A Letter to an Ex-Communist

So you have decided to leave the party. And you have written to tell me about it. What should I answer?

Dear X,

So you have decided to leave the party. Hungary, you say, was the last straw. The Russian tanks in Budapest have pushed you past the point of no return, over the frontier which you had been contemplating with fear and hesitation eves since Khrushchev’s revelations. You are disgusted with the British party, with their lies and evasions, with the patent dishonesty and careerism of the King Street bureaucrats. And you have written to tell me about it. What should I answer?

First, I suppose, that I am glad. I never did you the injustice of thinking you capable of firing a pistol-shot into the back of a deviationist’s neck. You were a liberal brought into the party in the giddy thirties by the cry for a united front against Fascism. I doubt if at that time you had ever met a real Party Neanderthaler. Certainly you had never seen the machine at work from close to. Still, you were a little disturbed by the purges, though you apologized for them in public, ...