Cuban music to 34 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 276, and for example, ‘Is Sex Education a Communist Plot?’ Challenge, December 1968, p. 8.

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the party. I have always loved to dance. We were all having a fantastic night and were enjoying ourselves. At a certain point, I was feeling tired and wanted to go to my room, but I got lost in the hotel. Suddenly there was Roel Walraven, who asked, ‘What are you doing?’ He got really mad at me and assumed that I was planning on sleeping with those Cubans. Absolutely ridiculous. I was very naive and it hadn’t even occurred to me to do anything like that. In that moment, he reminded me of my father, who could be quite strict. I thought Roel’s response was very narrow-minded and traditional.

Annette, and other respondents, indicated that the OPSJ was much less strict and more a product of the zeitgeist. I went on a cycling trip with the OPSJ, to the Ardennes, when I was about sixteen or seventeen years old. Everybody had boy- and girlfriends. And they would sleep together. The OPSJ was much less rigid and there was more room to breathe [than in the ANJV]. I wasn’t an actual member of the OPSJ, because I wasn’t in school at the time, but I did prefer their outlook on things.

In light of this more relaxed attitude in the OPSJ, and its focus on students’ issues, it is perhaps not surprising that this organisation was more successful in aligning itself with radicalising youth and the national student movement. In contrast, working communist youth appeared more alienated from the changes in society.35 Many scholars have discussed the glaring contradiction between communist parties’ patriarchal practices and its commitment to improving the position of women – exemplified by its support for equal pay, women’s right to work, the removal of legal inequalities, and greater involvement by women in political activities. It has also been noted that the Dutch and British communist parties and their organisations were slow to connect with radical movements of the 1960s, including the women’s movement. However, it is often overlooked that communist women in Britain and the Netherlands did join the feminist movement in its early stages, but that 35 In Britain, the situation appears reversed, where communist students were oftentimes the ones promoting a more hard-line stance. The latter could have been the result of Fergus Nicholson’s influence. Nicholson, the CPGB’s student organiser, was known for his hard-line pro-Soviet anti-reformist stance. Aside from having a rigid pro-Soviet line, a few female participants who had joined their university’s communist student organisation in the 1960s and 1970s described instances of gender discrimination, and didn’t feel welcome.

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it took some time before their feminist politics could find expression in the YCL and ANJV, and their communist parties.36 For many, it was an educational experience and for some their activities within the feminist movement outlasted those in the communist movement. By way of an example, Madeline, who was born in 1948 and grew up in rural Yorkshire, followed in her mother’s footsteps when she became involved in the women’s movement. Already in the 1950s, Madeline’s mother had been helping women in her community with unwanted pregnancies obtain abortions or find adoptive families. In the following decade, Madeline furthered her mother’s legacy by writing articles for the communist newspaper on women’s rights, including the right to contraception for young women. Her involvement in the women’s rights movement accelerated while attending the University of Sussex in the late 1960s. At Sussex, she briefly joined a communist student group but soon left, because ‘it was very hard to be taken seriously as a woman in 1967’, and joined the Socialist Society instead. Here too, she felt disadvantaged and discriminated against. She and her friend were given the job to look after the bookstall which was ‘kind of a girls’ job to do’ and she wasn’t given the opportunity to speak at meetings even though she described herself as ‘politically active’ and ‘an organiser’. A year or so later, she finally found like-minded people who allowed her to express her political views and showcase her public speaking and organisational skills: Through my party education and things that happened at Sussex University, I started to get involved in the women’s liberation movement. I found women in this group who also shared my political views. Around 1968, I became interested in sexual issues and joined groups at Sussex that had begun to debate sexual liberation. […] When I became active in the women’s liberation [movement], I really felt I found my home – it was a combination of political debate, sympathetic women, and reproduction.

Janny (b. 1946, Amsterdam) shared a similar story. She was involved in setting up a youth section of the NVSH in Amsterdam’s Red Light District, with a number of other OPSJ members, around 1963. She indicated that her interest in women’s sexual health and women’s rights continued after ceasing her activities in communist organisations. Janny joined the abortion movement and also campaigned for other women’s issues, including 36 Elke Weesjes, ‘Communist Daughters – In the Vanguard of Feminism’, Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies Vol. 22, No. 4 (2019), pp. 339-356.

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better childcare for all women. She stated: ‘I chose to be a feminist – that was a conscious decision. I was never involved in the organisation of any feminist campaigns, but I def initely partook in many demonstrations around women’s issues’. Over the course of the 1970s, women began to infiltrate virtually every layer of communist organisations, and were represented on editorial boards of communist periodicals, including Jeugd and Challenge. In tandem with the latter, more content was published in all communist publications that critically questioned traditional gender roles, examined gender inequality, and updated readers about the wider right to abortion and the budding feminist movement. Furthermore, women’s rights to equal pay, educational and career opportunities, political participation, and abortion became stand-alone action points on the Communist Party agenda in both countries, rather than being absorbed into the broader fight for working-class rights.37 Feminism changed the lives of women and men and provided a muchneeded framework to make sense of all the theories and attitudes communist children had grown up with at home and within their youth organisations, as Pat (b. 1937, Manchester) exemplifies: What most of all had a huge impact on me was the emergence of the feminist movement towards the end of the 1960s and then into the 1970s. This, I think, was probably the single biggest influence that I would be conscious of as having really caused me to change in important ways. Ann Long and I were still married at the time, with three children; we grew up believing in equality between men and women, and we always practise that as we saw it. But our view of what that meant was radically transformed as a result of this period.38

The anti-racist movement On August 5, 1976, a drunk Eric Clapton on stage in Birmingham announced his support for Enoch Powell and told the audience that Britain was in danger of becoming a black colony. His hateful comments could not have come at a worse time. The National Front – a far-right, fascist political party – had 37 Verrips, Dwars, duivels en dromend, pp. 427-444, and Andrews, Endgames and New Times, pp. 50-57. 38 Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 87.

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booked significant successes in the local elections that spring, including 40 percent of the vote in the Lancashire town of Blackburn and 18.5 percent of the vote in Leicester, and one month prior to Clapton’s Birmingham show, an Asian teenager was murdered in a hate crime in London. Clapton wasn’t the only famous musician that had made pro-fascist remarks: in 1975, David Bowie, who was heavily involved in drugs at the time, had openly admitted in NME magazine that he believed in fascism. A year later, in September 1976, Bowie stated in Playboy magazine that Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars.39 In response to Clapton and Bowie and more generally, the concerning rise of the extreme right in Britain, Red Saunders, a veteran political activist and rock photographer, wrote a compelling letter of protest. The letter was published in the music press including NME, Melody Maker, and Sounds, and in the weekly paper of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the Socialist Worker. Saunders and a group of like-minded friends called for the formation of a ‘rank-and-file movement against the racist poison in rock music’. 40 The number of people who enthusiastically heeded their call was staggering and, capitalising on the momentum that was generated, Saunders and his friends were able to build their initiative, Rock Against Racism (RAR), into a mass movement. From the very beginning, RAR was closely linked to the SWP, a small Trotskyist party. Some figures central to RAR were members of the SWP, while others, including Red Saunders, were sympathisers.41 In addition, the SWP also provided RAR with an important organisational and political connection to the Anti-Nazi League (ANL). The ANL was founded in 1977 in the aftermath of a violent clash that had taken place on August 13, 1977 in Lewisham, Southeast London, between members of the National Front who had gathered there for a march, anti-fascists, including many members of the SWP, and the police: Lewisham was a decisive moment in the fight against the Nazis but the Socialist Workers Party suffered a barrage of press abuse. The paymaster general, Shirley Williams, was prominent in denouncing us, and Michael Foot, who was the employment secretary, said, ‘You don’t stop the Nazis by throwing bottles or bashing the police. The most ineffective way of 39 Anthony O’Grady, ‘David Bowie: Watch Out Mate! Hitler’s On His Way Back’, NME, August 1975: https://thequietus.com/articles/03598-david-bowie-nme-interview-about-adolfhitler-and-new-nazi-rock-movement and https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/apr/20/ popandrock.race (Accessed on March 29,2021). 40 Ian Goodyer, Crisis Music. The Cultural Politics of Rock Against Racism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), p. 11. 41 Ibid., p. 12.

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fighting the fascists is to behave like them.’ We were branded the ‘Red Fascists.’ But the message from all quarters was basically, ‘We don’t agree with the Socialist Workers Party but we do agree the Nazis have to be stopped. And so Jim Nichol, national secretary, myself, and the founder of the SWP, Tony Cliff, decided to set up the Anti-Nazi League, which was to be a single-issue united front focused on stopping the rise of the Nazis.42

The CPGB and YCL had their own – more moderate – strategies when it came to fighting fascism and racism and played instrumental roles in local anti-fascist groups throughout Britain, including the London Anti-Racist AntiFascist Co-ordinating Committee, and later the Campaign against Racism and Fascism. Whilst minorities were not widely represented among its ranks, the YCL successfully united with minority groups in their fight against racism. In 1963, the CPGB adopted a resolution during its twenty-eighth national congress calling for legislation to make racial discrimination or incitement to racial hatred and violence a criminal offence. It strongly opposed all fascist attempts to stir up race prejudice and recognised communists’ special obligation based on their understanding of solidarity to fight for equal rights and equal citizens, including immigrants, and irrespective of race, creed, or colour. It goes on to discuss how ‘coloured immigrants’ have been unfairly blamed for housing problems and the victims of prejudice from employers and fellow workers. But according to the party’s statement, where there is trade union organisation on the job, ‘coloured immigrants’ readily join the unions and have shown their militancy in the bus strike of 1958, and a more recent building strike. Where unity has been built, the resolution argues, many have come forward as shop stewards and active trade unionists.43 Still, the communist movement struggled to attract immigrants and people of colour. Ten years after the resolution was adopted, internal notes between the CPGB and the YCL stated that Camberwell, a multicultural district in South London, was one of the better branches at recruiting immigrants and now had five immigrant members, out of 65. 44 It is worth 42 Daniel Rachel, Walls Come Tumbling Down. Rock Against Racism, 2 Tone, Red Wedge (Godalming: Picador, 2017), p. 114. Other sources name Peter Hain, Paul Holborow, and Ernie Wise as the founders of the ANL. See: Dan Sabbagh, ‘Anti-Nazi League Founders Call for New National Campaign, Guardian, August 15, 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/15/antinazi-league-founders-call-for-new-national-campaign (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 43 CP/LON/RACE/1/5 Resolution adopted by the 28th National Congress CPGB April 1963 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre). 44 CP/YCL relations internal notes, CP/YCL/16/14 (CPGB Archive – Labour History Archive and Study Centre).

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noting that the ANJV also struggled to recruit immigrant youth, something the organisation related to the fact that young immigrants were keen to work together with the ANJV, but in terms of joining an organisation, they preferred to become members of specific immigrant youth organisations. Due to the fragmentation of (youth) organisations during the 1980s, it became increasingly difficult to attract minorities. 45 In 1970, the YCL and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) were part of the formation of an important initiative to fight racial discrimination towards the Indian community in Coventry, a large city about nineteen miles east of Birmingham. Called the Coventry Confederation of Indian Organisations, this body brought together eleven groups representing nearly 10,000 Indians, including the Coventry Indian Workers Association, the Indian Workers Association of Great Britain, the Indian Welfare and Cultural Society, the Indian Advisory Body of the Communist Party, and the Young Communist League. 46 In that same year, the Harrow Youth Adhoc Committee against Racialism was founded to combat racism in Harrow, a large suburban town in Greater London. The committee was a collaboration between the Young Liberals, Young Conservatives, the YCL, and the Pakistani Welfare Organisation. 47 In Lewisham, the CPGB and the YCL were part of the All Lewisham Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (ALCARAF), formed in September 1976 in response to the rise of fascism in Southeast London. Like most other anti-fascist/anti-racist groups communists were involved in, the ALCARAF was a very broad initiative and united churches, tenant associations, political parties, and immigrant organisations. In the weeks leading up the National Front’s march, it had made concerted efforts to get the event banned, but when local authorities decided the National Front had the right to march on the grounds of freedom of speech, the ALCARAF began organising a peaceful counterdemonstration. The latter took place in the morning of August 13, 1977 and was led by, among others, Roger Godsiff, Labour Mayor of Lewisham, Mike Power, a member of the CPGB national executive, and Mervyn Stockwood, the Bishop of Southwark. More than 4,000 anti-fascists joined the march, including members of the SWP, who had their own – much more confrontational – protest planned later that day. According to Nigel Copsey, what attracted most notice during the ALCARAF demonstration 45 Marjolein Wolf, ‘Gemeente baseert zich op dubieus onderzoek om onze subsidie af te pikken’, De Waarheid, January 11, 1989, p. 3. 46 ‘Indians Unite to Fight Discrimination’, Coventry Evening Telegraph, July 22, 1970, p. 36. 47 ‘Against Racialism’, Harrow Observer, February 10, 1970, p. 5.

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was a communist flyer which called on protestors not to attend the SWP march in the afternoon. This flyer was reportedly a response to the SWP’s attempt to highjack the radical anti-fascist tradition from the CPGB by distributing ‘They Shall Not Pass’ leaflets in the borough, referring to the battle of Cable Street where communists, using that exact same slogan, had been the driving force behind the successful attempt to physically stop Mosley and his followers marching through the East End in 1936. Copsey also notes that whilst it may be true that, on a national level, the Communist Party had done little to counter the National Front and had surrendered militant anti-fascism to Trotskyist groups, communists were nonetheless key figures in local anti-fascist committees. The CPGB and the YCL wanted to oppose fascism by building a broad coalition amongst a range of organisations, such as the ALCARAF and the Coventry Confederation of Indian Organisations, something which was finally possible now the Cold War had eased up. 48 Despite organisers’ formal appeals, the ALCARAF march on August 13 was rerouted by the police and, in response, many agitated protesters decided to make their way to New Cross to join the SWP gathering that was preparing to physically stop the National Front march. Shortly after the latter started, the police got involved and the situation turned ugly in an instant. The battle that ensued, between protesters, police, and members of the National Front, lasted for the remainder of the afternoon, and ended with 214 arrests and 270 injured. 49 Perhaps as a result of the public’s denouncement of the level of violence SWP protesters had exhibited in Lewisham, the Anti-Nazi League’s policy was slightly more moderate. Peter Hain, Labour Party politician and one of the founding members of the ANL, recalled a policy of confrontation in the ANL: ‘If you’re going to march we’re going to be there; we’re not out to cause violence; we’re not out to attack the police; but we’re not going to let you march’.50 As illustrated by Hain’s involvement, the ANL was more than a front organisation for the SWP. It strove to unite anti-fascists from different backgrounds. ‘It had to be broad-based’, notes Red Saunders, ‘SWP activists were strong, committed anti-fascists so you have that central core. Once they started to roll it was a real juggernaut’.51 48 Nigel Copsey, Anti-Fascism in Britain (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), p. 124. 49 ‘Battle of Lewisham’, Goldsmiths University of London, https://www.gold.ac.uk/history/ research/battle-of-lewisham/what-was-the-battle-of-lewisham/ (Accessed on June 6, 2021). 50 Rachel, Walls Come Tumbling Down, p. 122. 51 Ibid., p. 114.

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There was a clear overlap between the anti-racist and the punk movements and some have noted that, considering the YCL’s early support of, and interest in, the punk movement, it seems odd that the YCL did not play a more prominent role in the anti-racist movement. Communist support for RAR and the ANL was belated and oftentimes too hesitant, argues Evan Smith.52 He remarks that the CPGB’s anti-fascist strategies in the 1970s were considered too tame for most radicalised youth. Fearing violent altercations, communists promoted peaceful demonstrations against the National Front and, as noted above, urged communists to work together with local government bodies to stop the far right from making public appearances. Still, the YCL did not always follow CPGB instructions. Neil Rider for example, recalled attending the anti-fascist protests in Lewisham together with a group of YCLers: The CP did support a march in the morning, and then we committed the ultimate heresy of going on in the afternoon to what we knew was going to be a violent confrontation with the aim of stopping the fascists from marching, something we saw as quite acceptable. […] [A]s far as I was concerned, the CP was far too careful, far too tactful, seemed to have the right ideas and the theory, but when it came to the crunch…53

Other YCL demonstrations and protest actions against racism were also far from tame. For example, in June 1971, members of the YCL and the antiapartheids movement hurled smoke bombs and tomatoes at the South African Defence Minister Mr. Pieter Botha, who served in the apartheid government, upon his arrival at the ministry of defence in Whitehall. Two demonstrators were arrested.54 Waite, who acknowledges that the YCL and the CPGB had an overall different strategic approach to developing radical politics from the SWP, observes that there has been an effort in SWP-sponsored accounts of the RAR/ANL activities to exaggerate the extent to which the SWP was responsible for the successes of these activities and to downplay and even deny the contribution of other organisations, including the Labour Party and the CPGB. Waite indicates that the latter is unfair considering the fact that, ‘members of both the YCL and the CPGB, as well as members of 52 Evan Smith, ‘Are the Kids United?: The Communist Party of Great Britain, Rock Against Racism, and the Politics of Youth Culture’, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Vol. 5, No.2 (Fall 2011), pp. 85-117. 53 Interview Neil Rider in Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 306. 54 ‘South African Minister Pelted in Demo’, Coventry Evening Telegraph, June 10, 1971, p. 1.

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such establishment bodies as the Labour Party, played an active role in many local ANL groups and played important parts in staging many RAR events’.55 The most memorable of these events were two national festivals, or carnivals as they are sometimes referred to, in London, jointly organised by the ANL and RAR, and attended by tens of thousands of people, and a series of smaller music festivals organised by local RAR and ANL groups, often with the help of trade unions, political parties, and local councils. The CPGB and the YCL were present at these local and national carnivals – Challenge in particular reported extensively on the activities organised by RAR/ANL and encouraged YCL members to attend and get involved. Indeed, Challenge editor from late 1975 to late 1977, Paul Bradshaw, wrote in Comment, a weekly CPGB journal, that RAR/ANL events were vital in carrying the fight against racism forward, and described them as a ‘fusion of cultural rebellion and political action’.56 According to Dan Rubinstein, an active YCL member in the 1970s, the YCL did not just attend, it also helped organise shows, which in turn attracted new members: The YCL organised gigs with John Cooper-Clarke, Patrik Fitzgerald, The Fall, The Passage, Scritti Politti. […] I remember at the time that about 80 people joined the YCL as a direct result of the ANL carnivals. […] And in August 1978 Dundee YCL played an important part in organising the Edinburgh ANL Festival.57

The ANL and the RAR successfully raised awareness about the fascist threat of the National Front and exposed the Nazi elements of this political party. However, there was some criticism. Some have pointed out that RAR/ANL organisers, largely white and often male, neglected or overlooked Asian music, and focused primarily on Afro-Caribbean music. Others, in a similar vein, have noted that the ANL and RAR were unable to foster a productive relationship with the Indian Workers Association and the Asian Youth Movements.58 Such relationship would have strengthened the ANL/RAR, 55 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 372. 56 Paul Bradshaw, ‘Carnivals & Confrontations’, Comment, October 14, 1978, p. 328 as cited by Evan Smith in ‘Are the Kids United?’ 57 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, pp. 371-372. According to Waite, a number of bands on the punk/independent scene were YCL members, including some members of The Fall and Scritti Politti, as well as poet John Cooper-Clarke. These bands were regularly interviewed in Challenge. 58 Goodyer, Crisis Music, p. 30

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especially since Indian and Pakistani communities in the Britain bore the brunt of rising fascism. This criticism aside, the ANL/RAR did have an enormous impact and was able to reach a huge audience. Between 1977 and 1979, the two organisations had distributed nine million leaflets and sold 750,000 badges. The two national carnivals alone saw a hundred thousand people demonstrate against racism.59 The efforts of RAR and the ANL as well as all those local grassroots and ad hoc organisations that had also fought tirelessly against fascism and racism seemingly paid off. In the 1979 general election, the National Front had lost its momentum and only received 1.3 percent of the vote. After these elections, RAR and the ANL also lost their momentum. The final local RAR carnival took place in Leeds in 1981 and, by this time, the politico-cultural terrain upon which the anti-racist movement operated had changed significantly, notes Ian Goodyer. After the defeat of fascism, a new threat emerged in the form of Margaret Thatcher who, during the general elections that saw the National Front defeated, won with a parliamentary majority of 43 seats.60 Interestingly, the SWP did not benefit from RAR/ANL popularity – its membership hovered around 4,000 during the height of the anti-racist movement in the late 1970s. It was clear that many people supported the SWP’s fight against fascism and racism, but this didn’t translate into a wider interest in SWP politics. Aside from an inability to attract new members, the SWP, much like the CPGB and YCL, was also plagued by internal schisms over the direction it should take. It decided to wind down its rank-and-file organisations, the ANL, and its women’s organisation, Women’s Voice, in 1981, and retreated into sectarianism.61 In the Netherlands, the early 1970s were characterised by a general demise of political youth organisations, a trend which ultimately led to the disbandment of the Nederlandse Jeugd Gemeenschap (NJG; ‘Dutch Youth Community’), the federation of youth organisations, in September 1975. The ANJV, which boasted around 10,000 members at the time, continued to ride the wave of popularity brought on by its decennia-long protests against the war in Vietnam, and its fight for abortion rights. In addition, the importance of the ANJV’s ceaseless fight against fascism and the communist role in the resistance during the Second World War was increasingly recognised, and not just by radicalised youth. Many people, old and young, felt that the Cold 59 David Renton, Fascism Theory and Practice (London: Pluto Press, 1999), p. 114. 60 Goodyer, Crisis Music, p. 128. 61 The ANL was relaunched in 1992, in response to the British National Party, which had gained significant popularity.

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War had come to an end and it was time to rehabilitate communists and give credit where credit was due.62 Entering the 1980s, the ANJV exuded optimism about the future. Nevertheless, the first signs of imminent demise became visible soon after. Former ANJV member, Robert Schurink, links this downward trend to the organisation’s struggle to let go of its rigid and hierarchical organisational structure and democratise internally. Even more so than in the 1960s and 1970s, youth in the 1980s were attracted to loosely organised apolitical initiatives, such as the squatting movement and other anti-authoritarian forms of youth culture. Young activists in the 1980s, according to Schurink, had a strong aversion to anything political in the traditional sense, and the ANJV leadership was either unable or unwilling to consider this aversion. Whilst these issues without a doubt contributed to its downfall, Schurink was perhaps too harsh on the organisation. After all, most of these small radical grassroots organisations and pressure groups had very short lifespans, and uniting them within the ANJV was an impossible task.63 In the 1970s, the ANJV’s continued fight against fascism had become increasingly intertwined with the fight against racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Due to the excessive use of the term ‘fascism’, the concept but also the fight against it had lost some momentum in the 1970s.64 However, this changed in the 1980s, as a new threat emerged within Dutch borders that reignited anti-fascist and anti-racist activities and encouraged 62 Jolande Withuis, Na het kamp. Vriendschap en politieke strijd (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2005), p. 279. 63 Petitions against fascism, racism, sexism, and discrimination in the 1970s and 1980s illustrate the fragmentation of radical organisations. Whereas petitions against nuclear weapons and the war in Vietnam were signed by twenty organisations, petitions in the 1970s and 1980s were usually signed by as many as 100 organisations. Similarly, events were also organised by a multitude of organisations. For example, Internationale Vrouwendag (‘International Women’s Day’) on March 4, 1981 was organised by women groups such as Blijf van mijn Lijf (‘Don’t Touch my Body’), Vrouwen tegen Verkrachting (‘Women against Rape’), Vrouwen tegen sexueel geweld (‘Vrouwen against Sexual Violence’), Vrouwen tegen Kernenergie (‘Women against Nuclear Power’), and Vrouwen tegen Kernwapens (‘Women against Nuclear Weapons’). 64 To an extent, the excessive use of the word fascist and fascism is most likely related to the fact that parties and movements can be banned, when identified with fascism. When leaders of extreme right organisations go too far, their organisations are discredited and criminalised. Opponents of such organisations, explains Jaap van Donselaar, attempt to ‘puncture the façade of moderation erected by an organisation they regard fascist in nature, for example by demonstrating its involvement in violent actions’. For this reason, it was important to constantly repeat the charge of fascism when fighting these elements in Dutch society. See: Jaap van Donselaar, ‘The Extreme Right and Racist Violence in the Netherlands’, in Racist Violence in Europe, ed. by T. Björgo and R. Witte (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993), 46-61 (p. 49).

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collaboration between different groups on the left. In 1980, the Centrumpartij (‘Centre Party’), a nationalist extreme right-wing political party was founded by Henry Brookman. The party was represented by Hans Janmaat, who won a seat in the Dutch House of Commons in the 1982 general elections. This was the first time since 1937 – when the Nationaal Socialistische Beweging in Nederland (NSB; ‘National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands’) won four seats in the Dutch House of Commons – that a right-wing extremist party was represented in Dutch government. Whilst the Centrumpartij officially denounced fascism and national socialism, it shared the NSB’s hatred of foreign elements in society and its white nationalism. The Centrumpartij, with its slogan Eigen Volk Eerst (‘Our Own People First’) and Vol is Vol (‘Full is Full’), was a slightly more moderate offshoot of the Nederlandse Volksunie (‘Dutch People’s Union’), an unsuccessful militant neo-Nazi party founded in 1971. Unlike the Nederlandse Volksunie, whose leaders openly admired Hitler and NSB founder Anton Mussert and fought for the rehabilitation of war criminals, the Centrumpartij understood that Nazi-like jargon and any obvious involvement in violent activism should be avoided. Due to the latter, it has been notoriously difficult to connect the Centrumpartij to any racist violence in the 1980s. Nevertheless, as noted by Jaap van Donselaar, there was a dramatic increase of racist violence in the first half of the 1980s, which decreased when racist organisations such as the Centrumpartij disintegrated.65 This violence ranged from intimidation, threats, racist graffiti, arson, assaults, gun fights, and even bombings. In response, the ANJV intensified its protests against the neo-Nazi and fascist elements in society. Together with other political, charitable, single-issue religious organisations and pressure groups, the ANJV took out newspaper ads that warned people in the Netherlands about the influence of the Centrumpartij and the Volksunie, drawing parallels with the years leading up to the Holocaust.66 Aside from newspaper ads, these organisations also gathered outside of Centrumpartij meetings and rallies, and these protests often ended up in violent altercations that had to be broken up by the police.67 In its fight against fascism, the ANJV primarily relied on students. The Scholierencomité voor Vrede en anti-Fascisme (‘Student Committee for Peace and anti-Fascism’, later shortened to Student Committee Amsterdam or SKA) had been created in 1981 by ANJV youth in secondary schools. It was 65 Jaap van Donselaar, ‘The Extreme Right and Racist Violence in the Netherlands’, p. 53. 66 BVD dossier on the Centrum Partij: http://www.stichtingargus.nl/bvd/r/cp-02-03.pdf (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 67 Ibid.

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a loosely organised group open for members and non-members of the ANJV who wanted to take part in anti-fascist education initiatives and actions in secondary schools. Its main focus was on apartheid in South Africa and the rise of extreme right organisations in the Netherlands. Financially and morally supported by the ANJV, yet largely autonomous, the Scholierencomité was invited to secondary schools, where members would give talks about racism and fascism, explain what these terms mean, and encourage fellow students to rise up and stop racism and xenophobia at their school, at work, and in their communities. Together with the ANJV, the Scholierencomité started a successful initiative in 1980/1, called De Bonte Reus after a well-known brand of laundry detergent. As part of this initiative, groups of young people would gather, tracking down and removing racist, sexist, and antisemitic graffiti in their hometown, and paste posters with anti-fascist information in their stead. Despite their laudable intentions, due to the nature of their activities – i.e. painting over graffiti and illegal billposting – youth involved in Bonte Reus actions were regularly arrested by the police, which reinforced the idea that police officers were fascists themselves.68 Whenever the opportunity arose, Bonte Reus actions, which went beyond graffiti removal and also entailed protests and picket lines to stop fascists from marching and meeting, were usually presented in communist press as a continuation of communist anti-fascist activities during the war. Nineteenyear-old Bonte Reus and ANJV member, Yvonne Buma was interviewed in the communist newspaper, De Waarheid (‘The Truth’) in the context of the upcoming February Strike commemoration in 1981: The Bonte Reus is our action name for the removal of fascist graffiti. On a few occasions, we gathered and took trips through the city to clean the walls; also on the Vissersplein, close to the Dokwerker [‘Longshoreman’ statue to commemorate the February Strike]. Someone had written something like, ‘Amsterdam White,’ so we made sure to remove that immediately. Later, in that same neighbourhood, Vikingjeugd [Viking Youth, a neo-Nazi youth organisation], was planning to disrupt a D’66 [Democrats ’66: Social Liberal Political Party] meeting. Together with some 100 people we organised a picket line in front of the door where the meeting was taking place. People from the neighbourhood together with Bonte Reuzen. Vikingjeugd was nowhere to be seen. What this has to do with the February Strike? A lot. That was also against fascism and racism! And that is still relevant and important for youth today. I am 68 ‘Politie stoort Bonte Reus’, De Waarheid, April 28, 1981, p. 3.

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going to attend my first ever February Strike commemoration ceremony on February 25. I think more youth should come to these gatherings.69

The fight against racism and fascism quickly accelerated and found broader support after the 1983 murder of Kerwin Duinmeijer in the centre of Amsterdam. The perpetrator, sixteen-year-old neo-Nazi Nico Bodemeijer, claimed that he stabbed Duinmeijer, a fifteen-year-old boy of Dutch Antillean decent, just because he was black and stated that he would do it again. Considering Bodemeijer’s comments, his affiliation to Vikingjeugd, and his ‘100% white’ tattoo, the Amsterdam court’s decision that there was no proof of either racist motive or premeditation came as a devastating surprise to most. The court established that instead of murder, it was a case of grievous bodily harm that caused the victim’s death. Bodemeijer was released early in 1988 and joined the Centrumpartij. Until he committed suicide in 2012, Bodemeijer was involved in a string of violent altercations, including another stabbing in 1989 for which he received a five-year prison sentence.70 Many Dutch saw the murder of Kerwin Duinmeijer as the first racist murder in the Netherlands since the Second World War. About 6,000 people gathered the day after Duinmeijer’s funeral and marched from the Beursplein (‘Stock Exchange Square’) to the Dokwerker.71 The CPN and its organisations, especially the ANJV and the Scholierencomité, were immediately involved in the response that followed. Together with the Anne Frank Stichting (‘The Anne Frank Foundation’), and the newly founded Stichting Vrienden van Kerwin (‘Friends of Kerwin Foundation’), Scholierencomité and the ANJV organised meetings to intensify and expand the fight against racism. Once again, those involved ensured that parallels with communist resistance during the Second World War were clear. Following other anti-fascist groups, Stichting Vrienden van Kerwin chose the red triangle for their logo, the same triangle worn by communists and other political prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.72 Throughout the 1980s, the fight against fascism became further intertwined with the fight against racism. Communist youth’s fight against domestic fascism had never ceased, though with the absence of a real threat – unlike in Britain where fascist 69 ‘Februaristaking 40 jaar geleden’, De Waarheid, February 21, 1981, p. 1. 70 ‘Moordenaar Kerwin Duinmeijer overleden’, Het Parool, January 9, 2012: https://www.parool. nl/nieuws/moordenaar-kerwin-duinmeijer-overleden~b61af7bb/ (Accessed on June 19, 2020). 71 ‘Zesduizend mensen demonstreren tegen racisme en fascisme’. Trouw, September 29, 1983, p. 3. 72 ‘Scholen’, Stichting Vrienden van Kerwin: http://www.kerwin.nl/scholen.html (Accessed on March 29, 2021).

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parties had garnered significant support throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s – it had become more symbolic. When it once again became a real fight against a real threat, the CPN and the ANJV were able to shine and, prompted by the easing of the Cold War, their anti-fascist efforts, both contemporary and in the past, were widely recognised and respected. A prime example of the changed political atmosphere can be seen in Het Parool’s decision to give its yearly award for services to the city of Amsterdam to the Scholierencomité for its efforts to stop racism, and its response to the murder of Kerwin Duinmeijer. Het Parool is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was first published in 1941 as a social-democratic clandestine newspaper of the non-communist resistance. Politically, Het Parool was known for its pro-American and anti-Soviet stance and its fierce anti-communist language, especially during the height of the Cold War.73 In 1996, a leading national newspaper reported that Frans Goedhart, founder of Het Parool, and foreign affairs correspondent Sal Tas, had been working for the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s, which could explain the paper’s fierce anti-communism in those years.74 In light of the paper’s history, its decision to honour the Scholierencomité was remarkable. Students received their award from the newspaper’s editor-in-chief at the statue of Anne Frank, close to the Achterhuis. A large photograph of fourteen Scholierencomité members featured on the front page of Het Parool, and an interview with three members was printed on page twelve.75 A year later, the Scholierencomité featured in a documentary on public television by Froukje Bos titled Kerwin, teken van de tijd (‘Kerwin, a sign of the times’).76 Riding a wave of confidence and popularity, the Scholierencomité broadened its scope and organised a student strike in Amsterdam in response to the government’s decision to install 48 cruise missiles in the Netherlands. In preparation for the strike, Scholierencomité printed 10,000 brochures and thousands of posters, to call on students to join the strike. On the day of the strike on April 12, 1984, between 7,000 and 10,000 people gathered in front 73 M.I. Roholl, ‘Fototentoonstelling Wij Mensen – The Family of Man in het Stedelijk Museum van Amsterdam: Een Amerikaans familiealbum als wapen in de Koude Oorlog’, in Het beeld in de spiegel, historiografische verkenningen, ed. by E.O.G Haitsma Muller, L.H. Maas, and Jaap Vogel (Hilversum: Verloren 2000), p. 133-151 (p. 142). 74 ‘Leden Parool-redactie werkten voor de CIA’, De Volkskrant, September 16, 1996. https:// www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/leden-parool-redactie-werkten-voor-cia~b14f50ee/ (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 75 ‘Paroliebollen voor scholieren’, Het Parool, 31 December, 1983, p. 1 and 12. 76 https://wiki.beeldengeluid.nl/index.php/Kerwin,_teken_van_de_tijd (Accessed on March 29, 2021).

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of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange building. Together they marched to the US consulate and the USSR trade mission. About 3,000 participants joined festivities in the music venue Paradiso on Leidseplein, where a number of bands performed.77 Several months later, Het Parool reports that, as a result of the strike, the Scholierencomité found itself in financial trouble.78 This didn’t come as a surprise as the ANJV, which had provided the Scholierencomité with moral, financial, and logistic support, had been in a financial bind since the early 1980s. The costs of the strike – including flyers, posters, and brochures – had exacerbated the situation. Aside from f inancial problems, there were organisational issues that threatened the ANJV’s existence. In the years leading up to this crisis, a growing number of ANJV members began to voice their concerns about these systemic problems that plagued the organisation, and the absence of a clear direction for the future. When the ANJV’s executive committee suggested a large fundraiser to resolve its dire financial situation, this group of members, who held the executive committee largely responsible for the problems the ANJV was facing, demanded that it address other structural issues first. The opposition that was in favour of internal reforms had concluded that the organisational problems were related to the ANJV’s lack of democracy, and its insistence to hold on to traditional structures, including a paid cadre and an executive and central committee. The latter, together with the upkeep of the ANJV’s main office and its monthly magazine, formed a significant financial burden for local ANJV branches. These concerns were also expressed during a national cadre meeting held in November 1981. There it was decided that the members of the executive committee would give up their positions, and paid cadre would become unemployed starting January 1, 1982. After the introduction of new, more democratic procedures, these members would be able to apply for positions within the organisation. Furthermore, a committee was appointed, made up of representatives from local ANJV chapters, to discuss what reforms should be introduced and to formulate the direction and goals of the ANJV. These talks were so heated that the committee members of the Haarlem ANJV resigned from their duties. Their departure was followed by the announcement that the Haarlem branch of the ANJV as a whole, ‘no longer wanted to be part of the ANJV in its current state’. It is not entirely 77 De duizend daden. Een geschiedenis van het Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond 1945-1985, ed. by Tamara Blokzijl, Corita Homma, and Willem Walter (Amsterdam: ANJV, 1985), ed. by Blokzijl, Homma and Walter, pp. 49-50. 78 ‘Vredesfeest in Paradiso’, Het Parool, July 10, 1984, p. 8.

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clear whether the Haarlem ANJV was against the reforms proposed by the committee, or that they felt that the reforms weren’t far-reaching enough. The committee continued to meet up after losing the Haarlem branch, and when the meetings had concluded it produced a report which was published in Jeugd in February 1982.79 In this report, the committee ascertained that while Dutch youth responded positively to ANJV initiatives – such as the student actions against fascism in the Netherlands, and those against apartheid in South Africa – they weren’t all that interested in joining the ANJV. As a result, membership was down and all that was left in the early 1980s was a small core of activists. To respond to this development adequately, the committee proposed to form smaller groups around certain themes. The underlying thought beneath this proposition was that members should not pursue the strengthening of the ANJV as a whole but should encourage youth to become active around issues of their own choice. In terms of its own role, the ANJV, according to the committee, should focus on issues that concerned young people, but weren’t addressed by the women’s, gay rights, punk/ squatting, peace, and anti-nuclear energy movements, such as unemployment, educational reform, and youth services. In terms of organisational reforms that should take place to adapt to this new vision, the committee emphasised that single issue groups should operate independently from the ANJV; however, it deemed regular consultation between groups on a national level necessary. Further, the committee urged the ANJV to shed its vanguard pretences and instead consider itself as an organisation among many others. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the committee promoted the idea that the ANJV should transform into a much broader organisation for left-leaning youth with its own, autonomously decided, agenda.80 The committee’s vision for the future wasn’t received well by everyone. Judging by his condescending tone, Bart Luirink, who had himself been a member of the ANJV for ten years, was clearly not convinced by the committee’s plan of action to halt the ANJV’s demise. In a Waarheid article, he expresses concern about the report’s lack of concrete goals for the future. Within this context he notes that while ‘socialism’ and ‘a road to socialism’ are mentioned, what this socialism entails or what road one must choose to achieve it aren’t discussed. Luirink also observes that the document does not mention any special ties with the CPN, which he sees as an understandable break with the past, considering young people’s aversion to politics and the undemocratic practices within many political organisations. He then 79 Bart Luirink, ‘Crisis of Kinderziekte?’, De Waarheid, February 11, 1982, p. 4. 80 Ibid.

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remarks that the ANJV too has been guilty of top-down decision-making, and is most likely equally distrusted by youth, something that isn’t addressed in the document.81 Despite the committee’s efforts to reform the ANJV, the internal crisis was too far advanced. About eighteen months after the committee shared its vision for the future, Jeugd reported that the ANJV had distanced itself from the CPN, yet it hadn’t managed to become a broad-based youth organisation.82 Instead, members had left the ANJV en masse and, following Haarlem, local ANJVs were disbanded all over the country, leaving only the Amsterdam branch of the ANJV to continue. For a brief moment, the latter also contemplating disbanding, but the presence of a large number of very active secondary school students within its ranks, eventually provided the incentive to continue. This decision paid off; by 1985, the Amsterdam ANJV had managed to reinvent itself and transform into a broad youth organisation, autonomous from the CPN. It worked within social movements of the time, while also fostering its own groups. The Amsterdam ANJV’s success story motivated local groups to follow suit, and a national ANJV was resurrected. It rose like a ‘phoenix out of the ashes’, commented a very optimistic former secretary Robert Schurink during his speech at the 1985 ANJV Congress in Amsterdam.83 At the same congress, national secretary Willem Walter explained, ‘[The new ANJV] is not a mass organisation, instead it is a movement that rallies young people behind initiatives and gives them perspective’.84 As a result, the local ANJVs became loose collections of single-issue groups, including the Scholierencomité which continued to exist regardless of its financially precarious situation and fought against racism, apartheid and nuclear weapons, a women’s group, an El Salvador group, and a gay and lesbian group. Each of these groups had their own magazine, activities, and meetings, and met on a national level from time to time. At first, a traditional core within the ANJV feared that this development would weaken and fragment the organisation. The women’s group especially faced initial disapproval. When the idea to form such group was suggested in 1981, those who opposed felt that men and women should fight sexism together. Women’s issues, they argued, should be addressed by all members. The main objection against the group was that ‘If boys are side-lined, they will never become fully informed about feminism’. These reservations didn’t 81 Ibid. 82 ‘Jeugd en ANJV’, De Waarheid, July 27, 1983 p. 8. 83 De duizend daden, ed. by Blokzijl, Homma, and Walter, p. 75. 84 Bart Luirink, ‘ANJV herrezen als Phoenix uit de as’, De Waarheid, January 15, 1985, p. 3.

