Willful(?) Ignorance

One thing that struck me about Bernstein’s descriptions of his political activities is how little he seemed to know about the actual policies of the Communist party. He seemed to treat Communism like he treated the war, with idealism and romanticism, and without much recognition of the gravity of the situation. He said that he hadn’t known about Stalin’s purges at the time he was a full supporter of the Communist Party, and he was a supporter of the Communist takeover of China. But it seems that he wasn’t aware at the time of Mao’s Cultural Revolution in which many intellectuals, artists, and students were killed or severely persecuted. It seems a little surprising to me that Bernstein is such a strong supporter of a Communist government when, in other circumstances, he might be the type of person who is persecuted by the regime. While Bernstein describes learning about the horrors of Nazi brutality after WWII and the rage he felt about it after the war, I hope there is a similar account of his recognition of the brutalities committed in the name of Communism near the end of this book.

Another thing that struck me in Bernstein’s descriptions of the blacklist is how strong the impact of the blacklist was on him and his colleagues. His description of people who had been blacklisted and had then taken their lives, like Phil Loeb, was particularly striking. His description of John Garfield, who basically drank himself to death, was even more so. It was heartening to read Bernstein’s accounts of all the people who tried to help him during this time, however. The person who passed him a $100 bill at a bar, his agent, his friends, his fronts, all risked a lot by lending their help to him, and I liked that he recognized this, and the solidarity he felt among others on the blacklist. It seemed like a reference to the way he had felt with the guerilla warriors in Yugoslavia, in hiding, but with friends. It was a nice way of tying his feelings about the war to his experiences in peace time.