8 - Epilogue: Looking Back

Summary

Abstract

In this Epilogue, which is based on a series of interviews with 38 British and Dutch cradle communists who participated in an oral history project about communist family life, participants consider their childhood, value their upbringing, but also discuss their adulthood and how they implemented their political upbringing in their adult life. It focuses in particular on participants’ feelings and thoughts surrounding the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Keywords: British communist movement, Dutch communist movement, communist childhood, oral history, collapse of communism

I still believe in the possibility of a society that is based on equal rights. In the end, and my parents would say that too, the Soviet Union was corrupt; we didn't know how corrupt it was. So my parents didn't feel shame. They felt betrayed, but I don't think it undermined our beliefs that one day socialism would work in some way or another. And it would be different in Britain anyway, the ‘British Road to Socialism’ was much more evolutionary. They didn't really identify with the Soviet Union, I don't think they ever identified with the Soviet Union; they never went there. What my parents believed, they thought, was still important even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They felt it tragically didn't work out, but they hadn't defended a lie either (Madeline b. 1948, Yorkshire).

There were many things about communism I do not agree with, like the party culture. Some horrific things happened. But there were also many things I do agree with. I am still ‘left’ and I think my upbringing definitely influenced my political views (Janny b. 1946, Amsterdam).

At the end of each interview, I asked my participants to reflect on their youth and answer the question, ‘How do you look back on your upbringing?’ A seemingly innocent question that nonetheless released surprisingly strong emotions. It became clear that in the context of this question, participants’ views were definitively coloured by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the atrocities committed in the name of communism that came to light in the aftermath. Without being prompted, the majority of participants tried to make a distinction between the communist values they believed in and lived by, and the way that communist ideology was interpreted and carried out by Moscow and their respective parties.