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deter those members who felt women should have their own groups. Soon, women’s groups were formed all over the country, including in Amsterdam, Haarlem, Arnhem, and Utrecht. As with other initiatives that were instigated but not necessarily run by ANJV youth, these groups were an important bridge to non-ANJV groups, and instead of fragmenting the organisation, it helped to rebuild it. Jeugd, by now an attractive and youthful looking magazine printed in colour featuring as many articles about culture as it did politics, remained the organisation’s national magazine and would regularly report on the progress made by the individual groups.85

The gay rights movement Whereas the importance of the role played by the YCL and the CPGB in the anti-racist and feminist movements may be debatable, there is one area where communists were clearly ahead of most – if not all – left-wing organisations. In the British labour movement, the CPGB was the first to advance gay rights. Communists, note Evan Smith and Daryl Leeworthy, followed the example set by the National Union of Students (NUS) which had passed a resolution in favour of gay rights in 1973. After several years of growing support for this cause within the movement, rank-and-file agitation at the CPGB’s National Congress of 1976 resulted in a similar resolution issued by the party’s executive committee. The issue was presented to the committee by Dave Cook, who had replaced Fergus Nicholson as national student organiser and was a motor behind reform within the party, and two members of the Gay Liberation Front, clearly signalling the relationship between the two. From that moment onward, gay rights were referenced in most broad policy statements produced by the party and the YCL, both of which had a substantial amount of openly gay members in the 1970s.86 Considering British public opinion about homosexuality, the CPGB’s decision to not only support gay rights but to put it on the political agenda is remarkable. Homosexuality in Britain had been decriminalised in 1967 for men aged 21 and over; however, stigma and prejudice against gay men and lesbians remained widespread over the subsequent decades and prevented 85 See: ‘Vrouwen’ in Diskussie Kaderblad Special, Diskussiemateriaal hoofdbestuur ANJV 16e nationale kongres 9,10,11 mei Lelystad April ’80 (International Institute of Social History) and ‘Meidengroep’ Jeugd, August/September, 1981, p. 6. 86 Evan Smith and Daryl Leeworthy, ‘Before Pride: The Struggle for the Recognition of Gay Rights in the British Communist Movement, 1973-85’, Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 27, Issue 4, (2016), 621-642, (p.624).

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many from openly expressing their sexuality.87 Gallup public opinion polls show that, in the late 1960s, about 30 percent of participants felt that homosexuality was a very serious problem in Britain. Throughout the 1970s, public opinion towards homosexuality became slightly more positive but, with the arrival of AIDS, anxiety quickly rose. The last time the question whether homosexuality was a very serious problem was posed by Gallup, in June 1988, an astonishing 48 percent of participants answered yes. Similarly, Gallup began to ask about sexual relations between two adults of the same sex from 1983 onwards and, throughout the 1980s, the majority of participants felt it was ‘always wrong’.88 Historically, taboos against homosexuality were strong among the British middle class yet, by the Second World War, the working class had fully caught up with the middle class in this respect. The abhorrence of homosexuality in the dominant working-class culture, which was, according to David M. Rayside, exaggerated by the association of homosexual practices with the upper classes and the clergy, tempered the labour movement’s preparedness to act progressively on measures such as protecting gays and lesbians against discrimination in employment. The Labour Party in particular was terrified of losing respectability and alienating its workingclass core by committing itself to the passage of progressive legislation. As late as March 1987, Neil Kinnock’s press secretary blamed the loss of a previously safe Labour seat in Greenwich in part on the party’s support for gay rights, stating, ‘The lesbian and gay issue [is] costing us dear among the pensioners’.89 Overall communist views on homosexuality were similar to those of the wider working class, especially after Stalin had re-criminalised homosexuality in the 1930s. Before the Bolshevik Revolution, anal intercourse among men was prohibited in the Imperial Legal Code. The law was thrown out along with the rest of the tsarist code in 1917 and homosexuality was officially legalised in 1922. Frances Lee Bernstein argues that the latter should be 87 Lesbian activities were never criminalised. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 reduced the age of consent for homosexual sex from 21 to eighteen and was eventually lowered to sixteen in 2001. 88 ‘The Polls – Trends Public Opinion Toward Homosexuality and Gay Rights in Great Britain’, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 78, No. 2, (2014), 523-547 (pp. 525-526). 89 David M. Rayside, ‘Homophobia, Class and Party in England’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 25, No. 1 (1992), 121-150 (pp. 134-135). It should be noted that Kinnock did go on to support formal lesbian and gay equality and, according to Robinson, likened Clause 28, the 1988 law that forbade schools and local authorities to promote homosexuality, to Nazi policy. Lucy Robinson, Gay Men and the Left in Post-War Britain. How the Personal Got Political (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p. 173.

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understood in the context of the changing attitude in the late imperial period toward homosexuality as a medical rather than a juridical problem.90 Though it was officially legalised, treatment of gays and lesbians varied in the early Soviet state. Some considered homosexuality a social illness that needed curing, others saw it as an example of bourgeois degeneracy, while others besides felt that homosexuality should be tolerated or even respected in the new socialist society.91 Stalin reversed the law and recriminalised sodomy in March 1934. Harry Whyte, a homosexual member of the CPGB who was at the time working at the Moscow Daily News, wrote a letter to Stalin when he heard about the new law. In this letter, Whyte argues that this new decree contradicts the principles of Marxism-Leninism and asks Stalin whether a homosexual can be considered someone worthy of membership in the Communist Party. He explains that he consulted different people who gave him contradictory opinions. His psychiatrist in Moscow indicated that if a homosexual is an honest citizen or good communist, he may order his personal life as he sees fit. Whyte’s superior at the Moscow Daily News, editor-in-chief Mikhail Borodin, had reportedly declared that he regarded Whyte as a fairly good and trustworthy communist and that he could lead his personal life as he liked. Borodin, who personally took a negative view of homosexuality, did not view Whyte as a criminal when the arrests of homosexuals began. Quite the opposite: Borodin gave Whyte a promotion. Whyte went on to explain to Stalin that he viewed [t]he condition of homosexuals who are either of working-class origin or workers themselves to be analogous to the condition of women under the capitalist regime and the coloured races who are oppressed by imperialism. […] This condition is likewise similar in many ways to the condition of the Jews under Hitler’s dictatorship, and in general it is not hard to see it in an analogy with the condition of any social stratum subjected to exploitation and persecution under capitalist domination.

However, Whyte did not want to ‘advance the separate slogan of the emancipation of working-class homosexuals from the conditions of capitalist exploitation’ and believed that ‘this emancipation is inseparable from the general struggle for the emancipation of all humanity from the oppression 90 Bernstein, The Dictatorship of Sex, pp. 63-64. 91 See: Dan Healey, Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia. The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

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of private-ownership exploitation’.92 Whyte’s letter to Stalin was found in the Soviet archives. On the first page Stalin has written, ‘Archive. An idiot and a degenerate. J. Stalin’. Whyte returned to Britain soon after writing this letter and became involved in activities supporting the Spanish republic during the civil war. He died in 1960 at the age of 53.93 Interviewed heterosexual YCL members recalled that homosexuality was simply not discussed in the league, or in the communist home – which will be further discussed in Chapter Six. However, as observed by Lucy Robinson in Gay Men and the Left in Post-War Britain, memoirs of gay comrades suggest there was more than just a culture of silence around homosexuality in the communist movement. She states that in the 1950s the CPGB, following Stalin’s official line, also condemned homosexuality as a bourgeois vice.94 The latter echoes Rayside’s findings above that in the British working-class, homosexuality was often associated with the upper echelons of society and as a product of the country’s public school system.95 The transition from this culture of denial and even condemnation of homosexuality to full-on support for gay rights was remarkably sudden. According to Robinson, the CPGB’s shift is ‘one of the clearest markers of the move from the politics of class to the politics of identity’.96 Though the party’s motivations to support lesbian and gay politics may have been rooted in opportunism, i.e. gaining new and valuable members who had been politicised in the gay liberation movement, that doesn’t take away from the fact that gay rights were nonetheless added to the political agenda.97 Gay liberation and the fight against discrimination of gays and lesbians also became important focus points within the YCL. Remarkably explicit articles about homosexuality had been published in Challenge since the late 1960s. One such article, titled ‘Gay Girls’, offered a ‘clinical look’ at lesbianism, ‘in order to brush aside the cobwebs of prejudice and nonsense’: The lesbian however, is not resorting to homosexual practices for lack of normal channels: her sexual drive is itself abnormal, and her relationship with another woman is characterised by all the qualities, both mental and 92 Harry Whyte, ‘Letter to Stalin: “Can a Homosexual be in the Communist Party?”’, In Defence of Marxism, May 10, 2018: https://www.marxist.com/letter-to-stalin-can-a-homosexual-be-inthe-communist-party.htm (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 93 Healey, Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia, p. 190. 94 Robinson, Gay Men and the Left in Post-war Britain, p. 24. 95 Rayside, ‘Homophobia, Class and Party in England’, p. 133. 96 Ibid. 97 Andrews, Endgames and New Times, pp. 155-156.

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physical, that comprise the feelings of the heterosexual woman towards the man she loves. When this is understood, it becomes obvious how ill-founded is the widespread assumption that homosexuality, whether among males or females, is a depraved indulgence and an affront to the sensibilities of all ‘normal’ people. The fact is, that although lesbians are not born, but made, they can no more choose not to be lesbian than anyone can choose not to manifest the effects of his or her environment and upbringing.98

The author goes on to discuss that there are at least as many lesbians as male homosexuals, one in every twenty women, and that they are, by and large, indistinguishable from other women. On the whole, like other women, lesbians seek the stability of a lasting and deep-rooted relationship. But, according to the author, finding such a relationship is difficult: The main problem of being lesbian is that the chances of finding that kind of relationship are much smaller than for the heterosexual woman in a society that is geared in every respect towards a heterosexual way of life. The difficulty of finding a suitable companion would be lessened if public opinion were to allow lesbians to express themselves openly. […] In a world where women are by and large considered as either actually or potentially dependent on men, lesbian couples will meet with all sorts of headaches relating to legal and financial matters. Many of their practical and emotional problems could be lessened, if not removed if the public were more enlightened as regards lesbianism. At present the attitude is either to pretend it does not exist, or to recognise that it exists, but insist that it shouldn’t. Education will bring tolerance towards homosexuality.99

This article was published less than a year after homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain for men aged 21 and over. As illustrated by the Gallup surveys, homosexuality remained widely condemned in Britain and the ‘Gay Girls’ article should be understood as a brave attempt to call for more tolerance and understanding. Throughout the 1970s, as increasingly reliable research studies became available, Challenge articles about homosexuality became more informed, and from the early 1980s onwards, they were aimed to rally support behind the gay rights movement. 98 ‘Gay Girls’, Challenge, July 1968. 99 Ibid.

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In late 1978, in Challenge, Mark Sreeves called for an YCL gay group, to ‘turn our policy into more than just a paper document’. The first such group was established a few months later in London. In April 1979, the congress of the YCL passed a resolution on the sexual rights of young people which committed to fight discrimination against gays, eradication of anti-gay prejudice, and better and more thorough sex education in schools to encourage young people to develop their own sexuality.100 In 1985, openly gay man Mark Ashton became general secretary of the YCL. Ashton, who had joined the YCL in 1982, was a major force within the communist movement and managed to get motions in support of lesbian and gay rights passed by the YCL even before he became general secretary.101 In July 1984, he attended a meeting of the newly founded Lesbian and Gay Working Collective, a YCL initiative to overcome obstacles in the way of gay and lesbian comrades within the communist movement as well as in the gay liberation movement. Ashton informed the meeting that the lesbian and gay community in London had been raising money in support of the miners who had gone on strike in March 1984. The strike, which would last a year, was a large-scale protest against Margaret Thatcher’s plans to close pits in Northern England, Scotland, and Wales, and kill the National Union of Miners (NUM). In response, Ashton, together with a group of friends, including Mike Jackson, had started to collect money during London pride to help the strikers and their families.102 When Jackson and Ashton realised that the gay community was willing to help, they made it official and formed Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) in July 1984. Their support was socialist in principle, but LGSM groups wanted to provide this support as lesbians and gays. By 1985, there were eleven LGSM groups in Britain.103 The Thatcher government, intent on reducing the power of trade unions, had sequestered the NUM’s funds. It was therefore pointless for supporters to send donations to the miners via the NUM. Instead, the LGSM groups decided to adopt mining communities, and visited these communities during the strike months to deliver money, food, and other supplies. Ashton 100 Smith and Leeworthy, ‘Before Pride’, p. 634. 101 Robinson, Gay Men and the Left in Post-war Britain, p. 165. 102 Smith and Leeworthy, ‘Before Pride’, p. 638. 103 Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners material at the People’s History Museum, posted on September 29, 2014 https://phmmcr.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/lesbians-and-gays-support-theminers-material-at-the-peoples-history-museum/ (Accessed on March 29, 2021), and Peter Frost, ‘“Pits and Perverts”. The Legacy of Communist Mark Ashton’, Morning Star, September 10, 2014: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-772e-pits-and-perverts-the-legacy-of-communist-mark-ashton (Accessed on March 29, 2021).

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and Jackson’s London group alone, which was twinned with Dulais Valley in South Wales, raised £11,000 by the end of that year.104 Aside from bucket collections in front of pubs and clubs, the LGSM also found support among artists. For example, in aid of the LGSM, ‘The Go Go Boys’, a play by Howard Lester and Andrew Alty, was staged at the Gate in Notting Hill in December 1984.105 That same month, the London LGSM organised a successful benefit concert in Camden in December 1984, which raised £5,650. The event, headlined by Bronski Beat, was named ‘Pits and Perverts’, a phrase originally used by the Sun newspaper to ridicule the relationship between gays and miners, but cleverly reclaimed by the LGSM and used to their advantage.106 David Donovan, from the Dulais National Union of Mineworkers, told the 1,500 strong audience that had gathered on the day of the benefit at the Electric Ballroom: You have worn our badge, ‘Coal not Dole,’ and you know what harassment means, as we do. Now we will pin your badge on us – we will support you. […] It won’t change overnight, but now 140,000 miners know that there are other causes and other problems. We know about blacks and gays and nuclear disarmament, and will never be the same.107

Donovan didn’t make empty promises. Mike Jackson recalled that the miners in Wales warmed to their cause: ‘They started wearing gay badges on their lapels. They wanted money because they were on strike; we wanted recognition and acceptance – not that we went with any preconditions, we did not expect anything back’.108 But the miners gave back regardless. Together with their families and their marching band, miners that had been supported by LGSM drove from Wales to London to join the 1985 gay pride march. In that same year, a resolution committing the Labour Party 104 Ibid. 105 The Stage and Television Today, December 20, 1984, p. 3. 106 Robinson, Gay Men and the Left in Post-war Britain, pp. 164-166, All Out! Dancing in Dulais: https://youtu.be/lHJhbwEcgrA (Accessed on March 29, 2021), and Kate Kellaway, ‘When Miners and Gay Activists United: The Real Story of the Film Pride’, The Guardian, August 31, 2014 (https:// www.theguardian.com/f ilm/2014/aug/31/pride-f ilm-gay-activists-miners-strike-interview (Accessed on March 21, 2021). 107 Peter Frost, ‘“Pits and Perverts”. The Legacy of Communist Mark Ashton’, Morning Star, September 10, 2014: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-772e-pits-and-perverts-the-legacy-ofcommunist-mark-ashton (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 108 Kate Kellaway, ‘When Miners and Gay Activists United: The Real Story of the Film Pride’, The Guardian, August 31, 2014 (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/aug/31/pride-film-gayactivists-miners-strike-interview (Accessed on March 21, 2021).

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to support gay and lesbian equality rights was passed. The issue had been raised and defeated before, but this time, due to unanimous support from the NUM, the vote against the opposition from many on the Labour Party national executive was won.109 Though the strike was ultimately defeated and Thatcher won, there was a silver lining. The LGSM had successfully combated the miners’ homophobia, and, as illustrated by Donovan’s speech, introduced miners to other causes including minority rights, and nuclear disarmament. But most of all it proved that gays and workers could unite and support one another.110 Sadly, Ashton wasn’t there to witness the lasting relationship between the mining and gay communities. After his sudden passing from an AIDS-related illness in 1987, his friends created two panels for the UK AIDS memorial quilt to commemorate his remarkable life. One of these panels features a hammer and sickle and a pair of red stilettos, to celebrate Ashton’s efforts to integrate gay and socialist politics.111 In addition, a trust was set up in his memory. Waite notes that this trust was one of the many foci on the left for the raising of awareness about AIDS.112 The NUM’s support of lesbians and gays continued beyond their vote in favour of gay rights. In 1988, it was among the most outspoken allies of gays and lesbians fighting Section 28, a clause introduced by Thatcher’s government that banned the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality by local authorities and in Britain’s schools.113 The clause meant that, in practice, teachers were prohibited from discussing even the possibility of same-sex relationships with students and it prevented councils from funding lesbian and gay initiatives, including much-needed AIDS awareness campaigns. It was widely seen as a callous attempt to further suppress an already-marginalised group and an attempt to solidify support among the majority of the population who thought that homosexual activity was fundamentally wrong. During the months leading up to the passing of this homophobic law, the CPGB and the YCL intensified their work to help lesbians and gays obtain the rights 109 Peter Frost, ‘“Pits and Perverts”. The Legacy of Communist Mark Ashton’, Morning Star, September 10, 2014: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-772e-pits-and-perverts-the-legacy-ofcommunist-mark-ashton (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 110 Robinson, Gay Men and the Left in Post-war Britain, pp. 164-166, UK AIDS Memorial Quilt https://www.aidsquiltuk.org/ (Accessed on March 21, 2021). 111 Robinson, Gay Men and the Left in Post-war Britain, p. 170. 112 Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity, p. 293. 113 Frost, ‘Pits and Perverts’, and ‘Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners’ material at the People’s History Museum, posted on September 29, 2014: https://phmmcr.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/ lesbians-and-gays-support-the-miners-material-at-the-peoples-history-museum/ (Accessed on March 29, 2021).

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they deserved and joined major LGBT campaigns to stop Thatcher.114 While protestors weren’t able to stop the law from being passed, Section 28 formed the catalyst for one of the most successful civil rights movements, i.e. the gay rights movement, in contemporary British history. Since the late nineteenth century, the Netherlands was known for its conservative sexual morality, which was largely due to pillarisation. As explained in Chapter One, Dutch society was divided not just horizontally in classes, but also vertically, in several smaller segments (pillars) according to different denominations or political ideologies. These four pillars – Catholic, Calvinist, liberal, and social democratic – guided their members along their version of the straight and narrow, and competed with one another when it came to morality.115 As the ontzuiling (‘depillarisation’) began to set in during the late 1950s, and the number of secularised citizens began to rise, more relaxed attitudes regarding sex and sexuality, including birth control and homosexuality, were adopted by large sections of the population. On December 30, 1964, a gay and lesbian couple were seen on Dutch public television for the first time, and novels explicitly dealing with homosexuality were published widely from the mid-1960s onwards. These changes are also visible in public opinion polls about sexuality from the era. Whereas, in 1967, 43.5 percent of participants disagreed with the statement, ‘Homosexuals should be removed from society’, three years later, this percentage was 84 percent and, between 1985 and 1992, this percentage was consistently 90 percent.116 Other questions show similar trends – from 1970 until 1997, participants were asked whether homosexuals should be left free to live as they wish. The percentage of participants answering ‘they should enjoy full freedom’ was 75 percent in 1970, 83 in 1975, and hovered around 94 percent between 1980 and 2006. Interestingly, there is no significant AIDS-related anxiety detectable in these surveys, yet the Netherlands was hit by the epidemic in a similar fashion as Britain.117 114 Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners material at the People’s History Museum, posted on September 29, 2014: https://phmmcr.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/lesbians-and-gays-supportthe-miners-material-at-the-peoples-history-museum/ (Accessed on March 29, 2021). 115 Saskia Keuzenkamp and David Bos, Out in the Netherlands. Acceptance of Homosexuality in the Netherlands (The Hague: The Netherlands Institute for Social Research, 2007), p. 23. 116 This question should be understood in the context of mental health. Until the 1960s the majority of people felt that those with mental defects or diseases should be ‘removed’ (i.e. placed in homes, etc.) from society. As homosexuality was initially regarded a mental defect, the public felt that they too should be placed outside of society. 117 Keuzenkamp and Bos, Out in the Netherlands, p. 32, and S. Meilof-Oonk, Meningen over homosexualiteit (Amsterdam: Stichting tot Bevordering Sociaal Onderzoek Minderheden, 1967).

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This comparatively more tolerant attitude didn’t mean that there wasn’t any hostility towards homosexuals in the Netherlands. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s (and beyond), gay people in the Netherlands faced discrimination in the workplace, in school, and in their communities. Gay groups and their supporters, among others the ANJV, were instrumental in raising awareness of this injustice. Like their fight against racism, the ANJV’s fight against homophobia and for gay rights was firmly anchored within the larger fight against fascism. Here too, the ANJV saw a continuation of behaviours that had led to the persecution and mass murder of gay people in Nazi Germany: Thousands of homosexuals were deported to concentration camps, where they were forced to wear a pink triangle and faced with constant humiliation from guards as well as other prisoners. The pink triangle is now worn to remind people of this (suppressed) fact and as a symbol of the fight for gay rights. Fascist clubs, such as the NVU and the so-called Nationaal Jeugd Front [‘National Youth Front’] want to relive those times. The most recent COC-Amsterdam members’ meeting has approved a motion that urges its leadership to seek alliances with former-resistance organisations, Surinam organisations, organisations of guest labourers, Jewish and other organisations, to ensure a ban on these clubs. For the ANJV, which has been fighting to achieve such collaboration for many years, this is an important development.’118

The Cultuur en Ontspannings Centrum (COC; ‘Cultural and Recreational Centre’) was the successor of the Nederlandse Wetenschappelijk Humanitair Komitee, (NWHK; ‘Dutch Scientific Humanitarian Committee’), an organisation which was established in 1912 to protest anti-gay legislation and fight for better education about homosexuality. The NWHK was disbanded upon the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940. Its work was continued by the COC which was founded in 1946 and is one of the oldest gay rights organisations in the world. The author of the above commentary, Herman Christis, called upon the ANJV to intensify its support of the gay rights movement. Already in January, 1969 – several months before the Stonewall riots in New York City – the Federatie Studenten Werkgroepen Homoseksuelen (FSWG; ‘Federation of Gay Student Workgroups’) had organised the first ‘gay demonstration’ in Den 118 Herman Christis, ‘Homo-onderdrukking’, ‘Diskussie Kaderblad Special’ Diskussiemateriaal hoofdbestuur ANJV 16e nationale kongres 9,10,11 mei Lelystad April ’80’ (ANJV Archive – International Institute of Social History).

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Haag to fight gay persecution and demand the removal of article 248bis, which criminalised same sex sexual contact between male minors, i.e. youth under the age of 21.119 A second protest was organised by the COC and the Amsterdamse Jongeren Actiegroepen Homoseksualiteit (AJAH; ‘Amsterdam Youth Action Groups Homosexuality’) which sought recognition for gay suffering during the Second World War.120 As part of the latter protest, two AJAH members ‘disturbed’ the Remembrance Day ceremony – an annual televised national ceremony in Amsterdam attended by members of the cabinet and the royal family, military leaders, representatives of the resistance movement and other social groups – on May 4, 1970 when they attempted to lay a wreath for gay victims of the Holocaust. Together with about a dozen other members who were distributing flyers among the crowd with information about the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi-occupied Europe, the two young men were arrested. Prior to the ceremony, the AJAH had officially requested permission to lay a wreath, but the event’s organisers had denied their request. This denial was immediately condemned by a number of organisations, including the NVSH and, of course, the COC. A day later, 30 AJAH members participated in another protest on the Dam at the war memorial, wearing pink triangles on their clothing. Once again, the police interfered and broke up the gathering.121 These protests received the intended media attention, increased public awareness about the oppression of gays and lesbians in the Netherlands, and instigated important changes. Article 248bis was removed from the Dutch penal code in 1971 and, in that same year, the FSWH – the AJAH had already disbanded by then – was given permission to lay a wreath during the official commemorative ceremony. A monument, a pink triangle, dedicated to gay victims of the Holocaust and aided by government funding, was unveiled in 1987 in the midst of the AIDS epidemic. Lastly, the Remembrance Day protests prompted historians to research the experiences of gay victims during the Second World War, which until then had been grossly neglected.122 119 The age of consent for heterosexuals was and remains sixteen in the Netherlands. 120 The COC had carefully crafted an image of respectability, and initially hesitated to fully support the groups like the FSWG and the AJAH, known for protests actions with shock value. Though, its decision to join these groups in their fight against gay inequality paid off. After the successful protests of 1969 and 1970, the COC became left-leaning and more attractive for radical youth. Subsequently, many student groups, like the AJAH, merged with the COC. 121 Ihlia, Internationaal homo/lesbisch informatiecentrum en archief, overzicht: https://www. ihlia.nl/collectie/iisg/ (Accessed on March 29, 2021), en ‘Homofielen mochten hun doden niet herdenken’, Trouw, May 6, 1970, p. 13. 122 https://www.homomonument.nl/sinds1987/ (Accessed on March 29, 2021). Also see: De ASWH/AJAH 1968-1971: Revolutie in de lendenen van Mariette van Staveren (verschenen in

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After its contributions to the abolishing of legal discrimination of gay men, the gay rights movement in the Netherlands lost some of its dynamism. Whilst the Stonewall uprising in New York ignited a powerful gay liberation movement in the United States and most of Western Europe, followed by the first gay pride festival in New York in 1970, and, a year later in London, West Berlin, Paris, and Stockholm, gay groups in the Netherlands were awfully quiet. Important changes took place nonetheless in these years. The COC was officially recognised in 1973 and became eligible for government subsidy. A year later, the ban on homosexuality in the armed forces was lifted, and from the end of the 1970s onwards, gay groups were formed in political parties, trade unions, the army, the healthcare sector, and in the police force.123 Gay protests accelerated once again in 1977, when remarks made by American singer and anti-gay activist Anita Bryant formed the incentive to organise Amsterdam’s first pride demonstration, which would become the annual roze zaterdag (pink Saturday) demonstration. Two years later, another gay liberation demonstration took place in Amsterdam and, this time, the ANJV was involved. It called on its members to join the fight for international gay rights and partake in the march. Every subsequent year, Jeugd would dedicate a whole issue to roze zaterdag and related activities. In addition, it reported regularly on issues pertaining to gay and lesbian communities.124 In a time that was still characterised by few gay rights, a lack of acceptance outside of the major cities was a persistent issue, even though surveys seem to imply otherwise.125 That attitudes towards gays and lesbians varied geographically and by class became painfully clear during the 1982 roze zaterdag march, held in Amersfoort, a city east of Amsterdam on the edge of the Dutch Bible Belt. The organisers had decided to start the march from three different points and merge these three marches in the centre of Amersfoort. Two of these starting points were located in workingclass neighbourhoods, purposefully chosen to raise awareness among this segment of society. Right from the start, participants were verbally and physically assaulted by angry working-class youth. Screaming ‘homos dood’ (‘death to gays’), people who had gathered for what was supposed to be a Homologie 11, 1989) en Elise van Alphen, Alles werd politiek De verhouding tussen het politieke en het persoonlijke in de humanistische en homolesbische beweging in Nederland, 1945-1980 (Breda: Stichting Uitgeverij Papieren Tijger, 2016). 123 Keuzenkamp and Bos, Out in the Netherlands, p. 25. 124 ‘Flikker Op’, Andere Tijden, May 27, 2017: https://www.anderetijden.nl/aflevering/709/ Flikker-op Accessed on March 29, 2021). 125 S. Meilof-Oonk, Meningen over homosexualiteit.

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festive and celebratory demonstration, were spit on and pelted with live maggots, eggs, and rotten food items, while others were beaten, kicked, and stabbed with broken bottles. During this explosion of violence, five people got seriously hurt, one person was thrown into a canal, and thirteen people were arrested.126 In a 2017 documentary based on footage shot by gay activist Rob de Vries who attended the 1982 roze zaterdag march, two men from the same working-class neighbourhood, who had been part of the angry mob that had attacked participants that day, explain their motivations in a follow-up interview with the documentary makers. They indicate that, at the time, they knew nothing about homosexuality, but thought it was ‘disgusting’, and felt provoked by men dressed in ‘weird pink clothes’ and who were physically affectionate to one another. A conversation between two local women in their f ifties, and a gay protester, filmed in 1982, shows that homophobic attitudes were not just found among young males: Woman one: ‘But why do you need to do this here? Can’t you do it elsewhere? In your own neighbourhoods?’ Participant: ‘But ma’am, they live here too, don’t they?’ Woman one: ‘Now you listen carefully. Whatever lives here, it isn’t many. What we saw today made us shiver’. Participant: ‘There are more here in Amersfoort’. Woman Two: ‘Well now it is supposed to be allowed. So why were they jailed sixteen years ago?’ Participant: ‘These people should be jailed? Or maybe deported to camps?’ Woman One: ‘I don’t care either way, I think it is abnormal behaviour’.

The participant’s comment isn’t the only reference to the Second World War. Responding to the crowd’s ‘homos dood’ chants, participants shouted, ‘weg met de fascisten’ (‘away with the fascists’). Lineke Roseboom, gay and trade union activist, also immediately saw the parallels with Nazi persecution. As one of the event’s main speakers, she witnessed the violence from a stage in the centre of the city. She remarked that she will never forget what she saw that day, groups of people surrounded by the police, screamed at and pelted with objects by an angry mob. She said, ‘Those images reminded me of Jews arrested during the German occupation’.127 The language used by the 126 ‘Flikker Op’, Andere Tijden. 127 Ibid.

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participants also stands out when watching the original footage of the 1982 roze zaterdag in Amersfoort. They use very distinct communist/socialist jargon, such as ‘strijdbaar’ (combatant) and ‘solidariteit’ (solidarity) and call the fight for gay rights, homostrijd (gay struggle – a clear reference to class struggle). Whilst the international gay rights movement was left-oriented, especially in the beginning, it appears that the movement in the Netherlands was much more radical. In the aftermath of the march, politicians on both sides of the spectrum condemned the violence and hatred and promised to prioritise gay politics. This decision led, among other things, to the protection of gay men in cruising areas. Furthermore, in 1986 the government published a first ‘gay policy memorandum’.128 Amersfoort served as an eye-opening experience for many. In subsequent years, the homostrijd intensified with gay and lesbian activists organising demonstrations in cities all over the Netherlands. The Dutch communist movement as a whole began to support the gay rights movement from the late 1970s onwards, though people such as Evelien Eshuis, a gay woman who had joined the party in 1972 and was a Dutch communist member of parliament from 1982 until 1986, had been active within the gay rights movement from the mid-1970s onwards. De Waarheid featured articles that informed its readers about discrimination of gay people, especially on the work floor, and the fight against it. In an attempt to educate communists, who, much like their British peers were not particularly knowledgeable on the subject of homosexuality, the newspaper also provided readers with accurate figures and research findings concerning gay people. There was a special concern with lesbians, who, due to persistent gender discrimination and related economic inequalities, already faced so much adversity. De Waarheid also acknowledged that the end of legal discrimination towards gay individuals did not end their social discrimination and readers, reminded of the CPN’s long history of advocacy for discrimination victims, were spurred to take action and join the fight.129 In January 1982, a group of lesbians in the CPN formed a pottengroep (‘dyke group’) and organised the first communist pottendag (‘dyke day’) in April of that year. The organisers, Jeanette van Beuzenkom and Nel van den Haak, explained that lesbian women were either expected to join gay men groups or feminist groups and they felt that, due to a lack of belonging 128 Keuzenkamp and Bos, Out in the Netherlands, p. 23. 129 ‘Homof ielen in ons land nog veel gediscrimineerd’, De Waarheid, October 29, 1977, p. 5. ‘Homosexuelen kunnen leraar blijven – Referendum in Californië’, De Waarheid, November 10, 1978, p. 5. ‘Homo-ouders’, De Waarheid, April 28, 1978 p. 7. ‘Kinsey Rapport over homofilie’, De Waarheid, August 14, 1978, p. 2.

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in either of those groups, it was high time to start an individual group just for communist lesbians. As with many of the communist subgroups that began to form within or around the ANJV, the formation of the pottengroep in the CPN didn’t sit well with those who feared further fragmentation of the communist movement. Some, according to Beuzenkom and Van den Haak, felt that gay groups within the CPN were too radical. There were objections to the name flikkers en potten groep (‘faggots and dykes group’), which already existed within the CPN in larger cities such as Utrecht and Amsterdam. In Utrecht, members of the flikkers en potten groep were forced to change their name to homo-groep (‘gay group’), similar to most other left political parties who all had gay groups. The ANJV did not share these concerns and flikkers en potten groups were established in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In its cadre discussion materials, these groups, related issues, and their progress featured independently. From 1981 onward, these groups and the ANJV as a whole established a fruitful relationship with the COC.130 Like in Britain, Dutch communists’ tolerant attitudes towards gay people was relatively new. Participants who were members of the ANJV almost unanimously recalled that homosexuality either didn’t exist or was openly condemned until the early 1960s. Interestingly, once the attitude toward gay people had changed, the Dutch communist press did not hesitate to report on the Soviet Union’s legal persecution of gay people, which involved prison sentences of three to five years, deportation to work camps, and forced psychiatric treatment.131 However, most of the international reports on gay rights and, later, the AIDS epidemic, had a distinct anti-American tinge. De Waarheid would not let an opportunity pass to ridicule the United States and its policies. And to be fair, in terms of the US response to the AIDS epidemic, there was much to object to.132 As the numbers of AIDS victims also began to increase in the Netherlands, the ANJV started a safe sex campaign in the mid-1980s. Aside from demanding more and better sex education in schools to stop the epidemic, perhaps the ANJV’s most daring action was the inclusion of a condom in the May 1987 issue of Jeugd dedicated to AIDS and AIDS prevention. Sponsored by Durex, which provided 1,000 condoms for this purpose, 700 copies were sent to subscribers, and 300 were sold at anti-apartheid festivals.133 130 ‘Flikkers en Potten’, Diskussie Kaderblad Special’ Diskussiemateriaal hoofdbestuur ANJV 16e nationale kongres 9,10,11 mei Lelystad April ’80 (ANJV Archive, International Institute of Social History). 131 ‘Demonstratie voor homo’s in Sowjet Unie’, De Waarheid, November 28, 1978, p. 6. 132 ‘Hudson’s laatste hoofdrol’, De Waarheid, September 18, 1985, p.8. 133 ‘Nummer met condoom’, Het Parool, May 18, 1987, p. 10

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The final years In hindsight, the 1970s and 1980s were contradictory times for the YCL and the ANJV. Both organisations successfully – and much more naturally – connected with young people and new subcultural movements, leaving behind social and political isolation once and for all. Instead of running slightly behind new developments in terms of youth culture, as they had done for most of the 1960s, both organisations played an integral part in major movements of the 1970s and 1980s, including the gay, and anti-racist movements. In addition, by 1975, the ANJV and YCL had caught up fully with the feminist movement. By this time, female members played vital roles on all levels and a deep understanding of women’s rights and related issues shone through most YCL and ANJV activities. Yet it was also a time of internal quarrels, fragmentation, and loss of members, direction, and funding. These developments took place in both organisations, though at a different pace. As noted above, the ANJV experienced growth until the early 1980s and was particularly successful in attracting secondary school students which guaranteed much needed rejuvenation and regeneration. The two organisations had much in common in the final stage of their existence, though there were some crucial differences both in terms of organisational structure and national context, according to an ANJV member who was invited to attend the thirty-third congress of the YCL in 1981. About his visit, Roeland Cleuren, wrote the following in De Wegwijzer, the ANJV cadre magazine: Challenge appears twice per month and has a circulation of 3,500. Compared to Jeugd, this is quite a lot, though they only have 800 subscribers. Overall, they are better at selling their magazine on the street. Aside from Challenge, the YCL also publishes the Young Worker, which focuses on working youth and the activities of young labour union activists. The YCL appears closely affiliated to their party, they only became somewhat independent in the past years, but they remain dependent on the party’s financial support. The significant financial contribution of the CPGB has kept the individual contribution of YCL members low. Until recently, they only paid five guilders per year, but it was increased to twelve-and-a-half guilders per year for working youth, to achieve financial independence from the CPGB. The YCL produces and sells many items, such as T-shirts, pins, brochures, books, and stickers. However small an action or initiative, they would make pins for it. Education is very important in the YCL, and meetings don’t just focus on nuclear weapons, unemployment, and South-Africa etc., but also

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imperialism, capitalism, and socialism, the origins of the family etc. In short, theories of the founders of socialism. This, in my opinion, increases members’ political motivation and judgement. The YCL is a club with a relatively young cadres, the average age of people who came to the congress was about seventeen-and-a-half years. The congress was a manifestation of youthful enthusiasm, but also confusion. This was largely caused by the many resolutions and amendments that were presented. Initially, I thought my English language skills were insufficient, but it soon turned out that many other people couldn’t follow the speakers either. Nevertheless, there was a consensus among members that above all unity in their fight for a better future was the most important, and that endless discussions that have paralyzed the YCL for years should end. By and large, the YCL and the ANJV have the same action points. South Africa, money and work, anti-nuclear weapons and anti-fascism, and in addition they fight for gay and women emancipation, education, housing and squatting, and Northern Irish independence. We also share the same opinions about Poland, Afghanistan, Chili, El Salvador, drugs, and human rights in the Soviet Union. The polarisation of Great Britain is much more severe than in our country. Poverty is a much bigger concern and much more widespread. Also, compared to our country, fascist manifestations are much more public in Britain, with organisations such as the British Movement and the National Front and the government’s racist actions.134

Cleuren’s observation that, in comparison, the YCL was less independent from the Communist Party than the ANJV is interesting. Indeed, for many years, the YCL was much more autonomous than the ANJV, though in its final stages it appeared, once again, to move closer to the CPGB. Whilst also struggling with internal schisms and financial problems, the ANJV continued to be autonomous in its final years. Despite its efforts to reorient the YCL’s direction and its many progressive initiatives, the membership decline that had set in around 1967 was unstoppable. Though Eurocommunists came out on top at the YCL congress of 1979, where they introduced a new constitution which abandoned democratic centralism and Marxism-Leninism, they became hopelessly divided between an ‘orthodox’ and a ‘feminist/anarchist’ camp. In the background, the old pro-Soviet opposition, since 1979 gathering around the monthly journal 134 Roeland Cleuren, ‘YCL – kongres’, De Wegwijzer, June 1981, p. 11-12 (ANJV Archive – International Institute of Social History).

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Straight Left, a journal inspired by hardliner Fergus Nicholson, was still exerting power in individual branches. These hardliners were the motor behind the reintroduction of democratic centralism at the 1983 congress. By this time, the YCL had 510 members in three branches and by the end of the decade, only two branches had survived. In the last years, according to Thompson, the YCL was in such a pathetic state that even the CPGB, which itself was fighting its very final battle, had lost interest. The YCL and the CPGB’s fate was permanently decided when communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe collapsed.135 Without denying distinct factors that contributed to the YCL’s downfall, including the internal schisms between pro-Soviet hardliners and Eurocommunists, Waite observes that the odds were stacked against left-wing working-class youth organisations in general. Similar to the Dutch situation, he notes that by the late 1980s, there was a decline in all forms of rebellious subculture and a crisis of regeneration.136 Additionally, argues Andrews, the British communist movement was so strongly embedded in the British labour movement tradition that its demise should also be understood in the wider context of the crisis of labourism in the 1970s. For many years, it had relied on the Labour Party and its inability to find a distinctive political role was a crucial component of the movement’s downfall.137 The ANJV’s aforementioned financial problems were further exacerbated when, in February 1989, the city council of Amsterdam decided to withdraw the subsidies of a number of local youth organisations, including the Amsterdam branch of the ANJV. This decision was part of substantial budget cuts within the city’s department of youth services and development. The council, according to ANJV member Maarten Dubois who was interviewed about the matter in De Waarheid, accused the branch of not reaching enough gay and lesbian youth, immigrant youth, and women, which Dubois characterised as extremely unfair as the ANJV had an excellent track record working together with these specific segments of youth. The council’s conclusion that the ANJV wasn’t organising enough recurring events and training opportunities, was also ‘nonsense’ according to Dubois: ‘We organise many recurring annual events, including the Hanny Schaft and Kerwin [Duinmeijer] commemorations, and activities on May 5 [Liberation Day]. Furthermore we have our 135 Worley, ‘Marx–Lenin–Rotten–Strummer: British Marxism and youth culture in the 1970s’, pp. 512-513, Thompson, The Good Old Cause, p. 182. 136 Mike Waite, ‘The Young Communist League and Youth Culture’, Socialist History, Issue 6 (1994), 3-16 (p. 14). 137 Andrews, Endgames and New Times, p. 15.

