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Aging Political Activists
David P Shuldiner, Aging Political Activists: Personal Narratives from the Old Left, Praeger, Westport, Conneticut, 1995, ISBN 0 275 95045 X, pp304.
In Aging Political Activists David Schuldiner presents a series of themed interviews with four former members of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) all of whom were active during the early Cold War era and all of whom are now well into their retirement years. Schuldiner's intention is to examine, through their own testimony, the development of these activists' notions of self — exploring how their identities, allegiances and senses of belonging have been formed, sustained and developed through decades of committed political work, both inside the CPUSA and without. Although published in the US some five years ago, this work of exploratory communist oral history appears little known on this side of the Atlantic. [1]
Introducing the interview transcripts he has gathered, Shuldiner suggests (importantly, if uncontroversially) that it is necessary to see the formation of a person's identity as a complex, dialectical and open ended process; as something which has to be conceived of as plural in essence — a multi-faceted sense of self upon which many influences are brought to bear. In the evolving identities of these lifelong political activists, Shuldiner argues that the critical senses of self that have clashed, merged and competed for pre-eminence at any given time are those of political, ethnic and religious affiliation, and work status — whether in paid in employment or unwaged and voluntary labour. All of these are further conditioned by the individual's experience of the ageing process and the perception they have of the developmental stage which their own life appears to have reached.
Although this methodological chapter covers its ground effectively, it does reveal some important limitations in approach. Because Schuldiner's primary concern is with the with 'public' arena of work and politics, he is less attuned to the influence that familial and other close personal relationships might be seen to exert in the shaping and maintainence of an individual's sense of identity and self-worth. Less easily accounted for is the minimal attention paid to the wider social, economic and structural contexts into which people are born, or the under-developed appreciation of the distinctions between what are potentially very different types of identity — positive and negative, or voluntary and compulsory, for instance — which is presented. Molly Andrews' 1991 study of the 'lifetimes of commitment' of a variety of elderly political activists in Britain offers a more confident and comprehensive discussion of these sorts of issues. [2]
The 'micro-study' of the life and work of CPUSA members in Connecticut that Schuldiner goes on to present remains, for these reasons and others discussed below, something of an uneven work. Full transcripts of all interviews collated in this research together comprise the bulk of the book, and these rich, candid and revealing narratives communicate a great deal about these interviewees' political and other life experiences. Interwoven in these oral autobiographies are reflective moments in which the interviewees are encouraged to disentangle the themes of commitment, belief, self-perception and presentation, and to think through the continuties and disruptions in their own sense of self-identity.
Any oral historian engaged in the collection of testimony from political activists of whatever hue, through the near-mandatory format of the 'semi-structured interview', can but empathise with the difficulties involved in trying to transpose abstract research questions into meaningful and productive personal encounters — especially ones which ensure that neither interviewer nor interviewee feels frustrated or badly served. Schuldiner is careful to include many descriptive and factual questions, and is clearly aware of the need to allow his interviewees sufficient space in which to communicate issues and events of particular importance to them. Yet when turning directly to his research concerns he sometimes poses questions that even the more articulate and self-aware of interviewees might struggle to answer intelligably. He asks — to take one of the more jarring examples — one interviewee to describe 'a sense of your evolving self, more specifically, your core self' in a question addressing the significance of a series of life changes.
Schuldiner's recognition that the 'identity' projected in a life history interview is, ultimately, a narrative 'construction' in which both interviewer and interviewee are collaboratively engaged, leads him to two important conclusions, neither of which seem wholly satisfactory.
Firstly, his argument that '[o]nly by examining the interviews in their entirety can one fully appreciate this process' (p5) is not an immediately self-evident one. It does, however, account for the editorial decision to include verbatim accounts of all of his interviews — something which leaves the reader rich in testimony but somewhat poorer in commentary and analysis. Secondly, Schuldiner's own efforts at 'deconstruction' are not entirely successful. He offers his interviewees the chance to revisit the recordings made during their initial interview session, to reflect anew on the testimony offered and the 'presentation of self' projected. In so small a group it then seems problematic that not all the interviewees take up this opportunity. Though one of the four does make some revealing comments about the sense of 'regret' he first communicated, Schuldiner does need to demonstrate why such exercises in self-critique, however instructive, can be relied upon to reveal purer 'truths' rather than newer 'constructions' in place of the old.
Although, given the book's focus, it is understandable why the author has forgone a contextual, historical chapter — locating his interviewees within the American communist and left movement's own timeline — he might still have described his method of interviewee selection more fully. All four of these former communists grew up, settled and were first politically active in Connecticut. All four were from jewish backgrounds. Each of them had quit the ranks of the CPUSA by 1960. All four interviewees have remained friends or close acquaintances — indeed, two of the four are husband and wife. None of which has meant that their lives have evolved in a uniform pattern. Diversity is particularly apparent in the areas of work and employment, the levels of political activity sustained within the party and left movement, the strength of secular jewish identity and the importance afforded it, and the precipitating reason for each individual's break with the Communist Party. Yet, as Schuldiner seeks to make few generalisable conclusions from his analysis of their testimonies, it might have enriched his approach to have included, for example, the voice of a 'senior' still attached to the party now mourning the death of its patriarch Gus Hall, or that of an elderly CPUSA member whose allegiance to the communist tradition was not broken until the traumas of 1989-91. Such voices would have provided different perspectives on the inter-relationships which tie together the experiences of ageing, commitment, belief and self-identity among those who have spent their political lives within the milieu of the 'old' American left.
As a collection of extended life testimonies this is a useful addition to the 'new' historiography of American communism. Schuldiner's thoughtful concluding observations on each individual's life choices are also lucid and well measured. As a study of the dynamics of ageing and identity among western communists or left-wing activists more generally, however, it makes for a less compelling read.
