Doris Lessing - A Ripple from the Storm

It was now ten o’clock, and Andrew had to catch his bus to the camp. He rose, putting his warm pipe away as if it were a friend with whom he intended to have further, private conversation.

Anton said: ‘Yes, but we have not come to any fundamental decisions.’

‘What decisions?’ asked Jasmine, who imagined, as they all did, that their firmness of mind about the Trotskyists amounted to a decision about policy itself.

‘Comrades,’ said Anton, ‘there are at the moment five of us. It appears that we consider it necessary to recruit further cadres. We should know what we want to recruit them for. I suggest we each now give a brief account of our responsibilities and party work.’

Andrew, still standing, took the pipe out of his pocket and lit it.

‘Comrade Andrew – since you seem to be in such a hurry.’

‘Comrade Anton, I don’t organize the bus service. However, I’ll shoot: in camp I run the library. I think I may say it is the best library of any camp in the Colony. Except the camp outside G—, which is run by another communist. I have all the progressive and left-wing literature available, and my collection of the British and French classics is, considering how hard it is to get them now, not bad at all. I run twice-weekly lectures on British literature and poetry, and they are attended by anything up to a hundred of the lads. I run a weekly study class on the development of socialism in Europe, attended by about twelve men. I run a weekly Marxist study circle attended by six. I’m on the committee of Aid for Our Allies. I do a great deal of self-education. I think that’s all.’

‘Good,’ said Anton. ‘You may leave.’

‘Thank you,’ said Andrew, and departed with visibly controlled exasperation.

‘Marjorie,’ said Anton.

‘I’m a librarian for the Sympathizers of Russia and Help for Our Allies.’

‘Good, but you are developed enough to take on more. Martha.’

‘I’m on the committees of Help for Our Allies and Sympathizers of Russia and the Progressive Club, and I’m organizing the sales of The Watchdog.’

‘Good. That seems well balanced. You are not to take on any more. And you should attend to your self-education. Jasmine?’

‘I’m secretary for Sympathizers of Russia, Help for Our Allies, the Progressive Club. I’m organizing the exhibition of Russian posters and photographs. I’m librarian for the group and group secretary.’

Martha and Marjorie laughed. Anton did not laugh. He said: ‘Since I am an enemy alien and am forbidden political activity, my list is scarcely as impressive as Jasmine’s.’ He was examining Jasmine critically. ‘Comrade,’ he said, ‘this must stop. This is nothing but slackness. No one can be secretary of more than one organization and do it efficiently. You will hand over the secretaryship of the Sympathizers of Russia to Matty, and the secretaryship of Aid for Our Allies to Marjorie.’

‘It is, after all, a question of elections,’ said Martha.

And now Anton stared at her. ‘Comrade,’ he said, ‘a communist can always get himself elected. We are always the best people for the job. We are always reliable, punctual, and prepared to work harder than anyone else. If we are not better than anyone else, we are not communists at all. We do not deserve the name.’

He began collecting his papers together, ‘I declare the meeting closed,’ he said.

‘But, comrade, we have made no decision about these people we are going to draw into the group.’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Anton, moving towards the door.

‘But we have taken a decision to bring them in.’

‘Not more than one person each,’ said Anton. ‘I shall give a lecture on the broad outlines of dialectical materialism. That means there will be no more than ten of us, at the outside. We must keep control of what we are doing. We must stop all this girl-guide running about. We are revolutionaries. So called.’

Marjorie said, affectionately mischievous: ‘Anton, you should have more tolerance for us. We must seem pretty poor stuff to you after your experience, but you don’t bother to hide it.’ She was blushing again, because of the effort it took her to tease him.

He allowed himself to smile. Then his face stiffened, and, looking before him at the dirty wall, he said in a soft exalted voice: ‘Yes. It is hard to become a real communist, a communist in every fibre. It is hard, comrades. I remember when I first became a communist, I was given some words to learn by heart, and told to repeat them whenever I became filled with doubts or despondency.’ He raised his voice and quoted: ‘Man’s dearest possession is life; and since it is given to him to live but once, he must so live as to feel no torturing regrets for years without purpose; so live as not to be seared with the shame of a cowardly and trivial past; so live that, dying, he can say: All my life and all my strength was given to the finest cause in the world – the liberation of mankind.’ His face was strained with exaltation. He turned and went out, without speaking.

‘But I know that,’ said Marjorie, aggrieved. ‘I’ve got it written out and pinned over my bed.’

‘So do I,’ said Jasmine.

‘We all know it by heart,’ said Martha. They all felt misunderstood by Anton, and held to be smaller and less heroic than they were. ‘It was the first thing of Lenin’s I ever read,’ she added.

‘Well, we’ll have to live up to it,’ said Jasmine, speaking, as usual, in her demure, almost casual way.

The three young women went together through the park, talking about the Soviet Union, about the Revolution, about ‘after the war’ – when, so it was assumed among them all, a fresh phase of the Revolution would begin, in which they would all be front-line fighters, fighters like Lenin, afraid of nothing, and armed with an all-comprehensive compassion for the whole of humanity.

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