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own youth magazine, organise sport events, vacations, and a political café twice per month’.138 The withdrawal of the ANJV’s subsidy, which had been 112,000 guilders per year, meant that the ANJV was no longer able to afford the rent of their main office in Amsterdam.139 The YCL held its last congress in 1985 – the thirty-sixth congress, planned for the following year was never convened. In 1987, the CPGB was informed that the YCL, which had only a few dozen members left, was no longer a national organisation. The CPGB followed suit and during its forty-third congress held in November 1991, decided to dismantle the existing structures. Out of the Eurocommunist strand within the party, grew a political organisation, the Democratic Left, in 1991, a think-tank under the leadership of Nina Temple. Some traditionalists joined the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) which had broken away from the CPGB in 1988.140 In the 1986 general elections, the CPN lost all three seats in parliament, and by then it was clear that there was no future for the party. In the months leading up to the 1989 general elections, the decision was therefore made that four small radical parties – the CPN, the Evangelische Volkspartij (EVP; ‘Evangelical People’s Party’), the Politieke Partij Radikalen (PPR; ‘Political Party of Radicals’), and the PSP – would create one list of political candidates under the name GroenLinks (‘Green Left’). It won six seats in total, including one for Ina Brouwer. The individual parties did not run and disbanded officially in 1991. The merger into Groenlinks wasn’t without opposition; many Communist Party members decided not to join the new party and instead became members of the Maoist Socialistische Partij (SP; ‘Socialist Party’) or affiliated with groups such as the Verbond van Communisten in Nederland (‘League of Communists in the Netherlands’). The two youth organisations affiliated to the PSP and the PPR – the EVP didn’t have a youth organisation – formed DWARS (‘Contrary’), an independent youth organisation affiliated to GroenLinks. The only surviving branch of the ANJV, the Amsterdam branch, did not want to join DWARS and attempted to continue alone. It eventually merged with DWARS in 2012.141

138 ‘ANJV: gemeente baseert zich op dubieus onderzoek om onze subsidie af te pikken’, De Waarheid, January 11, 1989, p. 3. 139 ‘Jongerenorganisaties bedreigt met stopzetting van financiële steun’, De Waarheid, December 10, 1988, p. 3, and ‘Amsterdamse raad ontneemt ANJV subsidie’, De Waarheid, February 23, 1989, p. 2. 140 Andrews, Endgames and New Times, pp. 201-202. 141 ‘Algemeen Nederlands Jeugd Verbond (ANJV)’, Parlement.com: https://www.parlement. com/id/vjcmdpx4gulq/algemeen_nederlands_jeugd_verbond_anjv (Accessed on April 8, 2021).

5

From Heroes to Villains The Second World War and ‘1956’ Abstract Informed by oral history and memory studies, this chapter draws on a series of interviews with 38 British and Dutch cradle communists and is dedicated to the impact of the Second World War and its aftermath, and the events of 1956 – the year of Khrushchev’s secret speech and the Soviet invasion of Hungary – on the Dutch and British communist movements. This chapter particularly examines how cradle communists in the Netherlands and Britain experienced the contrast between the communist movement’s zenith during the Second World War and its nadir in 1956. Within this context, it discusses the Dutch communist resistance during the German occupation, parental war trauma and transgenerational communication, and the impact of anti-communist measures in Britain and the Netherlands on participants’ lives. Keywords: oral history, communist resistance, war trauma, anticommunism, Cold War

When my mother came back from the camp, she and her fellow travellers were pelted and called ‘dirty communists’ upon crossing the Dutch border into Brabant by train. This was just after the Netherlands was liberated, in May 1945. Whenever my mother spoke about this, she would still get upset. Their train’s final destination was Amsterdam, where a welcome committee was supposed to pick them up. But there was no welcome committee, they were just dropped off at Amsterdam’s central station. They had nothing, no place to return to (Janny b. 1946, Amsterdam).

Janny’s mother, active in the communist resistance during the Second World War, had been arrested in 1943 and deported to Vught concentration camp near the Dutch town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. After spending some time in this

Weesjes, Elke, Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain: Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463726634_ch05

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camp, she was moved between different prisons in Germany. In Vught, she met Janny’s father, also a member of the communist resistance, who was later deported to Dachau. Both survived the war and were reunited with one another in Amsterdam. They couldn’t afford to rent a home, but were able to move in with Janny’s maternal uncle and lived there until 1947. Historians tend to use President Harry S. Truman’s speech on March 12, 1947 to date the start of the Cold War; however, the experiences of Janny’s mother trying to get home after spending two years in German captivity, make it painfully clear that anti-communist sentiments usually associated with the Cold War were alive and well among the Dutch population in 1945. In fact, in the Netherlands, virulent anti-communism was as old as communism itself – it merely intensified during the Cold War. Chapter Two discussed the impact of the Second World War and the events of the year 1956 on the history of communist youth organisations. Though huge sacrifices were made by communists during this time, the period 1941-1948 was the international movement’s zenith, whilst the combination of Khrushchev’s revelations regarding Stalin in his ‘secret speech’ and the Soviet invasion of Hungary, which both occurred in 1956, marked its nadir. The events of 1956, especially the brutal Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprising, caused a brief yet very intense and violent outburst of anti-communism in the Netherlands. In Britain, life was altogether less challenging for communists and their children, as much of the action was happening elsewhere, both during the war years, as well as in 1956. This is not to say that British communist children didn’t notice the changing public opinion about communism and the Soviet Union. Looking back on the period 1941-1945, Brian Pollitt (b. 1936, London), son of Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) general secretary, Harry Pollitt, recalled: There was obviously a price to be paid for being a child in the household of CP activists, especially if both parents worked and money was tight. But one of the easy things for CP children of my generation was that for a number of years outside hostility for our parents’ politics was muted. During World War II – or at least from 1941 – the USSR was our ally, and Stalin led the heroic Red Army which, in Churchill’s words, ‘tore the guts out’ of the common Nazi enemy. Cinema newsreels then spoke of ‘our Soviet allies’, and not as later during the Cold War, of the ‘Red menace.’1 1 Phil Cohen, Children of the Revolution. Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1997), p. 105.

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In Britain, the communist fight against fascism was limited to fighting home-grown fascists like Mosley and his Blackshirts in the years leading up to the war. The British public did respect the Soviet army for the part it played in the liberation of occupied Europe, but never considered British communists to be heroes, like their Dutch contemporaries were. This, combined with the lack of physical abuse and other forms of violence against British communists in 1956, resulted in an altogether less dramatic contrast between the period 1941-1948 and the peak of the Cold War. Therefore, these events were less formative for communist children in Britain than they were for communist children in the Netherlands. The German occupation, communist resistance during the war years, and the widespread persecution of communists that followed during the Cold War, shaped Dutch communist identity in myriad ways. The Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN), despite suffering tremendous personal losses, came out of the war as the big winner. Its membership had increased from 9,000 in 1937 to 50,000 in 1945. In 1945, its newspaper, De Waarheid (‘The Truth’), was the country’s largest newspaper, with a circulation of 300,000. 2 During the f irst post-war general elections, the party received more than ten percent of the votes. Local elections were equally successful – in Amsterdam, historically a social-democratic bulwark, the CPN received 4,000 more votes than the Partij van den Arbeid (PvdA; ‘Labour Party’), which was founded in 1946 as a merger of the Sociaal Democratische Arbeiderspartij (SDAP; ‘Social Democratic Workers’ Party), the Vrijzinnig Democratische Bond (VDB; ‘Free-thinking Democratic League’), and the Christelijke-Democratische Unie (CDU; ‘Christian Democratic Union’).3 For the first time in their history, communists felt part of society’s social and political fabric. They were optimistic about the future and were keen to collaborate with social democrats and progressives across pillars in order to establish a broad working-class movement. 4 In Britain, CPGB membership peaked in 1942, though the growth of communist influence within the unions continued until 1948.5 After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Comintern urged 2 Ger Verrips, Dwars, duivels en dromend. De geschiedenis van de CPN 1938-1991 (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 1995), p. 234 and p. 551. 3 Jos Van Dijk, Ondanks hun dappere rol in het verzet. Het isolement van Nederlandse communisten in de Koude Oorlog (Soesterberg: Aspekt, 2016), p. 16. 4 A.A. De Jonge, Het communisme in Nederland. De geschiedenis van een politiek partij (Den Haag: Kruseman, 1972), p. 84. 5 Hugh Armstrong Clegg, A History of British Trade Unions since 1889. Volume III: 1934-1951 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) pp. 307-308.

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European communist parties to back up their respective governments and fight German national socialism. As a result, the CPGB completely reversed its line – i.e. defending the Nazi-Soviet pact and promoting the idea that France and Britain were the real warmongers – and announced its full support for the war. The ease of this sudden change was mainly due to new Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s prompt declaration of support for the Soviet Union. Immediately after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Churchill had famously told the British people in a radio address, ‘Any man or state who fights on against Nazism will have our aid. Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe’.6 As noted by Brian Pollitt, the Soviet Union, and more specifically its Red Army, became hugely popular almost overnight. This support among the British public also impacted CPGB membership, which rose from 22,738 in 1941 to 56,000 in 1942.7 However, by 1945 it had already lost more than 11,000 members.8 In the general elections of that same year, the CPGB received a disappointing 0.4 percent of the vote. Willie Thompson notes that the outcome of the elections ‘underlined the disadvantages under the British electoral system of being a marginal party, even a temporarily well-regarded one, at a point when enormous popular expectations were pinned upon the large and governmentally effective representative of labour and radical aspirations’.9 This is ultimately a very crucial difference between Great Britain and the Netherlands, where there was a multitude of small parties and a voting system based on proportional representation. Because of the country’s political system, the CPN’s influence was much greater and its members were able to enjoy its popularity and respectability. It also meant that the Dutch movement’s fall from grace in 1947 was all the more painful and traumatic for its members. In other words, their pedestal was much higher due to their war efforts and their post-war popularity – partly related to the political system in the Netherlands – and therefore the fall was more severe compared to Britain. In hindsight, the hostile reception Janny’s mother received upon entering the Catholic south, an area known for its strong anti-communist tradition, was a prelude of what was to come – three decades of intense 6 Andrew Roberts, Hitler and Churchill. Secrets of Leadership (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004), p. 107. 7 Andrew Thorpe, ‘The Membership of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1920-1945’, The Historical Journal, 43, 3 (2000), 777-800 (p. 781). 8 Ibid. 9 Willie Thompson, The Good Old Cause. British Communism, 1920-1991 (London: Pluto Press, 1992), p. 73.

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anticommunism nationwide. A particularly painful component of Dutch anticommunism was the nullification of the communist role in the national resistance. After 1948, Dutch communists, including brave resistance fighters such as Janny’s parents, found themselves completely isolated and cut off, socially, politically, but also financially. As their isolation intensified, so did their quest for recognition and appreciation. Unfortunately, Dutch communists neglected to gauge the public’s mood after the war. Many Dutch, at least until the mid-1960s, tried to forget about the past, and instead wanted to look to the future, rebuild the country, and restore its economy. By constantly reminding people of the atrocities that occurred during the war, it was widely felt that communists hindered society from moving on, and their stories of resistance were increasingly met with impatience and hostility, especially when these stories became intertwined with current affairs, such as the West German rearmament and its succession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). During the height of the Cold War, the communist role in the resistance became a political football, with communist leaders exaggerating the role the movement had played, and non-communists downplaying or denying communists’ wartime efforts. This development – perhaps unintentionally – tainted and overshadowed the sacrifices made by communist resistance fighters and was incredibly painful for those who had lost so much during the German occupation.10 The Cold War was in many ways a ‘real’ war, notes Jolande Withuis, complete with stereotypes of the enemy, and fear of collaboration and treachery.11 It caused a rift between communist and non-communist resistance fighters – whom had shared so much during the Second World War, and oftentimes owed their lives to one another. This rift eventually caused the expulsion of communists from commemorative initiatives, concentration camp committees, and other ex-political prisoners’ organisations.12 They were labelled enemies of the resistance, which placed them on the same 10 Verrips, Dwars, duivels en dromend, p. 292. 11 Jolande Withuis, Na het kamp, vriendschap en politieke strijd (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2005), pp. 168-169. 12 For example, the heated discussion whether the February Strike was spontaneous or organised by the Communist Party, eventually resulted in two separate annual commemorative ceremonies during the Cold War, one in the morning and one in the evening of February 25 (Van Dijk, Ondanks hun dappere rol in het verzet, pp. 105-108, Verrips, Dwars, duivels, en dromend, p. 297). In addition, communists were dismissed from Expogé, an organisation for ex-political prisoners and members of the resistance, in 1950. This dismissal, brought on by the Cold War, moved communists to create their own organisation called Verenigd Verzet (‘United Resistance’). Expogé, according to Van Dijk, increasingly moved to the right as the Cold War intensified. Its sister organisation, the Comité tegen Concentratiekampen (‘Committee against Concentration Camps’) stressed that

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footing as SS officers and members of the Nationaal Socialistische Beweging in Nederland (NSB; ‘National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands’) which was devastating for those subject to this expulsion.13 According to Pieter Lagrou, the situation in the Netherlands was exceptional when it comes to the way communists were ostracised from commemorative initiatives. In his book, which compares France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, Lagrou describes the construction of patriotic memories in Western Europe during the period of national recovery after the Second World War and concludes that, whereas in France and Belgium veterans’ movements were organised from the bottom up and served a civil rather than a political purpose, the Dutch government, in a bid to create national consensus, monopolised national memory and erased narratives pertaining to communist involvement in the national resistance.14 Communists were conveniently demoted from being national heroes and respected citizens to the fifth column, the enemy within. Whilst this process took place in most Western European countries during the Cold War, it wasn’t nearly as abrupt and intense as it was in the Netherlands. Elsewhere, communists, in particular those who had actively fought the Nazis, were able to enjoy their newfound popularity and respectability much longer. Communist parties in France, Belgium, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Austria, Luxembourg, Greece, and Denmark played a role in their national governments after the war, and individual communists in these countries didn’t fall victim to intense anti-communism, like their Dutch contemporaries, writes Jos van Dijk.15 Withuis observed that, in response to the Dutch treatment of communists in the immediate post-war period, many communists, in retrospect, began communism and national socialism should be considered as one and the same. See: Van Dijk, Ondanks hun dappere rol in het verzet, p. 110. 13 Withuis, Na het kamp, p. 146. 14 Pieter Lagrou, The Legacy of Nazi Occupation. Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe 1945-1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) pp. 59-77. 15 Jos van Dijk argues that, aside from Dutch pillarisation, the war in Indonesia was largely to blame for the political and social isolation of the Dutch communists in the immediate post-war period. Initially, social-democrats supported Indonesian independence and, together with communists, participated in campaigns, petitions, and rallies against the looming war in Indonesia. However, they were instructed to withdraw their solidarity with the Indonesian people, when the Beel cabinet (Katholieke Volks Partij; KVP ‘Catholic People’s Party’ and the Partij van de Arbeid; PvdA ‘Dutch Labour Party’) decided to intervene in Indonesia. Participation in this cabinet, according to Van Dijk, was more important to the PvdA than cohesion within the radical left. It urged its members to distance themselves from communists. The latter responded by agitating against the betrayal of social democrats. The PvdA’s decision to support the colonial war in Indonesia and the communist response to this decision, ended any possibility of the two parties to work together. See: Jos van Dijk, Ondanks hun dappere rol in het verzet, pp. 71-74.

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to interpret the Second World War not as a war against a foreign occupier, but as a war against communism, and became convinced that the Cold War was only a continuation of the Second World War: ‘At the height of the Cold War Dutch society only knew two parties; communist and the others. Communists were outside of normality, their good behaviour and huge sacrifices seemed to have been for nothing and mostly forgotten already. Feeling disappointed, insulted, and fearful, these emotions soon changed into a feeling of being hardened by the situation. Who would not harden, would not last. It was war yet again and they (communists) were illegal once more’.16 Communists concluded that because of this new war – in which the old enemy, Germany, had become an ally and the old ally, the Soviet Union, had become an enemy – they were not allowed to commemorate the death of their heroes.

Resistance and war trauma Stories about these heroes, usually inflated, gave strength and hope in times of doubt, and had a soothing and comforting effect. Reminiscing about the movement’s admirable past gave reassurance that communists were on the ‘right’ side of history, and that their political conviction was worth fighting for, even though times had changed so drastically. Resistance fighters, especially those brave men and women who had sacrificed their lives, were considered role models for young communist boys and girls: I felt left out, all the time. I experienced hostility. I remember that one day I came home really upset and crying my eyes out, because I was called a dirty communist. That is a horrible feeling for a child. I was born in 1943, so I was between seven and ten years old when this happened. It was one of the only times my mother was really nice to me. She took me on her lap and pointed at a picture of Hannie Schaft on the sideboard. She said, ‘You should be proud of that, because you are part of what she stood for’ (Lina b. 1943, Maastricht).

Hannie Schaft was a law student from Haarlem who had joined the armed communist resistance during the war. On April 17, 1945, less than three weeks before the liberation of the Netherlands, she was shot by the Germans in the dunes near Overveen. She was only 24 years old. Schaft, also known 16 Withuis, Na het kamp, p. 146.

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as ‘the girl with the red hair’, was accused of shooting five collaborators. Hitler himself had demanded her arrest and urged the Sicherheitsdienst (‘Security Service’) to find das rothaarige Mädel (‘the girl with the red hair’). They pursued the evasive fugitive and finally managed to capture her. After spending several weeks in prison, where she was interrogated and tortured, SS Sturmbahnführer Willy Lages ordered her execution. She was shot in the neck by a Dutch collaborator, the detective Maarten Kuijper. She was one of very few female resistance fighters executed by the German occupiers during the Second World War.17 Schaft was reburied in the Honorary Cemetery of the Resistance in November 1945 in the presence of Queen Wilhelmina. She was the first to be laid to rest in this cemetery, which is located in the same dunes near Bloemendaal where many victims of the Nazi occupation were executed. During this ceremony, Schaft received posthumous decorations from the Queen and General Eisenhower. In 1951, amid building Cold War tensions, the Dutch government decided to close the cemetery to prevent communist organisations from gathering and using the occasion for propaganda purposes, as it had done the year prior, according to Minister Frans Goedhart, a PvdA representative in the Dutch House of Commons. Consequently, the government decided that from that moment onward, individual commemoration ceremonies would be banned, and only May 4, the country’s national Remembrance Day, would be observed.18 By the time it was decided to ban Schaft’s annual commemorative ceremony, the Hannie Schaft Herdenkingscomité (‘Hannie Schaft Commemoration Committee’) had been planning a series of events, to take place on November 25, including a torch relay from Haarlem to the cemetery in Bloemendaal, speeches, and a wreath-laying ceremony. In order to attract participants, the committee had been advertising its plans to gather, which in turn had earned the wrath of the mainstream media. The Arnhemse Courant, for example, accused the all-communist committee of exploiting Schaft’s memory for political gain: ‘This is not a national commemoration of the resistance in the person of Hannie Schaft’, it warned its readers, ‘it is a communist propaganda stunt. […] This stunt has nothing to do with a national movement, on the contrary, it is a slavish execution of a foreign country’s instructions’.19 17 Ton Kors, Hannie Schaft, het levensverhaal van een vrouw in het verzet tegen de Nazi’s (Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1976) p. 10. 18 ‘Wijze van publicatie was niet gelukkig’, Het Parool, November 28, 1951, p. 3. 19 ‘Wolf in schaapsvacht’, Arnhemse Courant, November 10, 1951, p. 1.

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These accusations did not stop communists from gathering in Haarlem on the day of the commemoration to march to Bloemendaal. According to the Protestant national newspaper Trouw, about 1,500 communists arrived in Haarlem around eleven in the morning. As the original meeting point was heavily guarded by police, the group split up into smaller groups and dispersed into the city’s streets where they lay flowers on war monuments. Motorised police responded and, while they did not stop communists from paying their respects, they told the groups to break up and leave. The road to the honorary cemetery was closed off with three roadblocks, armoured vehicles, and motorised police, whilst mounted police patrolled the dunes.20 Around two in the afternoon, the procession of communists reached the roadblocks near the cemetery. One of Schaft’s closest friends and fellow resistance fighter, Truus Oversteegen, was part of the procession and was carrying a large wreath for Schaft’s grave. Oversteegen recalled: We saw the tanks from afar and, strengthened by the words ‘continue to walk comrades, they know we are unarmed,’ we slowly approached the armoured vehicle. The gun on top of the tank moved towards us. All of a sudden a rage came over me. I let go of the floral wreath I was carrying and walked towards the tank. Tears were running down my face. I shouted ‘Are you really going to shoot on us boy? I have fought five years for your liberation, and you want to fire at us?’ Some arrests were made, but no shots were fired.21

In addition, several small incidents took place in Haarlem between those who had gathered to commemorate Schaft, and the police, and arrests were made there too. Around four in the afternoon, ‘peace in Haarlem and Bloemendaal had returned’, according to Trouw.22 The events of November 25 – in particular the exaggerated response of law enforcement – are illustrative of the changed public opinion toward communists. Afterwards, a heated debate took place in the Dutch House of Commons, where CPN representative Henk Gortzak sarcastically noted: ‘We are all entitled of our own opinions, and it is clear that opinions vary dramatically between communists and other people, the latter who, once a 20 ‘Politie verhindert communistische demonstratie op Erebegraafplaats’, Trouw, November 26, p. 1. 21 Sophie Poldermans, Hannie Schaft, haar rol in het Nederlandse verzet tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog, (Amsterdam: Nationale Hannie Schaft Stichting, 2003), p. 19. 22 ‘Politie verhindert communistische demonstratie op Erebegraafplaats’, Trouw, November 26, 1951, p. 1.

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year, gather at the graves of those fallen resistance fighters while standing in service of foreign powers that are intent on rearming the murderers of these resistance fighters on the remaining 364 days’. Gortzak, no stranger to exaggerations himself, then called the authorities’ removal of the wreath, which the Hannie Schaft committee had managed to place on her grave after the police had left, lijkenschennis (‘corpse desecration’). Equally dramatic, he likened those responsible to Nazis: ‘Fascist camp commandants possessed the ‘fine taste’ to remove gold teeth from their victims’ mouths after they had died. Here, people remove flowers, dedicated to fallen resistance heroes, and throw them out with the rubbish’.23 The aforementioned Minister Goedhart responded to Gortzak by confirming that this was indeed a painful issue, though he couldn’t disagree with the removal of the flowers from Schaft’s grave, as laying them had been against the law.24 It was widely felt among Dutch communists that Schaft was a victim of the Cold War – she had sacrificed her life for her country yet was degraded from national heroine to controversial communist.25 Fellow members of the communist resistance identified with her story. After all, their sacrifices were no longer acknowledged either. This was painful for those who had survived camps and prisons or had spent years in hiding or on the run. It was especially devastating, but also confusing, for children of resistance fighters. Children weren’t only forced to negotiate the fact that communist resistance efforts had been diminished due to the changing political climate, they were also faced with their parents’ silence and trauma within the privacy of their own homes. Indeed, when it came to personal war experiences, parents, who were often so willing to talk about the movement’s collective efforts in the war, were mostly silent. Whenever this was the case, children were aware that something terrible had happened, but didn’t feel comfortable asking for specific details. They grew up with many questions and very few answers. The following fragment of an autobiography titled Een verborgen herinnering (‘A hidden memory’) exemplifies the uncertainty so many children grew up with. The author, Dunya Breur, was born in 1942 and was only fourand-a-half months old when she and her parents were arrested by the Nazis. Her parents, both communists, had been very active in the armed resistance. 23 ‘BVD-minister Teulings dekt roof van bloemen. Strijd tegen fascisme gaat voort!’, De Waarheid, November 29, 1951, p. 1 and 5. 24 Ibid. 25 De duizend daden. Een geschiedenis van het Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond 1945-1985, ed. by Tamara Blokzijl, Corita Homma, and Willem Walter (Amsterdam: ANJV, 1985), pp. 6-7.

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Her father was executed in February 1943 and her mother was deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp, after spending seven months in prison together with her daughter. Dunya was not deported – her grandparents picked her up just before her first birthday. Her mother survived and was reunited with her daughter after the war. Dunya recalled from her youth: Growing up, I constantly encountered a ‘wall of silence.’ ‘It does not concern you’ was often said to me; there was so much pain. I only experienced the consequences of my mother’s ordeal without knowing what had happened to her. And every now and then, I found a tiny piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was my past, of everything that happened before me. But these pieces often didn’t fit. What I heard and read did not correspond with what I saw and sensed.26

Not knowing what had happened to a parent during the war had just as much of an impact on children as knowing. It appears that some parents wanted to protect their children, while others found it simply too painful and traumatising to revisit the past. They usually shared the bare minimum with their children, like the fact that they had been in a concentration camp or had lost a loved one or comrade. Most Dutch participants had parents, grandparents, or aunts and uncles who had been active in the communist resistance. Many were arrested and deported. Some came back, whilst others did not. Johan’s parents were both active in the resistance. His father was one of a triumvirate in charge of a resistance cell in the north of Amsterdam, and in this capacity, he was responsible for propaganda and De Waarheid. His mother was a courier and also distributed De Waarheid. Like so many other young mothers active in the resistance, she hid newspapers and other documents in Johan’s pram. Johan’s paternal uncle, also a communist, had been involved in the organisation of the February Strike, and was arrested and executed in 1942. Johan was born a few months later and his parents decided to name him after his uncle – a remarkable choice, as his parents couldn’t even bear to have a photograph of Johan’s uncle in the house. Johan explained that his father had always felt responsible for his brother’s death as he had recruited his brother into the party. Talking

26 Dunya Breur, Een verborgen herinnering. Tekeningen van Aat Breur-Hibma uit het vrouwenconcentratiekamp Ravensbrück en de gevangenis in Utrecht 1942-1945 (Amsterdam: Tiebosch Uitgeversmaatschappij, 1983), p. 7.

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about the war was therefore particularly painful, recalled Johan, and only happened sporadically: My parents had a framed photograph in their bedroom of the monument on the Oosterbegraafplaats [a cemetery in Amsterdam]. This monument is dedicated to communist resistance fighters that were murdered because of their contributions to the February Strike, including my uncle, my father’s brother. That was a direct reference. Aside from this photo, there was a photo of my father’s mother. Never his father, only his mother. And we barely spoke about the war. I wasn’t asking them for information either. Every now and then, they all of a sudden shared a story, which involved my uncle or people they had worked with during the war (Johan b. 1943, Amsterdam).

Jacob (b. 1937, Amsterdam) was under the impression that ‘real’ resistance fighters didn’t talk about their experiences during the war. Jacob, much like Johan, was left to guess or speculate what role his parents had played in the resistance: My father was in the second line of the February Strike in the north of Amsterdam. He did other things as well, but he never spoke about the war and the resistance. The few things I know, I was told by his old comrades. Real resistance fighters didn’t talk about their experiences. What I gather, however, is that he played a big role. He was part of the armed resistance. I am an only child, and my parents kept me small. They walked me around in a pram until I was four years old, because in the pram I was lying on top of a pile of communist newspapers, which made it easier and safer to distribute them.

Communist members of the resistance weren’t the only ones who preferred to remain silent about their personal war experiences. In an illuminating documentary, three children of resistance fighters, Janna de Vries, Wil Bender, and Gerard Rozemeijer, talk about their childhood. At the time the documentary was filmed, in the early 2000s, they were receiving treatment for war trauma in the treatment centre, Centrum 1945, which opened in 1971. Wil’s parents were part of the communist resistance, but the other parents were active in non-communist resistance groups. The children’s recollections, however, are strikingly similar. All three remember growing up in the shadow of the Second World War. Wil’s father died in Bergen Belsen, Gerard’s father in Buchenwald, whilst Janna’s parents survived

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the war without being arrested. Their childhood was also characterised by a silence surrounding their parents’ war experiences and all three felt as though they had to put on a brave face. Much like Marieke and other participants who were interviewed for this book, Wil, Janna, and Gerard grew up with a profound distrust of people and humankind in general. They had to be vigilant, and on their guard. After all, individuals who were deported to the camps had often been betrayed by those they had trusted. For example, Gerard’s father, Johannes Rozemeijer, an officer on the Leiden police force, refused to sign a document that stated he wasn’t Jewish and was subsequently demoted to a lower position within the force. Soon after, Johannes’ colleagues found out that he had warned the Director of the Jewish orphanage in Amsterdam about a plan to deport all the children. Betrayed by his colleagues who reported him, Johannes was arrested by the Sturmabteilung and deported to Buchenwald where he died. This betrayal left a deep imprint on Gerard and his mother, and caused them to never trust anyone again, aside from their immediate family.27 Communist parents also taught their children to be very cautious of outsiders and not to trust people with matters associated with the party or politics. This attitude only became stronger under the influence of the Cold War, when many Dutch communists and their families were monitored by intelligence services. Naturally, this reinforced the feeling that only very few could be trusted. Though less pronounced, this lack of trust which resulted in certain secrecy was also present in Britain. Madeline, who was born in 1948 and grew up in rural Yorkshire, recalled: I sensed it was better to keep quiet about being communist. I grew up with the notion that you had to be very careful who to tell about us being communist even among our left-wing friends. Some of them were very anxious to be accused of being communist.

Although communist resistance fighters generally preferred to emphasise the movement’s war efforts over sharing personal or more emotional experiences, as time passed some began to open up. Mark’s father began to share some of his experiences in the final years of his life. Growing up, Mark knew that his Jewish mother and his non-Jewish father had both lost two

27 ‘Kinderen van verzetsstrijders’, Netwerk, 24 April, 2005.

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siblings during the war. He never knew what had happened until his father told him the following story in 2002: It was on his birthday, he was home in Hoogeveen with his family. My father and grandfather were outside of the house when the SS raided their home and they fled together. The SS off icers interrogated and tortured my two aunties. One of them was brutally kicked in the stomach and needed intensive medical treatment until she died in the 1970s, the other was suffered mental scars and would never be the same again. They had revealed nothing. There was a code in the war – you know that someone is active in the resistance and that person knows that you are active too, but you don’t know anything about what the other person does or has done in the past. I know now that my father redistributed food coupons and helped people go into hiding (Mark b. 1950, Amsterdam).

Mark’s mother, who came from a secular Jewish background, was also active in the resistance: My mother typed and distributed De Waarheid in Amsterdam. She had an important role in the resistance and this is also the reason why her sister Miep was arrested. Not because she was Jewish, but because of the underground work she did for the newspaper. Miep, while helping my mother with some Waarheid related work, was arrested. That was terrible for my mother. I don’t know any of the details. I do know that my mother was already in hiding when her sister was arrested. She moved between different addresses in Amsterdam, and continued to do resistance work. Miep and Rozetje [another sister of Mark’s mother] were both arrested and deported to middle-Europe, as they used to refer to it, where they were both gassed.

In the 1980s, Mark suggested several times to his mother that she visit her old neighbourhood in Betondorp, in the east of Amsterdam where she had lived with her family. He recalled that she didn’t want to see her childhood home, and he felt it was inappropriate to push the idea on her. But at a certain point, she agreed and together with Mark they drove toward Betondorp. As they neared her old street, the pain became too much and she asked her son to take her back. ‘The wound has never healed’, said Mark. Like other members of the resistance, Mark’s mother was entitled to a special pension from the Dutch government. In 1947, special legislation was introduced to assist Holocaust survivors and all who were forced to endure

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the ordeal of the German and Japanese occupations and who suffered physical injury or psychological damage as a result. Though the family had very little money, Mark’s mother refused to apply for this special pension as she didn’t want to be paid for her work in the resistance. Mark noted that his mother didn’t feel she was owed in any way. Eventually, in the 1980s, Mark’s father convinced her to fill out the application. The associated process was very difficult, humiliating, and traumatising recalled Mark, ‘She went through hell and back. She needed to provide evidence of her resistance work and there were a number of people who refused to testify on her behalf. And she herself couldn’t really talk about the war, so all in all, it was a difficult time for her’. People like Mark’s mother had to apply for this pension through Stichting 1940-1945 (‘Foundation 1940-1945’), an organisation founded in 1945 that provides services for members of the resistance and their families.28 Due to the Cold War and the changing attitudes towards the role communists had played in the resistance, these pensions became a source of conflict in the late 1940s. In his recently published book about the political isolation of communists in the Cold War, Jos van Dijk discusses how, in Groningen, the Stichting’s regional board had decided in the immediate aftermath of the war, that those who had been involved with the production and distribution of the wartime resistance newspaper Het Noorderlicht, and their relatives, did not qualify for a pension, as these efforts were not an act of resistance, but a communist activity. As a result of this decision, 42 widows of fallen resistance fighters were denied financial assistance until 1951, when the conflict was finally resolved.29 Another issue was that of citizenship. Only people who had Dutch citizenship during the German occupation were eligible for these special pensions. As discussed in Chapter Two, Dutch individuals who had joined the International Brigades to fight fascism in Spain had lost their citizenship upon their return to the Netherlands. Many of them had continued to fight fascism in their own country and joined the communist resistance, even though they were even more at risk of arrest than other members of the resistance due to the fact that their names featured on a list of subversive elements compiled by the Centrale Inlichtingendienst (‘Dutch Intelligence Agency’), which had fallen into the hands of the Nazis. Many people who featured on this list were caught and deported. Those who survived tried 28 ‘Wie zijn wij?’, Stichting 1940-1945: https://www.st4045.nl/wie-zijn-wij (Accessed on March 30, 2021). 29 Van Dijk, Ondanks hun dappere rol in het verzet, pp. 110-111.

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to regain their citizenship after the war. In the period 1945-1949, 94 Dutch members of the Brigades successfully did so through a ‘renaturalisation’ process. After 1949, under influence of the Cold War, this process became much more difficult as those requesting renaturalisation had to indicate their political affiliation. If the person in question was affiliated with or a member of the CPN, their request was denied as they were deemed to be lacking patriotism.30 For communist applicants, who were told their loyalties lay elsewhere and that they weren’t likely to fight for the fatherland, it must have been a slap in the face when four years later, a special law was introduced that allowed collaborators and former SS members to, collectively, regain their Dutch citizenship which they had lost after the war. By contrast, until the 1960s, communists were forced to apply individually, and their requests continued to be denied if they had a Waarheid subscription, or a CPN poster in their window around election time.31 War traumata were amplified by these injustices and prevented communists from processing losses suffered during the war. They were unable to make sense of a society that had changed so drastically in such a short amount of time. The result was an even deeper sense of social and political isolation which, in turn, strengthened people’s faith in the ideology of community and the idea of a socialist utopia: My mum met my stepdad in the last year of the war. My mum had helped people escape out of Amsterdam with false documentation. My stepfather’s sister worked for the Jewish Council and had made sure his name disappeared from the list. He got the name Henk Karelse, who was born in Soerabaja. He never told us, but I found out later that his mother had died in a concentration camp. The war had made him an uncompromising communist. He believed everything that came out of Russia and longed for a faith, the idea that after Nazism, after the Holocaust, there was a just society. The Soviet Union was heaven on earth (Piet b. 1942, Den Haag). 30 IISG – Nederlandse Vrijwilligers in de Spaanse Burgeroorlog: https://spanjestrijders.nl/ nederlanders (Accessed on March 30, 2021). 31 IISG – Nederlandse Vrijwilligers in de Spaanse Burgeroorlog: https://spanjestrijders.nl/ nederlanders (Accessed on March 30, 2021), and Van Dijk, Ondanks hun dappere rol in het verzet, p. 109. Van Dijk also notes how some communist resistance heroes weren’t added to local commemorative plaques and monuments until the mid-1980s. The sisters Oversteegen, Truus and her sister Freddie, who were both members of an armed resistance cell that was responsible for high profile assignations and sabotaging bridges and railroads, weren’t officially honoured for their bravery until 2014, when they received the Mobilisation War Cross, an award for exceptional service during the Second World War, at the ages of 90 and 88 respectively. See: Van Dijk, Ondanks hun dappere rol in het verzet, p. 111.

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Communists who came back from German prisons and concentration camps suffered not only physically, but also mentally. They often hid their mental health problems from fellow communists, but at home, their children were usually very much aware of their parents’ struggles. Marieke’s parents both came from a radical background and had met each other in the Communistische Jeugdbond (CJB; ‘Communist Youth League’). Her mother and her maternal grandmother were active in the Internationale Rode Hulp (‘International Red Aid’) an organisation that provided aid for Spain during the civil war in the 1930s, and joined the resistance during the Second World War. Her maternal grandfather, also a member of the communist resistance, was arrested but reportedly freed by his wife, Marieke’s maternal grandmother. Marieke’s father had joined the armed resistance cell led by Karel Metz in Amsterdam, where he was in charge of ‘something to do with weapons’. He continued his work while in hiding, as he was wanted by the Nazis. Marieke never knew any details regarding her parents’ activities during the war, as they never talked about their experiences. Still, she could sense the trauma communists had sustained during the war: Before the war, the movement was strong and effective. They did so much good. The war destroyed people, but those same people were also in charge of rebuilding the party. The party’s cadre, after the war, was mentally broken, and it made for a party full of frustrated members. Each one even crazier than the next. […] They all had nightmares and needed psychological help. But that was not an option, as it was considered bourgeois and ridiculous. And those people were supposed to raise children?!? (Marieke b. 1945, Amsterdam).

Marieke explained that her sister, who was born in 1940, was very introverted, something Marieke associated with the war. She felt that her sister should have received some mental health support, but that this kind of support simply wasn’t available: [My sister] was depressed as a child. She hated it at home and left at an early age. Why was it so terrible? Because of the war. When we were children, we could just sense that there were so many things you couldn’t talk about. Things you weren’t allowed to discuss. […] My mother was damaged after the war, had strange tics, and prepared us for a Third World War.

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Those who had survived the war were often left in limbo as information about their loved ones who had been arrested was sparse or not available at all. The associated uncertainties had severe psychological consequences, noted Sandra: My mother’s f irst husband, Henk Prins, was active in the resistance and was executed. She was arrested herself and deported to a camp. My father [Sandra’s mother’s second husband] was involved in the February Strike. He was arrested and deported to a concentration camp as well. My mum came out of the war filled with sorrow. She feared her husband was shot, but she didn’t get proof of his death until 1947. For two whole years, she lived with the idea that maybe he was still alive (Sandra b. 1948, Amsterdam).

Koos’ mother was more fortunate than Sandra’s. Her husband did return from German captivity. Koos, who was born during the war, had clear memories of the first time he saw his father, who had been arrested after the February Strike. The Germans were, erroneously, under the impression that Koos’ father was part of the Communist Party leadership, and he and a few others who were arrested at the same time, were transported to Germany and ended up in prison instead of a concentration camp. The men were accused of writing and distributing the manifesto Staakt Staakt Staakt (‘Strike Strike Strike’), which was a Communist Party pamphlet written to encourage the citizens of Amsterdam to participate in the February Strike. His father escaped from prison early 1945 and crossed enemy lines in the south of Limburg. The south of the Netherlands, including Limburg and Brabant, was already liberated and the locals gave him so much food, he suffered from digestive issues for the rest of his life.32 Koos remembered: My first memory of him was in 1945, when he was standing in front of the door and the neighbour said to me, ‘Koos that’s your dad’. My parents never spoke about the war, my mother only told me a few things after my dad had died. My mum, who had become a communist during the war, was part of the resistance group Goulooze. I remember finding a receiver in one of the rooms of our home, my uncle and mother were petrified 32 This is also known as ‘refeeding syndrome’. See: Olaf Müller and Michael Krawinkel, ‘Malnutrition and Health in Developing Countries’, Canadian Medical Association Journal 173(3), (2005) pp. 279-286, and Susan M. Adkins, ‘Recognizing and Preventing Refeeding Syndrome’, Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing 28(2) (2009), pp. 53-58.

