Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-07-07
Out of the Night

give her up. I decided to tell
her the truth. Tossing and
muttering in sleepless nights 1
came TO the point where /
decided TO discard the Com
intern. if need be, to win the
girl | loved.
But the hold the Comintern
has on the minds of its in
dentured servants can be COM
pared only with the grip the
Jesuit Order has on its men,
-bers. Events of great mag
nitude ripening in India and
Cochin-China swept me back
TO my post. Some 1000
LaScars served in the crews
of the British and German
ships for which Antwerp was
a regular port of call. These
Lascars formed the pipeline
through which the Comintern
pumped an incessant stream
of propaganda, instructions,
and rank-and-file agents into
all East Indian harborS.
In Comintern circles there
was already talk of The In
dian Revolution" Throughout
the Spring of 1880, many
Communists allowed them
selves TO become intoxicated
with the prospects of "capsiZ-
ing" the British Empire by
bringing the Soviets TO power
in India. There was street
fighting in Calcutta and other
towns. The newly-founded
Red Trade Union in India was
under the direction of the
Pan-Pacific Secretariat of the
Profintern, which the Ameri-
can Earl Browder had estab-
lished in 1927 in Shanghai
with funds allotted him by
Losovsky.
MUST GIVE UP ONE
My sense of duty toward
the revolution plunged me
into painful inner struggles.
Had L the right to draw
Firelei into such a life of con-
spiracy and violence She
meant infinitely more to me
than the luckless Hindus. But
j chung to the Comintern as a
peasant clings to the land of
his forbears. The Comintern
was the earth which gave me
life and purpose. And there
was Firelei-rooted in a diff
ferent soil.
1 wrestled with the thought
that she was far too good, too
fine. 10 be destroyed in the
Comintern service. l wrestled
with the idea that / must dis
card one 10 win. and TO keep.
the other. / was afraid of
the hidden weakness and po-
tential treachery which is the
heritage Of every human be-
inc. It seemed much simpler
TO persist in the unthinking
"Either-Or!" But where. l
asked myself, lay triumph,
and where defeat?
TOLD HER OF PRISON
-0He-AigAt-Fireiei- beeaf1e-
mine l told her that | had
been in prison. l told her
that | was in the employ of
the Communist International.
l told her that l was proud
10 be a revolutionist, and that
/ never would be anything
else. Firelei's point of view
was of chaste and youthful
idealiSm. Had not all the great
thinkers and poets and artists
been revolutionists at heart?
She knew nothing of the ugly
realism of the Communist
movement.
"When we gain power" L
said to her. "all human suf-
fering will end. Life will be
joyous. Oppression. marching
armies unjust laws, hunger
and wfetchedness will be re-
membered only as specters Of
a vanquished past"
Firelei had a woman's in
born compassion for noble
souls. l showed her a report
from the Belgian Congo, de-
scribing the fearful conditions
under which the wretched
natives were forced to work
IN the copper mines and cot
ton districts around Bama and
Leopoldsville.
ut l. against this inhuman-
ity that we are fighting" l
said.
ANOTHER REPORT
I showed Firelei another
report, dealing with the lives
Of Communists condemned by
Fascist courts to the prison of
Santo Stefano, an island five
miles from Naples. / told of
prisoners chained in the hold
Of a ship. of men who were
not permitted to see the sun
or TO hear a human voice year
after year. of sickness and
death in the dungeons, OF a
cemetery without names and
crosses on the farthest end
of the island. of bad food and
gendarmes grown vicious out
of boredom. Firelei had tears
in her eyes.
I'VE must rescue Them" I