December 6, 1999
Book on the lives of children of communists includes entries by three UCSC faculty
By Barbara McKenna
The news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is a touchstone memory for most
Americans, who can vividly remember where they were, what they were wearing, and
who they were with when they heard the news. One small group of Americans has another
touchstone memory, one that invaded their personal lives in an even more disturbing
way. They are red diaper babies--the children of American communists--whose young
worlds were shook with the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in 1953. After
all, the Rosenbergs, guilty or not, could have been their parents.
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In his essay, Wellman, a professor of community studies, writes, "For communist kids, whose parents were publicly identified as enemies of the state, minor transgressions could be cause for major alarm. I lived in mortal fear that, no matter how petty, my violations of 1950s morality would make me responsible for my mother being deported or my father going to jail."
Wellman's father, Saul, was a leader in the Michigan Communist Party and his mother, Peggy was an active member as well. When Wellman was a boy, his father went underground for two years before being caught and jailed. During his father's period of hiding, the Wellman family was the focus of intense FBI surveillance.
But even before his father became a fugitive, Wellman notes that there was a sensibility in his family of the lack of tolerance they faced as communists. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, in the 1950s, Wellman writes that his family "devoted considerable energy to fitting in." Wellman and his sister, Vicki, conformed so well, in fact, that they received the American Legion Award for "Americanism" in junior high. Although the media found irony in this, Wellman says his parents saw communism and American patriotism as perfectly compatible. His father was a war hero and his mother a Canadian immigrant. They were proud of their children for being model citizens.
Despite their upright behavior, the Wellmans became the target of government scrutiny. For several years, no matter where they went--school, sandlot baseball games, birthday parties--the Wellman kids could count on being shadowed by what Wellman describes as "two conspicuous men pretending to be inconspicuous." Because of phone tapping and bugs, the children learned never to say anyone's name over the phone and to go outside if something important needed to be discussed.
Some two years after going underground, Saul Wellman appeared on the front pages of the papers one day, pictured in chains in the custody of federal marshals. "He was charged with conspiring to 'teach and advocate' the violent overthrow of the United States government," Wellman says. "'Teach and advocate,' not act. He was being jailed for speaking, for thinking. In a very real sense it was an attack on the First Amendment." For years, Wellman says, "We lived in terror of losing both our parents." It seemed the children's nightmare might prove true when, two months after their father's arrest, their mother, Peggy, was also arrested and faced deportation. Although the family's attorney found a loophole that allowed their mother to stay, Wellman says that she had to report to the INS once a month until the day she died.
Much of Wellman's piece focuses on the Red Squad files--surveillance reports of the Detroit Police. After the years of intensive scrutiny he experienced, Wellman was shocked to find that his file revealed no insidious activities. Among the entries: "4-9-55: Subject attended a concert featuring Pete Seeger."
What Wellman concludes after seeing this report is that the government was not engaged in surveillance. "It was intimidation," he says. "The U.S. government constantly presented the Soviet Union as this terrible totalitarian state, but it was completely unrecognized how totalitarian this country had become. They were totally involved with and dominating the lives of a whole sector of people."
For Aptheker, a professor of women's studies and history, growing up with communist parents in Brooklyn, N.Y., in the 1940s and 50s was a very different experience from that of Wellman. Although her father, historian Herbert Aptheker, was blacklisted in 1938, the impacts on her childhood were more subtle, but not less substantial. Most significantly, her father, a brilliant historian with a degree from Columbia University, was unable to get a job after the blacklisting.
When Aptheker's father was called to testify before the McCarthy Senate committee she was seven. Seeing her father on television at her friend's house, Aptheker was excited and proud. But her friend's parents became suddenly cold, turned the TV off, and sent Aptheker home. After that her friend was forbidden to play with her anymore.
When the Rosenbergs were executed Aptheker was nine. The incident upset her relatively stable life. Her mother told Aptheker that her parents were communists and that she must never share this secret with anyone. The event hit close to home for Aptheker, who played with the Rosenberg children, Michael and Robby. From then on she carried the burden of silence and fear common to so many red diaper babies.
As a child, Aptheker never experienced the same kind of state scrutiny as Wellman. But in the 1960s, she did undergo intense FBI and Red Squad surveillance in Berkeley. She was a focus of surveillance both because of her parents' activism and her own political activity in the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, the antiwar movement, and the trial of Angela Davis.
Aptheker says she was deeply influenced by her parents' morality and courage and
joined the Communist Party herself as an adult. But as time progressed, she found
herself out of step with party values. When the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia,
only Aptheker and two others in the 120-member national committee opposed the invasion.
She also objected to the party's position on women's rights. "The party saw
women's liberation only in terms of the workplace," she explains. "They
had no position on domestic violence and there were huge debates on whether or not
to support the Equal Rights Amendment." The party was also homophobic. When
she began dating her girlfriend (who became her life partner), Aptheker says, "It
was clear I was no longer welcome."
Marge Frantz, a lecturer emerita of women's studies and American studies, grew up
in the 1920s and '30s in the Alabama. Although party members were quite open about
their affiliation in areas like New York, the Deep South was another story.
In her essay, Frantz writes, "We lived dangerously." She recalls a time
when her father tried to secure the release of a party member jailed for "possession
of seditious literature." Her father was kidnapped, driven 50 miles out of town,
stripped, and brutally beaten. Frantz also remembers death threats, a cross burning
on her front lawn, and gunshots fired through the windows of her house.
Although the political climate in the South was less tolerant of communism than in
other regions, Frantz feels the time she grew up in was less oppressive.
"I'm older than a lot of the people who wrote in the book. I lived through the
struggles in the '30s and a lot of the people in the book were young kids in the '50s,
in the McCarthy Era, and it was quite scary for them. A lot of parents didn't talk
about their beliefs."
Frantz, on the other hand, learned about communism from her parents and emulated
their activism. During a yearlong stay in New York when she was 13, Frantz joined
the National Student League and the Young Communist League at her high school. She
organized events and produced leaflets.
Among Frantz's positive memories of being in the movement is the music. "Our
movement was a singing movement," she writes. "We didn't listen to others
sing; we all sang together."
One time, during a youth convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Frantz heard a voice
coming from one of the tents along the lake singing a song that her parents had written.
"I couldn't believe my ears; I didn't know that anyone outside of Birmingham
had ever heard that song. It's a ballad with a lot of verses and hadn't ended when
I got to the tent and joined in. The tall, lanky singer sitting on the floor with
his banjo was equally surprised. 'How do you know it?' he asked. 'My mom and dad
wrote it. How do you know it?" 'I heard it in the Alan Lomax collection in the
Library of Congress.' I didn't know Dad had recorded it. The balladeer turned out
to be Pete Seeger, then unknown. Later, Pete came south and stayed with us while
he collected more songs."
Like Aptheker, neither Frantz or Wellman are members of the party today. Wellman
never joined, finding the party platform too staid, and Frantz left when the Khrushchev
report in 1956 brought to light the crimes of Stalinism. But, brought up with strong
value for social justice, all three continue to be prominent activists.