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and made me promise I would never speak to anyone about what I had found. […] My father became ill [in the] late 1960s and was diagnosed with Concentration Camp Syndrome. He quit his job as a plumber in 1969. He moved into a big chicken barn in the Dutch countryside where he lived with other communists who wanted to escape Amsterdam for similar reasons. My father became really paranoid and died not much later (Koos b. 1940, Amsterdam)

Koos’ father was among very few survivors that were officially diagnosed.33 In her book Erkenning. Van oorlogstrauma naar klaagcultuur (‘Recognition. From war trauma to a culture of complaint’), Jolande Withuis investigates if and how people’s cultural background and political convictions influence their chances of survival and the way they process trauma. She argues that the majority of communist camp survivors, unlike other people persecuted by the Nazis, did not suffer from survivors’ guilt, because their political analyses clearly pointed to the real culprits, fascism and capitalism. Communists, according to Withuis, did not consider themselves victims and their ideological beliefs helped them survive. Their political convictions ‘dissolved feelings of guilt, hatred, powerlessness, and fear’ and provided communists with opportunities to externalise, collectivise, and rationalise their feelings of anger, such as those associated with humiliating and terrifying camp experiences, feelings that couldn’t be expressed in the camp without risking one’s life. When kept inside, rightly noted by Withuis, these emotions can lead to depression. But the communist ideology provided camp survivors with the opportunity to express this anger politically and publicly. Therefore, depression and survivor’s guilt were uncommon among communists, argues Withuis.34 Based on the participants’ life stories, it does indeed seem that the communist ideology offered solace, but it didn’t dissolve trauma as Withuis argues, nor did it prevent people from feeling depressed and struggling with survivor’s guilt. It is clear that the idea of communism as a survival strategy was put forward by the party and its organisations as a collective way to deal with 33 In the late 1950s and early 1960s scientists began to study the long-term effects of trauma in survivors of the Holocaust and other war related traumas. The term Concentration Camp Syndrome was coined in the early 1960s. People who were diagnosed with this syndrome suffer from extreme anxiety and hyper-vigilance along with various sleep disturbances, like night terrors and nightmares, but also depression and feelings of guilt. One of the first psychologists who did research on this subject was Leo Eitinger who published Camp Survivors in Norway and Israel in 1964 (Heidelberg: Springer Netherlands). 34 Jolande Withuis, Erkenning. Van oorlogstrauma naar klaagcultuur (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2002), pp. 166-168.

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war-related trauma, but the participants’ testimonies build a different picture of what happened in the privacy of the home. For example, Johan’s father, who was described by other respondents as a very active and loyal communist, felt guilty about his brother’s death. Mark’s parents felt responsible for what had happened to their sisters and couldn’t forgive themselves. Jan Willem Stutje, author of CPN leader Paul de Groot’s biography, describes how De Groot battled with survivors’ guilt from the moment his wife and daughter were arrested in 1943 until he died in 1986.35 Sandra’s mother was ‘filled with sorrow’ and Koos’ father never recovered from his emotional and physical injuries – he died in a rehabilitation centre in early 1970. Others were so traumatised that they felt life was no longer worth living: My mother was fifteen years old when the war began and twenty when it ended. She had older brothers who were members of the resistance and my mother mentioned that they were members of a political party. That was the CPN but she wasn’t aware of that at the time. One died in a concentration camp and the other came back broken, and committed suicide after the war (Mieke b. 1948, Rotterdam).

Mieke’s mother, unlike many of her peers in the communist movement, did speak about her experiences during the war. After, and perhaps due to, the war she became a very outspoken communist and joined the Nederlandse Vrouwenbond (NVB). According to Mieke, she explained the war from a Marxist perspective and drew comfort from her political convictions. Mieke’s father, a construction worker, was less active, but a party member nonetheless. During the war, he was among the 100,000 inhabitants of the city of Rotterdam who were deported to Germany where they were forced to work in the war industry. Mieke reported that her father came back traumatised and, unlike her mother, did not talk about his experiences during the war. He did, however, join the communist fight against fascism, which had begun well before the war and continued until communism collapsed in the early 1990s. Dutch communists saw the fight against the Nazi occupiers and their role in the resistance as part of the greater fight against fascism, which was ultimately part of the fight against capitalism, as fascism was considered a product of capitalism. Because of their political convictions, perhaps more so than their non-communist allies, communists firmly believed one must fight 35 Jan Willem Stutje, De man die de weg wees. Leven en werk van Paul de Groot 1899-1986 (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2000).

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for the good cause and show willingness to self-sacrifice in doing so. However, these beliefs didn’t mean that the battle was fought without any doubts or fears – fears that were less well-hidden from children than from fellow party members. Withuis claims that communist character traits included assertiveness, political awareness, emotional self-control, discipline, and a sense of political superiority. Official party literature underpins these traits, but participants’ testimonies suggest that their parents, though sometimes rigid and almost always politically narrow-minded, were often not unlike other survivors who tried to cope with war trauma. They put on a brave face to the outside world and even to fellow communists, but within the home, the impact of the traumatic experiences was visible. Children, aware of their parents’ suffering, felt as though they had to compensate for their parents’ pain: I always wanted to be a ray of sunshine in our house. I wanted to improve my parents’ lives. I could have moved out when I started university, but I didn’t want to abandon my parents [knowing how much they’ve been through during the war] (Janny b. 1946, Amsterdam). Unlike my sister, I didn’t experience the war. I felt I had to make things pleasant, enjoyable. I had to be a cheerful and happy child. That’s why I ‘happily’ joined my mother every time when she had to collect party membership dues (Marieke b. 1945, Amsterdam).

The post-war experiences of communist concentration camp survivors must be placed within the larger context of attitudes towards war trauma. The period 1945-1960 was characterised by a general silence about the war. The Dutch were no exception; people all over formerly occupied Europe felt uncomfortable talking about the camps, and returning survivors – including political, religious, and Jewish prisoners – felt disappointed and unsatisfied with the lack of support. As noted by Withuis, the fact that trauma was only defined as a physical and not an emotional injury in the Dutch dictionary during this time is illustrative of this lack of understanding of the deep emotional impact of war.36 These attitudes began to change in the 1960s when the term Concentration Camp Syndrome was coined. It wasn’t until the 1980s that an interest in second generation war victims was developed and the term Second Generation Syndrome came in use.37 36 Withuis, Erkenning. Van oorlogstrauma naar klaagcultuur, p. 9. 37 See for example: Generations of the Holocaust, ed. by Martin S. Bergman and Milton E. Jucovy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).

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‘1956’ The week following the Soviet invasion of Hungary on October 24, 1956, a violent battle between communists and non-communists occurred in the Netherlands. The Dutch public was outraged, in line with the Dutch government, which took a very firm standpoint condemning the Soviet Union. All over the country, communists were forced to defend Communist Party buildings against angry mobs who were attacking anything remotely communist. The majority of Dutch participants clearly remembered how their fathers left the house to join fellow communists in their attempt to protect party buildings and houses of prominent communists. They described feeling both fearful and excited: We lived close to Paul de Groot. I had a big sword hanging on the wall above my bed – when the violence began, my dad grabbed the sword and took it to the house of De Groot to defend it (Koos b. 1940, Amsterdam). I remember it was a very exciting time in 1956. But we experienced it from a distance. Because we were at home where it was safe in Den Haag. Jules [Piet’s stepfather] went to Amsterdam to help. Not that there were no dangers in our city. I remember walking on the street not far from the Russian Embassy and, all of a sudden, I was absorbed by this huge mass of people shouting and protesting against the Soviet invasion of Hungary. It was scary, terrifying, and fascinating at the same time. I was confused, I didn’t tell anything about this to my parents, I felt as though I was a traitor (Piet b. 1942, Den Haag).

The public’s anger was not only aimed at party buildings and other communist property; people were in danger too. Even young sons and daughters of communists feared for their lives: We lived behind the Communist Party building on the Heemraadssingel in Rotterdam. A lot of party members were inside the building to defend it from the angry mob that was gathered outside. My dad was among those who was defending the building. My mum had forbidden me to go to the Heemraadssingel, because there were thousands of people outside of the party building. My school was in a side street of the Heemraadssingel and of course, I did go there during my lunch break to see what was going on. There were lots of people with bricks in their hands – the building was being pelted with rocks. All of a sudden I heard someone shout, ‘There

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is that commie scum’. That was the only time I was scared – grown-ups with brick in their hands were running after me and I was only eleven years old. Other adults said, ‘It isn’t her fault, leave the child alone’. I told the whole story to my parents when I came home. The party told us to go into hiding. It was too dangerous. If people would find out we lived around the corner from the CPN building, we wouldn’t be safe in our house anymore. We stayed with my grandparents for a few nights. I can still see my dad standing there in front of the party building, on the stairs, with a huge baseball. It was scary (Anna b. 1945, Rotterdam).

Anna wasn’t the only participant whose family had to go into hiding, an experience which was especially traumatic for those parents who had been in hiding during the war: The most negative thing I ever experienced was the siege of the Felix Meritis [the Communist Party headquarters in Amsterdam] building in 1956. We had to go into hiding for a week and stayed with lesser-known communists. Fortunately, nothing happened, but it surely left a massive impression on me (Arno b. 1947, Amsterdam). We had to go into hiding in 1956. We fled to my grandmother’s home so to speak. I remember we were on our way to her house and I was sitting with my dad on his bicycle. I put my foot in his wheel. My dad fell and had a concussion. We celebrated Sinterklaas [St. Nicolas] in the dark that year. The party provided us with protection, because my dad was a well-known parliamentary reporter for De Waarheid (Mark b. 1950, Amsterdam).

The violence ended as abruptly as it had started and communists’ lives went back to normal, or whatever was the new normal during the Cold War. Some communist parents kept their children home from school during the duration of the Soviet invasion, or ‘Hungarian crisis’, a term favoured by communists. Not everyone received a warm welcome when they returned to school and some felt forced to justify Soviet actions: People came up to me at school during the Hungarian crisis – pupils and teachers wanted an explanation. Physically, I wasn’t strong, but I could defend myself with words. Russia was like the holy land for us and because Hungary was fascist during the war, we initially supported the Soviet intervention thinking the old fascists were trying to get rid of communists (Johan b. 1943, Amsterdam).

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Then there was the situation in Hungary. I couldn’t go to school for a week, because there was too much aggression. A teacher came round to our house to see whether I was ill. After a week I decided it was time to go back. It wasn’t nice, and I felt tension at school, but eventually things went back to normal (Harrie b. 1940, Zaanstreek).

Though it didn’t come to a large-scale eruption of violence in Britain, participants do remember the negative implications of the 1956 Soviet invasion. In the first two weeks of November, demonstrations against the Soviet actions were held in London and petitions were presented. Students demonstrated outside the Soviet Embassy on November 9, and broke some of the windows of the CPGB building in King Street.38 Others communists were physically assaulted and held responsible for Soviet actions during the height of the Cold War. Peter, who was born in 1954 and grew up in Cambridge, recalled: I remember that Harold (a communist family friend from the East End) told me that in 1956, but it might have been earlier, maybe during the Korean War, people threw stones at him, outside of the Vauxhall factory where he worked. He was gentle but tough. He felt he had to be very public about being a communist, in an attempt to encourage fellow communists, who found it hard to be open about their membership. So there were indeed moments it could turn very ugly.

Aside from a few altercations, such as the one Harold was involved in, it is clear that, compared to the extreme response of the Dutch government and Dutch public opinion, the British reaction to the Soviet invasion was much milder. Perhaps due to this milder response, there was more time for self-reflection. Compared to the Netherlands, many more British communists felt inclined to leave the party in or immediately after 1956.39 Others decided, often after long deliberations with fellow members and relatives, to stay. Even those who stayed, began to express doubts about communism and the Soviet Union: I went to work for Unilever and it was the time of the Hungarian uprising. I was working at the Walls sausage factory in Acton and we had a huge 38 Sir James Cable, ‘Britain and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956’, International Relations 9 (1988), 317-333 (p. 328). 39 The CPGB had 33,095 members in 1956 and by 1957 this number had dropped to 26,742. The CPN had 15,463 members in 1955 and 12,858 in 1957. See: Verrips, Dwars duivels en dromend, p. 551 and Thompson, The Good Old Cause, p. 218.

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number of Hungarian refugees coming to us for work – it was really interesting because these people were journalists and doctors but there were also ex-cons and factory workers. All social classes were turning up at Walls looking for work – I had never seen so many rotten teeth in my life! It was around this time that my father started to get a little wobbly about the whole Soviet Union (Julia b. 1934, London).

Julia, who was 22 in 1956, had already left home and was studying to become a nurse, while also working at the Walls factory. At school, she was exposed to a very different climate and became more critical of communism. She used to question her father and agreed with him about the redistribution of wealth and social justice components of communist ideology, but also told him that she wasn’t sure about the Soviet Union. Her father, despite his ‘wobble’, stayed loyal to the Soviet Union which he saw as a utopia with all its collective farms, but also its emphasis on arts and culture. This loyalty did fade, according to Julia, and he gradually became disengaged. He eventually left the party and joined the Labour Party, just like Julia had done. Ann Kane (born in 1942) grew up in a mining community in South Yorkshire. Her parents joined the CPGB in the 1920s. Ann recalled that many people in her village left the Communist Party after Khrushchev’s secret speech and the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Her father, devastated and thoroughly disappointed, decided to stay: My father later said that he felt the revelations were terrible, and he had been horrified at what had been done in the name of the party. We had no knowledge about what had gone on in the Soviet Union, and the way it wasn’t developing as we thought or hoped. He said that there was no point in denying or making excuses, though he didn’t think we should be totally negative about the subject, there were positive things there as well. But my father felt that it was even more important to remain within the Communist Party to ensure those kind of mistakes weren’t made again, we weren’t communists to do that kind of thing, our ideas and aspirations were really against all those things that had happened within the Soviet Union, and that didn’t change our ideals. 40

Ann, a member of the YCL in her teens, joined the CPGB and remained a member until the very end. Like her father, she was able to divorce communist ideology from the Soviet Union. For her, communism was about 40 Interview with Ann Kane in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, pp. 137-150.

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organising resources in a more fair and just way. Others weren’t able to disengage communism from its stifling Soviet connotations and misappropriations, and left. They were met with much hostility from those who stayed. Friendships were ended and children were instructed to ignore certain people and were no longer allowed to play with their children: I remember in 1956, people, who had been friends and comrades, suddenly left the party. We considered them betrayers. Our doctor, who was very active in the Communist Medical Association, left the Communist Party, joined the Labour Party, and became a councillor. He remained our family doctor, but I know my mother was always very critical of him for leaving the party (Paul b. 1951, Liverpool). I had very much a sense of the party as an extended family, which was rocked by 1956 when we suddenly stopped seeing the people I thought were our friends, and I didn’t understand why. We used to regularly go to Halifax to see the Thompsons and they left in 1956. We stopped seeing them. I didn’t realize that had happened. I just remember saying, ‘Why don’t we ever see the Thompsons anymore?’ Their son Mark Thompson was the same age as me and we used to play together. 41

Bob (b. 1932, Adelaide, Australia), a communist activist in London, left the party in 1956. He recalled the impact of the Hungarian uprising on the CPGB but also the way it affected his friendships with fellow comrades: A couple of months afterwards, the Hungarian revolution took over the streets of Budapest – the workers councils rose against the tyrants. Throughout the world the party was tearing itself apart. People who had been comrades for years now refused to speak to me. I was experiencing first-hand what happens when one leaves the company of the true believers.

For British communists who left the party in 1956 it was often a natural step to join the Labour Party: My parents were party members until Hungary – we believed in the lies until then. It was like a religion and then the bubble burst. My parents were very disappointed. I remember some antagonism within their group of friends. Some left and others stayed. I was at university at the time, so I 41 Interview with Martin Kettle in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 179.

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wasn’t very much aware of the impact of 1956 on my parents. They became members of the Labour Party. They had always been sort of hovering – my father was an agent for the Labour Party when he was already a CPGB member (Annie b. 1934, Yorkshire).

In the Netherlands, an off icial split within the CPN occurred in 1958, although a significant number of communists left the party immediately after the events of 1956. Leaving the party appeared to have been a bigger step for Dutch communists than it was for British communists, because in Dutch society, communists were much more socially isolated. This social isolation was bearable within the safety and warmth of the communist family and leaving that family was for many unfathomable. Those who did, didn’t join a more mainstream party like their British contemporaries, instead, they joined the Bruggroep (‘Bridge Group’) which was a very small communist splinter group. Subsequently, those participants whose parents left the party, did not only feel ostracised by non-communists – after all they were still communists – they also felt abandoned by the communist community they were once part of. Marieke was a member of the Uilenspiegelclub, a communist youth organisation much like the pioneers in the Soviet Union that catered for children between the ages of eight and fifteen.42 The internal struggle that took place within the CPN in the period 1956-1958 and resulted in a schism, impacted all youth organisations, including the Uilenspiegelclub, where the dance- and singing coach was asked to leave. Children of parents who had joined the Bruggroep were, however, allowed to stay:43 My parents left the party in 1958 and joined the Bruggroep. I wasn’t allowed to talk to certain people and my parents instructed me on who I could and couldn’t greet in the street. […] You can’t do that to a twelve-yearold. I didn’t agree with my parents and I physically and emotionally removed myself from them through the Uilenspiegelclub (Marieke b. 1945, Amsterdam).

Due to the sacrifices made by Dutch communists during the Second World War and the violent nature of anti-communism in 1956, the contrast between 42 Margreet Schrevel, ‘Romy Schneider’ en ‘Stalina’ samen in een club. De communistische kinderorganisatie Uilenspiegelclub 1953-1964’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis Vol. 25 (1999) 1-24, (p. 5). 43 Ibid., p. 8.

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‘communists as national resistance heroes’ and ‘communists as enemies of the state’ was too severe to comprehend for most Dutch participants, who found themselves completely isolated – emotionally and socially – in the mid-1950s. They usually knew so little about their parents’ personal experiences during the war, but could sense the trauma they had been through. In the privacy of their homes, they witnessed parents’ pain, guilt, fear, and sadness, whilst also being exposed to a deep-seated hatred of communists on the streets and in the press. The latter was a confusing and unsettling experience for Dutch cradle communists – an experience that would ultimately shape their identity and inform their future choices with regard their own level of communist activity. Margreet Schrevel has noted that although the eruption of anti-communism was limited in time, the distrust and aversion felt by the general Dutch public towards communists persevered until the 1960s. 44 In the following two chapters, we’ll see that because of the severity of this outbreak of anti-communism in the Netherlands, Dutch communists felt, more so than their British contemporaries, that they had to over-act, they had to prove they were very ‘normal’ and ‘nice’ people.

44 Margreet Schrevel, ‘Rode luiers, Hollands fabrikaat. Communistische gezinnen in de jaren vijftig’, Holland Historisch Tijdschrift Vol. 36, No. 4 (2004) 327-352, (p. 341).

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Private Spheres Communist Home Life Abstract Based on a series of interviews with 38 British and Dutch cradle communists who participated in an oral history project about communist family life, this chapter explores communist home life and focuses on participants’ political and cultural upbringing. It shows the more practical ways in which family time was structured, before discussing parental prescriptions and aspirations. What kind of parents did Communist Party members want to be and were they inspired by Soviet ideology? Were their aspirations fundamentally different from those of non-communist working-class parents? Searching for answers to these questions, this chapter maps the theory and practice of a communist upbringing and examines the considerable contrast between the two. It specifically looks at gender roles, sexuality, pedagogical values, and morality. Keywords: Dutch communist children, British communist children, Cold War, parental aspirations, Soviet pedagogy

My mother always read a [mainstream] women’s magazine, something like Libelle or Margriet. My sister had a subscription to Donald Duck [weekly Disney comic]. We read absolutely everything and I would go to the library on a regular basis. We were also subscribed to Pegagus books [books published by the communist publishing house Pegasus]. I remember that my mum and dad had the book A Communist Upbringing, which I really wanted to read. I didn’t understand a word! My parents probably got the book as part of a series, because I don’t think they were especially interested in a communist upbringing (Anna b. 1945, Rotterdam). I was a Brownie, a girl guide, for a while, which was quite an experience. I would call it a very deep contradiction. My brother and I were encouraged

Weesjes, Elke, Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain: Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463726634_ch06

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to do all the things kids do. I had horse riding lessons, went ice skating, and had swimming lessons. My parents wanted us to make friends with all the people locally and invite them over for tea. But at the same time, there was this contradictory view that what they [these friends] thought was rubbish. This was the most powerful thing I grew up with, a schizo approach to life really (Lucy b. 1949, London).

Communist childhood recollections often indicate a considerable contrast between communist theory espoused by the party, and actual practices within the communist home. The party seemingly had little influence on certain private aspects of – rank-and-file – communists’ lives, including war trauma and associated emotions, as we saw in the previous chapter, but also the upbringing of their children. When looking at the structuring of family life and related child-rearing practices, parents, rather than the party, decided which elements of Soviet pedagogy were adopted, if any at all. Similarly, they determined which components of Soviet culture were blended into their own Western working-class culture. As illustrated by Lucy’s account, not all parents were successful in their efforts to mix both cultures, and as a result some cradle communists felt as though they lived in two separate – and sometimes clashing – worlds. Others, like Anna’s parents, were able to blend the two, and their children, looking back on their upbringing, were not aware of any overt contradictions.

Politics at home Politics played a central role in communist homes. From an early age, cradle communists were exposed to discussions about political and current affairs. Though debates were sometimes heated and almost always one-sided, both British and Dutch participants agreed this aspect of their upbringing was ‘special’ and ‘interesting’: The talk during dinner was always about politics. […] My father was quite dominant and I felt more comfortable discussing things with my mum. Whenever we watched the news, he would criticize the commentary and would always express the other side of an argument. That made our life very interesting. I feel privileged because I learned to be critical and see the other side of things. You knew about politics. But sometimes it was a bit like, ‘Oh my god, stop being negative’, because everything was always a struggle, especially for the working-class people. But overall, I think it

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was a special childhood. We didn’t sit around the dinner table talking about EastEnders (Millie b. 1951, London).

Mark, who was born in 1950 and grew up in Amsterdam, had similar recollections of his childhood. There were a lot of discussions in our house. There was always an opinion. Actually, my dad’s opinion was the dominating opinion at home and I would usually adopt his views. Whenever I disagreed, I wouldn’t tell him, because I would always lose the argument that followed, regardless whether I was right or wrong. I didn’t have enough knowledge yet to debate my father. Nevertheless, I’ve always appreciated the fact that we were informed about international developments from a young age onwards. What child talks with his parents about the effects of the Cuba crisis?

These two quotes not only illustrate that politics were important within the communist home, they also show that, though Marxist-Leninist ideology stressed gender equality, in reality most participants recall that it was their father whose political opinion was dominant within the family. Generally, mothers were concerned with children’s overall wellbeing and made certain that their children did not stand out as different: My father was a real politician, a staunch believer in communism. My mother on the other hand, had a very normal view on life. She always tried her hardest to prevent us from getting into any trouble. She did not want our lives to be impacted by my father’s political activities (Arno b. 1947, Amsterdam). My dad only really came to life when he was talking about politics. He was interested in little else. My mother was also a passionate communist, but she balanced her political beliefs with living in England. She wanted us to have trendy clothes and she wanted us to be normal (Millie b. 1951, London).

In Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), Friedrich Engels famously argues that the disparities of power between men and women were not based on their inherent natures but were the result of social and historical circumstances. He contends that the earliest organised human communities were egalitarian, matriarchal, and communal, though there was a gender-based division of labour. As hunters, men were responsible for

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bringing meat to the table, while women gathered, preserved, and prepared food and took care of the social spaces where families lived. The emergence of private property – first in the form of domesticated life stock – changed all this as men needed a mechanism for passing on their property to their sons. They therefore invented patriarchy. Also, to ensure their sons were indeed biologically theirs, men began to forcibly inhibit the social and sexual lives of their wives. From then onwards, women were ruled by their husbands and reduced to servitude, according to Engels.1 Drawing on his theories that link private property and patriarchy, the tenets of communist ideology stress that the first examples of class oppression was that of the female by the male. Communism, according to theoreticians, would liberate women from these bonds of servitude, and guarantee their complete equality with men in law and practice, in the family, in the state, and in society.2 Despite Engels’ writings and the laudable efforts to achieve gender equality in the Soviet Union following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the majority of communist families in Europe were not that different from their non-communist peers. They, too, clung to traditional gender roles. Many mothers worked part- or full-time jobs, yet they also looked after the children and were responsible for most of the housework: However modern my parents were in many senses, they took very traditional roles in the household. My mother did all the shopping, cleaning, and cooking. She also made her own curtains and clothes. She did all of these things. Not that my father was lazy, not by any means. But my mum just did everything around the house. It was just the way it was (Rachel, b. 1956 London).

Joanna Bourke notes that, in the first half of the twentieth century, married working-class women were generally pleased to define themselves primarily as housewives, though many were also employed outside of the home.3 Working-class communist mothers were no exception. They also felt their primary identity was that of a mother and a housekeeper, rather than a worker. 1 Susan Groag Bell and Karen M. Offen, Women, the Family, and Freedom – The Debate in Documents, Vol. Two 1880-1950 (Stanford: University Press, 1983), p. 78. 2 N.A. Women and Communism: Selections from the Writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin (London 1950), p. 9 and pp. 35-36. 3 Joanna Bourke, Working-class Cultures in Britain 1890-1960. Gender, Class, and Ethnicity (Abingdon: Routledge 1996), pp. 62-63.

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Paradoxically, there was quite a lot of talk about gender equality in communist families, but this mostly pertained to daughters rather than their mothers. Unlike other working-class parents, communists raised their children to believe that daughters could achieve as much as sons and they were given equal opportunities: My father told me that, as a woman, I could do whatever I wanted and I believed that. But in their household, it was my mother who was doing all the chores whilst my father would sit in his chair discussing capitalism and disarmament. My brother and I were treated the same. We were given jobs to do; hoovering, washing up, etc. Mum organised the roster, she did all the cooking, washing, shopping, and cleaning. I can’t remember my dad doing anything at all to be honest. My mother was very traditional and felt this was her role in the family (Lucy b. 1949, London).

Communist mothers often juggled political activities with their responsibilities as a mother and wife. After all, communism was all about extraparliamentary activity – just carrying a membership card and voting was considered insufficient. Members were expected to do a certain amount of work and it wasn’t always feasible for mothers or working women to sustain that level of political activity – especially when their husbands were reluctant to do any household chores. 4 The following letter, sent to the Daily Worker in 1947, aptly illustrates the difficulties women had to contend with: You have some excellent articles in your paper but I have read none so far which describe the so-called communist who exploits his wife to the hilt. Most working-class wives work in these days of high prices. I for one work from eight till six and have to shop, wash, sew, clean and cook in my spare time. Today, I am left laying the oilcloth while ‘He’ is out shouting ‘Down with serfdom.’5

In a 1971 article in Russian Review, Alice Schuster observes the same issues in the Soviet Union, where, after a very brief moment of sexual liberation in the early post-revolution years, conservative views about sexuality, the family, 4 Tricia Davis, ‘“What Kind of Woman is She?”, Women and Communist Party Politics, 1941-1955’, in Feminism, Culture and Politics, ed. by R. Brunt and C. Rowan (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1982), p. 90. 5 Daily Worker, May 7, 1947, as quoted by Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis, and Conflict, p. 22.

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and household organisation prevailed.6 She notes that though any career was open to Soviet women – who made up half of the labour force in the 1950s – their prospects for advancement were not favourable. Female specialists in all fields, including politics, were concentrated in the lower and middle echelons. Men were able to obtain more training than women and therefore acquired better positions. According to Schuster, Soviet leaders justified this trend by pointing out that women were not ‘devoting all their energies to their profession because of the distractions of caring for their families’. She notes how women, who were predominantly employed in strenuous jobs, had double tasks: ‘They are expected to work as hard as men in offices, factories, and in the fields. Then after coming home, they have to spend several hours a day shopping, cooking, and cleaning because Soviet men (to preserve their masculinity) refuse to help their wives in household duties’.7 When comparing the recollections of British and Dutch cradle communists, it is notable that the level of political activity of Dutch mothers was much higher than that of their British peers. In Britain, it was often the husband who recruited his wife into the party, whereas in the Netherlands the majority of participants’ mothers were already card-carrying members when they met their husbands. Among them were many who had grown up in communist families and were second or even third generation radical Marxists. They had been members of the Communistische Jeugd Bond (CJB; ‘Communist Youth League’) or the communist resistance where they first became politically active. They continued their activism after marriage and/or motherhood. Though their political roles were more cemented in the communist movement, Dutch women also struggled to combine party work and motherhood: Looking back on your life, it was important that you were part of the communist movement and hadn’t spent all your time cleaning the windows or scrubbing the floors. But that kitchen was not going to clean itself. It was hard: After doing all the things normal women do, you had to do all your political work.8

The position of women in the communist home reflects the position of women within the Communist Party. In theory, women were seen as equals, 6 Alice Schuster, ‘Women’s Role in the Soviet Union: Ideology and Reality’, The Russian Review, 30(3), (1971) pp. 260-267. 7 Ibid., p. 266. 8 Jolande Withuis, Opoffering en heroïek: de mentale wereld van een communistische vrouwenorganisatie in naoorlogs Nederland 1946-1976 (Amsterdam: Boom, 1990), p. 283.

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but in reality only a few women held high positions. The discrepancy between the Soviet ideal – which was not realised even in the Soviet Union – and the reality was typical of the wider European communist movement, according to Elizabeth Wilson: The ‘woman’s’ point of view in Parliament was by and large a domestic point of view. The left was no better. By the 1950s communist parties all over Europe were emphasizing women’s roles as wife and mother rather than combating sexual discrimination and in this respect the British Communist Party was typical. Women were caught between the family and socialism; women’s problems were the problems of capitalism.9

Sue Bruley’s study of communist women in Britain also notes the CPGB’s paradoxical attitude toward women as party members. She points out that, following the official Comintern line, the CPGB propagated equality between men and women, while also pushing women into gender-defined roles, which effectively subordinated them to men.10 Bruley adds that this contradiction between women as ‘cadres and co-workers of male members’ versus ‘women as servicing agents to their husbands, the revolutionaries’, was to become a recurring theme in the development of the party.11 This attitude towards women and their role in the party would change in the late 1960s and 1970s. Under the influence of the cultural and social changes of that time period – e.g. the introduction of birth control pills in the early 1960s, the sexual revolution that followed in the late 1960s, and the feminist movement of the 1970s – the progressive theories the participants grew up with were finally put into practice.12 Until then, traditional role patterns prevailed within Dutch and British communist families and their parties. Yet, the fact that men dominated dinner table conversations and were given more prominent political roles, did not mean that women had nothing to say. Women were certainly involved and were far from mute. Unlike many non-communist working-class women, they were politically active and their opinions were respected by their husbands. They were well-read, able to hold their own in a debate, and well-informed about international affairs. 9 Elizabeth Wilson, Only Halfway to Paradise. Women in Post-war Britain: 1945-1968 (London: Travistock, 1980), p. 175. 10 Sue Bruley, Leninism, Stalinism, and the Women’s Movement in Britain, 1920-1939 (New York City: Garland Publishing Inc, 1986), p. 90. 11 Ibid. 12 Elke Weesjes, ‘Communist Daughters – In the Vanguard of Feminism’, Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies Vol. 22, No. 4 (2019), pp. 339-356.

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Participants’ recollections of interacting with non-communist friends and relatives expose additional differences between communist and noncommunist working-class families. Mieke, who was born in 1948 and grew up in Rotterdam, started dating her husband when she was eighteen years old. Her husband’s parents were social-democrats. She recalled being very surprised when she found out that not everyone was used to discussing politics at home: My husband was eighteen when he first started to come to our house. He comes from a PvdA [Partij van de Arbeid; Labour Party] family. He didn’t understand the discussions at our dinner table. He hated it, he thought we were fighting. I wasn’t fighting though, that was called debating in my book.

Aside from exemplifying the culture of discussion that was present in communist homes, this quote also hints at a certain moral superiority. Subconsciously, participants grew up with a sense that they belonged to an elite group that knew more than the wider working classes: We lived in a special world, bohemian and communist. We thought we were special and different. I think we did feel superior. Not in a nasty way, but in an improving way. We weren’t fascists!! We wanted to improve the world (Annie b. 1934, Yorkshire). When people ask me what it was like, growing up in a communist family, I say: ‘Exciting and interesting’. I was sometimes embarrassed about my parents’ overt politics, but I also thought we had good values. We stood for good things. We were better (Betsy b. 1944, Den Haag). We always had to be busy. ‘Never sit still and work hard’ was our motto. We felt superior to other people. We were the champions of a different world. That’s why we had to do things right. In hindsight, I think we were pretty arrogant, but we didn’t notice it back then (Marieke b. 1945, Amsterdam). My mother always said that she belonged to the working class, but really, in everything she did, she was very much middle class. Their communist friends were the same, or at least the ones that visited them on a regular basis. They were as I call them, very decent people. They talked about so much more than just politics. And they didn’t speak with a broad Amsterdam accent. My parents weren’t common people. […]. My father

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[a welder] cared about his appearance and behaviour. He always looked very neat and his shoes were always polished, he thought that was really important. My parents wanted to set a good example for other workers (Deborah, b. 1946, Amsterdam).

This aspect of participants’ upbringing is very much in accordance with the principals of Marxism. After all, communists were the people who would educate and lead the working-class masses towards the revolution. And to be clear, the majority of communists were indeed fundamentally different from the rest of the working class in many ways. For instance, they were often more educated and more cultured than their non-communist working-class peers. In this context Samuel notes that, ‘Communist Party membership, like that of other working-class organisations, only more so, involved a process of cultural upgrading. It “developed” its cadres in ways that separated them decisively from their fellows – with a distinct diction, a “scientific” terminology and determination to be politically active’.13 Political activism also took place in the home: participants remembered weekly or monthly political meetings and cultural gatherings in their homes. Their parents would organise film nights, and host educational events where fellow party members would read and discuss Marx. Sometimes this meant that their children grew up with lots of different people around them, which they look back on as exciting: We had Marxist-Leninist schooling nights at home. There would be 35 to 40 people in our house listening to my stepfather teaching the philosophy of Marxism. I was only a small boy. I used to wake up and I was allowed to sit on someone’s lap in my pyjamas. I thought it was very interesting and exciting (Piet b. 1942, Den Haag).

However, many participants also remember that their parents were often away in the evenings, attending political meetings. Other autobiographical sources too, describe how communist parents were largely absent, because of all their political responsibilities.14 Some children expressed doubts about what came first, the party or the family. In retrospect, the majority of 13 Raphael Samuel, The Lost World of British Communism (London/New York: Verso, 2006), p. 200. 14 See for example the interview with Hywel Francis and Martin Jones in: Phil Cohen, Children of the Revolution. Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1997).

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participants agreed that their parents tried very hard and often succeeded in dividing their time between their children and the party. Whenever possible, children would be part of their parents’ activities. Participants were taken to rallies, May Day marches, and other demonstrations: My mum would always go to all the demonstrations. I remember that she took me on an overnight coach – an unheated double decker bus – from Liverpool to the Aldermaston marches in 1960 and 1961. I also remember going to Scarborough to the Labour Party conference for a Communist Party demo (Paul b. 1951, Liverpool).

A political upbringing wasn’t always just ‘exciting’ or ‘interesting’. Some participants indicated that their parents were overbearing in their political views and that even the most ordinary aspects of their life were politicised. Interestingly, in the few cases where a participant’s parent was this overbearing, the participant rebelled and didn’t want to have anything to do with politics: I was interested in my art, I didn’t have a political personality. I don’t know if that was created by my dad’s overbearing personality. I think it probably was a rejection of it. I thought, ‘Give me a break’. Everything was political. On my twenty-first birthday, I was given a watch and of course it had to be a Russian watch, and the bloody thing kept going wrong. I thought to myself, ‘Why does everything need to be like that?’ (Ruth b. 1946, London). Everything was about communism in our house. That’s why I hated it so much, I resented it. It didn’t matter what you were talking about, even if it was about something like a biscuit, it somehow always ended in politics (Esther b. 1948, Den Haag).

These two participants’ fathers were exceptional in their views and were much more militant than ‘ordinary’ rank-and-file communists. Generally, politics took a central place in most communist households, but the ideology didn’t dominate to such an extent that participants describe their upbringing as suffocating: There wasn’t a time when politics weren’t a part of our life, though I don’t remember it having a heavy presence – we were just aware our parents were active. We were never bulldozed into it.15 15 Interview with Ann Kane in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 137.

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[My father] never forced his views on us and was always prepared to listen to other points of view. He was a pluralist before his time, and he wouldn’t have demanded we think the same way as him, possibly because my mother was a balancing figure in the home.16 Were politics important in our household? I would say yes and no. We had the Daily Worker all the time and once a week, the literature secretary would come round with newspapers and leaflets. He always gave me a mint, I remember that. […] But it wasn’t a hot house of politics. It didn’t dominate everything. Obviously listening to the radio and watching telly, we talked about what was going on. We learned a lot, but it was never rammed down our throats. My parents had lots of other interests they talked about; it wasn’t as if politics was their only life (Paul b. 1951, Liverpool).

Cultural upbringing Communists’ moral superiority was particularly visible in the way parents instructed their children to be critical of news on TV and in mainstream newspapers. They also told their children to be wary of schoolteachers and the books that were used in school. Children grew up with a peculiar and confusing sense that they knew more than other people because they read the ‘right’ books and newspapers and listened to the ‘right’ people. The name of the Dutch communist newspaper, De Waarheid (‘The Truth’), is illustrative of this general attitude. Communists hardly ever questioned their paper’s news coverage, and other mainstream papers were often only read to compare with their own paper: Some of our friends were social democrats and my parents, and other communists who came to our house, used to say about them, ‘Oh they read Het Parool [a social democratic newspaper], in a way they actually meant to say, ‘So they don’t know everything’ (Marieke b. 1945, Amsterdam). We used to read De Waarheid, but later on, when I was a student, I started to read the NRC [a liberal daily newspaper] as well. I really noticed the differences between the two papers and thought to myself, ‘I have to be careful with what I read’. Reading more than one paper didn’t really open

16 Interview with Hywel Francis in Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 128.

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my eyes though, because I compared other papers to De Waarheid and not the other way round (Bram b. 1946, Amsterdam). My parents read the Daily Worker, but also the Herald and the Guardian. The Daily Worker was their bible though until the bubble burst in 1956 (Annie b. 1934, Yorkshire).

Perhaps surprisingly, parents were not particularly concerned with their children’s choice of film and literature. A few exceptions aside, communist parents did not restrict their children in any way – they were allowed to read and watch whatever non-communist children were reading and watching: There was absolutely never any discussion about what I could see or not. I decided what I wanted to see. I used to go to the Saturday morning pictures. There would be cartoons, westerns, and adventure films in our local cinema every Saturday morning (Pat b. 1937, Manchester).

Communist ideology was blended with Western culture. Betsy recalled that her parents took her regularly to a film night organised by the Vereniging van Vrienden van de Sowjet Unie (‘Society of Friends of the Soviet Union’), but they also took her to see Cliff Richard and Catharina Valente. Mieke, whose parents were, in her own words, ‘fanatical about politics’, described her youth as follows: We used to go ice skating and swimming. We went to the cinema. I collected photo cards of the Blue Diamonds (a popular Dutch guitar duo) and my sister of the Everly Brothers. I liked Elvis and my sister liked Cliff (Mieke b. 1948, Rotterdam).

Communists were ardent readers and participants recalled growing up with lots of different books: I was allowed to read anything. One of the things that I think was typical for communist households was that there was often a wide range of political books, but also lots of fiction. There were also always posters on the wall (Paul b. 1951, Liverpool).

