My Polish Spring

By Heather Campbell

‘My Polish Spring’ is the memoir of Heather Campbell, who lived and worked in post-war communist Poland with her scientist husband, Ian. I
an was raised in a family with communist ideals in the 1930s, their political outlook formed by the suffering of the First World War, the economic mayhem of the Great Depression, and the belief that communism would be the most effective bulwark against the rise of Nazism and Far Right politics. Heather herself came from a privileged background, but developed the same political stance as her future husband as a result of her work in factories during the Second World War. After their marriage in 1950, Heather and Ian felt that they should commit to their political beliefs by moving to a communist country, where they would take part in the building of an egalitarian socialist state. Moving to Poland in 1951, Ian and Heather worked at the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Institute of Oncology in Warsaw.
 ‘My Polish Spring’ relates the couple’s experiences, their increasing disillusionment with the injustices perpetrated by a Stalinist state, and their admiration for the courage of the Polish people, before their eventual return to England in 1959.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Mar 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781784629410

Book preview

AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1: BASTILLE DAY

The Eiffel Tower cast its long shadow over Paris as the summer sun descended. It was early July and the day had been hot and tiring, so we stopped at a cafe for cooling drinks. Soon the conversation picked up. We were young and very hopeful, with the new hope of post-war Europe. The year was 1949. We were a group of young British Communists and Marxists, visiting Paris on a tour organised by a left-wing travel agency. Since we had visited the Louvre earlier that day, the topic of conversation became the value of Picasso’s painting and its meaning for the social struggle around us. Picasso had painted a beautiful white dove with an olive leaf in its beak against a blue background. This painting had become the symbol for the broadly-based peace movement – the struggle to ban the use of the atomic bomb as a weapon of war. We went on to discuss the Marshall Plan initiated by the American government, and we all readily agreed that it was a reactionary scheme. Then we talked about Paris itself, its history and its vitality. Paris was certainly vital and splendid, but it had its drawbacks – for example, the obvious signs of Western decadence. The theatre became a subject for discussion.

The trouble with the theatre in capitalist society is that it has to go where the profit motive takes it, said a comrade thoughtfully.

We all agreed to this statement. At this point I decided to make my own contribution. For several years I had been a professional ice skater dancing in ice ballets, and I had become generally frustrated by the themes of these ballets. All I had done was glide about as a penguin or a snowflake – which seemed a trivial and futile occupation, not adequate to the gravity of the times in which we were living. As I made my point – with some intensity of feeling – I half noticed a young man with dark wavy hair who had just joined our group. He gave me a somewhat quizzical look as I pounded my fist on the table to make my point even clearer.

When the group broke up this young man offered to see me across the road to the Métro. The road – with its teeming, erratic traffic – seemed quite murderous to me so I was grateful for his offer, but I wondered who he was. Everyone in the group around the coffee table had been part of the left-wing contingent from Britain that had come to Paris to take part in the Bastille Day celebrations, but I had not seen him before. Progressive Tours, which had organised the tour, had issued each one of us with a small badge. I looked carefully and realised that he was not wearing one. I became just a little uncertain. At the top of the Métro steps I asked,

Are you a member of Progressive Tours?

No, he replied. I just happened to be in Paris on holiday and bumped into a friend of mine – Bob Wood – who is in the tour, so I tagged on.

We parted. I went down the steps and into the Métro. While sitting in the underground train I recalled that I had met Bob Wood on the journey over, so the young man with the dark wavy hair was obviously quite genuine. I resolved that the very next day I would make a point of finding Bob Wood so I could be properly introduced. By luck I found Bob easily at lunch the following day and he introduced me to his friend, Ian Campbell, a scientist working for the British Medical Research Council. Ian, I was glad to learn, was also a Marxist.

July 14th arrived: Bastille Day, the great day for France. I arose early, adding a little English cheese to the light breakfast of croissants and coffee, for it was going to be an exciting, active day. After a rest I took a shower: it was going to be a hot day too. I had arranged to meet Bob and Ian again at the assembly point for the march. The prettiest dress in my suitcase was made of cotton, but printed to look like white lace on a chocolate brown background. I chose that one. Arranging my hair took an unusual amount of time, but I managed to convince myself that all this attention to detail was simply in preparation for the great historic march.

The setting for the march had been well thought out. It was to take place in the working-class area of Paris, away from the official government celebrations. It was to be an event organised by the Communist Party of France and other left-wing groups. On the review stand there would be Thorez, general secretary of the French Communist Party, and beside him prominent leaders of the French Resistance movement.

I had read much about the wartime resistance movements in various parts of Europe, and noted that some of them had been heroically led by Communists. The war against fascism had begun in my early teens. While it had raged I had been much troubled by the appalling loss of life and the immeasurable suffering. Surely, I reasoned, the God I had been taught about at school and in church did not exist. A God of love could not allow such things to happen. When I queried these things aloud, I could not find anyone who could resolve my doubts. I searched in the lives and writings of the world’s great thinkers for a solution to the problem of war. The search ranged widely from Plato to Kant, from Rousseau to the writings of Karl Marx.

Karl Marx’s Das Kapital led me to study the writings of other Communist leaders: Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Two war years working in London factories had come in great contrast to my idyllic childhood spent in the gentle beauty of Sussex. I had found hardship, inequality, social privations and fears. Gradually I had been made aware of the class struggle by listening to the opinions of some of the workers I worked with. I had joined the Young Communist League and had come to dedicate myself to the high ideals of Communism. Marxism, it seemed, held out the promise of a more just and equitable society. Above all, with its planned economy – which would liberate all men from sheer economic necessity and rivalry – Marxism would exclude the possibility of war. On the front of my Young Communist League card were printed the noble words of Lenin,

It is given to man to live this life but once, and he must so live it as not to be shamed by a trivial or cowardly past, but that dying he may say, ‘I have given my life to the greatest cause of all, the liberation of mankind’.

