The Romance of American Communism by Vivian Gornick, 1977

Despite the scary word “romance” in the title I decided to read this because I thought it might help me understand what people mean when they say they’re a Communist. Turns out my initial instincts were correct. Gornick talks entirely to people who are former Communists, although some claim they’re still communists. This is not necessarily bad — most of the story-tellers are recalling decades of Party experience — but it gives the book a slant the reader has to be aware of and adjust for.

Because Gornick was one of them, the talk wafts through an atmosphere of shared, tacit background. “Socialist,” “Marxist,” “Communist” and “communist” float around seemingly context free. What’s the difference between a communist and a Communist? A Marxist and a Communist (or a communist)? A socialist and any of the others? Is there any difference? The reader can, at best, speculate almost completely unguided by anything Gornick writes.

Contrary to what the previous point suggests, there is analysis, but it’s almost entirely emotional and therapeutic. Gornick consistently asked her story-tellers how they felt about joining the Party and leaving the Party. Occasionally they relate tales of anger and injustice, but predominantly they’re looking to assuage feelings of emptiness or anomie. And that’s fine, it’s great comrades are able to find a home or complete themselves or whatever in the Party, but Gornick leaves the reader to wonder by themselves how all this relates to the upcoming, world-wide proletarian revolution.

This is not to say that Gornick doesn’t reveal anything about Communism. Meetings and bureaucracy are two aspects that come across with clarity in the stories told. Another aspect is sexism, both at the Party level and individually. Some ex-comrades haul out the ol’ argument from meritocracy: women that do well are recognized and rewarded by the Party. That may be true, but the reader easily imagines that one of the things “doing well” entails is working through the habitual and unrelenting sexism of their male comrades.

That such sexism existed is also clear from Gornick’s reporting; what’s interesting is she doesn’t interrogate it — she occasionally speculates on it, but doesn’t investigate it. It’s interesting because after she left the Party, she found her way into second-wave feminism, and wrote this book under that involvement. A partial explanation may come from a story she tells to end the book. She attended a feminist conference, and became increasingly upset as speaker after speaker presented a litany of crude, anti-male dogma. Finally she expresses her dissatisfaction over the approach taken and offers the behavior of comrades in the Party as an alternative that is more humane, constructive, and effective. It seems Gornick still carries the torch for Communism, and is more alert for the sins against than the sinning.