Books and novels translated from Russian were available through the Communist Party literature secretary who would come to people’s homes to sell books, but also through communist publishing houses and bookstores. Most

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participants were members of their local library, where they would borrow fiction and non-fiction books. Mainstream magazines were either bought or delivered to their doors. Participants’ recollections contrast with Withuis and Samuel’s statements about communists’ literature consumption. Withuis claims that communists did not read anything besides communist literature: ‘They [communists] did not read any women’s magazines, comics or newspapers other than De Waarheid, the communist family magazine De Uilenspiegel, and Vrouwen voor vrede en opbouw [‘Women for Peace and Reconstruction’ – a communist women’s magazine]. […] Money wasn’t wasted on rubbish like Donald Duck’.17 By only reading literature and magazines that confirmed their own values and worldview, communists isolated themselves even further, according to Withuis. Samuel makes similar claims. Discussing their uneasy relationship with working-class culture, Samuel argues that communists thought of working-class pleasures as degrading. Hollywood films were ‘rubbish’, popular reading was ‘trash’, sport, at least in the early days of the party was ‘capitalist sport’, newspapers were the ‘capitalist press’, and wireless programs were ‘capitalist dope’.18 Withuis and Samuel’s claims appear to be based on official party guidelines that encouraged parents to purchase books and magazines with a pro-working-class outlook, and perhaps the experiences of full-time communist cadre, but the reality was not as black and white as both authors suggest. In fact, oral testimonies and other (auto) biographical sources emphasise that there was a lot of variation between the official party line and what was actually being read in party members’ homes. In her memoirs, Nan Green, a dedicated communist activist, recalls an anecdote which sheds some light on the subject of party-approved literature and the extent to which party members followed official directions. After coming back from Spain where she had joined the republicans’ cause during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Green became very active in the British communist peace movement. She described how the CPGB had moved away from its earlier exclusiveness of sectarianism and encouraged collaboration with the non-communists. However: Blind faith was still very evident – illustrated by the f irst visit of the branch secretary, who had worked in the Soviet Union before the war as a telephone engineering expert and believed with his whole heart that 17 Withuis, Opoffering en heroïek, p. 214. 18 Samuel, The Lost World of British Communism, p. 185.

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the Soviet Union and Stalin could do no wrong. He took an affronted step backwards before our bookcase, pointing to a copy of John Reed’s Ten Days that Shook the World. ‘I shouldn’t keep that book on my shelves if I were you,’ he said. It had been put on the Index in the USSR because of its emphasis on the role of Trotsky in 1917. […] We did not remove the book.19

In her memoir, Green makes it clear that, although there were people with ‘blind faith’ like this branch secretary, this was not the norm. She rebelled against his suggestion to remove Ten Days that Shook the World. On the contrary, she made sure it was prominently displayed. Naturally, Green’s children were not restricted in their choice of literature in any way.20 The same is true for virtually all Dutch and British participants. Limiting literature was not even an issue that was discussed in the home. Participants and their parents read and enjoyed communist and non-communist literature. In many homes, children would read politically correct Soviet novels, as well as Donald Duck. Without really noticing the tremendous paradox, participants would read about stout Soviet workers fighting the working-class struggle, sacrificing themselves for the greater good, whilst also enjoying a comic that features a filthy rich duck who literally swims in his own money and who, in communist eyes, represented the worst excrescence of capitalism. Interestingly, the few parents who did not allow their children to read Donald Duck, objected because it was originally an American comic and not because of its capitalist content.21

Child-rearing mores In her book De jurk van de kosmonaute (‘The Cosmonaut’s Dress’), Withuis asserts that communist children were brought up with high-minded ideals including emotional restraint, punctuality, soberness, self-sacrifice, solidarity, and decency. Non-political events, including birthdays and Sinterklaas (St. Nicolas) festivities were not celebrated and there was little quality family 19 Nan Green, A Chronical of Small Beer. The Memoirs of Nan Green (Nottingham: Trent Editions, 2004), p. 136. 20 Ibid., p. 137. 21 Anti-Americanism in the 1950s was widespread among communists and non-communists. In Britain, there was a large campaign against the American threat to British culture, which was a communist initiative, but also found support in the Labour Party and the National Assembly of Women. See: ‘Special issue: The U.S.A. Threat to British Culture’, Arena – A Magazine of Modern Literature, Vol. II, Series 8, June/July 1951.

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time. She claims that fights and other emotional expressions were taboo in communist households because ‘when one puts his or her personal life in a political context, one would learn to control primitive expressions (such as fights and arguments)’.22 Mothers were more focused on the outside world than their marriage and their children, and the political and not the family’s birthday calendar decided their schedule.23 Withuis portrays communist mothers as emotionally detached battle axes – a picture not supported by the participants’ testimonies nor by the Communist Party literature on the subject of a communist upbringing. The Dutch communist family magazine De Uilenspiegel, which was published weekly between 1950 and 1965 and read by the majority of Dutch participants and their families, advised parents regularly on their children’s upbringing. Instead of dismissing family life as secondary to party work, De Uilenspiegel editors would suggest fun family activities for rainy afternoons and school holidays: Do creative things with the little ones, like playing with dough, drawing or painting. You can also read them a good book, or take the children to a museum or an exhibition. Go sight-seeing in the city or take a walk on the beach. The Rotterdam port is also highly recommended as an exciting place for children to explore.24

The same article is also very clear about priorities: ‘Mothers who think they are too busy to entertain their children, don’t clean the house, and don’t cook a full meal in the afternoon’.25 Whereas Withuis argues that the party valued the politically active working mother with her children in day care over a full-time mother and housewife, De Uilenspiegel encouraged mothers and fathers to spend as much time as possible with their children.26 The discrepancy between Withuis’ observations and party-issued literature can be explained by looking at the two contradictory communist perspectives on the role of women. As noted above, communists believed that women were oppressed and that this oppression originated in the development of private property. At the same time, they believed that capitalism exploited 22 Jolande Withuis, De jurk van de kosmonaute. Over politiek, cultuur en psyche (Amsterdam: Boom, 1995), pp. 150-151. 23 Ibid. 24 De Uilenspiegel, December 1950. 25 Ibid. 26 Withuis, De jurk van de kosmonaute, p. 151.

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women as workers and took women out of their roles as mothers and housewives.27 Paul Mishler argues that, in the context of the United States, the communist rejection of bourgeois culture was more totalising in the 1920s. The emergence of Popular Front communism led to a decrease in attention to women as potentially militant proletarian activists and an increase in the acceptance of more mainstream views on women’s sphere.28 A similar trend is visible in the Netherlands where the first generations of communist women were encouraged to focus primarily on their political activities. A shift takes place in the 1930s and 1940s during which more traditional role patterns were adopted. The child-rearing advice provided in De Uilenspiegel illustrates this shifting perspective of the role of women in the communist home. Withuis’ research into the Nederlandse Vrouwenbond (NVB) seems to indicate that women in this communist women’s organisation were more likely hold on to older definitions and views regarding women’s roles. Curiously, Dutch participants’ mothers were usually members of the NVB on paper, as this was expected from communist women, but did not feel at home within the organisation, nor did they feel kinship with its most active members. A family magazine like De Uilenspiegel didn’t exist in post-war Britain and family life was often neglected in party-issued periodicals such as the Daily Worker and Country Standard. Examples of party-endorsed advice on communist upbringing are therefore sparse in Britain. However, from (auto) biographical accounts, as well as the participants’ testimonies, it is clear that communist parents valued quality time with their children: I loved my dad. He was this romantic character and I wanted to be like him. When I was very small, he used to take me out to London and showed me the bomb sites, which he painted. He did big oil paintings of bombed buildings. I would come along with my little paint brush and joined my father (Madeline b. 1948, Greater London).

The party did expect its full-time activists to sacrifice a lot of time and energy for the cause. Unlike the majority of the participants’ parents, who were rank-and-file communists, cadre leaders and other full-time party officials did not have much time for a private life. In his book The Communist

27 Paul Mishler, Raising Reds. The Young Pioneers, Radical Summer Camps, and Communist Political Culture in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 13. 28 Ibid.

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Technique in Britain communist cadre leader Bob Darke, who left the party in 1951, describes the demanding nature of his job: Many times I have heard communists pleading consideration for their family as an excuse for neglecting party duties. They were told ‘if your wife objects, get her into the party. If your children cry, get them into the YCL. If they won’t join and they won’t keep quiet, then leave them. We’ve no time for decadent bourgeois morality, comrade. A communist is above self. A communist has no private life’.29

Naturally, it was up to the person in question to either follow these extraordinary demands or to balance party work with a fulfilling family life. The fact that the party said ‘jump’ did not automatically mean that party members all indeed jumped. Generally, fathers didn’t sacrifice their families for the party, and none of the participants’ fathers left their wives and children to prove they were an exemplary communist. Yet, even with the best intentions of being a good parent, very active communists found it difficult to free up time to spend with their families. Arthur Exell, Communist Party member and trade union activist, wasn’t able to strike the right balance between his political responsibilities and his family, something he later regretted: Before the war it wasn’t so bad; we had so much short time that I had plenty of time with the children and I used to love it. They were young then. We used to go out over the back fields, we had a tent, we’d sleep in the tent. I used to sleep out there with them. We had a wonderful time. And then the war started and all the meetings, the union and all the others, and my whole home life completely disappeared. […] I was on the Joint Production Committee for Oxford and the Joint Production Committee for the area, so I was out every night of the week, including Saturdays and Sundays. Mabel, my wife, used to rave. And I was very unfair to her, very unfair to her and the children. And sometimes I’ve regretted it because I missed all the fun of having children by being out so much. Now I’m trying to grasp every straw I can with the grandchildren.30

Deborah’s father had similar regrets. He worked as a welder in the port of Amsterdam and was very active in the CPN. After the party had ceased to exist, he confided in his daughter, and told her that he regretted not having 29 Bob Darke, The Communist Technique in Britain (London: Penguin Books LTD, 1952), p. 11. 30 Arthur Exell, ‘Morris Motors in the 1940s’, History Workshop Journal 9 (1980), 90-114 (p. 99).

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spent more time with his children. Deborah, in turn, recalled that she also wished that her father had been around more when she was growing up, and that she had been raised in a ‘normal’ family: When I was a young girl, I had girlfriends who came from so-called bourgeois families. And when I say bourgeois, I mean parents who were primarily occupied with their own family and maybe their extended family. Parents who didn’t peddle newspapers, or march on May 1. And I remember thinking to myself, ‘I wish my family was bourgeois. […] Because being bourgeois doesn’t mean you don’t care about other people, right?’ (Deborah b. 1946, Amsterdam).

Other parents were more successful in dividing their attention between the party and the family and found time to spend with their children on weekends, not unlike most non-communist parents in the 1950s and 1960s: My dad was away a lot, but then again, we always did lots of nice things when he was around on the weekends. I never felt politics came first. Maybe only during the week, but not on the weekends (Anna b. 1945, Rotterdam). My father used to attend and teach at evening classes and also attend party meetings. It didn’t strike me at the time that he spent an enormous amount of time on party work. I didn’t feel my parents weren’t there; somehow my parents were very successful in integrating family life with party life.31

When exploring communist parents’ aspirations in regard to their children’s upbringing, it is useful to take a closer look at the pedagogical literature that was available at the time. Dr. Benjamin Spock, whose book The Common Sense Book of Baby and Childcare was published in 1946, became an integral part of Western culture. His ideas influenced millions of parents all over the world on the upbringing of their children. Communists had their very own Dr. Spock, the Soviet educator Anton Makarenko. His work, A Book for Parents, published in 1954, had a tremendous impact on Soviet society and beyond. His books on child-rearing were translated by Communist Party publishing houses into English and Dutch and many participants remember that their parents owned one or more copies of his books: 31 Interview with Michael Rosen in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 53.

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My parents were influenced by Makarenko’s ideas. My mum was much stricter than my father, but they both wanted me to be self-confident, happy, and most importantly, able to help others (Michael b. 1942, Manchester).

Makarenko’s books were published in editions of millions in countries all over the world, but his readers were predominantly communist and his theories were virtually unknown among outsiders. In Makarenko’s view, children were first and foremost a part of the family collective, their parents would mentally and emotionally prepare, and their teachers would educate them, to become citizens of Soviet society, members of the wider collective. But the family was not viewed as a closed-in collective body, like the bourgeois family. It was an organic part of Soviet society.32 According to Makarenko, ‘a child is a living person, he is by no means a mere ornament to our lives; he is a separate, rich, full blooded life in itself. Judged by its strong emotions, its deep impressionability, the purity and beauty of its efforts of will, a child’s life is incomparably richer than that of an adult’.33 Makarenko emphasises in his book how important discipline is, but he rates one thing as far more important, love. He is, unlike Spock, incredibly tough on parents and keeps them fully responsible when a child exhibits challenging behaviours. Spock on the other hand, in the 1957 edition of Baby and Childcare, recognises that some children are more difficult than others. Both authors focus on love and stability, though Spock is more concerned with the individual. Both think language, interaction, and structure are important, though Spock feels that parents should decide for themselves if they want to raise a child in a permissive or strict way.34 Makarenko appears more rigid in this regard, he rates strictness over permissiveness, yet characterises corporal punishment as ‘a tragedy’ – not for the child, but for the parent who beats the child. He argues that in a correctly organised family collective, where paternal authority is not ousted by any substitutes, one does not feel the need for ‘ugly and immoral disciplinary tricks’. In such a family there is always complete order and the necessary obedience, according to Makarenko.35 On the contrary, Spock has more understanding for parents who spank their children every now and then.36 32 Anton S. Makarenko, A Book for Parents (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954), p. 51. 33 Ibid. 34 Benjamin Spock, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (New York City: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1957), pp. 323-335. 35 Makarenko, A Book for Parents, p. 257. 36 Spock, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, p. 332.

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In terms of sex education, Spock is significantly more liberal than Makarenko. The latter, who speaks in this context of ‘the secret of childbirth’ and the ‘sex problem’, strongly feels that teachers and doctors, not parents, should enlighten children about sex and procreation. He argues that ‘revealing the secret’, even when done in the wisest fashion, intensifies the physiological side of love, encourages not sexual feeling but sexual curiosity, making it simple and accessible. Sex education, according to Makarenko, should consist of fostering chastity.37 Whilst chastity was already promoted by Lenin in the 1920s, Soviet Russia wasn’t always as sexually repressed as Makarenko’s pedagogical works seem to suggest. Following the revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks adopted a legal reform which catapulted Russia into the vanguard of sexual and gender politics. In the country’s new Family Code of 1918, women were allowed to keep their names in marriage, control their own property, and spouses were forbidden to interfere in each other’s private business. Obtaining a divorce became easy and illegitimacy as a status ceased to exist. Abortion was made legal, though it wasn’t encouraged, and was provided free of charge by qualified physicians in state hospitals. Before the revolution, anal intercourse among men was prohibited in the Imperial Legal Code. This law was also thrown out and homosexuality was officially legalised in Soviet Russia in 1922.38 However, the unintended impacts of the new family code soon prompted a swing back of the pendulum of the sexual revolution. These negative impacts – which by the early 1920s had accumulated into a full-blown crisis – included a surge of single mothers who, after short-lived and casual relationships, were left to fend for themselves with no child support. Due to the fact that female unemployment was rampant in the early 1920s, many of these women had no other choice than to resort to prostitution. As a result of the rise in prostitution and casual sexual relationships, and the absence of reliable birth control measures, the incidence of venereal diseases increased dramatically. To resolve this crisis, there was an explosion of sex education produced and provided by physicians in Soviet Russia. Bolsheviks considered sexuality and sex education medical problems that 37 Makarenko, A Book for Parents, p. 297. 38 Though same-sex activity was officially legalised, treatment of gay individuals varied in the early Soviet Russia. Some considered homosexuality a social illness that needed curing, whilst others saw it as an example of bourgeois degeneracy. Still others felt that homosexuality should be tolerated or even respected in the new socialist society. See: Dan Healey, Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia. The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

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should be left to the care of trained medical professionals, according to Frances Lee Bernstein.39 With Stalin’s consolidation of power – which involved the reintroduction of traditional values, such as non-egalitarian family structures, hostility to sexual experimentation and unconventional sexual practices and behaviours, among a host of repressive policies toward sex – sexual education all but disappeared from the public sphere in Soviet Russia.40 The latter explains Makarenko’s approach to the subject of sexuality in his books. Quite the opposite of Makarenko, Spock is an advocate of sex education at a young age. He argues that it shouldn’t be a teacher, or a doctor, who educates a child about sex and procreation. ‘It is common to think that sex education means a lecture at school or a solemn talk by a parent at home. This is taking too narrow a view of the subjects. A child is learning about ‘the facts of life’ all through his childhood, if not in a good way then in an unwholesome way. Sex is a lot broader than just how babies are made’. 41 Spock gives advice on how to talk to children about sex, conception, and childbirth. He feels it is alright for young children to see each other naked, though he thinks that parents should keep their bathroom doors locked. 42 Though Spock is very liberal, he is careful not to advocate experimental sex for adolescents. Intimacy should be reserved for and shared only by those who are in love and committed exclusively to each other. 43 Comparing Baby and Childcare and A Book for Parents, it is striking that there are more similarities than differences. Love and mutual respect, structure, and discipline are key in both books. Their differences lie mostly in the emphasis given to the individual and the collective. Whereas Spock initially advocated a child-centred viewpoint, Makarenko, who wrote his book from a political perspective, considered a child primarily as part of the collective. He nonetheless never denied its individuality. So, were communist children raised with Spock’s or Makarenko’s ideas on child-rearing? Aside from a few exceptions, the majority of participants described their upbringing as ‘progressive’ and ‘very progressive’ as compared to non-communist working-class peers. Their parents, who were so often politically narrow-minded, were very open-minded when it came to their 39 Frances Lee Bernstein, The Dictatorship of Sex. Lifestyle Advice for the Soviet Masses (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011), p. 16. 40 Josie McLellan, Love in the Time of Communism. Intimacy and Sexuality in the GDR (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) p. 5, and Bernstein, The Dictatorship of Sex, p. 5. 41 Spock, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, p. 372. 42 Ibid., p. 379. 43 Ibid.

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children’s upbringing. There appeared to be a lot of trust in children, and both girls and boys enjoyed many liberties. Alie’s memories exemplified communist parents’ values and ideas about child-rearing: My mum tried to raise us as independent, responsible people. From an early age onwards, I was encouraged to make my own decisions and was also held accountable for those decisions. Hitting was not an option in our household. My parents were of the opinion that you can have a sensible chat with a child. They’d rather praise their children than punish them. I really liked my upbringing, it was safe and pretty harmonious. It was clear to me that my parents loved each other very much (Alie b. 1949, Amsterdam).

When asked what, in retrospect, they considered to be typical about growing up in the communist left, almost all participants used the word ‘solidarity’. Their parents tried to teach them the meaning of social justice and participants were able to comprehend and appropriately react to problems of society. Very much in accordance with Makarenko and the wider Soviet ideology, communist life was about the community and solidarity with the underdog: My parents tried to teach us social values. You don’t live just for yourself. You should interact with the people around you and be aware of their struggles. I remember that during the 1953 North Sea flood, 44 my parents wanted me to give some toys away to children who had lost everything. We hardly had any toys. I only had one doll and she meant everything to me, she was mine. But I did donate some other toys (Anna b. 1945, Rotterdam).

Whilst their emphasis on the core values of gratitude and generosity was not unique to communist parents, one aspect of the participants’ upbringing does stand out as fundamentally different from their non-communist contemporaries. 45 They were incredibly open about sex and sexuality. Sex was permitted and many girls began using birth control pills at the age of seventeen. Abortion was not a taboo either and considered a practical 44 The 1953 North Sea flood was a major disaster that killed 1,836 and caused widespread property damage in the Netherlands. 45 Children who grew up in religious families were also encouraged to engage in philanthropic behaviour. See for example, Vermeer and Scheepers, who found that growing up in a family in which the religious upbringing of children was deemed important, had a lasting effect on children’s pro-social orientations (Paul Vermeer and Peer Scheepers, ‘Religious Socialization and Non-Religious Volunteering: A Dutch Panel Study’, Voluntas 23, No. 4 (2012) pp. 940-958.

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option when having a baby wasn’t. Marriage was not always expected and quite a few participants’ parents never married or got married after their first child. This attitude goes completely against Makarenko’s values on how to raise a communist child. Moreover, their views on sexuality altogether deviates from the general public opinion in Britain and the Netherlands in the 1960s and 1970s. I was allowed to sleep in the same room as Scott and I was also allowed to go on the pill. My parents were very relaxed. They wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything to damage my reputation, in a sensible way, but they were certainly relaxed. I was in my early twenties when I met Scott. I remember that when he came over to stay for the first time, he could not believe his eyes that after spending the night in my room, my dad came in and brought him a cup of tea in the morning (Rachel b. 1956, London). We had a very liberal upbringing. We changed in the living room and ran around naked, whilst my dad was reading the paper. When I had a bath, my mum would bring me cups of coffee and we would have a chat. My boyfriend did not understand this at all and I didn’t understand why his family would lock the bathroom door. They were so prudish; they expected me to sleep on the sofa when I spent the night at his parents’ house. I never did! (Mieke b. 1948, Rotterdam).

In Britain and the Netherlands, the pill was introduced in 1961 and 1963 respectively, and was initially only available for married women. Janny’s and Madeline’s accounts, which both emphasise how sexually liberated communist parents often were, also show it wasn’t easy to get a prescription: I had a boyfriend, I was sixteen at the time, and when we started dating my parents contacted his parents to discuss our relationship. They decided that we could sleep together, but that we needed to use contraception. So I went to the Rutgershuis [a clinic that provided contraception and sex education]. They didn’t want to prescribe the pill because they thought I was too young. Half a year later, or maybe a year later, it was okay and they prescribed me the pill. My parents supported this, though initially they were a little ill at ease as they were new to the situation. But they agreed nonetheless. They agreed. Really modern come to think of it (Janny b. 1946 Amsterdam). When I was eighteen, my mother asked me, ‘Madeline, have you had sex yet?’ – I remember this conversation well – and I said: ‘What do you mean?

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I have no contraception. I don’t want to get pregnant’. So she said, ‘Do you want to go on the pill?’ and I said: ‘Yes’. So she went to our GP. At the time, it was very difficult for unmarried women to get the pill. My doctor prescribed it for menstrual irregularities (Madeline b. 1948, Greater London).

In the Netherlands, a large-scale opinion poll about views on marriage, family, and sexuality was carried out in 1965. Its outcomes illustrate just how progressive communist parents were in terms of their views on sex and contraception. The poll results showed that 68.8 percent of participants agreed with the statement: ‘A girl should remain a virgin until she marries’. This figure implies that the majority of the Dutch population could not understand why an unmarried woman would need birth control. The cultural and social changes of the late 1960s did change these views rapidly. In a 1970 follow-up study, only 17.2 percent of participants agreed with the aforementioned statement. 46 Michael Schofield’s research into the sexual behaviour of British teenagers, published in 1965, reveals a similar trend – 85 percent of girls who participated in this survey wanted to remain a virgin until marriage, and 64 percent of boys wanted their wives to be a virgin. Of the female participants, 69 percent agreed with the statement, ‘Most boys want to marry a virgin’ and 57 percent agreed with, ‘If a girl has sex before marriage she gets a bad reputation’. 47 Schofield’s study shows that, in Britain too, people tended to frown upon premarital sex. He also concludes that parents did not educate their children about sex: Two-thirds of the boys and a quarter of the girls had learnt nothing about sex from their parents. Even those who had discussed sex with their parents had usually first heard about it from another source. The only exception to this was middle-class mothers who were more likely to advise their daughters. Teenagers also reported that parental advice about sex usually concentrated on moral problems and was unspecific and vague. 48

Schofield notes that the lack of sex education was exactly where it was needed the most: ‘It was the working-class boys who were least likely to learn 46 C.P. Middendorp, ‘Culturele veranderingen in Nederland, 1965-1970’, Intermediair 11 (1974) 1-15, (p. 5). 47 Michael Schofield, The Sexual Behaviour of Young People (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1965), pp. 132-133. 48 Ibid., p. 248.

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about sex from their parents and were least likely to receive sex education at school’. 49 His inquiries into the use of birth control methods show that many boys and girls who were sexually active often didn’t use contraceptives, not because they were not available, but due to social disapproval. Many of their sexual adventures were spontaneous, and adequate precautions were not taken beforehand.50 Schofield re-interviewed a large number of his original participants for a follow-up study in 1973. The majority of those participants, who were young adults by then, reported having had premarital intercourse. They continued to indicate a desire for more and better sex education. Another significant finding of the second study that perhaps is related to this lack of sex education, is that there was a large gap between the age when participants first had intercourse and the age when they f irst used contraception. This appeared to have resulted in many pregnancies among those who engaged in premarital sex. Of those interviewed, twenty percent of women and sixteen percent of men had premarital sex that ended in pregnancy. Interestingly, premarital pregnant working-class participants tended to get married, whereas the middle-class and well-educated participants resorted to abortion.51 The findings of a 1976 survey further emphasise that the changes of the sexual revolution were mostly felt in middle-class circles. Compared to their working-class peers, middle-class women had a higher age at first intercourse, greater use of contraception – especially the pill – and were less likely to marry if a pregnancy occurred, according to the study. These women were also more likely to use the pill before marriage than working-class women.52 Communist working-class women appeared to be an exception, and even ahead of the curve, when compared to middle-class women. Already in 1965, a letter writer in the Daily Worker sums up the benefits of taking the pill: I have been taking the pill for three years and regard my decision to adopt this method as one of the most sensible personal things I’ve ever done. There is no comparison between the clumsiness and inconvenience of the 49 Ibid., p. 249. 50 Ibid., pp. 249-251. 51 Michael Schofield, The Sexual Behaviour of Young Adults: A Follow-Up Study to the Sexual Behaviour of Young People (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1973). 52 Karen Dunnell, Family Formation 1976. A Survey Carried Out on Behalf of Population Statistics Division 1 of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys of a Sample of Women (both Single and Ever Married) Aged 16-49 in Great Britain (London: H.M. Stationery Off., 1979). For a longer discussion of this data see, Hera Cook, ‘The English Sexual Revolution: Technology and Social Change’, History Workshop Journal No. 59 (Spring, 2005), pp. 109-128.

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cap and the simplicity and convenience of the pill. Its benefits to a worry free sex-life are so obvious they don’t need stating. I’d like to mention its wider benefits to a woman. […] For the first time since I was thirteen, I know the exact day when menstruation is going to start, and can plan accordingly. I now have practically no menstrual pain at all, and no longer suffer from pre-menstrual headaches and depression. […] In fact, instead of being a victim of menstruation, I am now in complete control of it, and the psychological effects of this cannot be over-estimated.53

In the Netherlands, the pill was more actively encouraged by general practitioners than in Britain and already in 1971, the government decided to include family planning in the national public health insurance scheme. The pill, IUDs, diaphragms, and (one year later) sterilisation became available free of charge, reflecting the government’s policy that prevention of unwanted pregnancy was a public responsibility as well as an individual one.54 Though more sexually progressive as a nation, we also see that members of the Dutch working class were less inclined to reap the benefits of the availability of different methods of contraceptives, nor did they receive the same level of sexual education as their middle-class peers.55 Alie’s father was aware of this problem among working-class youth. He was, like a large number of other Dutch participants’ parents, a member of the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Sexuele Hervorming (NVSH; ‘Dutch Society for Sexual Reform’): My father was very active in the NVSH. He always provided his fellow factory workers with condoms, because they, like many others, were too scared and embarrassed to go to the shop and buy some (Alie, b. 1949, Amsterdam).

The CPGB was also aware of the difficulties (working-class) men experienced buying condoms. The Daily Worker didn’t have many advertisers in the 1950s, and it is therefore remarkable that a very visible Durex ad appeared in the paper throughout that decade: ‘Durex rubber goods and all surgical birth control appliances sent on by registered post under plain cover. Send for 53 Daily Worker, October 9, 1965, as quoted by Cook, ‘The English Sexual Revolution: Technology and Social Change’, p. 118. 54 Abortion, however, was not fully legalised until 1984. See: Anita Hardon, ‘Reproductive Health Care in the Netherlands’, Reproductive Health Matters Vol. 11 No. 21 (2003), pp. 59-73. 55 See: Eva Rensman, De pil in Nederland – Een mentaliteitsgeschiedenis (Amsterdam: Athenaeum-Polak and Van Gennep, 2006).

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our free price list now’.56 The promotion of family planning and the use of contraceptives was as old as the party itself. Already in the early 1920s, the works and birth control devices of Marie Stopes – a family-planning pioneer who opened Britain’s first birth control clinic in London in 1921 – often appeared in the advertising columns of The Communist.57 Summarising her childhood, Esther said: My father was not only a difficult, tiresome and short-tempered communist; he was also a very patient father, who taught his little girl to read and went on long walks with her through the city of Den Haag on warm summer nights whilst explaining the solar system or discussing sexuality and procreation (Esther b. 1948, Den Haag)

Esther’s father was a staunch communist, an obedient follower of the Marxist-Leninist ideology and a loyal supporter of the Soviet Union. As noted above, he was different from the other parents, who were not as unquestioning and rigid in their communist beliefs. Therefore, the fact that even he took time off from his party duties to be a loving father to his daughter is remarkable and indicates that the image of the cold and distant parent who prioritised the party over the family, as so convincingly put forward by Withuis, was not necessarily the norm, not even for those with ‘blind faith’. As so clearly illustrated by participants’ childhood experiences, a communist upbringing was not characterised by emotional deprivation or parental abandonment. Parents were described as supportive, loving, and affectionate. They had busy lives, especially women who were expected to juggle motherhood, party activities, and work. Yet mothers and fathers freed up time to spend with their family. The party instructed parents on how to live their lives, how to raise their children, and what to read and watch. While the level of commitment to party directives varied per parent, it is clear that much of the communist ideology regarding child-rearing was not put into practice. Instead, parents adopted many of their country’s cultural and social values. Inside of the privacy of their own home, two different worlds came together – Soviet ideology and Western culture. As a result of this interesting blend, communist family life was quite distinct. Communists saw themselves as part of the wider working class, 56 Daily Worker July 10, 1954, p. 3. 57 Bruley, Leninism, Stalinism and the Women’s Movement in Britain, pp. 71-72.

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yet they felt better than their non-communist working-class peers. After all, they were more educated, better-read, cultured, and socially and politically conscious. Unlike their non-communist working-class peers, cradle communists were raised without corporal punishment and with progressive ideas, including the acceptance of premarital sex and cohabitation, gender equality between children, and a strong emphasis on solidarity and philanthropy. Aware of their distinct traits, communist parents and their children had a strong sense of moral superiority – something which many participants look back on in shame. Yet, at the time, they felt it was their moral and political duty to educate the working class and pass on their very middle-class values and ideals. Whilst glorifying (and educating) the working class, they expected to have the same opportunities as the middle class. The conflicts that arose in this context will be further explored in the next chapter.

7

Public Spheres Neighbourhood, School and Work Abstract Dutch and British communist families were connected with the outside world in many ways. They encountered non-communists at work, in school, in their neighbourhood, and through friends and extended family. Because the Dutch and British communist parties were so small, rank-and-file communists couldn’t live in a self-sufficient bubble and had to interact and get along with people who did not agree with their political ideas. Based on a series of interviews with 38 British and Dutch cradle communists who participated in an oral history project about communist family life, this chapter analyses the issues that arose in the context of these interactions. It discusses participants’ experiences in non-communist surroundings, such as their neighbourhood, school, and workplace, and explores their friendships and romantic relationships. Keywords: Dutch communist movement, British communist movement, educational and professional aspirations, Cold War, anti-communism, oral history

Most communist children had their first encounters with non-communists on their street or in their neighbourhood. Communist children growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in working-class areas like the Staatsliedenbuurt in Amsterdam or the East End in London were no exception as other communist families usually lived nearby. In certain neighbourhoods in Amsterdam, communists lived door-to-door, but in others there were hardly any. The majority of participants delivered the communist newspaper, so they knew exactly how many fellow communists lived in their neighbourhoods: I grew up in a village with only one street and 200 inhabitants. I had a Daily Worker round on Saturdays. I delivered three papers, one to the

Weesjes, Elke, Growing Up Communist in the Netherlands and Britain: Childhood, Political Activism, and Identity Formation. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2021 doi: 10.5117/9789463726634_ch07

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Irish Catholic, one to an elderly guy who was a gardener and someone else who I can’t remember. Quite a high representation of a total of 200! (Peter b. 1954, Cambridge). We had lots of CPN [Communistische Partij van Nederland; ‘Communist Party of the Netherlands’] members in our neighbourhood, I knew exactly who were communist because my parents would have a special relationship with these people. Or otherwise I found out through delivering the communist newspaper (Annette b. 1946, Krommenie).

At the height of the Cold War, especially in the Netherlands, many people were secretive about their communist sympathies and worried that their neighbours would find out that they read a communist newspaper, so the delivery boys and girls had to put the papers in unmarked envelopes: I delivered the paper in our neighbourhood. In our street we were the only communists. There were a few communist families living not too far from us. It was quite a job, my paper round. I had to deliver twelve papers and had to cycle quite a bit in between. For a while I had to put the papers first in envelopes and there was also a time, I first had to fold them into a very small A5 size so I could put them through the door easily (Esther b. 1948, Den Haag). I had a paper round and most people had their paper delivered in a brown envelope, because their neighbours were not allowed to know they read the communist newspaper. As if the neighbours would not find it strange to see a little boy deliver a big brown envelope every day! Because of my paper round I knew there were more communist families on our street. But I am not sure how many people knew my parents were communists (Koos b. 1940, Amsterdam).

Not everyone tried to hide their political leanings from the public. Participants clearly remember the big signs and posters that were placed in windows around election time. Some children felt embarrassed about this public display of their parents’ radical beliefs and sometimes the posters didn’t go down well with the neighbours: During election time, we had big posters (my dad designed them) in front of the window, which caused problems with our neighbours downstairs. The woman ran a dance school and was afraid that her customers would

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think those posters were hers. She asked my parents to remove them, which I think they did (Bram b. 1946, Amsterdam).

There was also the fear of being different or becoming the subject of ridicule: I used to distribute folders for the party and later, when I was about eleven, I delivered De Waarheid. Doing so went without saying really, though I remember I didn’t say anything to other kids. I tried to hide the papers when I was doing my round. In the neighbourhood, people knew my parents were communists, because we had big posters in our window. I never had any problems, but I do remember being scared not to fit in. I was afraid that people would call me names. I didn’t like being different (Betsy b. 1944, Den Haag). My school was very close to our house and during election time, people could see the big posters in our windows, so everyone knew we were communist. I didn’t have any other children from communist families in my class, so I felt like an outsider (Mark b. 1950, Amsterdam). We were well-known communists in our neighbourhood. On the street side of our house, we had a small balcony and during election time my dad would hang a big Communist Party sign off the balcony, it was a huge red sign with something like ‘Vote List 8’ written on it. I remember a friend of my brother Piet broke the thing in pieces throwing snowballs at it. They also blew up our letter box (Esther b. 1948, Den Haag).

The majority of British respondents were spared this grief for the simple reason that the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was so small there was often no communist candidate and parents voted Labour instead: People knew my parents were communists, but then again during the local elections we would run the local Labour Party’s campaign. My parents would be the Labour agents – to get a Labour councillor in was a challenge enough (Peter b. 1954, Cambridge). My parents’ political ideas weren’t obvious. During elections we would often have a Labour poster in the window, because nine out of ten times there were no communist candidates (Rachel b. 1956, London).

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Certain British cradle communists did share some experiences with their Dutch peers. Nina Temple’s father stood for elections in the late 1950s and early 1960s, which caused her some problems: There were a lot of Cold War attitudes around still, so I used to get lots of, ‘Nina go back to Russia’. […] As a child I used to get a lot of taunting from kids on the estate because we had posters and leaflets about my dad around, and it was an extraordinary thing to be a communist.1

Nina had some unpleasant experiences but felt special at the same time because her father was an active member of the CPGB and in the public eye. She grew up in St. John’s Wood on a council estate – a tight-knit community where people knew a lot about each other. Though there were myriad instances of solidarity between communists and non-communists in working-class neighbourhoods and inner-city council estates like Nina’s, it was, at the same time, difficult to escape the occasional anti-communist sentiment. Because of the lack of living space, local community life in these neighbourhoods was often intense, which translated into intense friendships, but also intense dislike. In their study of family and kinship in the working-class area Bethnal Green in East London, Peter Willmot and Michael Young discovered that established residents claimed to know everyone in Bethnal Green because they were connected by kinship ties and to a network of other families and through them to a host of friends and acquaintances. Willmot and Young observed that this particular area was not a crowd of individuals, restless, lonely and rootless, but an orderly community based on family and neighbourhood groupings.2 The second part of their research focused on a housing estate in Greenleigh in Essex, which was at the time of Willmot and Young’s project largely working class and where many families from inner city neighbourhoods like Bethnal Green moved to in the 1940s and 1950s. They found that the atmosphere on the estate in Greenleigh was very different from the warmth and friendliness of Bethnal Green and that people seemed cut off from relatives, suspicious of their neighbours, and often lonely.3 Willmot and Young were accused of romanticising Bethnal Green and later studies of the same 1 Interview with Nina Temple in Phil Cohen, Children of the Revolution. Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1997), p 91. 2 Michael Young and Peter Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London (London: Pelican, 1957) p. 7. 3 Ibid.

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subject contradicted some of their conclusions. 4 Nevertheless, certain key aspects of their research can be applied to my respondents’ upbringing and living situation. The participants’ childhood recollections seem to indicate that close friendships with non-communist neighbours were most likely developed in old working-class areas like the Staatsliedenbuurt and the Transvaalbuurt in Amsterdam or Hackney in London. Bob Darke’s description of Hackney matches Willmot and Young’s observations and is not dissimilar from depictions of working-class areas in Amsterdam, Den Haag, and Rotterdam: I live in Nisbet House, Homerton, a block of council flats in the Borough of Hackney, where washing is always hanging on the lines on the verandas, and there are bicycles and prams in the tiled hallways and sheds. Such a block of flats in the East End is a world of its own, closer-knit than the luxury flats in the West End where, I imagine, a man can lock his door on his neighbours. But if, in the East End, you can’t keep your own business from the neighbours that also means that your circle of friends is all the wider. For example: to the old dears at the foot of the steps that evening, gossiping with arms akimbo, I was not Mr. Darke, the mystery man of Flat Twelve. I was Bob. Bob Darke, Borough Councillor, communist. They knew all about me, my wife Ann, and our two daughters. They called to me ‘Evening, Bob. How are things?’5

To communists, fellow party members were much more than politically likeminded people. They were considered family and participants remembered calling party members that lived nearby ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’. The role of these kinship ties – grandparents, uncles, aunts, nephews, cousins, but also fellow party members, and other members of the working class – were immensely important to communists and provided crucial support at times of adversity. However, the close-knit nature of established working-class communities had an important downside too. Children living in these kinds of neighbourhoods couldn’t hide their parents’ political convictions which could make them an easy target for bullies. A few participants remember being mistreated, some referred to it as bullying, whereas others defined it as teasing. Arno and Lina, for example, were called ‘dirty commie’ by children 4 For example, Jocelyn Cornwell, Hard-Earned Lives: Accounts of Health and Illness from East London (London: Tavistock, 1984). 5 Bob Darke, The Communist Technique in Britain (London: Penguin Books LTD, 1952), pp. 7-8.

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on their street, whilst others, such as Michael, were ignored altogether by their neighbours: It was obvious at school and in the neighbourhood that we were not in the political mainstream – the people next door blanked us out because we were communists.6

In Bob Potter’s case, communist sympathies led to his eviction from the room he rented in a bed and breakfast in London. His story is remarkable. Bob, who isn’t a cradle communist but was interviewed nonetheless, left his homeland Australia in 1951 to go to the World Federation of Democratic Youth festival in Berlin, a decision that cost him a relationship with his parents. His father was in the Australian army and Bob himself went to Australia’s military college in Canberra. At school, he openly condemned the war in Korea and was consequently expelled from school. His father was furious and their relationship further deteriorated after Bob – who had become involved in radical politics, but hadn’t officially joined any communist organisations yet – became a regular public speaker in Adelaide Park. Bob told his father he wanted to attend the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) festival in Europe and needed his father’s signature on his passport application. His father, appalled that his son wanted to go to a communist festival, refused to sign the papers at first but gave in eventually. He reportedly agreed to sign the papers, but only on the condition that Bob would cease all contact with the family, including his younger brothers. Bob left for Europe in 1951, but was unable to visit East Berlin with an Australian passport. After an arduous voyage by boat and train, he ended up in London, where he found a job and a place to live: Unpacking my stuff, for the first time really, I found a little postcard of Stalin, which I think I had received from an old woman at a railway station in Germany. Anyway, I put this portrait on the mantelpiece in my room. Funnily enough I wasn’t even sure yet if I wanted to join the Communist Party or not, but I had collected a few communist books on my travels, although I had yet to read them. I found a job at the Decca record factory. My first wage was five pounds a week. After the first day of work, I came home but I could not get into the house, they had packed all my stuff and put it at the front door. Presumably referring to the photograph of Stalin (and maybe I had made some laudatory remarks about communist 6 Interview with Mike Power in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 170.

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Czechoslovakia at breakfast?), I was told, ‘We are not having any communist agitators in this house’ (Bob Potter b. 1932, Adelaide).

