The Life of Steve..continued

    "It is reasonable to expect that a communist party is unlike any other," wrote John Berger in l965. "It is more than a political party. It is a school of philosophy, an army, an agent of the future; at its noblest it is a fraternity."
    To-day in 2012 all of this sounds like nonsense. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, spelled the end of communism across most of the world, and no one joins a communist party to-day in Canada, looking for fraternity or solidarity. Still, 50 years ago, many people like British writer John Berger believed communism was the wave of the future and joined communist parties to create a brave new world.
    Communist parties were what political scientists call 'cadre parties'. They demand intense commitment. They control the books members read, the films they see, and the lives they lead.
    "The party would call for a demonstration somewhere," Steve says. "And you had to be there at that time and at that place."
    In short, the communist party was an ideological army that marched together towards the goal of a world revolution that would bring socialism.
     People who joined the party often left it. "It's not for me," a few leavetakers told Steve. " It's too intense." And they vanished. Others clashed with the party leaders over some political issue or another. They vanished too.

    By the early l960's, the B,C. Communist Party had shrivelled to less than a thousand people. For world events as well as harassment by the government could shrink the party too.
    When then-Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev denounced his former boss, the late Josef Stalin for his crimes in 1956, people deserted the communist party in droves.A few months later, Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian rebellion and once again, people tore up their communist party cards and left.
     But Steve stayed on. So did others. In Vancouver and a few other places across B.C. the party organized demonstrations against racial injustice, American and Canadian policies that hurt people, against American-led wars and against many other things. Of course, the communist party did not protest against Soviet crimes.But all of this activity kept Steve busy.