Liberation. Today in Paris we were to celebrate the great revolution fought under the banner of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. I felt elated as I went out to meet my comrades. However, for me at least, the march turned out to be a struggle.

Ian and Bob were standing together at the assembly point and I soon caught sight of them, since they stood a little apart from the crowd. I went up and greeted them. After a few minutes Bob went off with some small Union Jacks for distribution among the British comrades, so that I was left with Ian. Since he was a broad well-built Scotsman he had been given a large flag to carry, and he was holding this.

He said,

Just hold on to this for a moment. I have to go somewhere, and will be back in a few minutes.

I took the flag. After a short while I realised that a Frenchman was addressing me in excited French. My schoolgirl knowledge of the language broke down under the impact of rapid Parisian French, but fortunately the comrade reinforced his words with vigorous gesticulations. The flag …ah, yes … he was talking about the flag I was holding – a large tricolour attached to the end of a very long and heavy wooden pole. Of course …the French flag must go to the front – to the head of the march. I took it to the place he indicated, and then – to my horror – found no one able to receive it. Everyone was already preoccupied with their own large flags on long poles.

The band started up. The command "Avant!" was shouted. The march was beginning. I thought rapidly. Could I, an English girl in the middle of Paris on Bastille Day, just drop the tricolour and walk over it? That simply was not possible. I did the only thing I could do, which was to lodge the end of the pole on my right hip and grip it higher up with all the strength I could muster.

There may have been cheering, waving, slogans shouted. There may have been rank after rank of people from many walks of life and various countries. I’m sure there were. Certainly we must have passed the grandstand where Thorez and the other resistance workers took the salute. The streets were undoubtedly full. We had captured the enthusiasm of the working class of Paris. But nothing of this penetrated my awareness. I was aware of only one thing – holding that flag upright. As the miles passed the pole became increasingly heavy. I tried shifting it to the left hip and the left arm until they too ached, and then shifted it back again to the right side. And so it went on until at long last it was all over and we were being disbanded.

We dispersed in an open area with clusters of trees, which offered shade and quiet. I gave the tricolour to a Frenchman who was busily collecting them up, sank down beneath a tree and rested my tired muscles against its trunk. I felt weary, thirsty and cross. I felt sure that Ian had given me that flag because he hadn’t wanted to carry it himself. I hoped I’d never see him again.

An English voice with just a trace of Scottish accent said,

I’m sorry about the flag.

I looked up but said nothing.

You must be tired and thirsty. Can I get you some mineral water?

"I am very thirsty."

Of course, everyone was in need of a cooling drink – and Ian had to elbow his way through a great crowd in a cafe to get the mineral water, but he returned in a surprisingly short time.

Here you are. He looked concerned. I had no idea that the march was about to begin.

I took the drink. It was cool and refreshing. I felt better. I smiled and Ian smiled and then we saw the humour of the situation. He sat down on the grass beside me and we began to look around at the scene, which was crowded with life, laughter and activity.

We joined many thousands of others that evening and danced in the streets, not far from the Gare du Nord. The evening sky was sprinkled with fireworks, which competed with the stars for brightness.

Ian and I spent the last three days of the tour in Paris together. We wandered quietly down the tree-lined boulevards and sat chatting in fountain-filled squares, getting to know each other. We were constantly in each other’s company, and the scene in which we happened to be was our whole world. The rest of Paris receded, faded and left us alone together.

When Ian asked me to marry him a few months later I said Yes. This was the second time, since he had first proposed on the evening that we first met. I knew that I could share the rest of my life with him. We became engaged one day in November 1949 and we went together to central London and chose the engagement ring.

CHAPTER 2: UNDERSTANDING AND LOVE

The London Literary Institute ran an evening course on the history of the theatre. I joined the course as a first tentative step towards a more serious attitude to the world of drama. The lecturer was explaining the influence of Inigo Jones when the door of the lecture room opened in the middle of his discourse.

Is Miss Cox here? an official enquired. I raised my hand, and he asked me to come to his office because there was an important phone call for me. As I entered the office I became aware that the typists had stopped typing and the room had become quiet. At the other end of the phone was my friend Pamela, with whom I shared a small flat. There had been a call from Westminster Eye Hospital. Ian had been involved in a laboratory accident: there had been a serious explosion in the course of an experiment. It had not been Ian’s fault in any way, but he was hurt – not badly hurt, she thought, but he needed treatment. Pamela’s voice sounded unnaturally casual. She was doing her best to make it easy for me. The hospital had given a number which I could ring. I said,

Thank you very much, Pamela. I’ll ring just as soon as I get back.

Dazed, I thanked the office staff and returned to the lecture room. The lecturer was still speaking. I could not leave the room without giving an explanation – and could not try to offer one, as I was too stunned to be coherent. The lecture continued through an agonising length of time.

At last it ended. I took a taxi to the flat and found my faithful friend waiting with the hospital phone number at hand. I rang and was connected to a ward. A woman’s voice answered.

Please hold on a minute. I’ll get the surgeon to speak to you, it said.

The surgeon’s voice was cultured, soft and kind. Ian’s eyes had been injured and he was seriously burned on the face, chest and arms, but the operation had gone very well. Things might seem rather bad at first, but given time there would soon be much improvement. Tomorrow I could come to the hospital: my fiancé wanted to talk to me. I noticed the eye surgeon had avoided the words See you – he was very experienced. I thanked him and went to bed and slept little that night.

The next day at the hospital, at visiting time (when the crowds of visitors are released along the corridors), I ran up the stairs. In the passageway to Ian’s ward