My father started his working life as a farm labourer, but marriage and family responsibilities compelled him to seek work in the pits where the earning prospects were a little better... We lived then in a small cottage at the foot of the drive up to the Pentwyn farm. Father worked in the Cymmer colliery, Porth, and travelled by train each day from Taffs Well railway station, a distance of about two and a half miles from where we lived, which he walked to and fro each working shift. He always worked on the afternoon shift and the folk living in the village of Tangwynlais, through which he passed each day, used to say they could set their clocks by him, so punctual was he. He was an onsetter at the pit bottom, which, although a very busy job, was considered light employment. He had previously been a skilled miner but an accident had caused him to lose one of his eyes. I only knew him as a one-eyed man. Following the accident, the injured eye had to be removed, apparently to save the sight of the remaining eye, and this caused him great distress. Years later, mother told us that this period, when he feared he might go blind, produced in him such a nervous state that for years he suffered from chronic asthma, but as his fear subsided and his confidence returned so his asthma abated. He commuted his claim to compensation for the disability for a lump sum of £ 100, and this, together with another £80 or £90 he received from a collection by the men employed at the pit, he placed in the Post Office as a reserve against the possibility of going blind. Collections at the pit were a regular feature and were organized by the local lodge of the union and the proceeds distributed among miners who had been idle for long periods due to accidents sustained in the pit. His Post Office reserve was not touched - but was added to when my brother and I started work -until the lock-outs of 1921 and 1926, when it was drawn upon to help keep us. He lived until he was eighty years of age and retained quite good sight in his one eye to the end. Mother lived until she was past eighty-five years of age.

I worked for the first year in the Coedely colliery which was situated a little outside the actual Rhondda valley. The pits were then working a six-day week of eight hours plus one winding-time each shift. The average winding-time was then more than half an hour, which meant on average men being down the pit for eight and a half hours each day. There were no buses or other transport to take us the two and a half miles or so from Trebanog to the pit, neither were there pit-head baths. On the morning shift, we were roused from bed at about 4.20 am to dress and walk to the pit, collect the pit lamp, and be down into the pit before 6 am. This shift would start to ascend at 2 pm which meant, with the uphill walk we had, getting home at around 4 pm. By the time we had got out of our pit clothes and bathed, more than twelve hours would have passed since we put them on. It was a state of affairs in which we were living only to work, with little opportunity for any other interests. Anyone's first impressions of working in a coal-mine are unlikely to be favourable; mine certainly were not. There were even one or two occasions when tears fell. On one such occasion, the man with whom I was working at the coal-face was obliged by the custom of the pit to take charge of a pit pony to haul empty trams into and full trams out from the working places. At intervals, he contrived to come into the coal-face to help prepare coal for me to fill into the tram. During one of his periods of absence I accidentally caused my lamp to overturn and go out. I was `in the dark' as they say in the pit. It is hard to describe this darkness of the pit. It is absolute blackness, impenetrable and eerie. Sounds appear to be magnified, the creaks of roof movement sounding like cracks of doom and the falling of loose pieces of coal from the front of the coal-face becoming frightening crashes, noises that are normal to the pit, heard and ignored in the presence of some light or company. The man and boy in the next working place could not hear my shouts and the tears came as I had to crawl in the darkness, feeling my way as best I could until they were able to hear me. The tears were not just because of the darkness, but getting " in the dark" caused a delay in coal-getting for two sets of colliers, since a lamp had to be borrowed so that the one without light could be taken back to a depot, usually a good distance from the coal-face, to be re-lighted, and piecework earnings for both sets could be affected.

In the mining village of Trebanog, as in most mining communities, the people could be separated into two main streams - those who went to chapel and those who did not. Most of my friends during this period were "chapel boys", not because of any deep religious conviction but out of deference to our parents, in my case to mother, who was deeply religious. I went to chapel three times on Sunday, and Band of Hope prayer meetings and Young People's Guild on three nights a week. It was accepted as a duty and on more than one occasion my brother and I were called from cricket or football to attend such week-night religious occasions. In fact, a group of us young lads and girls became members of the chapel when we were about sixteen years old. We were pressured into this during a visit to the chapel of a "hellfire and damnation" revivalist a short time before the lock-out in 1921. I suppose the evangelist had to get results in some way and we became rather easy additions to the number of converts he could claim to have made, in order, I discovered later, to justify the high fee he was being paid.