Bob rang the Daily Worker and was told to contact John Goss, a communist activist, who took him in. Goss’s flat was in Lambeth on the Larkhall Estate, where, according to Bob, another 33 CPGB members lived. He befriended these communists, visited their homes, and delivered party literature. Bob fondly recalled how much people looked out for one another on the estate. Other participants too, indicated that solidarity was immensely important in their families, not only with other communists, but also with the noncommunist underdog. As mentioned in the previous chapter, participants were raised with a sense of moral responsibility and a duty to help people in need: We were the only communists in our street. I remember that there was a little boy, who lived a few houses down from us, whose father had been a member of the NSB [Nationaal Socialistische Beweging in Nederland; ‘National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands’] during the war. None of the kids in our street were allowed to play with that boy and my mother thought that was awful. So she encouraged me to play with him. She felt that it wasn’t the poor kid’s fault (Olga b. 1951, Amsterdam). Everybody in our street knew we were communists and people respected this. My dad was the neighbourhood oracle – people would ask him for advice about rent, tax forms, and financial issues. Our family was always responsible for putting up lights and providing power on May 5 [Liberation Day]. On that day there was always a party tent in the street, people would sing and dance, it was great (Mark b. 1950, Amsterdam). My father was a very well-respected man, very well-liked in the village. Our childhood was just endless knocking at the door, usually people coming in wanting help – problems at the pit they needed sorting out, they’d been ill and weren’t given their sick pay, they had a form to fill in and didn’t know how to do it. My memories of my childhood are of meals being endlessly interrupted: someone would be at the door and my father would always get up and speak to them, then take them into the other room whilst we finished our tea.7 7

Interview with Ann Kane in: Children of the Revolution, p. 139.

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Kenneth Newton writes that CPGB membership became concentrated in stable working-class communities like those in East End London, South Wales, and Glasgow. He points out that the party itself formed a closely integrated organisation and that, generally, party members were wellintegrated members of the community.8 Communist activists made use of the existing networks in neighbourhoods and were therefore more successful in older working-class communities where neighbourliness prevailed. In her 1971 book, Social Research in Bethnal Green, Jennifer Platt defines life in one such community as follows: The working-class way of life is seen as involving the extended family embedded in a stable and predominantly working-class community with great neighbourliness and communal solidarity expressed in networks of social relationships and mutual aid and strong attachments to the local area and its primary groups. In this context people are known and judged as individuals with multiple characteristics rather than as holders of certain jobs or owners of certain possessions.9

This is precisely the kind of community where communist families would prosper, in Britain and in the Netherlands. For participants’ parents, when trying to develop personal relationships, it was important that neighbours didn’t just judge them based on their political conviction, as communists were generally distrusted and portrayed in the media as the enemy within. Through extensive work in the community, participants’ parents acquired a certain social standing which in turn enabled them to forge friendships with non-communists. Arno (b. 1947, Amsterdam) remembered that a couple of neighbours came up to his mother and said, ‘You are such decent people, it is hard to believe you are members of the CPN’. As illustrated by this quote, communists often had to, or felt that they had to, prove themselves to their neighbours before the latter put aside their prejudices, though participants and their families weren’t always provided with the opportunity to showcase that they were indeed ‘decent people’.10 Overall, British communists were less likely to be the victim of stigmatisation than Dutch communists during the 8 Kenneth Newton, The Sociology of British Communism (London: The Penguin Press, 1969), p. 105. 9 Jennifer Platt, Social Research in Bethnal Green (London: Macmillan, 1971), p. 171. 10 In this context it is important to note that within working-class communist families, in Britain and in the Netherlands, respectability was tremendously important. Shoes needed to be polished, men would wear suits, children were instructed to eat with a knife and a fork (rather than cutting the meat and using a fork or spoon to eat as was common in most working-class households), and swearing and other lewd behaviours were frowned upon.

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Cold War period because of the previously discussed lack of a fierce tradition of anti-communism in Britain. Interviews indicate that British participants didn’t have to try as hard as their Dutch contemporaries – relationships with non-communist neighbours seemed to be more effortless and more natural – whereas in the Netherlands communist felt as though they had to break down invisible walls, especially after the anti-communist eruption of 1956: When we moved to Overschie – this was in November 1956, which by the way had nothing to do with Hungary – I remember our new neighbours being a little apprehensive. They stood on the step, looking like, ‘Oh my goodness, communists, what is going to happen now?’ But it soon became clear that we were actually quite a nice family and no barbarians (Anna b. 1945, Rotterdam).

What is interesting about Anna’s observations is that people in her new neighbourhood most likely had no idea that her parents were Communist Party members. After all, they didn’t move in waving a red flag and singing the Internationale. She nonetheless translated her new neighbours’ questioning glances into a dislike of communists and feared not being accepted. Though this fear was not completely unfounded, in reality only four participants recalled being treated badly or differently by their neighbours due to their political convictions; the majority either got along with the people on their street or didn’t have much contact with them.

School and education Another public sphere where communist children associated with noncommunists was in school. The majority of the Dutch and British participants indicated that both boys and girls were stimulated to do well at school. Communists firmly believed in the importance of education and the subject had always been a major concern of the Communist Party. In the context of education, the sky was the limit according to the communist press: ‘The only permanent, guaranteed solution to the problem of higher education is not only that of providing more universities and teachers, but creating the kind of society which provides ever widening opportunities for everyone to aim at the stars and reach them’.11 At the time this statement was published 11 ‘Today’s 18-Plus Problem’, The Daily Worker, September 14, 1963, p. 2, as quoted in: Newton, The Sociology of British Communism, p. 60.

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in the Daily Worker, in 1963, educational opportunities for working-class children were still limited in England and in the Netherlands even though the economy in both countries was thriving. This issue didn’t go unnoticed and began to receive academic attention in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The data collected in both countries confirms that the percentage of workingclass boys and girls in grammar school and the Dutch equivalent, lyceum, was very small.12 More recent studies emphasise that educational aspiration, not social class as such, is the most important variable having direct effects on the education obtained. Naturally, within this context, the role of the family is vital. In their 1998 study, ‘The Family and Educational Aspirations’, Jay Teachman and Kathleen Paasch provide four main reasons why families should be associated with variations in educational aspirations. Firstly, they emphasise that families are sources of genetically determined academic potential. Secondly, families represent micro-social environments that influence how children experience the larger social world. In this context, Teachman and Paasch argue that children who grow up in well-organised neighbourhoods and attend well-financed schools with good teachers are likely to have higher educational aspirations. Thirdly, they pose that families provide children with larger social environments that affect how they view education. Lastly, the authors argue that children who come from families with greater economic resources are more likely to view college as a viable alternative. They note that with fewer economic resources, even academically talented young people may perceive higher education as beyond their reach and may scale down their educational aspirations accordingly.13 Based on this study, and myriad others that came to similar conclusions, communist families appear to have been exceptions. After all, communist parents’ economic resources were extremely limited, their children grew up in working-class neighbourhoods where the majority of children did not pursue academic careers, and communist children usually attended 12 As early as 1957, Floud and Halsey used the example of the British eleven-plus examination to demonstrate the correlation between social class and educational opportunity. The abandoning of the intelligence test prompted the authors to study the social distribution of opportunity before and after the selection procedures for grammar schools changed. Floud and Halsey concluded that the changes in procedure have resulted at any given level of ability in a slight decrease of opportunity for working-class boys and a corresponding increase in opportunity for boys from middle- and upper-class families. The data (collected between 1952 and 1954) shows that the percentage of working-class boys in grammar schools was very small (See: Jean Floud and A.H. Halsey, ‘Intelligence Tests, Social Class and Selection for Secondary Schools’, The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1957), pp. 33-39. 13 Jay D. Teachman and Kathleen Paasch, ‘The Family and Educational Aspirations’, Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 60, No. 3 (1998) 704-714, (pp. 704-705).

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schools that weren’t well-funded, with teachers who didn’t have particularly high aspirations for their working-class pupils. Still, none of these factors caused communist parents or their children to lower their educational aspirations. However, the family as a micro-social environment is illustrative for communist families. Parents provided their children with literature, they encouraged intellectual activities – such as political discussions which according to Teachman and Paasch confirmed the value of academic achievement and spurred educational aspirations.14 In line with Newton’s observation that communists’ emphasis on the importance of education contrasts with the more usual working-class attitudes to education, communist parents were in many respects different from their non-communist working-class peers. Whilst they encouraged their children to do well at school, they themselves were often deprived of further education.15 This didn’t stop them from developing themselves through courses provided by unions and the party, or through self-education: My father did have a chip on his shoulder about his lack of education. My mother was educated and that was one of the reasons he was attracted to her, but because of this my father felt his own inadequacy even though he was a very intelligent man. My father had done a lot of courses through the party (Ruth b. 1946, London). My father was a builder. He very much identified with the working class, but was intent on educating himself further. For example, he did a course in journalism so he could write articles for union and party rags (Janny b. 1946, Amsterdam).

Raphael Samuel has noted that communism had ‘a particular appeal to the self-educating working man’ and referred to the CPGB’s early leaders like Tom Bell and Arthur MacManus as typical autodidacts.16 Constant methodical study was a communist duty, according to Samuel, because knowledge meant power.17 Similarly, Newton argued that ‘the pattern of self-education seems to have important implications for political activity, for although education does not determine political outlook, the educated 14 Ibid., p. 705. 15 Newton, The Sociology of British Communism, p. 60. 16 Raphael Samuel, The Lost World of British Communism (London/New York: Verso, 2006), p. 191. 17 Ibid., p. 195.

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are more likely to participate in political affairs’.18 For this reason, it was essential that communist workers learned to write, debate, take notes, and speak in public. The CPN and the CPGB, and its youth organisations, provided such education. By encouraging academic pursuit, communist parents wanted to give their children opportunities they themselves never had. Though education gradually opened up for all classes over the course of the 1960s, the more prestigious schools remained largely out of reach for working-class students. For this reason, participants recalled having problems fitting in: There were two schools to which I could go but my mum wanted me to go to the more academic one. Education was very important to her. The fact was, I didn’t do very well and she later admitted that the headmaster didn’t really like us, because we came from a council estate. I didn’t feel very comfortable at this school, all the kids in my street went to another school, one that wasn’t so posh and looked more fun. My school was terribly middle class (Millie b. 1951, London).

Pat had similar experiences, though felt less uncomfortable at his school: I have vague recollections – once I went to secondary school – of not really bringing friends home from school. That may be partly to do with the fact the school was on the other side of town. In those days at the age of eleven, one would take the 11+ exam which decided which type of state school you would go to. I went to a grammar school which happened to be on the other side of town. Most of the people who would pass the 11+ exam were middle class – I was the only person from my street and my gang of friends who went to a grammar school. This was undoubtedly due to having grown up in a communist family (Pat b. 1937, Manchester).

In her book on working-class cultures in Britain, Joanna Bourke notes that ‘working class scholars found themselves in danger of being estranged from relatives, neighbours and friends’.19 She quotes Valerie Walkerdine, who in the 1950s had won a scholarship to attend grammar school. Walkerdine described how she lost her sense of belonging and her sense of safety in 18 Newton, The Sociology of British Communism, p. 60. 19 Joanna Bourke, Working-class Cultures in Britain 1890-1960. Gender, Class, and Ethnicity (Abingdon: Routledge 1996), p. 120.

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this new school: ‘I didn’t belong in the new place, any more than I now belonged in the old’.20 She tried to fit in by changing her northern accent, which resulted in her being perceived as an imposter by both her new (middle-class) friends from school, as well as her old (working-class) friends in her neighbourhood. Unlike Walkerdine, participants who were attending grammar school or a lyceum weren’t ashamed of their background, and that is why they did not find themselves estranged from fellow working-class friends and neighbours. Ann, whose father was a miner, remembered: I suppose we were unusual as a family in that all three of us [Ann and her two siblings] went to a grammar school. Our parents didn’t have that opportunity – not because they weren’t clever enough, just because there wasn’t that chance – and they wanted us to have it and were willing to make financial sacrifices, such as paying for new uniforms. They always felt that education was very important, and as communists it was one of the things they were fighting for, for working-class kids to have those opportunities; but we were certainly never made to feel that we were better or different from anybody.21

The latter may appear a contradiction to participants’ statements in the previous chapter about growing up with the idea that they were better than other people, but it isn’t. Whilst participants’ parents were convinced their political views were superior to those of their non-communist peers, they nonetheless identified with the working classes and felt tremendous pride in belonging to this social class. Whereas their parents were academically encouraging, participants agreed that their teachers often weren’t. In his 1981 article on the correlation between socio-economic class position and educational achievement in the 1960s and 1970s, George Clement Bond notes that teachers projected non-supportive attitudes onto working-class children and argues that these children received ‘inferior treatment from the educational establishment’.22 These observations seem especially applicable to the Dutch context. The 20 Ibid. 21 Interview with Ann Kane in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 142. 22 George Clement Bond, ‘Social Economic Status and Educational Achievement: A Review Article’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly Vol. 12, No. 4 (Winter 1981) 227-257, (pp. 243-244). More recently, Diane Reay, who came to similar conclusions as Bond, argued that these issues remain persistent in the twenty-first century. See Diane Reay, Inequality, Education and the Working Classes (Bristol: Policy Press, 2017).

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majority of Dutch participants recalled their teachers holding low expectations for working-class pupils: In the last three years of primary school, I had such a peculiar teacher. He was very negative and told us [working-class students] that we were not going to excel and wanted to send us all to the huishoudschool [domestic science school] (Marieke b. 1945, Amsterdam).

Harrie did an aptitude test in school and noticed that most children from working-class backgrounds were, according to the outcome of this test, just about capable of going to a technical or a domestic science school: I was advised to do something manual. I had to bend this iron wire and it took me about half an hour. I couldn’t hit a nail in the wall, but according to this test, I was exceptionally handy. My parents thought it was ridiculous and said, ‘We are sending you to a lyceum instead’ (Harrie b. 1940, Zaanstreek).

In the Netherlands too, only a very small percentage of lyceum students came from working-class families in the 1950s and 1960s. 23 It appears that communist working-class children were disproportionately represented, primarily due to the fact that communist parents, unlike their non-communist peers, were more likely to disregard teachers’ academic advice. In a 1961 local study into the factors that influenced male pupils’ choice of secondary education, De Haan, Bolle, and Scheffers argue that teachers’ academic advice was not informed by a student’s intelligence and academic abilities but by the parents’ socio-economic status. The authors also state that 74 percent of parents ‘chose’ consistently with the teacher’s recommendations.24 Within this context, an interesting difference occurs between the experiences of Dutch and British participants. Whereas in both countries communist parents encouraged and sometimes pressured their children to do well at school, the incentive to do so was different. For Dutch participants, 23 Between 1950 and 1965 only fifteen percent of lyceum students came from working-class families. See: P. Boekholt and E. de Booy, Geschiedenis van de school in Nederland. Vanaf de middeleeuwen tot aan de huidige tijd (Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1987), p. 260. 24 D.J. de Haan, H. Bolle, and K. Scheffers, Zaanse jongens en schoolkeuze: onderzoek naar factoren die de keuze van voortgezet onderwijs in 1961 voor mannelijke leerlingen van de 6e klasse van het lager onderwijs in de Zaanstreek bepalen (Zaandam: Vereniging centrale technische school voor de Zaanstreek, 1961), p. 35 and p. 43.

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it had nothing to do with social elevation. For their parents, education had a developmental value – it was important to have knowledge, so children would be able to stand up for themselves and defend the communist ideology whenever this was required. British communist parents were also concerned with their children’s professional future. They wanted their children to have good job opportunities and do well in life. Many Dutch parents, on the other hand, didn’t want their children to ‘outgrow’ their class and expected them to find working-class jobs after finishing school. This paradoxical attitude towards education contributed to participants’ decision to drop out of school. As further detailed below, peer pressure within the ANJV also played an important role. Participants often had no idea why they studied or what they were aiming for. Additionally, there were other reasons why participants dropped out of school or college. Whilst being encouraging overall, their parents weren’t able to offer any practical support or pass on relevant knowledge because they themselves had enjoyed very little official schooling. The latter was and remains a common challenge that first-generation college students are faced with. Participants disclosed that it was at school that they had their first negative experiences due to their parents’ political beliefs. The pride many felt about belonging to the working class did not necessarily extent to their parents’ political affiliation. In fact, many participants indicated that during the height of the Cold War they tried to hide that part of their lives. This wasn’t easy, especially on Labour Day (May 1) when communist parents kept their children home from school to observe International Workers’ Day: I didn’t have to go to school on May first. It wasn’t an official holiday, but we took the day off. We would go to the children’s Labour Day celebrations and in the evening, we joined my parents to see Marcus Bakker. My dad used to write a letter to school the day before, saying, ‘On Labour Day, we take the day off’. People at school laughed at me, but nobody dared to say, ‘You are not allowed to do so’ (Mieke b. 1948, Rotterdam). I experienced problems on Labour Day, because I had to ask my teacher if I could have the day off. On that day there would be vans with a sound system in our street and I remember being really embarrassed about it. I was only a child and didn’t really know yet what it was all about (Mark b. 1950, Amsterdam).

Surprisingly, bullying in school was often instigated by teachers or headmasters according to participants. The stories are disconcerting

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yet abundant and seem to indicate that anti-communist attitudes were common in schools. Ann remembered that during the 1955 miners’ strike, her school had decided to provide miners’ children with free school dinners. Children were asked to bring a letter from their parents to school, asking for these dinners. They were then expected to stand up in class with the letter, which was altogether quite a humiliating experience. It was even worse for Ann: I remember in a maths class I was the only person in the class who had brought in this bloody letter asking for school dinners and I remember the maths teacher saying he would have expected some of the others to be asking but not me, because he thought this strike was being organised by the communists. He implied it was all my father’s fault, and we shouldn’t be getting the free school dinners, and I remember being slightly embarrassed by that.25

Other teachers made similar comments: On the Monday morning after the May Day march I used to come to school with the Daily Worker May Day badge and I remember when I was about nine I came to school with it and Mr. Baggs, the deputy head of my primary school said, ‘Oh, we’re communists are we?’26 I wasn’t bullied by other kids. Some teacher made some horrible comments and would insinuate things. It would always be the PvdA [Partij van de Arbeid; ‘Labour Party’] teachers doing this – they said nasty things about communist parents. My parents weren’t happy and my dad went to school a couple of times to complain (Johan b. 1943, Amsterdam).

Participants recalled being put on the spot by teachers who asked questions whose answers could reveal their communist background: I remember at secondary school my teacher asked the class, ‘What newspaper does your family take?’ She went round in the classroom and at one girl from a very middle-class family the teacher joked, ‘Daily Worker?’ and the class laughed. So when the teacher came to me I said, ‘The Morning Star’ (Millie b. 1951, London). 25 Interview with Ann Kane in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 141. 26 Interview with Michael Rosen in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 53.

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Millie wasn’t embarrassed about her parents reading the communist newspaper; on the contrary, she loved being different. But she was never bullied in school because of her parents’ political conviction. Mark, on the other hand, tried to hide his background. He remembered an incident in secondary school which was similar to Millie’s: I did have a nasty experience with a teacher. He knew what my dad did, but he asked during a geography class, ‘So Mark, what does your dad do for a living? [Mark’s father was a well-known journalist for De Waarheid]. I answered, ‘He is a journalist’. Subsequently, he wanted to know what paper my father worked for. I didn’t tell him. I was very angry with this teacher because he was out to expose me. I didn’t walk around with an ANJV badge in secondary school, so most people didn’t know I was a communist (Mark b. 1950, Amsterdam).

Ed’s art teacher had a vivid imagination: In secondary school I had a few confrontations with teachers who made comments about the fact I was a communist. I had this arts teacher, I was, by the way, not very good at drawing so maybe that had something to do with it, but this teacher told us to draw a sailboat. Well I thought to myself, ‘I can do this’, and I drew a sail boat. The teacher looked at my drawing and saw a hammer and sickle in the sail. What a load of nonsense! Like I would draw such a thing (Guus b. 1943, Rotterdam).

Ed’s teacher got it wrong, but curiously a few respondents remember being fond of drawing communist scenes. Piet remembered drawing a street with red flags, hammers and sickles, and banners with ‘Long Live Stalin’, on the blackboard at school. Paul, who felt rather isolated as a child in school, used to draw Soviet planes attacking American and Korean planes in art class. None of his classmates who saw his pictures understood what they depicted, which only exacerbated his feelings of social isolation. The subject of a child’s drawing might seem an innocent difference between communist and non-communist children, but it also reveals a deeper more serious issue. Like Paul, participants recalled a sense of feeling misunderstood by non-communist peers at school: I felt I was different at school, very strongly. I remember this girl Shirley who was a fellow student. One day, I got really mad that nobody cared about current affairs and what was going on in the world, and she said, ‘Maybe it just puzzles us. We just don’t know how to make sense of it.’

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She said it really nicely, like she was admiring me, but basically she was saying that she looked at the world and it baffled her, and that was the great virtue of Marxism, that it gave you an interpretive key to reading and understanding events.27

Jude, in retrospect, valued Marxism as an ideology and her communist upbringing in general because her parents encouraged her to think about current affairs and taught her to have a sense of moral responsibility. Nevertheless, she also admitted to feeling an outsider. The things children learned in school were very different from what they learned at home. Children were surprised but also confused when they found out in school that not everyone shared their parents’ enthusiasm for communism. In hindsight, participants acknowledged that their idea of reality was often quite distorted: I can remember being at school saying to a teacher when I was seven, ‘You don’t know who John Gollan is?’ Of course the teacher didn’t know and I was really surprised about that because I thought of him in the same league of importance as Gaitskell; he was a party leader – I didn’t realize he was in a very small party.28

Overall participants didn’t describe their school time as particular negative, though the majority remembers certain incidents of feeling side-lined because of their parents’ political persuasion: When I went to the lyceum, one day the headmaster came in and told our class that there were pen pal addresses in America and we were invited to write letters to children there. I asked for one, because I was keen to have a pen pal, but he said it was for the best if I didn’t get one (Harrie b. 1940, Zaanstreek).

Only a couple of participants remembered being called names by fellow students. In her article about communist family life, Margreet Schrevel concluded that the term ‘dirty commie’ and other similar terms of abuse weren’t, by definition, politically charged. She wondered whether these terms were just among the names children called each other.29 The story 27 Interview with Jude Bloomfield in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution p. 69. 28 Interview with Martin Kettle in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 182. 29 Margreet Schrevel, ‘Rode luiers, hollands fabrikaat. Communistische gezinnen in de jaren vijftig’, Holland Historisch Tijdschrift, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2004) 327-352 (p. 342).

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of two respondents who were both born in 1946 and grew up in the same Amsterdam neighbourhood, seems to confirm Schrevel’s suspicions. Bart and Janny were in the same class though Bart had plenty of negative experiences and Janny had none. Bart, who described his time at school as quite traumatic, recalled being singled out due to his family’s political beliefs and called a ‘dirty commie’. The fact that Janny wasn’t singled out for the same reason suggests that school children used whatever ammunition they could find to bully a sensitive boy who didn’t quite fit in. There were also other reasons why children were called ‘dirty commie’, according to Johan (b. 1943, Amsterdam). He blamed the teachers for labelling pupils as ‘communists’ which, in turn, inspired pupils to use this information in a negative way. Harrie summed it all up when he stated that he was sometimes called ‘communist’ but most of the time ‘four eyes’. In this context it is interesting to see that the participants who stood up for themselves and were not afraid to talk about their upbringing were least likely to be bullied: My geography teacher always wanted to discuss communism with me – he loved it. One day I didn’t feel like it and my fellow classmates got really angry with me, they never used to do their geography homework, because I was always debating communism and the teacher never gave the rest of the class any attention (Koos b. 1940, Amsterdam). In my history class, I gave a talk about Marxism and my teacher, who was very conservative, thought I did really well and gave me the highest grade. Around the same time, I went to a summer camp in Czechoslovakia and when I came back, I told my fellow classmates all about my adventures. This wasn’t a problem at all, no one responded negatively (Janny b. 1946, Amsterdam).

Others took it a step further and bragged about their upbringing and used it to be different and interesting: I used to bring a Marxist analysis to bear at school, I think it was just showing off really. I was occasionally involved in debates about the Royal Family and I would always take a left-wing line. I was in CND and went on their demos; Pat Arrowsmith used to live around the corner from us and I can remember buying badges off her and occasionally selling badges in the school yard.30 30 Interview with Alexei Sayle in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 44.

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Everyone at school knew I was a communist – I was actually bragging about it. I would tell people about illegal demonstrations and police interception. I completely exaggerated. My fellow classmates thought it was really interesting. I used my communist background to distinguish myself from the rest (Bram b. 1946 Amsterdam).

These more positive attitudes towards a communist upbringing developed as children became older and more politically aware. Koos, Janny, Bram, and Alexei were all in their mid-to-late teens when they felt comfortable enough to talk about their political convictions. The times had also become more favourable for communists by then; by the mid-sixties, Hungary had disappeared into the background and virulent anti-communism had died down.

Work and careers Historically, communists valued manual labour over an intellectual or office job. In the Netherlands, this preference influenced some participants’ decision to drop out of school and get a job instead. As noted above, pressure from peers in communist youth organisations seemingly played quite a significant role in this context. As discussed in Chapters Two and Three, the ANJV was an organisation for working youth and members who were still in school felt, at times, out of place within this organisation. Olga for example, who was born in 1951 in Amsterdam, recalled that she felt like ‘the odd one out’ in the ANJV – which she had joined at the age of fifteen. She explained that her parents encouraged her to do well in school and she was studying to become a teacher. Therefore, she was still in school at the age of eighteen, whilst most ANJV members began to work at the age of sixteen. In hindsight, participants agreed that, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a certain pressure within the ANJV to find a (manual) job.31 This type of workerism was also present in other communist youth organisations. Peter Boezeman, one of the leaders of the communist youth organisation Uilenspiegelclub, was particularly clear on the subject: I was a terrible student in school and I am still not a great learner. I would be willing to study geology, but not inside a classroom, but with 31 See for example, ‘Van school af en dan werken’, Jeugd June/July 1964, p. 4. For this article eight ANJV members in their mid-to-late teens, were interviewed. Four admitted to dropping out of school, because they preferred to work instead.

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a pickaxe and a shovel outside. I would advise anyone: quit your studies before it is too late.32

As such, Dutch participants were confronted with mixed signals. In their communist youth organisations, they were told that it was better to drop out of school and find a job. The Communist Party propagated the importance of staying within one’s class and glorified the roles of miners, builders, and factory workers ‘without whom the Netherlands would be an uninhabitable desert’.33 Yet at the same time, participants’ parents, in accordance with the party line, encouraged their children to do well at school without assisting their children with making career choices. In contrast, British participants were spurred by their parents to have a successful career, even if this meant they could not become a member of the Communist Party: I did not go to university. My parents were fine with this and suggested I should do something to get a career. They sort of pushed me to become a civil servant, which was remarkable because it meant I was not allowed to be active in a political party (Rachel b. 1956, London).

Rachel’s parents were very loyal communists, who were not only committed to the CPGB but also to the Soviet Union, which makes their attitude toward careerism all the more remarkable. Brian Pollitt’s story shows that this attitude also existed amongst the highest party officials. After Brian left the army in the mid-1950s, he became a sales representative for Unilever. He excelled at his job and after two years he became a management trainee. Brian struggled at times with the contradiction between pursuing a managerial career at a huge capitalist firm like Unilever and being an active communist. He recalled that his father, who was chairman of the CPGB at the time, had some unexpected and unorthodox advice for him: My father learned from me in 1957 that, albeit on a proper private mileage allowance, I’d used my company car to ferry around stuff for the Daily Worker bazaar in Liverpool. He was worried that political activity of this kind could threaten my job. He went further and said that I’d finally ‘got

32 Archive Uilenspiegelclub 1953-1959, folder 3 (International Institute of Social History). 33 De Waarheid, September 3, 1951.

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(my) feet under the table,’ should now ‘make a success of (my) life,’ that ‘this family’s made enough sacrifices’ and that I should leave the party.34

His father’s suggestion that he leave the CPGB left Brian in shock, because it meant that he had to abandon everything he had ever believed in. It is likely that Harry Pollitt’s advice for his son stemmed from a deep disappointment with the party. After all, he made these comments in 1957, a year after the revelations about Stalin’s regime and the disastrous Soviet invasion of Hungary. Nevertheless, it remains remarkable that someone like Harry Pollitt was able to let go of the most basic principles of communist ideology. Overall, it seems that British communists had a different and more moderate outlook on communist ideology than their Dutch contemporaries. First and foremost, their attitude towards class changed dramatically in the post-war period. Samuel, describing the world of British communism in the 1940s, notes: Class, for communists, was an exclusive discrimination. It forbade, or delegitimated, alternative forms of belonging, relegating nationality, religion and race, for example, to the nether regions of ‘false consciousness.’ […] Mobility was a kind of pollutant, stability was a source of strength, corporate loyalties, keeping rank, as highly prized as in the armed service or the boarding schools. Class consciousness, in short, was a matter of honour.35

Drawing on the British participants’ accounts, this strict attitude had disappeared by the 1950s. In the Netherlands, however, Samuel’s description of class remained true until the late 1960s. The importance for Dutch communists to stay within their class affected not only their children’s school careers, but also influenced their own careers. Generally, Dutch participants’ parents did not view work as a social vehicle. Work was about solidarity, which was more important than the individual. ‘Be part of the workers, don’t be in charge’ was their motto. In this context, Annette, Betsy, and Anna all have similar recollections: My father was a labourer. I always thought it was remarkable that he never wanted any promotion. He was convinced it wasn’t appropriate as a communist to get higher up. He didn’t want to be in charge, but I always thought he had the qualities of a leader (Annette b. 1946, Krommenie). 34 Interview with Brian Pollitt in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 114. 35 Samuel, The Lost World of British Communism, p. 172.

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My father never made a career for himself – it never played a big part in our family to make a career. My dad was very eager to learn though, he even got a degree when he was 47, but this was not to get a better job, he did this for himself (Betsy b. 1944, Den Haag). My dad never tried to get higher up, have a career, be a foreman. He didn’t want to rise above other people. I never aimed for a career either. Just work hard, and act normal. Don’t be lazy (Anna b. 1945, Rotterdam).

Group solidarity was very important for Dutch communists, especially when work was done in shifts and in the case of piece work. ‘Don’t work harder or less hard than the person sitting next to you’ was their adage. Appreciation for the boss or supervisor was usually seen as betrayal of your fellow workers and promotion meant less respect from fellow comrades at work and party members: My dad refused to work over-hours. He was convinced one had to be able to earn a living wage in the official work hours. My dad did not want to become a foreman, he was a carpenter, but didn’t want to get higher up (Mieke b. 1948, Rotterdam). My father didn’t want to become foreman. He refused to work for capitalists – he didn’t want to be in charge of ‘capital’. Making a career for yourself was not something we aimed for in our family. But you had to be a role model at work. A sort of Stachanov-worker (Jacob b. 1937, Amsterdam).

It is noteworthy that, unlike Dutch communists’ views on education, their views on work were very similar to those of the wider working class. Generally, there was very little ambition to get ‘higher up’. According to Gerhard Durlacher’s 1965 study into attitudes and social aspirations of the lowest paid segment of the workforce, there was a sense of contentment among these members of the working class. He relates the latter to the Second World War and argues that semi- and unskilled workers interviewed for his study were just relieved that the war was over and were, by and large, happy with the basics, like a home, a job, and enough money to feed the family. Durlachar’s study shows these workers had very few dreams in life and were satisfied with very little, though at the same time he detected some feelings of social injustice. They compensated for felt injustices and insecurities by forging solidarity with others in similar circumstances. Durlacher concluded that

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interviewees didn’t consider their jobs as a social vehicle and preferred to stay on the same social level as their parents and their fellow workers.36 British participants’ parents did not share their Dutch contemporaries’ objections to making a career for oneself. The majority of working parents excelled in their jobs and moved upwards within a certain profession. Ruth’s father was among these parents. He would often lecture Ruth on workerism and the strength and goodness of the ordinary man. Born in Lancashire to a large working-class Catholic family, he had worked in the cotton mills and the pits before moving south to London just before the war with nothing more than a toolbox and the hope of a job. Somewhere in between he had become radicalised and had broken with Catholicism. In 1942, after joining the CPGB, he met Ruth’s mother – a German Jew who had escaped Nazi Germany just before the Second World War – in a factory where they both worked. Her mother had moved around in radical circles back in Germany and they bonded over politics though she wasn’t as radical as her soon-to-be husband. After the war, Ruth’s father worked as a carpenter and joiner and became very active in his trade union and in the local party. Surprisingly, he became a civil servant when Ruth was eight years old and was therefore forced to leave the party, but remained a very committed communist. In fact, Ruth referred to him as a ‘Stalinist’ due to his rigid interpretations of the communist ideology. She recalled his career: Dad went up in his profession. He became first of all an instructor, then a manager, then a regional manager. He sort of joined the upper ranks of the area he worked in. There was a social mobility and in that sense he was a closet bourgeois (Ruth b. 1946, London).

Paul shared a similar story pertaining to his mother. He indicated that his mother came from a somewhat radical working-class background and grew up in Macclesfield. She won a scholarship to attend Cambridge University and became interested in politics while there. After completing her studies, she became a teacher in Liverpool. She was, according to Paul, a dedicated communist – and remained a member of the CPGB until the end. Her political convictions didn’t stop her from pursuing a career, quite the opposite: [My mother] became a teacher just like my father. She worked before I was born, then she stopped for five years, and then she went back to work. After she went back, she rose rapidly in the education system and she 36 Gerhard L. Durlacher, De laagstbetaalden (Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 1965), p. 57 and p. 68.

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became a headmistress at a big comprehensive school in Liverpool. In fact, she was the first female head teacher in Liverpool. While she was a headmistress [in the 1970s], whenever she took on a new member of staff, she’d welcome them saying, ‘There is one thing you need to know about me, that is that I am a communist, you’ll hear it from other people so it’s better I tell you first. I don’t want to be secretive about it, but I will not let it interfere with my work’ (Paul b. 1951, Liverpool).

Other participants’ parents found it much more difficult to be in charge and be a dedicated communist: I think my parents saw themselves as workers. My dad was an editor and this was a source of conflict and eventually lost his job because he found it hard to be on the side of the management, he was always on the side of the journalists. He saw himself as a journalist, but obviously management needed him to be on their side. It was a major problem (John b. 1954, London).

Pat Mills who worked at Morris Motors in Cowley in Oxford in the late 1940s, had a similar experience. He was a very active and loyal party member, and a well-liked man. In a History Workshop Journal essay about Morris Motors in the 1940s, Arthur Exell described what happened to Pat once he was promoted: Pat Mills was made a foreman at Morris Motors. We criticised him for it, but he said he could do more good as a foreman. That was his view. We said they would use him, and they did. We had another party member at Radiators who was a foreman, Ginger Everett. But he didn’t become a foreman after joining the party. He was a foreman before he joined the party. That’s the way we looked at it. We tried to persuade Pat Mills against taking it on. We had a meeting with him at my house. He came to a special meeting and we told him he had to resign as a foreman. He wouldn’t do it. So he resigned from the party. It was very upsetting for us all. I remember him crying – in the corner. Pat never got over it really. I think he came back in for a short while. But his whole life had just been upset because of that disagreement/row. He’d been in the party for a long time when it happened, and he’d been a ‘good ‘un’ too. But we couldn’t persuade him. He said, ‘As a foreman I shall still continue with my party activities and I can do just as much for the party as a foreman as not.’ We said he couldn’t.37 37 Arthur Exell, ‘Morris Motors in the 1940s’, History Workshop Journal 9 (1980) 90-114, (p. 103).

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Exell was right, Mills didn’t last long. He was forced to fire a worker on behalf of the management and, in Exell’s words, ‘realised then he’d gone wrong’, because ‘once you find yourself being utilised by a boss to get rid of a worker no one is going to trust you’.38 Mills quit his job as foreman and re-joined the party, but ‘it was never the same again, never’.39 From the participants’ accounts it appears that communist opposition to careerism in Britain dissipated over the course of the 1950s, whilst it remained very strong in the Netherlands until the late 1960s. This discrepancy is most likely related to the different economic circumstances in both countries. In 1950s Britain, welfare spending grew steadily, modest growth was sustained, and the overall living standard of the working class improved. Goods became ever more tantalising because average people could now afford them. On the contrary, in the Netherlands, wages were frozen or allowed to rise only slightly. The Dutch government had introduced a socio-economic policy of frugality and large swathes of the Dutch population did not have access to luxury items until the 1960s. Due to these circumstances there was less incentive to take a promotion, especially when doing so would anger your communist peers. Anti-communism – MI5 and the BVD It wasn’t always easy for communists to find work, especially during the height of the Cold War. In both countries, communists were blacklisted and investigated by respective intelligence agencies, M15 in Britain and the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD; ‘Domestic Security Service’) in the Netherlands. Several participants shared instances of discrimination they felt were related to their families’ politics: It would be false to say communists did not experience any discrimination. My dad never really advanced academically, both mum and my dad felt that their academic careers were blocked at a certain point. My dad never got to be a don. A classic case in Cambridge was Morris Dobb [a Marxist economist], who was a reader but never became professor, which was a total academic scandal (Peter b. 1954, Cambridge). When I tried to get a job, I experienced problems because of my background. I wanted to work for the PTT [Royal Mail], ‘forget it!’ I wasn’t 38 Ibid., 104. 39 Ibid.

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able to work for the state. I couldn’t for the local council either. And they [employers] were never allowed to tell me why I didn’t get the job (Mieke b. 1948, Rotterdam).

Ed’s grandparents were active communists, but his parents didn’t join the party. Himself an active communist, he stated ‘the communist bug skipped a generation’. His father experienced quite a few problems with his family’s communist background: Just my father’s last name caused problems, as he came from a well-known communist family. He applied for a job at Shell after the war, but he wasn’t hired. After that he was hired as a civil servant working for the Rotterdam city council, but he never got any kind of promotion, though all his colleagues did. At a certain point, his colleagues thought this was so unfair that they had a word with their superiors. They listened and just before my dad retired, he finally got the promotion he deserved (Guus b. 1943, Rotterdam).

What is interesting about these accounts is that we can never be sure whether communism was really to blame for not getting a job. Not all participants were convinced it was: My dad wasn’t an easy man to work with. He always told us the BVD hindered him professionally and that this was the reason he couldn’t get or keep a job. At the time I wasn’t sure if that was really true (Esther b. 1948, Den Haag).

Esther – who never joined any communist organisations and had a deep aversion against anything to do with the CPN – became the object of a BVD investigation herself: In 1966, on the occasion of the engagement of [Princess] Beatrix and Claus [Von Amstel], I was Elsje in A Midsummer Night’s Dream performed by the Haagsche Comedie. Everyone was screened by the BVD, because Claus and Beatrix were attending the play. They questioned whether I could perform that night or not and made quite a fuss about it. Like I, whilst playing the character of Elsje, would throw a bomb or something (Esther b. 1948, Den Haag).

Esther admitted that she had doubted her father but was more inclined to believe his claims after being investigated herself. In other cases, the

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evidence of discrimination was immediately clear. Nina Temple’s father worked at the Central Bureau for Educational Visits and Exchanges. When his supervisor left, Nina’s father, Landon, applied for the job: Because he was in the Communist Party they weren’t going to let him get the promotion he had earned. All sorts of dirty tricks happened, including allegations made against him. A guy in the organisation who was gay was made by M15 to denounce Landon. Eventually this man arranged a meeting with Landon to tell him he hadn’t wanted to do it but they had threatened to expose him. There were still Cold War attitudes at that point and that cast a shadow over the family. Landon was driven out of the job altogether in a very unpleasant way. 40

Michael Rosen was also able to confirm his suspicions that politics had something to do with his being shunned professionally. Michael worked for the BBC in the 1970s and he felt the BBC’s Director General was determined that, because Michael was a ‘known lefty’, he would not get a staff job: ‘Even when I was given staff jobs informally by a committee interviewing me, two weeks later I’d get a letter saying I hadn’t got the job’. 41 Much later, in 1984, The Observer showed Michael that he had been blacklisted as communist. 42 Participants who grew up in the 1950s recalled a sense of secrecy and often had the feeling they were being watched. Harrie noted that his next door neighbour had a rather odd occupation: He was home every day to see who was entering our house. It was his job. I learned from a very young age that you don’t say anything to anyone. Be careful, keep in check. We knew we were being watched. Yes, we were always careful with what we said over the phone. You can call it paranoia, but I wouldn’t call it that. When I moved to another house, we discovered a little box on the wall – they said it was for cable TV, but it was clear to me what it was for. Guys came around to check it all the time, until they realised that my father had left the party. All of a sudden, the box was screwed shut. There is a clematis growing over it now (Harrie b. 1940, Zaanstreek).

