Red Diapers: Growing Up in the Communist Left

 
      Red Diapers is the
        first anthology of autobiographical writings by the children of American
        communists. These memoirs, short stories, and poems reflect the joys and
        perils of growing up in a subculture defined by its opposition to some
        of society's most deeply held values. How red diaper babies have come
        to terms with their political inheritance is the theme of this compelling
        anthology.
      Some contributors have fond
        memories of family activism; others recall the past with ambivalence or
        even pain. The authors range in age from their twenties to their eighties.
        Some, such as Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein and sixties activist Bettina
        Aptheker, are widely known themselves; some are the children of well-known
        American leftists, including Jeff Lawson, son of blacklisted screenwriter
        John Howard Lawson, and Robert Meeropol, son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
        In disparate voices, the contributors elaborate on how their parents attempted
        to pass on to them the torch of radical politics.
 

In recent books, such as Lisa Michaels' Split [Je 1 98], authors in their 20s have described their "counterculture childhoods." This collection looks several decades farther back, gathering memoirs of "red diaper babies" whose parents were members or former members of the U.S. Communist Party or nonmembers involved in party-related activities. Some of the authors are relatively well known, like journalist Carl Bernstein and '60s activist Bettina Aptheker; however, most are noncelebrity children of rank-and-file party workers. They address several subjects, including patterns of life within their families, the impact of political persecution, and the ways they've dealt with their political heritage. The contributors "look back on their childhoods [the editors note] with varying mixtures of nostalgia, pride, confusion, anger, and pain" --as would almost any other grouping of nearly 50 memoirists. Yet the collection reflects some commonalities of experience; particularly, strong political and historical awareness, "an oppositional identity," and conviction that, together, individuals can accomplish change. Mary Carroll