None of us had deep religious feelings, in fact we considered that Darwin offered a better explanation for man's existence on Earth than the Bible and as a class of young men in the Sunday School we were involved in many arguments with the resident minister on: the subject. At one time we had a Christian Socialist as a teacher and when the head deacon discovered this, he forcibly ejected him from the Sunday School! I renounced my membership of the chapel following the 1926 General Strike and miners' lock-out and this caused my mother a great deal of anguish. I remember coming home from the pit one afternoon to find the resident minister waiting for me. I was tired, hungry, in sweaty pit clothes, and certainly in no mood for a discussion on religion. He tried his best to get me to change my attitude and return to the chapel. Finally he got down on his knees, pulling my mother and me down with him, and prayed for my salvation. Mother started to cry and I became very angry, yanking the minister unceremoniously to his feet, telling him as best I could that I would never respond to such methods. He then told me the story of a similar experience he had had in another mining valley of a lad like me refusing God, and how on the day following his talk with him, while he was walking down the street, the minister saw men carrying a body from the pit. It was this young lad, who, in the minister's words, had "rejected his eleventh hour chance of salvation".

I recount this aspect of my background because, looking back, I feel it had an inhibiting influence on my personal involvement in the mining battles of the period. We were concerned with being considered respectable and well-behaved, not bad things in themselves, except for the snobbishness they created. To harass blacklegs or risk falling foul of the police was regarded as a blemish on the character. This artificial detachment from unpleasant events, plus a native shyness and reserve delayed, I am sure, my participation in the affairs of the trade union and in politics. I was intensely interested in both long before I plucked up sufficient courage to face family opposition and become publicly identified with activities that were not always popular.

I was in Moscow when Hitler came to power, having arrived there in December 1932. A little time previously I had attended a Communist Party school in Abbey Wood, Kent, which lasted for several weeks. It was at this school that I first came to know John Gollan, now the British national secretary of the Communist Party. He had arrived at the school straight from serving a prison sentence for distributing allegedly seditious literature to soldiers. After leaving the school he became the leader of the Young Communist League, and I was given the opportunity to continue my studies of political economy and social history in Moscow.

I left London on a Soviet ship in the company of a number of other students and we spent four or five days on a very interesting trip going through the Kiel Canal and up the Baltic Sea to Leningrad. It was especially interesting and exciting for me because it was my first sea voyage (unless one counts day trips on a paddle steamer from Cardiff to Weston-super-Mare as a sea voyage) and I was going to a socialist country...

The Communist International, or Comintern as it was called, operated as a central coordinating organization for the national Communist parties. The Communist Party of Germany had been driven underground by Hitler and the Nazis and its leadership imprisoned or dispersed. The Comintern was anxious to do everything it could to assist not only the German communists but the anti-fascist movement as a whole. I was one among those who, following discussions with the Comintern, volunteered to act as a courier for financial and other assistance. I left Moscow for Berlin early in June 1933, proceeding by a somewhat devious route.

The first stage of my journey took me via Finland to Stockholm where I was to meet someone who would advise me upon the next stage. In the train journey through Finland, I had a rather interesting experience. At the Russo-Finnish border, a number of Finnish soldiers boarded the train and one young officer seemed to take notice of me, and was obviously interested in some copies of The Listener which had been sent out to me and which I was reading. He came over to sit by me and it turned out that he spoke very good English. He was interested in radio and explained that he was a radio "ham" and had a regular contact with a radio enthusiast in Britain. He was aggressively anti-communist and pro-Hitler and I got the impression that he was a member of a Finnish fascist organization. He was curious to know what I had been doing in the Soviet Union and I pitched the tale that I was a mining engineer working for a British firm with a contract to install mining machinery, returning to Britain for a short holiday. He was very kind and took me to his flat in Helsinki, gave me breakfast and showed me his radio transmitting equipment. I have often wondered since whether this and other similar encounters during my travels were as innocent as they then appeared. When I finally arrived back in Britain, the Special Branch seemed to be well-informed about my movements.

