How
I Became a Communist Sympathizer
An
Interview with Wolf Larsen
from the book Capitalism Sucks!
Question: So when did you get interested in politics?
Answer: The first time I remember being interested in
politics was when I was about six years old.
I was in Chicago. I was watching
a building on the street in front of me burn down. It seemed like buildings were always burning
down on the streets in front of our house – much of it was arson – and I could
see it all from the window. The
buildings in front of our house were part of the ghetto. Anyway, as I watched yet another building
burning down I decided I wanted to be the mayor of Chicago, so I could change
things.
Q.
So you wanted to be mayor of your hometown of Chicago at the age of six – how
come you never ran for political office then?
A. Later, when I became older, that is when I
became a teenager, I became disgusted with politicians and I changed my
mind. I decided I never ever wanted to
be a politician!
Q.
So you're saying you'll never run for political office?
A. If I ran for political office it would be so
that I could talk about the issues facing working-class people and poor people
in our country. If I won, I would
immediately resign.
Q.
Well that would be a first, somebody resigning the minute they won office. Really, that's what you would do?
A. If I ran for political office it would be to
talk about racism, or rather the racist oppression of black people, the
oppression of gays and women and immigrants, and especially the oppression of
working-class people and poor people of all colors. In addition, I would speak out against all
these wars. And if I won I would resign
– immediately. The reason I would resign
is that you can't change the system by just electing another politician. We have to throw the capitalist system in the
garbage can – we need a workers revolution.
Q.
You sound like a communist. Are you a
communist?
A. I've been told that I'm not a communist
because I'm not a member of any political group. I don't speak for any political group or
tendency. However, I do sympathize with
the October Revolution of 1917. I
sympathize with the politics of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. I have known communists and have admired
them. I do not consider the official
so-called quote unquote Communist Party to be communist. They act more like some left-wing auxiliary
of the Democrats.
Q.
So you're not a communist, but you sympathize with the politics of communism?
A. Yes, that's true.
Q.
How long have you been a communist sympathizer?
A. Ever since I was a teenager. Events occurred that made me disgusted with
capitalism and capitalist politicians. I
worked for the political campaign of Harold Washington when I was quite young –
Harold Washington was the first black mayor of Chicago. I think I was 11 years old, who knows, maybe
I was the youngest volunteer in his political campaign. Anyway, after he was elected nothing changed
– or rather things changed but only for the worse. Chicago begin to hemorrhage good paying union
blue-collar jobs, of course it would have happened regardless of whether the
mayor was black or white. It was then
that I begin to realize that it didn't matter who was in office. The problem is that the capitalist system is
inherently awful, and that the capitalist system is a piece of garbage that has
to be thrown away. But this is only one
factor amongst many that led me to reject the Democratic Party and to move
politically leftwards.
Q.
What were some of the other factors that led you to reject the Democrats and
move leftwards as you put it?
A. Tens of thousands of steel workers losing
their jobs at the stroke of some CEO's pen – that was a huge factor in helping
me realize that the capitalist system had to go.
Q.
Was your family economically affected by the mass layoffs in your hometown?
A. Yes.
My family designed machinery for Chicago's industry. However, compared to the steel workers losing
their jobs – well for them it was much worse.
Q.
You mentioned that there were many factors that caused you to move leftwards
politically as a young person, could you discuss those other factors as well?
A. I grew up in a neighborhood that was
completely surrounded by the black ghetto.
It was not a white enclave – our neighborhood was racially integrated,
and still is. However, being surrounded
by poverty from the youngest age definitely helped me see that something was
seriously wrong with the status quo. At
first, I believed as a child it was possible to reform the system to help the
poor and disadvantaged. But when I
reached adolescence I realized I was wrong.
Before I became an adolescent I had the politics of my parents – liberal
Democrat politics – but with adolescence comes independent thinking, and when I
started to think for myself I realized that the Democrats were full of shit
just like the Republicans.
Q.
So being surrounded by poverty as well as mass layoffs in the steel industry in
your hometown and dissatisfaction with politicians drove you to the left –
anything else?
A. When I was a teenager I began to devour
books. At first, I devoured all kinds of
books on history and biographies and stuff like that. As time went on I began reading Lenin, Marx,
and Engels. I was bored in class so I
would often read a book under the desk while the teacher went on about whatever
he was going on about. Reading was
another factor – a very important factor – that moved me to the left.
Q.
And what if anything did you do with your new leftist ideas?
A. At first nothing – I just read and read. I also discussed and argued politics with
others, that sort of thing. Then
something horrible happened that pushed me into political activism.
Q.
What was that horrible thing that helped push you into political activism?
