Bullets were in our mouths if not in our rifles. Indeed, few of us had guns at all. We marched to make a noise, to keep warm, to know that we were still alive, our right arms raised high, punching the freezing air, our clenched fists closing on nothing.
Brooklyn Ben held political classes, which were often crowded, and which painted a world free from betrayal and butchery. Speaking in his quiet, cracked voice, with its soft Jewish accent, he plumped up the dry demands of Comunist dialectic into a nourishing picnic of idealism and love.
We had yet to learn that sheer idealism never stopped a tank.
Laurie Lee
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