Busman's Holiday

COCKNEY COMMUNIST (190 pp.)--Bob Darke--John Day ($3).

Bob Darke is neither a four-star writer, a triple-decker intellectual nor a two-timing spy. He is just a London bus conductor. But for 18 years Busman Darke was a member of the British Communist Party, and in Cockney Communist he tells a story that Communist writers, intellectuals and spies have skipped: how a middle-echelon party functionary lives and thinks.

Cockney Bob Darke joined the party at 22 to fight for a better world. He learned that, for a Communist, it got a lot worse before it got better. A Communist had to like what he was told was good, dislike what he was told was bad, belong to a union and its Communist cell (attending every meeting), join pro-Soviet organizations, turn out for street demonstrations, collect money for party causes, help sell the Worker, proselyte family and friends, if any. There were no holidays. If a comrade's wife complained, he was told: "Recruit her into the party. If she won't join, leave her."

Check & Double Check. Darke did all the things a good Communist is supposed to do, rose a bit in the hierarchy, was elected borough councilor of Hackney in London's East End. was an active member of half a dozen organizations, conducted his bus full time, and seldom saw his wife and children. It took him almost two decades to decide that he was acting like a "demented lunatic." Meanwhile, he wore his exhaustion from overwork proudly, like battle scars or a medal.

His thinking was like that of other dedicated Communists: the Revolution was final emancipation, and it could only be achieved through the party; whatever the party line said was so. Like others, Darke had casually checked his mind and doubts at the door. But since Marxist theology is both intricate and shifty, and the party demanding, many a well-meaning comrade came a cropper when faced with the gobbledygook that passes for dialectic.

Those guilty of sin, e.g., misinterpreting the party line or "too close an intimacy with bourgeois friends," were hauled before disciplinary courts where Communist justice was generously dispensed. The presiding Communist would shout: "Don't try to get out of this by making a speech. This isn't a bourgeois court of law. You've no legal rights here; you're a party comrade before a party court."

"Yes, Comrade . . ." One man, who made a common-sense decision on his own initiative, was brought to court on charges of disobeying the instructions of his borough secretary.

"Do you believe that a good Marxist must accept the party's decision as the only decision?" he was asked.

"Yes, I do, comrade."

"Do you believe that party discipline is based on the acceptance of the majority decision within the party?"

"Yes, I do. comrade'' ... No mention was made of the nature of the accused's action, but he left, after further abnegation, apparently convinced of his guilt.

After a period of doubt, intensified by his disagreement with the Communists over Korea, Darke answered a newsman's question with simple honesty. In a war between Russia and Britain, he admitted, he would fight for his country. Darke was promptly called upon to explain his "deviation." But he had no intention of facing the farce of a party court, and simply mailed in his resignation. When his wife heard the news, she said, "Thank God it's all over."

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