A. In May 1985 Wilson Goode, the first black
mayor of Philadelphia, murdered a dozen black activists in cold blood and
managed to burn down over 60 homes in a black working-class community in the
process. I thought that was really
something – the politicians weren't content with bombing innocent people in
other countries – now they were bombing Americans. Who bombs their own country? And what irritated me all the more is that
most of the white liberals and black nationalists were not even outraged about
it – because a black politician did it – a black Democrat. If a white Republican had murdered a dozen
black activists on Striver's Row and burned down over 60 homes on Striver's Row
in the process you know all those black nationalists and white liberals would
be outraged about it – and for good reason.
But if a black Democrat murders a dozen black activists it's politically
correct – that's disgusting! If a black
Democrat is responsible for over 60 homes in a black working-class neighborhood
burning to the ground then the white liberals and black nationalists don't say
a thing. That's disgusting! I was so disgusted with white liberalism and
black nationalism at that point that I became open-minded to left
politics. And shortly afterwards I came
across a group waving red flags and selling newspapers. They said they were communists. I bought their newspaper and later I became
involved with them.
Q.
What do you mean you became involved with them?
A. I sold newspapers that were supposedly
communist. I talked politics with people
– a lot of people. I marched into
Marquette Park Chicago which is a white enclave with a couple of other hundred
people chanting "Death to the Klan" when the Ku Klux Klan decided to
march there. I went to the San Joaquin
Valley in California to organize farm workers into a so-called red union. In retrospect, I now realize that group was
not communist. I now realize that
so-called red unions are bullshit. But I
was 16 years old and I didn't know any better.
Q.
So your politics have changed?
A. Yes.
That first group I was active with was Stalinist. I didn't completely understand the
differences between Stalinism and Trotskyism at the time. After all I was only 16 years old. Later I rejected Stalinism. The Stalinists are too uptight about
sex! Their politics are similar to the
politics of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union – which is enough to
make one want to vomit! Trotskyists are
more like the original Bolsheviks that led the revolution in Russia in 1917. Trotskyists defend gay rights, they support
women's right to an abortion, they're fine with free love, etc. The fact that
many of the new-"left"-overs have become such sexual Puritans made
the Trotskyists seem pretty cool to me.
The Trotskyists also defended the Soviet Union militarily against the
United States, and since we were living in the United States during the period
of the Cold War I thought that was pretty brave! It made sense to me. The Stalinist bureaucracy had to go – but not
the Soviet Union – not the worker's state itself.
Q.
But isn't that irrelevant now that the Soviet Union has collapsed?
A. No.
Because the same groups that were too weak to defend the Soviet Union
during the Cold War will be too weak to take principled stands on issues both
in the present and in the future. I
remember when I was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that at
rallies people would be chanting "Let the communist speak! Let the communist speak!" because the
liberals never wanted to let us speak out in opposition to the Cold War.
Q.
Really? The liberals supported the Cold
War?
A.
Yes they did. The liberals were firmly
committed to the Democrats and the Democrats were firmly committed to the Cold
War. The Democrats and liberals were just
as anti-Communist or almost as anti-Communist as the right-wing conservative
Republicans that they were constantly criticizing. Liberals hate to have their politics attacked
from the left! Liberals often trample
upon the free speech rights of those who criticize them from the left – at
least that was my experience when I was politically active.
Q.
So you're not politically active anymore?
A. No, but maybe that will change.
Q.
I understand that you're a writer. Could
you talk about some of the other books you've written.
A.
All of the books I've written so far have been very different than this
one. Only some of those books are
conventional – meaning that they have a
traditional plot. Two of my books are
mostly autobiographical – those books
are Unalaska Alaska and Travel around the World? Why Not? Then I have a lot of other books which are
neither conventional nor autobiographical – they
are experimental works of prose, poetry, theater, and whatnot. These are often works of imagination. They are not realistic. They're meant to take the reader into a kind
of fantasy world. They're meant to help
the reader temporarily escape the drudgery and realities of life. As much as possible I try to make these works
fun for the reader. However, I do not
live in a vacuum. The horrible nightmare
of the world we live in today to some extent affects what I write. So some of my creative works have a
nightmarish quality to them because the world we live in is a nightmare.
Q.
Why do you say the world is a nightmare?
A. I've traveled to over 50 countries. I've seen a lot of suffering. On top of that there is simply too much war. And it's scary to think that the United
States and Russia still have huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons that threaten
the human race with extinction. It's a
nightmare. There are so many beautiful
things in the world, but there are a lot of problems in the world as well. There are so many things that must be
changed. Change will come from the
working-class. The working class has the
power to change the world.
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