Stockholm, where I had to stay for some weeks before I could move on, is a beautiful city and I spent my time wandering around it or lazing near the sea, enjoying a glorious summer holiday. But the time came for me to leave for Berlin and this was the part of the job that could be dangerous. I went from Sweden by ferry across to Stettin and from there by train down to Berlin. I booked into Lloyds Hotel, to find to my extreme dismay that the proprietor spoke fluent English and was an ardent supporter of Hitler. He claimed that a new equality between workers and their employers was being encouraged, and that in his establishment the servant girls now had their meals at the same table as he and his family!

I had been given an address at which I was expected to call and identify myself. The means of identification was a small piece of notepaper torn in half. I assumed that whoever I was going to meet would have the other half. Of course, this all appears highly conspiratorial but precautions were necessary, since Germany, and Berlin in particular, were at that time anything but a haven of peace and rest for communists, and I was one, engaged in anti-Nazi activity. Berlin was a frightening experience with brownshirts and stormtroopers everywhere. The people seemed in the grip of a hysteria which is hard to explain. In the streets, children and adults of all ages wore the swastika arm-bands, and lifted their arms in the Nazi salute on passing anyone, so that, in the busy streets in the centre of the city arm-raising was an almost constant motion. This salute was a must if one wanted to avoid being stopped and questioned, and I saluted like a robot - being anxious to avoid questioning. Almost every day one could read in the English newspapers of a foreigner being beaten up by fanatics for failing to observe some rite or other. I took no such risks for obvious reasons and spent heavily from my daily subsistence allowance in buying pamphlets whenever I was stopped by those selling them.

To get the address where I was to meet a representative of the German underground movement, I had to pass alongside the Alt Moabit prison where it was reported Thaelman and other leaders of the Communist Party were imprisoned. It was an ugly and depressing sight, with machine guns mounted on its high walls, and manned by stormtroopers, and a scene that did nothing to boost my confidence. However, I eventually reached the address which turned out to be a tobacconist's shop. I waited until the shop was empty before going in. Inside was an elderly woman and a young man, whom I assumed were mother and son. I handed them my piece of paper and they seemed startled and started a whispered consultation. The young man then came to me and ushered me into a small room behind the counter speaking to me in German, of which I was unable to understand a single word. He locked the door behind him as he left and I could only sit there and wait. Although I could not be sure, I had a feeling that these were the people I had to meet and that I was not being locked in to await a stormtrooper. When the door did eventually open, it was to admit a tall young man who came in with extended hand and saying genossen which I interpreted to mean "comrade". To say I was relieved would be an understatement. I was both relieved and delighted that I had succeeded in my mission of providing some aid to this representative of the underground anti-fascist movement. I was conscious, too, that any risks I was taking were as nothing compared to those he and those like him were taking every day. I could not then have known that the aid we hoped would help rebuild the anti-Hitler movement would not achieve this.

The South Wales District of the CPGB was asked in March to choose a suitable member of their Committee with a thorough trade union background as a political commissar to look after the British Battalion's interests at the International Brigades' headquarters at Albacete and also to handle personal and other related problems." It appears however that the major task was to sort out the problems existing in the Battalion leadership and to make recommendations for the reorganisation of the Battalion. The CPGB in particular was disturbed by reports of disobedience and desertion among the British volunteers, some of whom were captured and imprisoned at the Albacete base."

In the District Committee discussion, a number of candidates were considered although no great enthusiasm appears to have been shown by any of them except Lewis Jones, but he was physically unfit and was indispensable as a propagandist... Len Jefferies was almost chosen, but in common with Phil Abrahams (imprisoned in 1935), it was probably considered unfair to ask for a further personal sacrifice when he had only been released from jail in June 1935 after three years of penal servitude. It was ultimately considered that Will Paynter had the "necessary qualifications". He was a former Cymmer Colliery checkweighman, political prisoner in 1931, three times a Hunger Marcher, trained in Moscow's Lenin School and elected the first unemployed miner to the SWMF rank-and-file executive in 1936, he appeared to be the obvious choice. He did however accept "without any great enthusiasm", as he had only recently married. His wife was nevertheless a deeply committed Communist, and had been involved in the anti-fascist disturbance in Tonypandy in June 1936. He stayed for some time in London where he was more thoroughly briefed on his tasks in the Battalion." He arrived at the front with Ted Bramley of the London District of the CPGB early in May.