Ruth and Sandra suspected their phone was tapped, because they heard a ‘click’ whenever they picked up the phone. Millie, and again Sandra, recalled 40 Interview with Nina Temple in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 91. 41 Interview with Michael Rosen in: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 64. 42 Ibid.

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that letters in the mail had already been opened and Appie explained that his father found out he was being followed. Arno disclosed that his father had been closely followed too, which his father found out when his BVD file became de-classified. Arno said that his father suspected that one of his brothers had been feeding the BVD information as the file contained details only known to his very close relatives. Working mothers Communists weren’t always just innocent victims of Cold War attitudes. A number of communist fathers were shop floor activists and were fully aware that by partaking in (unofficial) strikes, they jeopardised their jobs.43 Generally, communist activists were seen as troublemakers and many participants recall their fathers being on strike. The impact of these strikes on family life was significant: [My father] was a notorious communist in Rotterdam and was often the instigator of strikes. My mother supported him, though not always that convincingly, as she was the one who had to deal with the financial consequences of her husband’s actions (Anna b. 1945, Rotterdam). My dad would lead the way in most strikes and was often spokesperson. I remember my mother being angry sometimes and shouting, ‘For crying out loud, do you always have to be the instigator? Think about your children!’ My mum was terrified my dad would lose his job – we already had so little money. Those were the only times my mother wasn’t fully supportive of my father (Koos b. 1940, Amsterdam).

Communist mothers in Britain and in the Netherlands used to work whenever their husbands were unemployed or on strike. Millie’s father became a fulltime trade union official after the war and led a strike for nine months in the late 1940s, just after Millie’s brother Paul was born. During this time of not getting paid, her mother worked in a factory to support the family. 43 Communists in the Netherlands were unable to join trade unions and their own trade union, the Eenheidsvakcentrale (EVC; ‘Unity Trade Union Federation’), was not considered a legal body because it was too closely linked to the CPN (Dutch trade unions had to be independent from political parties). This meant in practice that Dutch communists were not protected by union membership. Their British peers were able to join trade unions and often f illed key positions, though there were certain British trade unions that tried to keep communists out.

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Janny’s mother did the same whenever her husband, a construction worker and strike leader, was on strike or unemployed: I remember that my mother used to work from home, so she could be with the children. She would make metal scourers. She bought metres of the material, roll it up and cut it, and make scourers. Later she was able to buy a sewing machine on credit and make regular payments by sewing small shopping bags. She would spend endless amounts of hours sitting behind her sewing machine. That’s the kind of horrible work my mother did to support us (Janny b. 1946, Amsterdam).

Other women had to work because their husbands were paid by the party which usually meant their wages were a pittance. Mark’s father, a journalist for De Waarheid, was one of them: My father’s salary was very meagre and my mum had to work as a dish washer at a Chinese restaurant to make ends meet. She also worked as a seamstress and did sewing at home. We had one of those huge sewing machines in the living room. She didn’t mind that she had to work, she believed in the good cause, and didn’t mind making sacrif ices for it. Solidarity was important in our household (Mark b. 1950, Amsterdam).

The labour movement never propagated that mothers should go out to work. Until the 1970s, it was generally thought that women should be given the choice to work, but at the same time, it was felt that it shouldn’t be necessary for mothers to have a job. It wasn’t unusual for (working-class) mothers to work, but it was certainly frowned upon. 44 Within Marxist theory there is the basic assumption that women should be able to work outside of the house, regardless of marital status. But as Withuis points out, this theory wasn’t always easy to defend in non-socialist countries where the labour movement was f ighting for higher wages based on the assumption a worker should be able to support his family. Within the wider labour movement, working mothers were therefore often seen as a 44 For his study into cultural changes in the Netherlands between 1965 and 1970, C.P. Middendorp found that in 1965, 82.1 percent of interviewees disapproved of working mothers. See: C.P. Middendorp, ‘Culturele veranderingen in Nederland, 1965-1970’, Intermediair 11 (1974), 1-15, (p. 5). A British opinion poll conducted in that same year (1965) found that 80 percent of those surveyed thought women with young (under school-age) children should always stay at home (see: Shirley Dex, Women’s Attitudes toward Work (New York: Palgrave, 1988), p. 34.

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hindrance. 45 This view was shared by many communists, and participant testimonies and the communist publications geared towards women emphasise that being a good mother and homemaker was a priority in both countries. 46 Aside from the objection that working mothers impeded the socialist f ight for a living wage, some communists also shared society’s moral objections to working mothers. The following letter, published in De Waarheid in 1956, written by a communist mother, was submitted as a reply to a letter written by Mrs. M. published the previous week. In her letter, Mrs. M. squarely condemned working mothers because it was considered inappropriate and unhealthy for children to grow up with an absent mother. Mrs. G.’s reply below illustrates that for many working-class mothers, obtaining employment outside of the home was not a choice: If Mrs. M. was married to a construction labourer and had to live off 52 guilders unemployment benefits a week during the winter months, maybe she would have a better idea of how many working-class families live. We look forward to the spring, but it isn’t much better. My husband has never found a job of 120 guilders a week. The wages are around 80 guilders so we can’t afford anything extra. I don’t have a washing machine and my husband doesn’t have a moped, though he needs to cycle three-quarters of an hour twice a day to get to work. These items, a washing machine and a moped, would not be luxuries. Believe me, no mother would choose to abandon her family to go to work or because she has lots of time on her hands. The school doctor’s reports speak regularly about children who are malnourished. Doesn’t that tell you enough about the situation in many Dutch working-class families? Going out to work is not always a solution. The solution is getting the money from people who have the money; the employers. Women should decide for themselves if they want to work or not. But women need to f ight together with men for 45 Jolande Withuis, Opoffering en heroïek: de mentale wereld van een communistische vrouwenorganisatie in naoorlogs Nederland 1946-1976 (Amsterdam: Boom, 1990), pp. 301-302. 46 Nonetheless, communist women also continued to raise ‘women’s issues’ that went beyond motherhood and the family. From its inception, the Dutch NVB, for example, fought for equal pay, equal standing, the right to work for single and married women, and better educational opportunities. Some of these issues were backed wholeheartedly by the CPN, while others, most notably equal pay, were initially absent from its agenda. The party’s reluctance to actively fight for equal pay began to dissipate in the mid-1950s, when women increasingly joined the work force. See: Marianne Wittebol, Vrouwen op herhaling. Een hernieuwde poging tot een communistische definiëring van vrouwenrechten. Vrouwenstrijd in de CPN tussen 1945-1960, Unpublished manuscript (University of Amsterdam, 1985).

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higher wages and fight for childcare facilities so children don’t have to wander the streets anymore with a key around their necks (Mrs. G. v. S.B. Haarlem). 47

In the 1950s and 1960s, childcare facilities were scarce in Britain and the Netherlands, and participants’ parents had to rely on neighbours or grandparents to care for their children whilst they were out working. Other mothers worked from home or did part-time work around their husbands’ schedules. Unlike mothers who did ‘horrible work’ to support their families, to use Janny’s words, those with white collar jobs viewed their employment not as a burden, but as a carrying out of the Soviet ideal: My mother worked as a secretary in a school, she got paid regularly, and then she retrained as a teacher. It was necessary but also a choice for my mother to work. Basically, I think she earned the money the family lived off (Pat b. 1937, Manchester). My mother was a typist and continued working when my sister and I were born. She thought that, from a communist viewpoint, women should be able to work. We subscribed to different party magazines and they were full of women from the Soviet Union and from Eastern European countries, who were all working (Leo b. 1952, Amsterdam).

Leo’s mother was fortunate because her husband, who was a dockworker, helped her around the house. They had successfully divided the household chores and his parents condemned traditional gender divisions as bourgeois. Though there are quite a few examples of women, like Leo’s mother, who worked full-time, the majority of participants’ mothers only worked whenever their salary was needed to support the family. Those who opposed working mothers, like Mrs. M., often implied that women in the 1950s worked solely to provide extras for the family, such as a vacation, a new television set, or fancy new clothes for their children. This attitude did not only obscure women’s role in creating a more affluent society in 1950s Britain and the Netherlands, it also denied the reality of poverty experienced by certain segments of society. 48 As we’ll see next, they didn’t work for luxury goods; they worked to feed their children. 47 Letter Mrs. G. v. S.B. Haarlem, De Waarheid, November 3, 1956, p. 5. 48 See: Dolly Smith Wilson, ‘A New Look at the Affluent Worker: The Good Working Mother in Post-War Britain’, Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 17, No. 2, (2006), pp. 206-229.

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Money and poverty On the subject of poverty, Newton notes: Most communist autobiographies and biographies begin with an account of poverty-stricken childhood conditions. Most of the authors are self-educated skilled workers whose writing is coherent and articulate. Unlike less intelligent and ambitious workers, communists are able to fit their own experience of poverty into an elaborate ideological frame of reference. 49

Poverty and unemployment were indeed important incentives for participants’ parents or grandparents to join the Communist Party and many participants grew up with little money. Hardship and poverty were considered to be part of the class struggle and the Communist Party was traditionally the party of the minimum wage earner. Under the influence of the economic growth of the 1950s, the working class – having been more or less the same since the turn of the century – gradually transformed. British communist families experienced this transformation in tandem with the wider working class. Wages went up and there was more money to spend on time-saving and luxury goods. The majority of British participants recall that, over the course of the 1950s and early 1960s, their parents acquired a car, a television, and other items. Overall, it appears that the economic growth had an immediate impact on urban British working-class families. In contrast, until the mid-1960s, the lives of Dutch participants were characterised by poverty and hardship. Compared to other West-European countries, wages remained low in the Netherlands as a result of the country’s previously discussed socio-economic policy of frugality. Life was fairly sober during the first decade after the war – purchasing power was often barely sufficient to buy food and clothing. It began to grow from 1955 onwards, although used to buy items like refrigerators and washing machines, rather than cars and televisions. In 1960, only twenty percent of Dutch families owned a television, compared to nearly 75 percent in Britain.50 Most Dutch participants’ families struggled to make ends meet: 49 Newton, The Sociology of British Communism, pp. 63-64. 50 Arjan Dieleman, ‘De late jaren vijftig of de vroege jaren zestig’, in Nuchterheid en nozems. De opkomst van de jeugdcultuur in de jaren vijftig, ed. by Ger Tillekens (Muiderberg: D. Coutinho, 1990) pp. 11-30, and Sue Bowden and Avner Offer, ‘Household appliances and the use of time; the US and Britain since the 1920s’, The Economic History Review, New Series Vol. 47. No. 4 (November 1994), 725-748 (p. 746).

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We were extremely poor – my grandmother had to pay for new shoes if they were needed. The party salary was very low. It wasn’t easy for my mum. She often had to work as a cleaner to make some extra money. Whenever the man who collected the health insurance money would knock on the door, she would not open. But I can’t say I ever missed out on anything (Arno b. 1947, Amsterdam). We were definitely poor, we weren’t starving or anything, but we didn’t have much. We didn’t have a television until later, we always watched telly at our neighbours. We didn’t have a telephone when I was young. We got a car in the mid-1960s, a very old Vauxhall. Then my dad decided, typically, that we should have a Trabant instead. Whenever he took the car to work, the whole street was filled with smoke. We rented out rooms to make a little extra money; we had students living with us. The money was used for clothes and other necessities. We really suffered when my dad decided to work for the communist publishing house as a book seller; that’s when there was no money at all! (Betsy b. 1944, Den Haag).

Overall, it is clear that Dutch participants and their families were financially more deprived than their British counterparts. Whereas the vast majority of Dutch participants grew up with very little money in the 1950s and 1960s, only three British participants classed their families as poor. Curiously, Dutch communists, much more so than British, considered being poor a virtue, though it wasn’t a deliberate choice. Living a sober and thrifty life was seen as a requirement of being a good communist. Based on the participants’ accounts, it appears that these values were not necessarily shared by British communists. The following two quotes illustrate that luxuries weren’t always rejected: When we lived in this council house, I always felt we had quite a bit of money to spend, we were better off than other people in the neighbourhood. One of the reasons we lived in a council house was that it was a political statement as my parents felt that all houses should be council houses. We had a car, nice clothes, and had quite a lot done in the house. My mum liked nice things and didn’t see any reason not to have them (Millie b. 1951, London).

Annie shared a similar story. Her father was an electrician, who worked his way up and became a manager of an electrical shop before becoming a full-time official of the Electrical Trade Union. They lived in a council

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house because her father felt it was good to set an example for the working people on how to live and what to do. Her father had to support a family of seven so there wasn’t a lot of money when Annie grew up, nevertheless the family enjoyed certain luxuries: My mum had a cleaner even when we were poor. We also had a washing machine, already in the thirties, but our beautiful carpet had to be turned upside down when it wore out because we didn’t have money for a new one (Annie b. 1934, Yorkshire).

Lucy’s parents were also both dedicated communists. Her father had a very different attitude towards money than the average Dutch communist: My dad was keen on classical music. In the front room he had the best hi-fi equipment of the time and would spend a lot of time in this room. He had tape recorders, speakers, hundreds of records. We were one of the first families on the street who had television. My father always said, ‘Nothing but the best for the working classes’ (Lucy b. 1949, London).

In the few cases where British participants were poor, they still had a hunkering for luxuries: My mother was very glamorous, she was small but always wore high heels and Suzie Wong dresses with slits right up her legs. She would always dress up for parties. The dresses must have been gifts, because my parents were so poor, they could not have been able to buy them (Madeline b. 1948, Yorkshire).

Poverty can make children stand out and can potentially reinforce a sense of social isolation. The majority of Dutch participants whose families were financially deprived did not feel as though they stood out and credited their mothers’ thriftiness for this. They did however agree that the annual party donations were a strain on the family budget: We had to live a very sober and thrifty life. Also for the party because there would always be an Easter and Christmas envelope [for party donations]. All those envelopes – I forgot about them but it’s all coming back now (Lina b. 1943, Maastricht). My mum was very efficient and thrifty. She saved money all year for different occasions like Sinterklaas and birthdays. We lived a sober life,

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I think this was stimulated by the party. They [the party] had to rely on the money donated by people like us. There were always envelopes (Marieke b. 1945, Amsterdam).

The participants’ experiences confirm Neal Wood’s findings, who concluded that British communists in the post-war era were more moderate in their outlook and less engrossed with theoretical questions compared to contemporaries elsewhere.51 Dutch communists were, for example, more rigid in their views on money and careerism even if this would affect their family’s financial situation: My dad earned very little through the party. He received the same wage as a labourer, but gave up 50 percent to the party fund. My mum had to mend his shirts over and over again. Still, he was the best dressed communist in town. She did so much on her sewing machine. It was unbelievable. She would make new shirts for me out of my dad’s old ones. Our financial situation improved when she started working again as a teacher. When my dad became director of the [communist] travel agency he refused a director’s salary – the tax man didn’t believe a word my dad said. My dad had principles, even if it was at the expense of other people. We were poor, not that we didn’t have food or anything, but we were only just able to make ends meet. I was always two years behind; if kids my age would get a bicycle, I would get one two years later. I accepted my father’s giving money back to the party though. Car? Television? No, we had a bicycle. What was considered a luxury? When my mum sent me to the bakery to buy three pastries. It was also a luxury when we had roasted chicken for Christmas dinner. But then my dad would bring someone from the [CPN] Christmas congress who would eat the chicken. I remember thinking, ‘Goddamn, I was really looking forward to a bit of chicken’ (Harrie b. 1940, Zaanstreek).

Summer camps and holidays Whereas Dutch communists deemed many things in life a luxury, they made somewhat of an exception for holidays abroad and summer camps. Harrie, who considered a pastry from the bakery a real luxury, went on holiday to Russia on three occasions: 51 Neal Wood, ‘The Empirical Proletarians: A Note on British Communism’, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 2 (1959) 256-272, (p. 261).

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We stayed in a country house in Sochi. We slept in the Tsar’s palace and visited Yalta where Stalin and Roosevelt had their meeting. I met Burgess the spy and went to the Bolshoi Theatre. I also met the deacon of Canterbury, he stroked my hair. That was in 1952, 1954, and 1956. We didn’t go on non-party organised holidays (Harrie b. 1940, Zaanstreek).

Mieke was also among those participants who holidayed abroad: My parents were members of the communist choir and went on tour to East-Germany, and all the children went to a summer camp in EastGermany. We went to Berlin, to see the wall, I thought it was fascinating. It was a very disciplined camp though. We visited Buchenwald. I was around thirteen or fourteen years old, and I remember being very interested in all of it (Mieke b. 1948, Rotterdam).

Visiting a concentration camp while on summer camp in Eastern Europe was the norm, something some participants look back on as pedagogically irresponsible or at least ill-advised. Mark, whose two maternal aunts were murdered in Auschwitz, recalled the psychological impact of such a visit: As a child of communist parents, you were given the opportunity to take part in an international exchange program. That was organised by Verenigd Verzet [‘United Resistance’, a communist organisation for former political prisoners and resistance fighters]. The children were expected to raise their own money to pay for the camp. That was quite the drama because where did I have to get that money from? It had a political dimension. You had to tell people why you were raising money. You were instructed to go door by door with a list and ask for money to go on holiday, because you were a child of war victims. You didn’t really know what you were doing. You were twelve, or eleven. Communism wasn’t mentioned so you had more chance of raising the funds needed. I’d say, ‘Do you have some money to spare for former political prisoners?’ Hilarious. Some gave me a guilder and others a quarter. […] Then there was a committee or a forum of communists from Verenigd Verzet, and they decided where you’d go to. This depended on the amount of money you had raised. That could be 300 guilders. Over the course of six weeks or so. […] And then you were sent to the Hannie Schaft Kamp, in the Netherlands. I’ve been there once. Or you were allowed to go abroad. After the Hannie Schaft Kamp I was allowed to go to Poland the next year. This included an excursion to Auschwitz. I didn’t experience this as horrible but it came back to me

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as some kind of boomerang. I saw the most terrible things in Auschwitz. This is when Auschwitz was still Auschwitz. Through the Arbeit Macht Frei gate. It was so traumatic because my aunts were deported and killed there (Mark b. 1950, Amsterdam).

Mark explained that, at the time, perhaps because he was so young still, it didn’t affect him so much. But later this experience became intertwined with the trauma his family had endured during the war, but didn’t speak about until Mark was already an adult.52 He said that his parents wanted to ensure that the Holocaust would never happen again, and therefore felt that their son’s visit to Auschwitz was important. They hadn’t considered the fact that being exposed to death and destruction at such a young age, especially when the child in question had a personal connection to this death and destruction, could be psychologically damaging. The Hannie Schaft Kamp, the alternative for children who hadn’t raised enough money to go abroad, wasn’t the only summer camp on the Veluwe in Gelderland. The CPN managed a large camping ground in Loenen, which could house up to 800 people, and a number of communist organisations made use of it. Activities at summer camps organised there were similar to those at non-communist youth camps: children would go on hikes, play games, swim, built campf ires, and participate in variety shows. Camp leaders felt that through these activities and shared responsibilities at camp, communist children could learn something about solidarity and the importance of community. Children experienced these camps differently; some look back fondly whilst others resented every minute spent at camp. Aside from trips organised by the YCL, the British communist movement didn’t have a rich history of summer camps. The CPGB did, however, own a campsite in rural Essex where weekend and week-long party and YCL schools were held.53 Some participants recalled being members of the Woodcraft Folk and going away with this youth organisation – a left-leaning alternative to the scouts.54 Due to the fact the British movement was so small, there 52 As discussed in Chapter Five, Mark’s paternal aunts were tortured by SS officers who wanted to know where Mark’s father, a member of the communist resistance, was, and one of his maternal aunts was arrested and deported because she was helping Mark’s mother with resistance work. Mark’s parents felt responsible for their siblings’ fate and were deeply traumatised by their experiences. 53 Interview with Pat Devine b. 1937, Manchester. 54 David Prynn observed that the connection between the Communist Party and the Folk was never close, though the Daily Worker reported favourably on the organisation, especially in the 1930s when the Woodcraft Folk was involved in many anti-fascist activities. Since the Second

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was no youth organisation for its youngest members, like there was in the Netherlands, where the Uilenspiegelclub catered for children between eight and fifteen years old and organised camps in the summer months. If British participants attended similar camps, they did so abroad: When we were younger, and not that well off, we went camping in Yorkshire a lot, but later on, we went to East Germany. Two or three times, from 1964 onwards. We had friends in Germany, my father was teaching there, and we would go to a Pioneers camp. Back in the village, people found this strange, not because we went to East Germany but to go on holiday abroad (Peter b. 1954, Cambridge).

British participants recalled going to Eastern Europe, while their noncommunist working-class peers would be staying at home or maybe, if they were lucky, spent a few days at the seaside or in the country: We went abroad for our holidays because we went to Eastern Europe while everybody else was going to Blackpool. The first year – I can’t remember how old I was – my parents went to Czechoslovakia for a camping holiday and there was this terrible camping site. My dad walked off and found the local trade union headquarters and introduced himself as a fraternal comrade so they fixed everything, they got us moved into a hotel. We went to Czechoslovakia about four times.55 We went abroad when I was thirteen, booked through a travel agency run by communists. A woman drove us in a minivan to Yugoslavia. It was 1964 and we drove through Belgium, Germany, Austria, etc. Everyone was communist and we had a ball, it was great, I loved it (Millie b. 1951, London).

While travelling abroad was not necessarily seen as a frivolous luxury, Millie did share that certain destinations were off-limits for some communists: What was quite interesting was that in the late 1960s my friends wanted to go to Mallorca on a holiday and I told my mum I wanted to go too and World War, there were quite a few communist sympathisers in the Folk, but it never aligned itself closely with the CPGB, writes David Prynn. See: David Prynn, ‘The Woodcraft Folk and the Labour Movement 1925-70’, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 18, No. 1 (1983) pp. 79-95. 55 Interview with Alexei Sayle: Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 44.

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she put up the money. Later on, I found out my parents were criticised by fellow communists that they had let me go, because of Franco and that my parents, by paying for my holiday, were financing Franco. But my mum let me go and said, ‘I just wanted you to do normal things’. She didn’t want to stop me having fun. She let me do that, but she would never go herself (Millie b. 1951, London).56

Friendships and relationships Withuis argues that, for communists, the notion of being different was re-enforced by the fact that in their world, politics was life’s most important dimension and because of this outlook, other people were only judged based on their political affiliation. This made friendships with non-communist people impossible and it broke family ties. Withuis concluded that being different even impeded communication. She cites Samuel who said that communists had their own particular speech, their own jargon, to describe what was going on in the world.57 Withuis doesn’t mention the fact that Samuel, when he described this special language, admitted that ‘for all my political enthusiasm, I was somehow never able to master this speech’.58 Perhaps the latter indicates that this jargon wasn’t very widely used and only mastered by select few. Samuel’s personal observations of the communist community are nevertheless in line with Withuis’ ideas. He states that ‘Within the narrow confines of an organisation under siege we maintained the simulacrum of a complete society, insulated from alien influences, belligerent towards outsiders, protective of those within’.59 In this context it is important to make a distinction between young communist activists growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, living a life completely dominated by politics, and rank-and-file communist parents who raised children in the 1950s and 1960s, who had to communicate and build relationships with non-communists in their neighbourhood and through their children’s school. So without rejecting Samuel’s description of a closed-off communist 56 Communists weren’t the only ones who opposed going on holiday in Spain. In 1933, six Labour Party representatives in the House of Commons submitted a motion that opposed the fact that Princess Alexandra, Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, and her husband Angus Ogilvy were planning on spending some of their honeymoon in Spain. See: ‘Protest tegen Spaanse huwelijksreis’, De Waarheid, May 4, 1963, p. 4. 57 Withuis, Opoffering en heroïek, p. 189. 58 Samuel, The Lost World of British Communism, p. 14. 59 Ibid.

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community, it is evident that participants’ parents, even if they had wanted to, could not live their life in a communist bubble. Indeed, they were part of the communist community, but this didn’t mean that non-communist family members, friends, and neighbours were shunned: The Communist Party functioned as an extended family in the best sense, but our real family was also very important. My mum and dad were certainly a real part of the wider community in which they lived, but were regarded as a little peculiar, not because they were communists, but because they didn’t drink (Michael b. 1942, Manchester).

As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the majority of communist families had a good relationship with their neighbours. Inevitably, respondents and their parents had many communist friends – much like Catholic people would associate with fellow Catholics. But this did not mean friendships with non-communists were ruled out or impossible as Withuis suggests. Few participants indicated that their fathers were rigid communist hardliners who, because of their overpowering political views, were incapable of befriending non-communists, but the majority of participants as well as those cradle communists interviewed in Children of the Revolution, remember that their parents had friends from different political and social backgrounds: My parents were very sociable. They used to have a New Year’s party and it was a complete mix: people from my mother’s school, a lot of people from my father’s magazine, and there was a crowd of people from their political life, local people from university, etc. Everyone got along just fine. I guess there would have been very few people who were not left wing because you do tend to gravitate towards people who share the same values (Rachel b. 1956, London). As a family, we didn’t only have contact with communists, no way. We were friends with our neighbours and my dad’s work mates. I can’t remember if a lot of party members visited us. Most people who came to our house were apolitical (Jacob b. 1937, Amsterdam).

Generally speaking, participants were allowed to befriend ‘anyone’, and the majority stressed that their parents did not put the slightest obstacle in their way when it came to their choice of boy- and girlfriends, though it has to be said that a large minority ended up with a partner from a communist

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family.60 In these cases, participants met their future partners in a communist youth organisation: I always went camping with the OPSJ [Organisatie voor Progressief Studerende Jeugd, ‘Organisation for Progressive Studying Youth’], which I enjoyed tremendously. I remember that my classmates were always jealous, because good looking girls from the OPSJ would pick me up from school. I met my wife at the OPSJ. After serving in the army, I came home and a bunch of OPSJers and I met on Dam square and that’s where I met her. I said to a comrade, ‘That girl has the most beautiful eyes!’ Well, one thing led to another (Koos b. 1940, Amsterdam).

Similarly, Waite has noted that the YCL provided a source of many stable marriages and relationships, a fact that contradicted ‘the pathologising picture of communists as being alienated individuals who found it hard to relate to other people’.61 One would perhaps assume that communist parents favoured a future son or daughter-in-law with a communist background, but participants’ accounts underline that political or socio-economic background was not important at all. They all agreed that they were given the freedom to choose. Esther, who considered her father a hardliner, married the son of a local secretary of the Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD; ‘People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy’), a conservative-liberal party, Johan dated and had a child with a Protestant woman, and Lucy came home with a man from a Labour background, without any objection from their parents. On the other hand, Protestant, Catholic, and conservative parents weren’t exactly thrilled when their child came home with a communist: I had a lot of trouble with the parents of my girlfriends. I don’t know how they found out about my dad. Often, I received a letter or a telephone call from a father saying something like, ‘I know what you are up to with my daughter, but I have a little business and your dad is a communist, so it’s 60 About 40 percent of the Dutch participants married within their own community, whereas only one of the British participants had a communist partner. This appears related to the fact that the majority of Dutch participants joined a communist youth organisation, where they met their future spouse. The percentage of British respondents who joined the YCL was much lower. 61 Mike Waite, Young People and Formal Political Activity. A Case Study: Young People and Communist Politics in Britain 1920-1991, Unpublished MPhil thesis (Lancaster University, 1992), p. 285.

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best if you break up with her’. Really, that happened. I was dating the daughter of a teacher – he knew my dad – and I can still hear him say, ‘That my daughter is seeing the son of such a man!’ […] My parents on the other hand had no problems with my seeing [non-communist] people (Harrie b. 1940, Zaanstreek).

None of the British respondents shared these experiences, which again suggests that British society was more accepting of communists. In Britain, communists were less visible and able to blend in with the wider labour movement, due to the absence of a tradition of fierce anti-communism and the small size of their party. In the Netherlands, the labour movement and society as a whole had closed ranks against communists. Consequently, Dutch communists did not only feel socially isolated, but also sensed that they had to break down invisible walls which were built around them by society whilst, in Britain, relationships with neighbours and non-communists in school and at work were more natural and effortless. To an extent, the social isolation experienced by Dutch communists was exacerbated by the rigidity of their political views. The accounts of British participants as well as other autobiographical accounts of British communists reveal views on class, careerism, and money that are much more in line with those of the wider working-classes. The discrepancy between the British and Dutch views is partly the result of the more isolated circumstances, and partly because of the strong hereditary aspects of communism – unlike their British counterparts, Dutch participants’ parents were already raised with the same views and values, which were an intrinsic part of their identity. As such, Dutch communist identity, as compared to the British, is easier to define and conceptualise. Due to the severity of the Cold War and their exclusion from the country’s main pillars, Dutch communists stood out as ‘the other’. It forced them to build out their movement and cater to the needs of its members. But no matter how many services were created to do so, rank-and-file communists in the Netherlands, much like their British peers, could not live their lives in a self-sustained bubble. They had to interact with and adapt to society and were, in hindsight quite successful doing so.

8 Epilogue Looking Back Abstract In this Epilogue, which is based on a series of interviews with 38 British and Dutch cradle communists who participated in an oral history project about communist family life, participants consider their childhood, value their upbringing, but also discuss their adulthood and how they implemented their political upbringing in their adult life. It focuses in particular on participants’ feelings and thoughts surrounding the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Keywords: British communist movement, Dutch communist movement, communist childhood, oral history, collapse of communism

I still believe in the possibility of a society that is based on equal rights. In the end, and my parents would say that too, the Soviet Union was corrupt; we didn’t know how corrupt it was. So my parents didn’t feel shame. They felt betrayed, but I don’t think it undermined our beliefs that one day socialism would work in some way or another. And it would be different in Britain anyway, the ‘British Road to Socialism’ was much more evolutionary. They didn’t really identify with the Soviet Union, I don’t think they ever identified with the Soviet Union; they never went there. What my parents believed, they thought, was still important even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They felt it tragically didn’t work out, but they hadn’t defended a lie either (Madeline b. 1948, Yorkshire). There were many things about communism I do not agree with, like the party culture. Some horrific things happened. But there were also many things I do agree with. I am still ‘left’ and I think my upbringing definitely influenced my political views (Janny b. 1946, Amsterdam).

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At the end of each interview, I asked my participants to reflect on their youth and answer the question, ‘How do you look back on your upbringing?’ A seemingly innocent question that nonetheless released surprisingly strong emotions. It became clear that in the context of this question, participants’ views were definitively coloured by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the atrocities committed in the name of communism that came to light in the aftermath. Without being prompted, the majority of participants tried to make a distinction between the communist values they believed in and lived by, and the way that communist ideology was interpreted and carried out by Moscow and their respective parties. In terms of their immediate family, participants were understanding and forgiving overall, and emphasised that their parents were good people who tried their hardest to change society and who cared about the underdog but were unfortunately led by the Soviet Union in their struggle: My parents tried to teach me solidarity. I was very disappointed with communism, all those ideas I grew up with; they didn’t even work in the Soviet Union. That’s a slap in the face. My dad was so terribly disappointed – he had worked for the good cause his whole life. But that feeling of solidarity is something I passed on to my own children. I am not very materialistic either, even though I live in a nice house. Don’t be selfish. When I look back, I have to say I did enjoy my childhood, I have no regrets whatsoever about being a communist (Betsy b. 1944, Den Haag). The crazy thing is that I never hated the communist ideology. I thought a lot about what Marx and Lenin actually meant – there was nothing wrong with their ideas, but nothing was left of these ideas, because of all the bureaucracy and corruption. I am not embarrassed about my upbringing. I find it hard to talk about it though. I rather emphasise my father’s intellect and his progressive thoughts on sexuality and sexual freedoms (Esther b. 1948, Den Haag).

Cradle communists interviewed in Children of the Revolution shared similar feelings when looking back on their childhood: My parents were amazingly liberal with a tremendous sense of personal freedom and that has passed on. I do have to say about my parents that they were lovely and wonderful people, and my dad still is, they did wonderful things for me, but they got it wrong about the Soviet Union.1 1 Interview with Michael Rosen: Phil Cohen, Children of the Revolution. Communist Childhood in Cold War Britain (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1997), pp. 64-65.

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I think that the problem with politics is people; you can’t say that if your ideology is pure, things will work out. Really the history of socialism as with communism has been that these theoretically good ideas have been converted into the most appalling ends and made things worse.2

A few respondents were less forgiving and found it hard to cope with certain features of their upbringing. They looked back and judged their parents’ political outlook as narrow-minded and binarised. Some felt in hindsight that they grew up with a lie: I think to myself, ‘Goddamn, was I really part of that?’ I am very embarrassed. Nothing was true, it was all lies. I was an emotional wreck. Everything that came to the surface about the CPN in 1989. […] We felt so superior for all those years. I put so much time and effort in it and it was in vain (Marieke b. 1945, Amsterdam).

Marieke’s sense of disappointment was felt by other participants too, but mostly by participants’ parents. According to participants, parents expressed anger because they had been wrong and disappointment because they had been lied to. The psychological impact of the collapse of international communism on the lives of rank-and-file communists has not received much academic attention; nevertheless, based on participants’ accounts, we can assume that many faithful followers of the communist ideology felt confused, upset, angry, and disappointed. Phil Cohen notes that the Communist Party culture can be seen in a semi-religious context. Considering the level of commitment and faith required from communists, the analogy might help outsiders understand, ‘why sincere and intelligent people suspend their critical faculties for so long, both in supporting foreign leaders and regimes that were so evidently not worthy of support, and believing that British people would eventually “see the light” and vote for them’.3 This analogy also enables us to imagine the impact of the collapse of communism. It can be best compared to the sense of loss a faithful Christian would experience when he or she realises that God doesn’t exist and there is no such thing as heaven. Whereas the majority of parents faced and dealt with the fact that they were wrong about the Soviet Union, some parents were stubborn and could not admit that mistakes were made by the Soviet Union in general and Stalin in specific: 2 Interview with Alexei Sayle: Children of the Revolution, p. 48. 3 Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 18.

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Communism collapsed but my father was too stubborn to admit it. ‘Gorbachev has lost his marbles, and Yeltsin is a crook’. He didn’t want to talk about anything. Khrushchev and his revelations about Stalin, nothing! He continued to believe that the Soviet Union was a decent society (Piet b. 1942, Den Haag).

Other parents had separated the Soviet Union from their own ideology to such an extent that they didn’t feel responsible for Soviet mistakes: I never seen [my father] embarrassed about his beliefs and I don’t even think he had any regrets; he felt it was of his time; he was caught up with the circumstances of this time. I think my father felt that there should be a revolution but he didn’t feel it was actually going to happen. I have never heard my father condemn the Soviet Union. In his mind it wasn’t necessary to do so. He believed in his ideals until he died. The fact that the Soviet Union had not executed the ideals, done things in the right way, didn’t mean the ideology was wrong (Julia b. 1934, London).

Making peace with one’s upbringing and parents’ political beliefs is much more difficult when parents, like Piet’s stepfather, continued to believe that the Soviet Union had done no wrong. One British participant, who requested this particular comment remain completely anonymous, likened her mothers’ undying loyalty to Stalin and unwillingness to acknowledge and condemn Soviet crimes to denying the Holocaust: [Looking back] I felt I grew up with a bit of a lie. I must admit I have not had this conversation with them recently, because it got too difficult, but my mother still seems to believe in Stalin. I cannot understand this. I am afraid she is too important to me to have a blazing row about it, but I do not understand that someone so intelligent can think this way. To me it is almost like people who deny the Holocaust. I am not sure if my father feels the same, it is always my mother who expresses the very strong views. I therefore suspect he doesn’t feel as strongly. He is not going to upset my mother, it is in the past and we must move on. It doesn’t really affect me. It was only a part of what I grew up with, but the impact the disintegration of communism had on my parents, like other people in the party, was severe [Anonymous].

As discussed in the Introduction, participants’ parents can be roughly divided into three groups: militant communists, ‘ordinary’ communists,

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and bohemian communists. These three groups mourned the collapse of communism differently. Whereas militant communists stubbornly held on to their belief that the Soviet Union and the international communist movement were on the right side of history, ordinary rank-and-file communists struggled with a sense of loss and often blamed themselves for getting it wrong, whilst the last category found it much easier to let go and move on as they had never been rigid followers of Moscow or their party in the first place. Bram’s parents were an example of bohemian communists. Bram recalled that his parents had a much looser interpretation of the communist ideology and cherrypicked whatever worked for them: At home, we didn’t have much to do with the Soviet Union. Therefore, the news or instructions that came out of the Soviet Union didn’t really influence my parents’ political thoughts. At a certain point the Soviet Union banned abstract painting. My dad, an artist, painted abstract art and never even considered ceasing making abstract art because the Soviet Union said so. But it wasn’t a reason to turn his back on communism either; they never left the party, but to them communism as an ideology had already fizzled out when the party was discontinued (Bram b. 1946, Amsterdam).

Bram’s parents weren’t alone; other parents too were only members on paper by the time their parties disbanded. However, for most communist families the impact of the disintegration of communism was severe. Participants recalled being aware of the pain it caused and out of respect for their parents they chose not to talk about it and focus on the good things instead: [Reflecting on a communist upbringing], I try to be as free of prejudice as I can be. I stay clear of any stereotyping of any groups of people. It makes me sick that some people who call themselves liberals do this. Secondly, I guess that my campaigning instinct for the underdog is a result of a communist upbringing (Lucy b. 1949, London).

Lucy’s comments here are exemplary for the majority of both British and Dutch participants. Looking back on the positive aspects of their communist upbringing, participants mentioned a readiness to campaign and, although no longer within a communist framework, many would still define themselves as activists. They did however admit to feeling wary of anything ‘too political’, something they associate with a childhood that was so very

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political. Cohen concluded that cradle communists like himself are less likely ‘to seek the betterment of society through organised political parties’. 4 Participants’ accounts confirm Cohen’s conclusion – though there was a consensus that voting was vital, barely anyone joined a political party. This doesn’t mean that they have stopped caring, they, in Bram’s words ‘just can’t stand party structures’. Instead, they prefer to fight for a better society through single-issue pressure groups, neighbourhood committees, or organisations such as Greenpeace or Amnesty International. All participants continue to class themselves as ‘left orientated’, many British participants vote Labour or Green Party whilst Dutch participants generally vote for GroenLinks (‘Green Left’) the Socialistische Partij (SP – ‘Socialist Party’), or even Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA; ‘Labour Party’). Being concerned with (international) political and social issues, solidarity as well as the importance of voting are aspects respondents have taken from their upbringing and passed on to their own children: I have tried to teach my children the meaning of social justice. My son votes for GroenLinks, for the first woman on the list. I like that, it makes me proud (Mieke b. 1948, Rotterdam). My upbringing taught me that if you want to get things done, you’ll have to do them by the book. Try to be sensible. I have a lot of general knowledge about society. My brothers and sisters have the same, we all learned that from my parents. I tried to raise my children with a certain set of social skills, and sometimes I blame myself that I raised them with too much social awareness. People compliment me on my children’s social knowledge – they [my children] know what is happening in the world around them (Sandra b. 1948, Amsterdam). In terms of values they passed on to me, values I pass on to my children, I try to make sure they question things and don’t just accept things on face value. I haven’t pushed a political line down their throats any more than my parents did with me. We debate things though. I would be horrified if my children would not feel the need to vote, because there are so many societies where one cannot vote. I don’t feel they need to be active in a purely political sense, campaigning, etc. I would like to feel they care about things sufficiently to make a point about these things, like the environment or unfair imprisonment. I think today, there are far more, 4 Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 189.

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especially young, people involved in single cause campaigns, or narrow focus politics, rather than being a member of the Labour Party. To me it is important that my children feel they are part of society and that they are capable of changing society if they want or need to (Rachel b. 1956, London).

Within the context of raising their own children, participants made some interesting remarks. The final question asked during the interview was, ‘Do you have the same values as your parents when it comes to raising your own children?’ The answers to this question were especially illuminating – participants tended to be apologetic and understanding about their parents’ choices and their own childhood in general, but through their children’s upbringing certain dissatisfactions or disappointments with their own upbringing came to the surface: My childhood was very complicated. I think I came out alright though. I could have been very frustrated and blame my parents for everything. I didn’t. I think their main idea and view was alright. I took the positive things from my upbringing and passed them on to my own children, and learned from the things I didn’t like about my childhood. I try to give my children a lot of attention (Harrie b. 1940, Zaanstreek). My parents were socially involved, they helped other people in need. I always felt my parents were more Christian than real Christians – very socially conscious and responsible towards everybody. I like to think I passed this on to my children. What I resent in a way is that I feel that my upbringing was emotionally sterile. It was a bit too focused on political issues, this probably affected me later in life (John b. 1954, London).

