I went to many meetings of the Workers Party, and although their methods of struggle struck me, and still do, as undynamic – they were mainly busy "supporting" everybody, they supported the rights of the Crimean Tatars in the USSR, demanded political independence for Puerto Rico, supported Brazilian political prisoners and the right of the Ukrainians to be separated from Russia, et cetera – still, I learned a lot at their meetings. They were a party of the old type, of course, there was much in their structure that was dogmatic and obsolete. They called themselves the "Workers" Party, for example, although I don't think their membership included any workers at all. Peter himself, the regional leader, spoke of the workers as a reactionary force.
"You're an extremist," Carol said to me. "If I ever get to know any extremists, I'll introduce you. You're better suited to them."
The Workers Party took a very suspicious stance vis-a-vis Alexander and me. Alexander, a very suspicious man himself, said to me, "They think we're KGB agents. Some Russian dissident has planted this idea in them. Carol doesn't think so, of course, she has very high regard for you. But the leadership – those guys certainly do. If not, why didn't their press carry any report on our demonstration against the New York Times - why not? After all, they made a point of being there for two hours!"
Alexander was right in this instance, I think. They never reported that we existed, although they should have found us tempting material. In counterpoise to the usually very rightist Russians, suddenly here's a leftist cell, here's an "Open Letter to Sakharov," criticizing him for idealizing the West. Even the Times of London printed an account of the letter – the leftists proved more rightist, or more suspicious, than the official bourgeois newspaper.
I do not believe this party has any future. They are very isolated, they fear the streets, they fear the suburbs, in my view they have no common language with those whom they support and in whose name they speak.
A typical incident: I was accompanying Carol to the Port Authority after work; her daughter was supposed to be arriving. We walked along Fifth Avenue – at first she had wanted to go by bus or subway, but I foisted my pedestrian habit on her and we walked. It was still early, we sat awhile at the Public Library and then went over to Eighth Avenue, where the Port Authority is, via Forty-second Street. My girl-revolutionary was somewhat wary of Forty-second Street and huddled close to me in fright.
"Our comrades are afraid to walk here. There are lots of druggies and crazies here," Carol said warily.
I started to laugh. I wasn't afraid of Forty-second, I felt at home there any hour of the day or night. I didn't say so at the time, but it crossed my mind that her party was nothing but a petit-bourgeois study group. If I were making a revolution I would lean first of all on the people among whom we were walking, people like me – the classless, the criminal, and the vicious. I would locate my headquarters in the toughest neighborhood, associate only with the have-nots – that is what I was thinking.
Carol said, laughing, "This is ridiculous, to have someone from Moscow take me around New York and know the way much better than I do."
She had doubted that I would take her the right way. I did. Granted, I was afraid – I might encounter one of my boyfriends, Chris, for example, or other, lesser, acquaintances, but it turned out all right, thank God.
Carol is very sweet and very obliging, and very businesslike. In one way I am even content that we never became lovers. At least, I don't know what kind of problem she has, I don't believe she's altogether healthy. She can't be; but she doesn't need to be. In this world healthy people are needed for something else. The world hangs by the struggle between the healthy and the unhealthy. Fair Carol and I are in the same camp. If I wanted to, I could become a member of her party. But I'm sick of intellectual organizations, in my view the old parties are anemic. I am still seeking, I want something alive – not red tape, or money being collected in a little basket and the total announced, who gave more. I do not want to sit in meetings and then have people all scatter to their homes and calmly go to the office in the morning. I want people not to scatter. My interests lie somewhere in the sphere of semireligious Communist communes and sects, armed families and agricultural groups. As yet this is none too clear, the outlines are just beginning to take shape, but never mind, all in good time. What I want is to live with Chris and have Carol there too, and others as well, all together. And I want the free and equal people living with me to love me and caress me; I wouldn't be so terribly lonely, a lonely animal. If I don't perish somehow firsts – anything can happen in this world – I am determined to be happy.
The meetings with Carol are useful to me – I learn a lot about America from her and she learns a lot from me. We are friends, although, for example, she concealed the date of her trip to the USSR from me, apparently afraid that I really was a KGB agent. She told me only after she was back, when she gave me some Soviet chocolate and a twenty-kopeck coin as souvenirs. You fool! I thought. I could have given you addresses, and you'd have met people you can never meet, even if you go to the USSR a hundred times. But I'm not hurt.
Carol is an unfinished chapter, we constantly discover new ideas in common, she often waits for me near her office – fair, smiling, with or without her dark glasses, always burdened by party literature and two or three tote bags.
"Carol, all you need is a leather jacket and a red kerchief," I tease. "A real commissar."
The Workers Party, and in particular my friend Carol, organized a meeting in support of Mustafa Dzhemilev, who was in a Soviet prison camp. The meeting was very diverse. They had representatives of the Irish separatists there; they had the Iranian poet Reza Baraheni, a former political prisoner; they had Pyotr Livanov (God knows how he had decided on what for him was a very bold step, speaking at a meeting arranged by leftists – I think he and his friends have something to do with the fact that Alexander and I are considered KGB agents); they had Martin Sostre, a black who had spent eight years in an American prison for a political crime. I nearly howled with delight when Martin Sostre came right out and said, "I join, of course, in supporting Mustafa Dzhemilev, and in general I support the right of nations to self-determination, including of course the Crimean Tatars, but I protest the fact that when Sakharov sends an article to the New York Times, in which he writes about injustices and oppression, infringements of individual freedom in the USSR, the Times prints his article practically on the front page, whereas similar articles about injustices and infringements of human rights here in America the Times refuses to print."
That was what he said, Martin Sostre. A strong man. He didn't hurry, he spoke calmly, slowly, swaying slightly, and even I understood every last word he said.
I observed Livanov, he was all contorted with horror. He was in for it, poor guy, probably hadn't expected this. What would his hosts say to him, who had given him work, who had given him food and drink here, who had paid his "English teachers; what would the American rightists say, who had given and were still giving him money? If you survive a prison or a mental hospital over there, you get money here. But what would they say to Livanov, the American rightists, when they learned he had taken part in such a meeting?
Carol had expended enormous effort in persuading Livanov to come and speak. It had taken her a long time. Now, as chair of the meeting, my friend was full of herself, exuberantly announcing and introducing the speakers. She was satisfied.