You have probably been expecting to hear from me before now, but the fact is, as you can well imagine, the state of things out here keeps a fellow pretty well occupied. The full story of what is happening to and with our lads out here will probably not be fully told until it is all over. This war, I suppose, has the same scenes of devastation, desolation, misery and suffering, that are characteristic of all wars. To those who are close to it, it is real and moving, and it appears more clearly not merely as a conflict of armies, but as a conflict in which masses of men, women and children take part.

To read the newspapers in England, one gets the mental picture of uniformed soldiers, the rattle of machine-gun fire, the hum of aeroplanes and the crash of bombs. Such is a very incomplete picture. The real picture is seen more in the drab scenes, in the less inspiring and less terrifying aspects. To see twenty or thirty little children in a small peaceful railway station, fatherless and motherless, awaiting transportation to a centre where they can be better cared for, is to get a picture of misery. To see middle-aged and old women with their worldly belongings tied within the four corners of a blanket, seeking refuge from a town or village that has been bombed, is to get a picture of havoc and desolation. To see long queues of women and children outside the shops patiently waiting to get perhaps half a pound of soap or a bit of butter, is to get a picture of the privation and suffering entailed.

Yet even this is not complete, because despite this, and as a result of it, you see the quiet courage and determination of the people as a whole. Is is a common sight to see the peasant farmer working in the olive groves or the ploughed field within the range of rifle or machine-gun fire; to see gangs of men right behind the lines who are tirelessly working to build new roads; to see men and women who remain behind in villages under fascist artillery fire in order to care for the wounded. Everywhere you see a people who by courage, self-sacrifice and ceaseless labour, are welded together by the common aim of maintaining freedom and liberty from fascist barbarism.

Havoc and ruin caused by Franco and the combined fascist Powers, but over and above it, the unconquerable loyalty and devotion of the Spanish people to the cause of democracy. This is crystalized vividly in the events in Spain today. There is a section who would promote disloyalty and disunity, but they are substantially uninfluential and futile. The vast support for the new Government is proof of this. This section will be crushed, not merely in the formal sense by the Government, but by the invincible loyalty of the whole people....

It is here that you realize that a battle is in progress not merely to defend a people from a savage aggressor, but to destroy something that if allowed to advance will eventually crush the people of all democratic countries....

From it all emerges one thing at least, and that is that the International Brigade and the British Battalion as part of it, is not some noble and gallant band of crusaders come to succour a helpless people from an injustice, it is the logical expression of the conscious urge of democratic peoples for self-preservation. No-one would deny that the Brigade has had a tremendous and inspiring effect upon the morale and fighting capacity of the Spanish people. Yet no-one would claim that it was done out of pity, or as a chivalrous gesture of an advanced democratic people. The Brigade is the historic answer of democratic people to protect their democracy, and the urgency of the need for that protection would warrant an even greater response.

The British government was the main instigator of the non-intervention policy and it used political pressure on other European countries to join the Non-Intervention Committee of European Powers. I can recall some of the main arguments used at the time by those who supported non-intervention. Support for the legal government of Spain, it was said, could incite the fascist powers to attack other European countries and could result in large-scale war. As events proved, their policy led to a world war. There were others who held that it was a war between fascism and communism and why not let them destroy each other? Then there were those who believed that by non-intervention on the part of Britain and other countries, Germany and Italy would feel bound to honour a similar policy toward Franco. There were those of us, on the other hand, who saw this war as the opening shots in the fascist powers' attempt to conquer the world. These arguments, dressed up to meet modern circumstances, are in essence similar to arguments now being advanced to justify the hydrogen bomb, the war in Vietnam, wage restraint or anti-trade union legislation, and the contention that opposition on these issues if successful could give rise to something even worse.

It was against this political background - indeed, because of it - that thousands of anti-fascist fighters from all over the world went into Spain to fight alongside the loyal Spaniards. It was from this spontaneous surge of volunteers that the International Brigade was established and became the basis on which the British battalion was built. The government of this country really descended to the lowest of political depths in their efforts to stop recruitment to the International Brigade. Early in January 1937 they amended the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870 so that it would apply to volunteers to fight in Spain. The Act provided penalties of up to two years imprisonment and heavy fines upon those who breached its provisions. Not only did they take action in Britain but they used their influence to get the powers in the European Non-Intervention Committee to follow their lead. Any kind of aid to the legally elected government was denied, and this was at a time when the press of the country was carrying stories of the build-up of thousands of soldiers and officers, tanks, heavy artillery, aeroplanes and other modern military equipment by Hitler and Mussolini. But recruitment, although now less open, continued and a steady flow of volunteers crossed the channel en route for Spain, erasing at least some of the shame that was Britain's, caused by the actions of its government...