Margreet Schrevel concluded, based on the original Dutch sample, that the positive values of a communist upbringing outweighed the negative.5 Without denying the difficulties almost all participants experienced at different stages of their childhood, the same conclusion can be drawn from the British participants’ testimonies. Overall, only a very small minority looked back in anger. British and Dutch participants agreed that they had a special and different childhood and that certain aspects of it were contradictory, frustrating, confusing, or incomprehensible. They recognised nonetheless 5 Margreet Schrevel, ‘Rode luiers, Hollands fabrikaat. Communistische gezinnen in de jaren vijftig’, Holland Historisch Tijdschrift Vol. 36, No. 4 (2004) 327-352, (p. 347).

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that these difficulties were often caused by external factors like the party, the Soviet Union, or the international climate, which is why they didn’t hold their parents solely responsible for their negative experiences. As noted above, where participants elaborated on the positive aspects of their upbringing, they found it much more difficult to identify some of the negative aspects. After some hesitation, some mentioned a lack of emotional attention, parental absence, or a parent’s overbearing personality. Interestingly, as time went by – from the first interview in 2002 and the last in 2019 – participants had become significantly more critical of their parents’ choices and were more willing to share less pleasant sides of a communist upbringing. This is perhaps related to the fact that their parents are now long gone and they themselves are elderly – many parents were still alive during the first round of interviews or had only recently passed away.6 Additionally, over time a trusting bond developed and it is likely that participants felt safe to share more intimate and personal details about their lives. These details contributed to a more balanced picture of what it was like to grow up communist. In line with Cohen’s observation, participants agreed that the communist movement didn’t just take from its members, it also gave them a great deal in return. It provided a community, a value-base, and attitudes towards life that have proven to be enduring.7

6 It should be noted that at least one of the participants has recently passed away. 7 Cohen, Children of the Revolution, p. 189.

9 Afterword Abstract This concluding chapter, based on a series of interviews with 38 British and Dutch cradle communists who participated in an oral history project about communist family life, argues that the communist identity in Britain and the Netherlands was definitively shaped by these countries’ indigenous social, political, and economic circumstances. Furthermore, this chapter contends that there is a dissonance between the formal (i.e. official policies, directives, and party lines of the Dutch and British communist parties) and the informal (i.e. how these directives and policies were implemented by British and Dutch rank-and-file communists in the privacy of their own homes). It ultimately concludes that the communist ideology was not as all-encompassing as past scholars have argued. Keywords: oral history, British communist movement, Dutch communist movement, identity formation, communist historiography

The historiography of communist parties has had two main trajectories. The first, tied to Cold War anti-communism, has focused on the influence of the Soviet Union on the development of national parties. In essence, its central argument was that regardless of national, ethnic, or regional particularities, what distinguished the international communist movement from other left-wing political movements was that communist parties fundamentally served the interests of the Soviet Union’s state policy. Bob Darke succinctly summed up this perspective in 1952, writing: ‘[t]here are not English communists, Czech communists, Russian communists. There are only communists’.1 As the Western Cold War anti-communist consensus shattered in the upsurges of the 1960s and 1970s, historians – many of whom were themselves activists in the social movements of that era – introduced a different 1

Bob Darke, The Communist Technique in Britain (London: Penguin Books LTD, 1952), p. 15.

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trajectory. This trajectory has emphasised that communists and their parties developed strategies, projects, and campaigns more expressive of their position as ‘revolutionaries’ in their own countries, whilst also looking to the Soviet Union for inspiration, guidance, and political and financial support. This was especially true as the model of revolutionary insurrectionism of the international movement’s early years was replaced by a United Front framework in response to the rise of fascism in the 1930s. This framework, especially in Western capitalist countries, largely remained during the post-Second World War years of capitalist stabilisation. Especially after 1956, communist activity came to reflect the issues, concerns, and social life of the societies in which communists lived. British radical historians such as E.P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, and Eric Hobsbawm among others, most of whom were or had been members of the Communist Party, helped shape this second trajectory. Their work transformed the study of labour history by moving away from institutional histories of trade unions or political-economic histories of capitalism to the examination of daily life among workers and earlier generations of radicals.2 Following in the footsteps of historians who then applied this approach to the study of twentieth-century communism, such as Raphael Samuel, and more recently, Kevin Morgan, Gidon Cohen, and Andrew Flinn, I have analysed and compared the public and private lives of members of the Dutch and British communist movements. Whereas in Italy and France, communist parties won a certain kind of acceptance as the political representatives of the working class, the Communistische Partij van Nederland (CPN; ‘Communist Party of the Netherlands’) and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) lacked similar influence and standing. In both countries, many of the pre-Second World War demands of the working-class movements were institutionalised as distinctly non-revolutionary working-class parties exerted political power; the Labour Party in Britain and the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA; ‘Labour Party’) in the Netherlands. Thus, being a communist meant a kind of social alienation that made communist families and personal networks assume a greater role in the lives of communists. 2 See for example: Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels. Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959), E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1963) and Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down. Radical Ideas in the English Revolution, (London: Penguin, 1972). Historians such as Hobsbawm, Hill, Thompson, and Raphael Samuel influenced the formation of journals in Britain, such as Past and Present and History Workshop Journal, and the Radical History Review in the United States.

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This exploration of the political isolation experienced by British and Dutch communist organisations, and the social isolation experienced by their members, has shown that the history of the international communist movement was not uniform. Though often defined, by themselves and their adversaries, by their relationship to the Soviet Union, national communisms were diverse and influenced by a nation’s political, economic, and cultural characteristics. Yet it would be too simplistic to suggest that there were only national communisms and that those communisms were stagnant over time. This book’s seventy-year long view of the communist youth movement (in Part I) challenges how communism has been understood. Within its continuity, it has shown that communism was constantly changing, as all social and political movements do. As the world changed, so did communist movements and its members’ expectations. Communism as an outlook was constantly reinvented by the movement’s new or younger members. If communists from the 1920s, who so passionately believed that the revolution was imminent, were to find themselves in a room with communists from the 1970s, they would sharply disagree and the first would most likely brand the latter ‘reactionaries’ and ‘renegades’. But communists’ ability to adjust their ideological views and expectations is also the reason why communism sustained itself in the West for most of the twentieth century. Despite their heterogeneous character, certain generalisations can be made when comparing the Dutch and British movements. The first and most obvious conclusion that can be drawn is that the British communist movement was not as isolated as its Dutch counterpart. Part I shows that there were two characteristics of Dutch society in particular which can be held responsible for the Dutch communist movement’s severe isolation in the 1950s and early 1960s: pillarisation and a fierce and longstanding tradition of anti-communism. Each and every pillar in Dutch society represented a closed-off subculture within society. Communists never had their own pillar and, as the Cold War heated up, they were increasingly kept out of other pillars’ cultural organisations, including the social-democratic’s. This not only intensified their already isolated position within society, it also motivated communists to establish their own organisations and institutions. Even when its membership declined drastically under the influence of the Cold War, the communist movement was still being extended. Compared to the Dutch situation, British society was less static and there was much more interaction between people from different political or religious persuasions. British communists were never banned from joining unions and were able to establish tremendously important working relationships with non-communists within unions and on councils. They

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were able to join non-communist cultural organisations and therefore didn’t share their Dutch contemporaries’ incentive to establish new communist organisations. To a certain extent, Dutch participants were closed off in their own movement and developed a more defined and distinct communist identity. As a result, they held more rigid views on class, education, and careerism. British communists’ values, on the other hand, didn’t stand out as much from the rest of the labour movement and participants and their families were therefore less isolated than their peers in the Netherlands. Further isolation of the Dutch communist movement was caused by a virulent tradition of anti-communism. Dutch communists and their children were legally but also socially persecuted which caused them to withdraw into their own community. The contrast between the praise and respect the Dutch communist movement received during and immediately after the war, and the violent persecution it was subjected to less than a decade later was difficult to grasp, especially for the children of resistance fighters. The experience prompted a very strong us-versus-them mentality among communists. Solidarity with fellow communists was a way to survive this suddenly hostile environment and, thus, anti-communism strengthened the cohesion of the Dutch communist community, and the ties between the CPN and the Algemeen Nederlandse Jeugdverbond (ANJV; ‘General Dutch Youth League’). Anti-communism on this scale was absent in Britain and communists did not have to stand together to survive. Drawing on Part I’s conclusion that the Dutch communist movement was indeed more isolated than its British counterpart, Part II looked at the impact of this isolation on participants’ lives. In search of a communist identity, this part integrated individual accounts into a wider context in order to construct a collective past. Whereas Samuel, Jolande Withuis, and Thomas Linehan have depicted the communist movement as a little word within a world, an island, according to Withuis, responsible for its own vilification, my participants’ accounts present a much more nuanced picture. Communists did tend to isolate themselves politically, but socially they tried very hard to integrate and were often quite successful in doing so. Children were instructed to be ‘normal’ and, overall, a communist working-class upbringing was not so very different from a non-communist upbringing, though it had a distinct middle-class tinge in both countries. Through contact and interaction with non-communists at work, in their neighbourhoods, in non-political social circles, and in familial contexts, rank-and-file communists couldn’t live in a self-imposed bubble. In her introduction to her late husband’s work, The Lost World of British Communism, Allison Light notes that critics have insisted that Samuel did not

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describe the world of communism but that of a small group of hardliners.3 My findings also suggest that Samuel, and subsequently, Withuis, do not describe the world of communism, but the world of a small core of militant communists who lived their lives ‘insulated from alien influences and belligerent towards outsiders and protective to those within’. 4 My account distinguishes between ordinary rank-and-file communists, and the cadre and leadership whose lives were far more internal than most local communists, and also between the public and private lives of communists. In public, communists may have looked uniform in their views and interpretations, but their children revealed that in the privacy of their homes, they expressed doubts and their actions regularly deviated from the official line. By allowing us an intimate look inside the communist home and into the movement as a whole, my participants provided us with an alternative view of what growing up communist was like. Within the privacy of the communist home, we find not only differences between communist experiences in Britain and the Netherlands, but also perceive differences among communists based on other identity markers. Rank-and-file communists were never ‘just communists’ though have been portrayed as such because they shared the same encompassing worldview. Instead, they were diverse and had different needs and priorities. Aside from being a communist, they were also members of a nation, a social class, a gender group, a family, a local community, and a racial or ethnic group. Their allegiances to these groups and social constructs varied and, especially in the context of their family and their children’s upbringing, these allegiances were sometimes more powerful than their allegiance to the party and the Soviet Union.

3 Raphael Samuel, The Lost World of British Communism (London/New York: Verso, 2006), Preface. 4 Ibid., p. 14.



List of Abbreviations

ABC Algemene Bedrijfsgroepen Centrale AJAH Amsterdamse Jongeren Actiegroepen Homoseksualiteit ALCARAF All Lewisham Campaign Against Racism and Fascism Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond ANJV Anti-Nazi League ANL Algemene Nederlandse Vredesactie ANVA Antirevolutionaire Partij ARP British Council for Peace in Vietnam BCPV British Union of Facists BUF Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst BVD Christelijke Democratische Unie CDU Central Intelligence Agency CIA Communistische Jeugdbond CJB Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament CND Cultuur en Ontspannings Centrum COC Communist Party of Britain CPB Communist Party of Great Britain CPGB Communistische Partij Holland Centraal Comité CPH-CC Communistische Partij van Nederland CPN Communist Party of the Soviet Union CPSU Democraten 1966 D’66 EVC Eenheidsvakcentrale Evangelische Volkspartij EVP Federatie van Jeugdgroepen FJG Federatie Studenten Werkgroepen Homoseksuelen FSWG International Marxist Group IMG International Socialists IS Jongeren Komitee voor Vrede en Zelfbeschikking JKVZV voor Vietnam Katholieke Volkspartij KVP Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners LGSM LSE London School of Economics British Security Service MI5 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATO NLF National Liberation Front Nederlandse Jeugd Federatie NJF NJG Nederlandse Jeugdgemeenschap

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NSB NUM NUS NVB NVSH NWHK OPSJ PPR PSJW PSP PvdA RAR RSA SDAP SDP SJ SKA SP SVB SWP UvA VDB VSC VVD WAS WFDY YCI YCL YPVM

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Newspapers and Periodicals Arena – A magazine of modern literature Arnhemse Courant BBC Britain’s fighting youth weekly Challenge – YCL Magazine Cogito – Theoretical and Discussion Journal of the YCL Coventry Evening Telegraph De Uilenspiegel De Volkskrant De Waarheid Harrow Observer Het Parool Het Volksdagblad Jeugd – ANJV Magazine Morning Star NME (New Musical Express) Onder de Loupe, Orgaan voor studerende jongeren Red Flag – Merseyside YCL Magazine Tampa Bay Times The Daily Mirror

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The Guardian Trouw Vrouwen: NVB magazine

Documentaries/Film All Out! Dancing in Dulais: https://youtu.be/lHJhbwEcgrA Flikker Op, Andere Tijden: https://www.anderetijden.nl/aflevering/709/Flikker-op Kinderen van Verzetsstrijders, Netwerk, April, 24 2005 Reuters Historical Collection: UK Anti-Vietnam Demonstrators Hand In Letters At American Embassy and Australia House 1967: https://www.britishpathe.com/ video/VLVABSLY62XBVUIUMVLWY8O0UZZKZ-UK-ANTI-VIETNAM-WARDEMONSTRATORS-HAND-IN-LETTERS-AT-AMERICAN

Index abortion 83, 209, 114 communist attitudes to 114-115, 115n23, 115n25, 117, 120-121, 128, 206, 208, 211; see also sex and sexuality, communist attitudes to Adams, Sir Walter 86-87, 86n68 Adelstein, David 85-87 Advance! 41, 59 AIDS and AIDS awareness campaigns 138, 144-145, 147, 151 Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond (ANJV) and anti-colonial activities 54-55, 89, 164n15, 60 and anti-fascist activities 50-51, 54, 60, 79-81, 89, 108, 128-129, 129n63, 129n64, 130-133, 135, 146, 153, 155 and anti-racist activities 108-109, 129-137, 151, 155 see also Bonte Reus and Scholierencomité and conscription 55-56 and direct democracy 52 and feminism 112-113, 112n13, 114-115, 117121, 135-137, 152-154; see also feminism, communist attitudes to and gender roles 112-113, 118, 119; see also gender roles, communist attitudes to and gay and lesbian groups, and gay rights 108, 111, 135-136, 145-151, 108, 146, 148-149, 151; see also homosexuality, communist attitudes to and membership and membership composition (ethnic, race, gender, class, age) 50-54, 66-68, 98-99, 104, 108-109, 123, 154 and student activities 69, 88-90 and the Royal Family 52, 80-81, 241 and women groups 136-137 and youth culture and leisure activities 49, 79, 97, 99, 102, 109, 137 Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond first congress 51 Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond third congress 54 Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond seventh congress 62, 67 Algemeen Nederlands Jeugdverbond thirteenth congress 98-99, 99n110 Algemene Bedrijfsgroepen Centrale 60 Ali, Tariq 91-92 All Lewisham Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (ALCARAF) 124-125 Amersfoort 56, 148-150 Amsterdam 16, 16n7, 29-30, 34, 44-46, 56, 60, 62, 66, 66n2, 74-75, 78-83, 88-89, 94, 96,

99, 102-103, 111, 112n13, 117-118, 120, 130-134, 136-137, 146-148, 151, 154, 155, 159, 160-161, 169, 170-172, 174-175, 176-177, 179, 189, 181, 185, 189, 194-195, 197-198, 203-204, 208-209, 212, 215-217, 219, 221, 222, 225, 228, 229-231, 233-234, 237, 243-244, 246, 248, 250, 252, 255- 256, 259, 261, 263-264 and Staatsliedenbuurt 216, 219 and Transvaalbuurt 219 and Universiteit van Amsterdam 88-89 Amsterdamse Jongeren Actiegroepen Homoseksualiteit (AJAH) 147, 147n120 anarchism/anarchists 22-23, 36, 39, 45n61,78, 79, 87, 89, 96, 153 anarcho-syndicalism 22-23 Andrews, Geoff 15, 21n13, 108, 154 Anne Frank Stichting 132 anticommunism 18, 21, 32, 41, 45-46, 45n61, 51-52, 55-58, 60-61, 70, 72, 75, 81, 98, 133, 162-168, 173-174, 180-186, 216-223, 229-232, 240-243, 256-257, 269-270 Anti-Nazi League (ANL) 122-123, 125-128, 128n61 Anti-Revolutionaire Partij (ARP) 97 Ashton, Mark 107, 107n1, 109, 142, 144 Asian Youth Movements 127 Attlee, Clement 19n12 Auschwitz 251-252 Bakker, Marcus 46, 51-52, 111, 115, 229 Belgium 102, 164, 153 Bell, Tom 225 Bernstein, Frances Lee 138, 207 Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD) 61, 68n8, 240-241, 243 Birmingham 121-122, 124 Bloom, Marshall 86-87 Bodemeijer, Nico 132 Boezeman, Peter 234 bohemian communists 25n22, 117n29, 194, 263 Bond, George Clement 227 Bourke, Joanna 190, 226 Böver, Gerard 46-47 Bowie, David 122 Boy Scouts 30, 66 Bradshaw, Paul 127 Breeuwer, Gré 50 Breur, Dunya 168-169 British Peace Committee/Youth Peace Committee 71 British Road to Socialism 85, 259 British Union of Fascists (BUF) 39 British Youth Peace Assembly 38

288 

Growing Up Communist in the Ne therl ands and Britain

Brouwer, Ina 111, 155 Bruggroep 185 Bruley, Sue 193 Buchenwald 251, 170-171 Buma, Yvonne 131-132 Caine, Sir Sidney 86 Cambridge 100-101, 182, 216-217, 240, 253 Campaign against Racism and Fascism 123 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) 70-75, 71n14, 77, 90-91, 110, 233 careerism, communist attitudes to 235-238, 240-241, 250, 257, 270 Catholicism/Catholics 18-19, 49n73, 145, 162, 216, 238, 255-256, 288 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 133 Centrale Inlichtingendienst 173 Centrumpartij 130 Ceton, Jan 34n17 Challenge 37, 41, 47, 53, 60, 71, 108, 114-116, 127, 140-141, 152 childcare, communists and Christelijke-Democratische Unie (CDU) 161 Christis, Herman 146 Churchill, Winston 160, 162 Civil Service Law 19n12, 45n61, 60-61 Clapton, Eric 121-122 class, communist attitudes to 17, 65-67, 99, 103-104, 112, 108-109 Cleuren, Roeland 152-153 Cliff, Tony 123 Cogito 92, 101 Cohen, Gidon 13, 15, 23-24, 268 Cohen, Phil 16, 16n7, 92, 261, 264, 266 collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, communist attitudes to 259-264 Collins, Canon John 70 Comintern 161, 193, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34n17, 37, 40, 43n55, 50, 161, 193 Comintern’s Executive Committee (ECCI) 33 Comité 1961 voor de Vrede 74-75, 74n29, 77 Comment 127 communism, hereditary aspects of Communist Medical Association 184 Communist Party of Albania/Party of Labour of Albania (PPSH) 76 Communist Party of Britain (CPB) 155 Communist Party of China (CPC) 76 Communist Party of France (PCF) 24, 49n73, 164, 168 Communist Party of Italy (PCI) 268 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) 33, 76; see also Moscow Communist Peace Movement 199 Communistische Jeugdbond (CJB) 29-31, 33-34, 36-40, 43-44, 43n54, 43n55, 46, 52, 175, 192

and democratic centralism 33, 52 and membership and membership composition (ethnicity, race, gender, class, age) 30, 33, 34, 36 and Popular Front 38, 40, 42-43 and anti-fascist activities also see Spanish Civil War 31, 40 and Class against Class 31, 36 and youth culture and leisure activities 36 Communistische Partij Holland Centraal Comité (CPH-CC) 34n17, 36n25 Concentration Camp Syndrome 179 and Second Generation Syndrome 179 Cook, Dave 137 Co-operative Youth 38 Cooper-Clark, John 127, 127n57 Copsey, Nigel 124-125 Country Standard 202 Coventry 124, 125 and the Coventry Confederation of Indian Organisations 124 and the Coventry Indian Workers Association 124 Cristino Garcia Brigade 44 Cuban Missile Crisis 74, 83, 189, Cultuur en Ontspannings Centrum (COC) 146-148, 147n120n, 151 Czechoslovakia 19n12, 55, 101-102, 109, 118, 221, 233, 253 and the Prague Spring 101-102, 109 D’66 131 Dachau 45, 160 Dadaism 77 Daily Worker 47, 56-57, 85, 191, 197-198, 202, 211-212, 215, 221, 224, 230, 235, 252n54 Darke, Bob 203, 219 Davies, Rose 37-38 De Bonte Reus 131 De Groot, Paul 49n73, 76, 111, 178, 180 De Haan, D.J., H. Bolle, and K. Scheffers 228 De Jonge Communist 34 De Jonge, A.A. 62n116, 76 De Kabouterbeweging 102-103 De Poort 53 De Vries, Rob 149 De Wegwijzer 152-153 De Zaaier 20n13, 30, 33n10 Democratic Left 155 Den Haag 30, 40, 174, 180, 194-196, 213, 216, 217, 219, 237, 241, 248, 260, 262 Dokwerker, de 80, 131-132 Donovan, David 143-144 Doorbraak, de 49n73 Dubois, Maarten 154 Duff, Peggy 70 Duijnmeijer, Kerwin 132, 133 and Stichting Vrienden van Kerwin 132

289

Index

Dulais National Union of Mineworkers 143; see also Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners Durlacher, Gerhard 237-238 DWARS 155 education, communist attitudes to 223-234 Engels, Friedrich 189-190 Eshuis, Evelien 111, 112n13, 150 Eurocommunism 88, 110 Evangelische Volkspartij (EVP) 155 Exell, Arthur 203, 239-240 Falber, Reuben 76 Federatie Studenten Werkgroepen Homoseksuelen (FSWG) 146, 147n120 Federatie van Jeugdgroepen (FJG) 97 Felix Meritis 181 feminism, communist attitudes to 107-112, 114-116, 115n25, 119-121, 136-137, 150, 152-153, 193 Fielding, Jeremy 84 Finsterwolde 56 Flinn, Andrew 13, 15, 23-24, 35, 268 Fluxus 78 Foot, Michael 70, 122 Ford, Anna 85 France 24, 44, 78, 83, 88, 162, 164, 268 Franco, Francisco 40, 44, 53, 89, 254 Gay Liberation Front (GLF) 137 gender roles, communist attitudes to 18, 119-121, 187, 189-194, 201-202, 243-246 Germany 32, 146, 160, 161, 165, 176, 178, 220, 238, 251, 253 Girl Guides/Brownies 30, 66, 187 Goedhart, Frans 133, 166, 168 Gollan, John 38-39, 41, 91, 104, 232 Goodyer, Ian 128 Gortzak, Henk 29, 31, 167-168 Goss, John 221 Green, Nan 199-200 GroenLinks 155, 264 Groningen 30, 40, 137 Grootveld, Robert Jasper 78-79, 102 Haarlem 134-137, 165-167, 246 Hain, Peter 123n42, 125 Hall, Stanley G. 30 Hamilton, Paula 12-13 Harmsen, Ger 20n13, 34, 36, 40 Harrow Youth Adhoc Committee against Racialism 124 hereditary nature of communism 22-23 Hill, Christopher 268, 268n2 Hobsbawm, Eric 268, 268n2 Hoefferle, Caroline 85 Holst, Henriette Roland 30

homosexuality, communist attitudes to 111, 138-145, 146, 150-151 see also sexuality, communist attitudes to Honorary Cemetery of the Resistance/ Erebegraafplaats 166-168 Honselaar-Nordholt, Rie 117 Hungary, the Soviet invasion of 17, 18, 22, 61, 62, 63, 70, 72, 113n18, 159, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 223, 234, 236 Hunt, Alan 85 Independent Labour Party Guild of Youth 41 Indian Advisory Body of the Communist Party 124 Indian Welfare and Cultural Society 124 Indian Workers Association of Great Britain 124, 127 Indonesian War of Independence 54-55, 89, 164n15 International Institute of Social History (IISH/ IISG) 9, 10, 16n7, 43 International Marxist Group (IMG) 88 International Socialists (IS) 70, 88, 100 Izeboud, Elli 111 Jackson, Mike 142 Jacques, Martin 85, 87, 100 Janmaat, Hans 130 Jansma, Joop 51 Jeugd 67, 99, 104, 108, 114, 115n23, 117-118, 121, 135-136, 148, 151 Jonge Werker, de 45 Judaism/Jewish people 146, 171-172, 174, 179 Kaprow, Allan 78 Katholieke Hogeschool Tilburg 88 Kerk en Vrede 74n29, 75 Khrushchev, Nikita 17, 61, 69-70, 73, 76, 159-160, 262 Secret Speech 159-160, 183, 262 King Street 182 Kinnock, Neil 138, 138n89 Komité Jongeren voor Vietnam 97-98 Komsomol 116n29, 32 Korean War 56-57, 60, 182, 220, 231 Koster, Ratio 55 Kuijper, Maarten 166 Labour Day/International Workers’ Day 53, 196, 229-230 Labour League of Youth (LLY) 36, 38, 41, 41n48, 44n58, 48, 59, 59n106 Labour Party 19n12, 36, 41, 59, 72-73, 83-84, 125-127, 138, 143-144, 154, 183-184, 185, 196, 200n21, 217, 254n56, 265, 268 Lages, Willie 166 Lagrou, Pieter 164 LaPorte, Norman 13

290 

Growing Up Communist in the Ne therl ands and Britain

League of Nations Youth Movement 38 Leeuwarden 40 Lenin, Vladimir 84, 206, 260 Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) 142-144 Linehan, Thomas 14, 24, 270 Liverpool 16, 16n7, 88, 114, 184, 196, 197, 198, 235, 238-239 London 16, 16n6, 16n7, 30, 37, 39, 50, 53, 59, 68, 70, 73, 85-86, 90, 92, 100, 107, 122-124, 127, 142-143, 148, 160, 182-184, 188-191, 196, 202, 209-210, 213, 215, 217-220, 225-226, 230, 235, 238-239, 248-249, 253-255, 262-263, 265, 267 and Camberwell 123 and Bethnal Green 218, 222 and Hackney 219 and Lambeth 113, 221 London School of Economics (LSE) 85-86 London Anti-Racist Anti-Fascist Coordinating Committee 123 Luirink, Bart 135 Luxemburg, Rosa 84 Maassen, Jan 55 MacManus, Arthur 225 Makarenko, Anton 204-209 Manchester 9, 16, 16n7, 37, 39, 57, 65, 85, 87, 121, 198, 205, 226, 246, 255 Marshall Plan 19n12, 60, Martin, Kingsley 70 Marxism 22, 30-31, 33, 34n17, 67, 70, 77, 84, 88, 92, 107, 115, 178, 192, 195, 232-233, 240, 244 Marxism-Leninism 40, 93, 110, 112, 112n16, 139, 189, 195, 213, 253 Marxism-Feminism 112 Mass Observation Archive 16n7 Matthews, Charlie 42 McLennan, Gordon 110 mental health, communist attitudes to 175-179 MI5 240-243 Mikhail Borodin 139 Mishler, Paul 9, 21, 202 Monty, Johnstone 92 Morgan, Kevin 9, 13, 13n2, 15, 23, 24, 38, 268 Morris Motors 239-240 moral superiority, communists and 194-195, 197 Moscow Daily News 139 Moscow 11, 15, 22, 30, 31, 32, 34n17, 35, 36, 43n55, 72, 76, 108, 111, 111n11, 139, 260, 263 Mosely, Oswald 39, 53, 54, 125, 161 Moss, John 59-60, 71 Myers, Frank E. 70 Nationaal Jeugd Front 146 Nationaal Socialistische Beweging in Nederland (NSB) 130, 164, 221 National Front (NF) 121-122, 124-127, 153 National Student Committee 85, 88, 137 National Union of Miners (NUM) 142-143

National Union of Students (NUS) 38, 85, 137 Nederlands Wetenschappelijk Humanitair Komitee (NWHK) 146 Nederlandse Jeugd Federatie (NJF) 40,44, 46, 49 Nederlandse Jeugd Gemeenschap (NJG) 5152, 54, 128 Nederlandse Vereniging voor Sexuele Hervorming (NVSH) 117-118, 120, 147, 212 Nederlandse Volksunie (NVU) 130 Nederlandse Vrouwenbeweging (NVB) 15n5, 115n25, 117, 178, 202, 245n46 Neuengamme 43, 43n55 New Left 63, 73, 87 Newton, Kenneth 37n30, 222, 225, 247 Nichol, Jim 123 Nicholson, Fergus 85, 100, 101, 119n35, 137, 154 Nieuwenhuis, Domela 22, 89 Nieuw-Malthusiaanse Bond (NMB) 117 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) 73, 73n22, 163 Organisatie voor Progressief Studerende Jeugd (OPSJ) 15n5, 21n13, 52-53, 56, 75, 99, 111, 119-120, 256 Oversteegen, Truus 167 Oxford 57, 203, 239 Pacifistisch Socialistische Jongeren Werkgroepen 75 Pacifistisch Socialistische Partij (PSP) 74, 74n29, 75, 90, 95, 97, 155 Parool, het 133-134, 197 Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) 97, 161, 164n15, 166, 194, 230, 264, 268 Pegagus 187 Perikles 52-53 pillarisation 18-19, 22, 145, 164n15, 269 and depillarisation 145 Pioneers, the 24n21, 185, 253 Piratin, Phil 39-40 Platt, Jennifer 222 Politeia 82, 90 Politieke Partij Radikalen (PPR) 155 Pollitt, Brian 160, 162, 235-236 Pollitt, Harry 39, 160, 235-236 popular culture, communist attitudes to 68, 93-94, 97, 100, 113-114, 134, 137, 127, 116, 187-189, 197-200 poverty, communist attitudes to 17, 243-250 Powell, Enoch 84n59, 121 Power, Mike 68, 124, 220, 93-94 Priestly, J.B., 69-70 Protestantism/Protestants 18-19, 97, 167, 256 Provo 77-82, 88, 90, 95, 96, 102 punk and squatting movement 108, 126, 127n57, 135 Radical Student Alliance (RSA) 85-87 Ravensbrück 169

291

Index

Rayside, David M. 138, 140 Red Flag 88 Remembrance Day/Dodenherdenking 147, 166-168 Rheinbach 45 Rider, Neil 126 Righart, Hans 102 Robinson, Lucy 9, 138n89, 140 Rock Against Racism (RAR) 122, 126-128 romantic relationships and marriage, communist attitudes to Roseboom, Lineke 149 Rotterdam 12, 16, 16n7, 40, 43-44, 56, 178, 180-181, 187, 194, 198, 201, 204, 208-209, 219, 223, 229, 231, 237, 241, 243, 251, 264 roze zaterdag 148-150 Rubinstein, Dan 127 Russell, Bertrand 69-70, 87 Rust, William 35 Samuel, Raphael 14-16, 23, 195, 199, 225, 236, 254, 268, 268n2 Saunders, Red 122, 125 Schaft, Hannie 154, 165-168 and Hannie Schaft Herdenkingscomité 166-168 and Hannie Schaft Kamp 251-252 Schofield, Michael 210-211 Scholierencomité voor Vrede en anti-Fascisme (SKA) 131-134, 136 Schreuders, Gijs 111 Schrevel, Margreet 9, 21n13, 16n7, 186, 232, 233, 265 Schurink, Robert 129, 136 Schuster, Alice 191-192 Scritti Politti 127, 127n57 Second World War 12, 19, 22, 31, 43-49, 49n73, 82, 94, 96-97, 128, 132, 147, 149, 159-179, 174n31 and communist resistance 12, 22, 25, 43-47, 49, 51, 53, 80, 82, 89, 128, 132, 146-147, 159-179, 174n31, 186, 192, 251, 252n52, 270 and gay persecution 146-147, 149 and the February Strike 45, 80, 96, 131-132, 136n12, 169-170, 176 sex and sexuality, communist attitudes to 115-117, 119-120, 187, 206-213, 260; see also homosexuality, communist attitudes to Shelepin, Alexander 50 Shopes, Linda 12-13 Sino-Soviet conflict 76 Smith, Evan 15, 88, 93, 126, 137 Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij (SDAP) 30, 33n10, 161 and social democrats 19, 19n11, 36, 50, 75, 82, 145, 161, 164n15, 197 Sociaal Democratische Partij (SDP) 22, 33, 33n10, 34n17

Sociaal Fonds Bouwnijverheid 81 socialism/socialists 12, 5, 23, 30, 32, 36, 39, 44-46, 48-49, 51, 57-59, 70, 74-75, 85, 87-89, 93, 100, 101-103, 110, 114, 116, 117n29, 120, 135, 139, 142, 144, 150, 153, 155, 174, 193, 206n38, 245, 259, 261, 264 Socialist Sunday School Movement 30 Socialist Worker 122 Socialist Workers Party (SWP) 122-123 Socialistische Jeugd (SJ) 75 Socialistische Partij (SP) 155, 264 Soviet Union and the Family Code of 1918 206 Spain 254n56, 89 Spanish Civil War 40-44, 43n54, 173, 175, 199 and the Aid for Spain Movement 41 and the International Brigades 40-44, 42n52, 43n55, 173, 174 and the Internationale Rode Hulp 175 and the loss of Dutch citizenship 42-43, 42n52, 173-174 Spock, Benjamin 204-207 sports, communist attitudes to 36-38, 40, 44, 49, 53, 93, 119, 155, 185, 188, 198-199, 221, 241 Sreeves, Mark 142 Stalin, Joseph 17, 34n17, 61, 138, 139, 140, 160, 200, 207, 220, 231, 236, 251, 261, 262 Stalinism and Stalinists 25n22, 92, 100-101, 105, 107, 110, 238, 255, 262, 267, 271 Staphorst, Klaas 82 Stolk, Rob 79 Stone, Dan 80 Straight Left 154 Student Christian Movement 38 Studenten Vakbeweging (SVB) 90 Studie en Strijd 53 Stutje, Jan Willem 178 summer camps and holidays, communist attitudes to 19, 24, 49, 117-118, 233, 155, 246, 250-254, 256 Teachman, Jay and Kathleen Paasch 224-225 Telegraaf, de 82 Temple, Nina 100, 110, 155, 218, 242 Thatcher, Margaret 128, 142, 144-145 The Communist 213 The Fall 127, 127n57 Thompson, E.P. 184, 268, 268n2 Thompson, Willie 70-72, 85, 154, 162 Trade unionism and work floor activism 12, 17, 19n12, 33-35, 45, 53, 60-61, 61n112, 81-82, 86, 88, 96, 100, 108-109, 112, 123, 127, 142-144, 148-149, 163n12, 169, 170, 176, 203, 230, 238, 243-244, 243n43, 248, 253, 268 Transport and General Workers’ Union 19n12 Triesman, David 85-87 Uilenspiegel, de 24, 199, 201-202 Uilenspiegelclub 24, 185, 234, 253, 21n13

292 

Growing Up Communist in the Ne therl ands and Britain

United States 16n7, 21, 30, 56, 62, 66n2, 69, 72, 74, 77, 78, 83-84, 88, 90-91, 94, 96, 133, 148, 151, 200, 202 and anti-Americanism 58, 200, 200n21, 231, 91, 94, 96, 151 University Labour Federation 38 University of Cambridge 238, 240 University of Liverpool 88 University of Manchester 85, 87 University of Oxford 57 University of Sussex 10, 120 University of Warwick 88 Utrecht 98, 137, 151 Van Beuzenkom, Jeanette 150-151 Van den Haak, Nel 150-151 Van der Maar, Rimko 97 Van Dijk, Cor 44 Van Dijk, Jos 163n12, 164, 164n15, 173, 174n31 Van Donselaar, Jaap 129n64, 130 Van Duijn, Roel 78, 79, 102-104 Van Ravensteyn, Willem 31, 34n17 Van Roijen, Denijs 43, 43n55 Verbond van Communisten in Nederland 155 Verenigd Verzet 163n12, 251 Vereniging van Vrienden van de Sowjet Unie/ Vereniging Vrienden van de Soviet-Unie (VVSU) 198 Vietnam War 65, 68-69, 74, 77, 79, 83-84, 88, 90-98, 90n79, 128 and Aktiegroep Vietnam 96-97 and British Council for Peace in Vietnam (BCPV) 90-91 and British Vietnam Committee 90 and Jongeren Komitee voor Vrede en Zelfbeschikking voor Vietnam (JKVZV) 94-96 and Medical Aid for Vietnam 93 and Medisch Comité Vietnam 98 and the National Liberation Front (NLF) 90-91 and the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) 91-93 and Youth for Peace in Vietnam Movement (YPVM) 90-91 Vikingjeugd 131-132 Voerman, Gerrit 33 Volkeltochten 74-75, 77 Volksdagblad 40, 45 Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD) 97, 256 Vrijzinnige Democratische Bond (VDB) 161 Vrouwen 114 Vrouwen voor vrede en opbouw 199 Vught 159, 160

Waarheid, De 45-48, 49n73, 50, 56, 60-61, 82, 82n54, 131, 135, 150-151, 154, 161, 169, 172, 174, 181, 197-199, 217, 231, 244-245 Waite, Mike 21n13, 37, 38, 41, 58, 60, 61n112, 100, 104, 112, 113, 113n18, 115, 126, 127n57, 144, 154, 256 Walraven, Roel 118-119 Webb, Michelle 41-42, 44n58, 59, 59n106 Weggelaar, Jan 81-82, 82n53, 83n57 Werkgroep van Antimilitaristische Studenten 74n29, 75 Whyte, Harry 139-140 Wijnkoop, David 31, 33, 34n17 Willis, Ted 41-42, 44n58 Willmot, Peter, and Michael Young 218-219 Wilson, Elizabeth 193 Wilson, Harold 83-84, 84n59, 91 Withuis, Jolande 14, 15, 15n5, 81, 163-165, 177, 179, 199-202, 213, 244, 254, 255, 270-271 Wolff, Joop 52 Wood, Neal 250 Woodcraft Folk 252, 252n54 workerism 65, 229, 234-240 Worker’s Child 24 World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) 50-51, 53, 53n91, 220 Worley, Matthew 9, 13, 13n2, 15, 108 Yorkshire 54, 72, 120, 171, 183, 194, 198, 249, 253, 259 and Bradford 54 Young Communist International (YCI) 32-35, 43n55, 50 and the independence of national organisations 32-33 Young Communist League (YCL) and anti-colonial activities 60 and anti-fascist activities also see Spanish Civil War 31, 39, 40-41, 47, 53-54 and anti-racist activities 107-108, 123-128, 152 and Class Against Class 29, 31, 36, 37 and conscription 55-56 and democratic centralism 33, 53, 153-154 and feminism 107-108, 110, 116, 119-120, 152, 153; see also feminism, communist attitudes to and gay rights 107-108, 137, 140-142, 152; see also homosexuality, communist attitudes to and gender roles 48, 60, 112-115, 119, 152; see also gender roles, communist attitudes to and membership and membership composition (ethnicity, race, gender,

293

Index

class, age) 30, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 44, 47-48, 53, 60, 65, 67-68, 73, 99, 108-109, 123, 154 and miners 35 and Popular Front 29, 31, 37-42 and student activities 69, 85-87, 110 and the Battle of Cable Street 39 and the General Strike 35 and the Lesbian and Gay Working Collective 142 and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact/NaziSoviet Pact 44 and The Trend – Communism 93, 100 and Trotskyism 36, 85-88, 92-93 and youth culture and leisure activities 36-38, 48, 68, 93-94, 100, 105 Young Communist League fourth congress 35 Young Communist League seventh congress 38 Young Communist League eighth congress 41n48 Young Communist League fifteenth congress 53

Young Communist League seventeenth congress 58 Young Communist League nineteenth congress 59 Young Communist League twenty-sixth congress 90, 93 Young Communist League twenty-eighth congress 123 Young Communist League thirty-fifth congress 155 Young Liberals 85 Young Methodists 38 Young Pioneers League/Young Comrades Club 24, 24n21 Young Socialist League 30 Young, Edgar 19 Young, Nigel 73 Young Worker, the 34, 152, Zaanstreek 182, 228, 232, 242, 249-251, 257 and Krommenie 118, 216, 236 and Zaandam 40, 46