Reflecting on a Communist Childhood
My father, Paul Kornbluth, was a Communist. He believed there was going to be a violent Communist revolution in this country--and that I was going to lead it. Just so you can get a sense of the pressure.
And anything my father told me I'd believe, because my father was such a physically magnificent man: He was big, and he had this great, big potbelly--not a wiggly-jiggly, Social Democrat potbelly; a firm, Communist potbelly. You bopped it, and it would bop you back. It was strong.
And he had powerful legs, from running track at City College of New York. And he had these beefy arms. And he was naked--virtually all the time, naked in the apartment. And all over his body he had these patches of talcum powder--you know, Johnson's baby powder--I guess because he was a big man and he would chafe. Especially around his private parts.
And he had me on the weekends. I would have loved to have slept in late on the weekends, but I couldn't because my father wouldn't let me. He would wake me up.
This is how he'd wake me up: He'd come bursting into my room and then he'd stop in the doorway; and when he stopped, the talcum powder would come bouncing off of his balls--it was like the entrance of a great magician. And then he'd come running up to my bed, and looming over me he'd sing:
Quote:
Arise, ye prisoner of starvation!
Arise, ye wretched of the earth!
I didn't know that was the "Internationale"; I didn't know that was the international Communist anthem. I thought it was my own personal wake-up song.
Check it out: "Arise, ye prisoner of starvation"--it's time for breakfast. "Arise, ye wretched of the earth"--it's five o'clock in the morning and I'm being woken up!
And if I didn't show the proper signs of life right away, my father would lean down over me--and his long, graying hair would straggle down, his beard would flutter down into my nose--and he'd yell, "Wake up, Little *****er! Wake up, Little *****er!"
That was his nickname for me: Little *****er. Nothing at all pejorative about it, as far as my father was concerned. For my dad, calling me "Little *****er" was like calling me "Junior" . . . "Beloved Little One" . . . "Little *****er."
I knew from an early age that one day I must grow up and become . . . a Big *****er. And I assumed that that would be around the time that I would lead the Revolution. Because my dad had told me over and over that all the great revolutionaries were also great *****ers.
But for now I was just lying there in my bed, my father looming over me with his--to me--enormous penis . . . swinging around, spewing smoke, powder, whatever . . . while I just had this little, six-year-old . . . training penis, if you will.
"Little *****er." I didn't realize it at the time that my father had his own language--not only his own English, but his own Yiddish. I used to think it was real Yiddish, but then my mom would say, "That's not Yiddish. What your father speaks is not Yiddish. I went to Yiddish school in Bensonhurst--and what your father speaks is not Yiddish."
I'd say, "You mean ouska is not--"
"No. There's an oyska, but there's no ouska . . . "
Well, in my father's Yiddish, there was a term ouska. Ouska was a prefix meaning "a lot of,", "very"--as in, "I am ouska-cold, my son!"
I'd say, "Of course you're ouska-cold, Dad; you're ouska-naked. The window is ouska-open."
As it would be in the kitchen, where we'd go for breakfast. Dad and I would sit around the kitchen table having hard-boiled eggs (my father, not a soft-boiled kind of guy). And never little eggs: When Dad went shopping for eggs, he always got ouska-jumbo-large-size eggs, so we would not want for eggs. And we would smear on our eggs, in my father's language, "salad dressing"--meaning mayonnaise. And we'd drink juice--apple juice, orange juice . . .
And Dad would regale me with his stories of organizing in the South with the Henry Wallace campaign. And he'd drill me over and over in the catechisms of our faith--of Communism. Like how society has been driven from one stage to the next, driven inexorably by the forces of dialectical materialism, until . . .
I sense I'm covering old ground. But just to review:
According to Marx and Engels--and my dad--the first human society was Primitive Communalism: Everyone's just kind of dancing around, like at a Grateful Dead concert.
The next stage after Primitive Communalism was Slavery--which must have been a bummer of a transition.
Then from Slavery to Feudalism, and from Feudalism . . . Well, we've learned from history that it's very important after Feudalism to stop in Capitalism before moving on to Socialism. Very important to stop in Capitalism. Because that's where you get your appliances.
So you stop in Capitalism, you get your stuff, and then you move on to Socialism, and finally to Communism--and you're back at the concert.
After breakfast, me and my dad would move from the kitchen into the living room--although when I say "kitchen" and "living room," I'm being euphamistic. There was one basic room--except for my bedroom: Dad always insisted that I have my own bedroom for my privacy, he'd just come bursting in at any moment. But aside from my bedroom, there was just one basic room. That's because when my father moved into an apartment, the first thing he'd do is he'd knock down all the walls. I don't mean that metaphorically; he'd knock down all the walls.
The first time he did this, we had to move--right away. Because we lived on the first floor, and the building came . . . ouska-down.
So we moved into the next building--same landlord, who insisted on giving my dad a lecture on the crucial architectural concept of the supporting wall. That's the wall you must not knock down.
So my dad went knocking around with his hammer to find the one wall that wasn't hollow, left that wall up, knocked down all the other walls. And all along the external walls of our kitchen-***-bathroom-***-living-room-***-dining-room area were posters of our heroes, our gods: W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcom X, Dr. King, Ho Chi Minh, Bertolt Brecht, Emma Goldman . . . And then, at the end of all these posters: my height chart. See how the Little *****er measures up.
Well, as I am now quite ouska-tired, I'm going to go to bed. Maybe we can reflect on the "Good Old Days" tomorrow. Until then, good nite