In March 1937, following the battles in defence of Madrid with the British battalion in the thick of them, the need was discussed in South Wales for a representative to go out to look after the battalion's interests at the International Brigade's headquarters, and to deal with individual and other problems. It was considered advisable to select someone with a trade union background and connections, and I was thought to have the necessary qualifications. I accepted but, I must confess, without any great enthusiasm as I had got married only a few weeks before. However, once the decision was taken I proceeded to London where I was more fully briefed on the situation of the battalion and from there embarked for Spain...

During the months I spent in Spain, both Arthur Horner and Harry Pollitt visited the battalion. Both were popular with the men and were welcomed warmly. They came loaded with messages from home and information on what was taking place in the campaign for aid to Spain and other news that was not reported in the Spanish newspapers. Not only were these visits important for the men at the front but they were even more important for the wounded in hospital, as well as for the British nurses and doctors there.

Before leaving this brief account of the British battalion in Spain let me give a short description of the type of men who volunteered and whom I found good to know. There was Steve Nelson of the American battalion, who served through the whole campaign, and who, when he returned to America, wrote his account of the Spanish Civil War, published in 1953, just as he was sentenced to a twenty year stretch of imprisonment for possessing seditious literature, then Bob Thompson, who went back from Spain later to serve with the American army in the world war and to win their highest award, the Purple Heart, only to be refused a grave with the war heroes of America when he died prematurely. There was also Peter Daly to whom I was personally attracted both because he was Irish, and because he had worked for a short spell in the pits around Gorseinon, near Swansea. When only fourteen years old Peter joined the IRA and soon

became a lieutenant. In 1922 he was wounded and taken prisoner by the Irish Free State Army. He lay in goal for seventeen months and was only released after maintaining a hunger strike for eighteen days. He later joined a Welsh regiment but he was discovered smuggling arms back to Ireland and had to flee there for safety. He died of wounds in the fighting at Belchite on the Aragon front. Fred Copeman, battalion commander through the Jarama battles, was one of the leaders of the Invergodon mutiny in 1931, when the sailors' pay was cut. Jack Jones of the Rhondda, who was forty years old when he climbed over the Pyrenees into Spain, was captured and imprisoned in Burgos gaol before being released after the war had ended; and Harry Dobson, with whom I had worked closely in the Rhondda, quiet and unassuming but a great comrade, who died of wounds on the Ebro in 1938. These are only some of the men whose background I knew personally, but they were typical of the quality of the men who volunteered from Britain.

A young friend of mine has made a study of the volunteers from South Wales.' There were altogether 170 volunteers from Wales, and 116 of them came from the mining industry, around 25 per cent of them union officials at pit level. Amongst them were leaders of hunger marches and three of them had led stay-down strikes against company unionism, the industrial form of fascism which raised its head in certain pits in the South Wales coalfield following the 1926 lock-out. The average age was over thirty and 18 per cent of the Welsh volunteers were married. The South Wales miners provided the largest regional occupational group in the whole battalion.

I feel that in seconding this resolution on behalf of the Mineworkers Federation I have a special capacity to do so, first because I happen to be one who has served with the International Brigade, and secondly, because I am a representative of the organization to which the General Secretary a few moments ago paid a very glowing tribute for its work on behalf of the Spanish people.

It must be clear to every delegate in this Congress that the issue in Spain is one of which the outcome will not only determine the destinies of the people of Spain; it must be clear to everyone that the outcome of the conflict in Spain will involve the destinies of the people of all countries.... The conquest of Spain can well mean the commencement of further attacks upon other European democracies, and therefore I am pleading with this Congress that we should regard this matter not merely as one of solidarity, but as an issue of self-preservation for our trade unions in this country.

In this Congress this week we have been facing the problems that arise in our factories and our industries. May I tell you that one of the biggest problems in the Spanish factories today is the problem of fainting. Working men and women are fainting at the lathes, at the point of production, because of hunger. That hunger is the consequence not merely of the attack that is being made by the combined fascist powers; it is the consequence of the encouragement and support that those fascist powers have received from the Government of our country. While we can pay our tribute to the heroism and self-sacrifice of the Spanish people, while we are confident that they will not give up without resistance one inch of their territory, or one inch of their rights, let us appreciate, too, that we cannot expect the people of Spain to fight a combination that includes the Government of this country. That is our responsibility.

I want to tell you of one experience which happened almost twelve months ago this week. I was returning from the front to a little town called Tortosa - a town that today has been completely demolished by aerial bombardment. On that summer afternoon as we entered the town we were confronted with the spectacle of women and children fleeing from it. Out of the air had swept a squadron of fascist planes. Their objective was to bomb a certain railway bridge across the river. The river was dry, and we were astounded to see some women with a terrible look of anguish on their faces rushing towards the river bed beneath the course of the aeroplanes. We were to learn the reason for their anguish. There in the dry river bed, playing in the sand, were between twenty and thirty little children and in less time than it takes me to repeat this story in this Congress twenty to thirty little children were blown to fragments on that summer afternoon. In the town of Tortosa there was not one anti-aircraft gun that the military forces could use to keep away those aeroplanes. The protection of that anti-aircraft gun was denied to those little children, not because there is an absence of self-sacrifice or heroism on the part of the Spanish people, but because there is too great a timidity inside the working class movement of this country in its actions against the National Government, upon whom must be placed the responsibility for the deaths of those little children.

The Spanish people are facing terrific odds. I have served with them as a member of the British battalion, and let us not forget in this Congress that in the British battalion are many hundreds who are members of the trade unions represented at this Congress. Many of them have realized that the war in Spain is a war that will eventually determine the destinies of their own kith and kin in this country. I want to plead with all the earnestness at my command, as one who has seen the terrible suffering in Spain as a consequence of the arms embargo, who has seen helpless people being murdered and mutilated without the means of defending themselves, as one who has lain on his stomach and seen the Italian aeroplanes above, seen the silvery bombs being released, heard them screaming as they descended to the earth, and wondered whether it was his last moment on earth, and has deliberated upon the virtues of a supposed so-called non-intervention for which this Government has been responsible.

In conclusion, I plead with the General Council and with the delegations of the various trade unions, that they will identify themselves in the localities, nationally and internationally, with any and every movement that gives us the chance to exert the maximum pressure upon this Government in order to bring about a reversal of its policy and greater succour and aid to the distressed people of Spain.

I must frankly confess that I did not look forward to retirement with any relish. I was afraid of the effect of both physical and mental idleness. I gave some consideration to a post I had been offered before my actual retirement early in December, as a part-time member of a nationalized industry, but could not accept it, for to do so would have been to repudiate policies with which I had been identified for most of my life...

At this point I should explain that when I retired from my job in the union I also retired from the Communist Party. In fact I informed the Edgware branch dues collector of my decision early in December, long before I was approached to take a full-time job. This was not a sudden decision but was in accordance with a family understanding decided on many years before. There is, I suppose, an advantage in having a relatively unusual name during ballots or elections because it is easily remembered, but when one is on the receiving end of public hostility, as I was from time to time, this can be a handicap and was the cause of some unpleasantness not only for me but for members of my family. I was very often the subject of attack from newspapers, the medium through which so many people derive their opinions. The worst experience came during the Hungarian uprising, when it became risky for me to go into my local pub where I had been going for years because this hostility against me threatened to become violent. I was fortunate in having some good hefty friends. But the position became extremely difficult for my older sons who were then attending grammar school. I did not know of it until later, but they had a bad time until their headmaster got to hear of it and intervened to stop it. Feelings against me and my family had been incited by an open letter published in the South Wales edition of the Empire News, a Sunday paper being published in Cardiff during 1956. The letter, written by Mr David Llewellyn, then Member of Parliament for Cardiff North, associated me as a communist with the bloodshed in Budapest, the murder of little children and the other terrible things that were happening there. In the family discussions about this situation I had to make my position clear. It was not possible for me to leave the Communist Party just because such intimidation was being directed against me; it would be cowardly and unprincipled to leave in such circumstances. At the time, however, it would have been easy to take such a decision and I almost did at one point during this harrowing experience, but found that I just could not. Attempts to force me to take a decision provoke the opposite reaction in me. Nor could I take such a step either then or now, knowing that it would be used to support unprincipled attacks on the Communist Party. I despise ex-communists who lend themselves to such attacks.