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Bertolini (Shapiro), Ethel (audio interview #3 of 3)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the last of three interviews conducted with Ethel Bertolini as part of a project in a women's oral history class at CSULB. The interviewer was able to make connections and establish good rapport with the narrator as a result of her earlier participation in the University High School alternative newspaper, The Red Tide in the late 1960s/early 1970s. 11/00/1978
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- 2021-02-01
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- SUBJECT BIO - Ethel Shapiro-Bertolini was a longtime organizer for the Community party, from the time she joined the YCL in 1926 until the late 1960s. Although she diminished her activities in the party in 1967, she remained a member until she was expelled in 1974. Born in the Ukraine, Shapiro-Bertolini's family escaped the scourges of the pogroms as a result of their warm relationships with their Gentile neighbors. Although they welcomed the Russian Revolution, believing that it would end the abuses they faced., they immigrated to the US. Shapiro-Bertolini became a YCL/CP organizer in 1926 and continued this political work until she went underground at the party's orders in 1951. She married another party activist after this, and resumed her work in the party. She greatly diminished her activities in the later 1960s in order to write. She published one novel in 1971, and in the later 1970s published a book of letters with prisoners (Through the Wall: Prison Correspondence). The interview was conducted as a project in a women's oral history class by Susie Bright. As a result of her earlier participation on the high school newspaper, The Red Tide, the interviewer was able to establish a relationship with Bertolini. [Editor's note: Bertolini was not consistent in her use of her last name, at times hyphenating it.] TOPICS - father's death; losing election campaign in UE; resumption of CP organizing in Chicago; anti-red harassment; McCarthyism; Smith Act trial in New York; move to California; attitudes about marriage and family; organizing workers in Los Angeles garment industry; going underground in 1951; experiences living underground; meeting future husband Angelo Bertolini; courtship; criticism of CP for pursuing an underground policy; demise of Joseph McCarthy; and being permitted to come out of hiding by CP;attitude towards marriage; writing pursuits and publications; garment industry work; views of Joseph Stalin's purge of party members; John Howard Lawson; Tilly Olson; husband's work history; anti-war activities of the 1960s; changes in the CP after 1967; menopause; communication with prisoners; expulsion from CP; and reflections on life and her membership in the CP;
- *** File: refebertolini5.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-3:36)... Shortly after WWII ended, Bertolini's father died and she was called home to Chicago to attend his funeral. In the interim, her assistant in the UE decided to campaign for her position in the upcoming election. She was unable to counteract his campaign while she was in Chicago and when she returned, she was defeated. Even though she was not reelected, she believes that she did a good job developing the social services department because many people benefited from the program and she was frequently called in by other unions to help them establish similar programs. (3:36-5:51)... Bertolini returned to Chicago after she left the UE and worked as a party organizer until 1949. She led a delegation from Chicago to New York to protest the prosecution of the CP's national leaders under the Smith Act (formally known as the Alien and Registration Act of 1940). They picketed in front of the courthouse for about five or six days. They returned to Chicago after Judge Harold Medina convicted and sentenced the CP leaders to prison. [Editor's note: Bertolini's claim that William Z. Foster was acquitted is not accurate. There were eleven defendants, ten of whom received and served five year sentences; the eleventh received a shorter sentence in recognition of his Distinguished Service Cross for Bravery. He was killed in prison by a group of Yugoslav fascists.] (5:51-10:06)... Bertolini believes that the postwar reactionary movement and repression of communists actually began when FDR and Winston Churchill hesitated to adopt Joseph Stalin's proposal for a second front and then proceeded to downplay his role in defeating the Germans. The anti-Soviet line culminated with Churchill's famous "iron curtain" speech of 1947. The postwar carving up of European territories further divided the allies and the Soviet Union and "this was reflected in the policy to isolate and separate the radical forces that were growing up [in the US] during the war." One of these radical forces was represented in the trade unions where a large number of militant men and women supported the Soviet Union. The climate was ripe for Senator Joseph McCarthy's red baiting campaign and his suggestion that the American CP was "a foreign agent working for the Soviet Union." (10:06-12:34)... When Bertolini returned to Chicago, she rented a room in a comrade's home, having outgrown her parents' home and no longer feeling comfortable there. While her mother was alive, she was mainly supported by one of Bertolini's brothers, but the entire family contributed to her income. She also rented the upstairs portion of her duplex to a tenant to bring in extra income. (12:34-17:01)... When Bertolini returned to Chicago following the protest at the Smith Act trial in New York, she decided to move to California in anticipation of getting married and starting a family. She did not think that she would have an opportunity to cultivate a personal life in Chicago as long as her time was dominated by her political activities. And, with the anti-Communist environment, she felt that her usefulness in Chicago would be diminished. She requested a transfer in the CP and moved to California at the end of 1949 or the beginning in 1950. When she arrived in California, she moved into her sister's home in the Los Angeles area. (17:01-23:20)... Once in Los Angeles, the CP assigned her to work in the garment industry to recruit for the CP as well as help unionize workers for the ILGWU. She learned new skills quickly and worked as an operator, a finisher and a sample maker. She worked in several different shops because she was fired each time her employer found out she was talking to workers about the union. Within a year, she established connections with about 200 Black and Chicana women employed in the needle trades. In addition to sending these women general correspondence, she provided them with CP literature. The ILGWU did not interfere with her recruitment efforts. She found this to be a very fulfilling period in her life because she appreciated the creativity involved in making garments. She comments: "I felt my revolutionary integrity was constantly being tested." On average, she only earned $18-20/week, which was far less than other highly-skilled garment workers, some of whom also were members of the CP. (23:20-32:18)... In 1951, the CP ordered Bertolini to go underground to avoid arrest for her communist activities. She spent four years in hiding, which she describes as the most traumatic experience of her life. It has left her physically shaken. In the first city where she moved, Bertolini rented a room from a woman who worked as a waitress and prostituted herself for money and luxury items. Bertolini changed her appearance while she was in hiding, but was unable to conceal her red hair and heavy accent. During the nine months she lived in this city, she earned a living doing alterations and domestic work. She was forced to leave that city when she recognized a comrade who was later revealed as an FBI agent. In total, she lived in sixteen different places while she was in hiding. (32:18-36:02)... After moving to another city while she was underground, Bertolini was hired as a seamstress for a clothing designer whose clientele included the wealthiest women in the city. They became friends and Bertolini eventually agreed to accompany her employer to a concert. Waiting for the concert to begin, Bertolini was approached by an FBI agent and questioned about her identity, indicating that she changed her name and social security number when she moved to a new city. She immediately left that city and learned years later that her employer was interrogated by the FBI about her association with Bertolini. Bertolini never told anyone she was affiliated with the CP while she was in hiding. (36:02-39:59)... Bertolini met her future husband, Angelo, in 1950 at a dance organized by radicals in the Latino community of east Los Angeles. She was forty-five and he was forty-three. They dated for a short time before she was forced to go underground. During the period they were apart, she thought about him often and he frequently inquired about her well-being with her sister. Bertolini corresponded with her sister by passing letters through an underground mail system managed by the CP. She describes her experiences living and working in another city while she was underground. Many of her comrades who went into hiding could not handle the underground lifestyle she maintained for four years. (39:59-42:16)... The CP gave her permission to come out of hiding in 1955 when it became clear that Joseph McCarthy and his campaign against the CP was losing momentum. Bertolini recalls that his demise began when he attacked army officials and was censored. At that time, most of her comrades ended their period of underground activities and there was a resurgence in the radical movement. Prior to coming out of hiding, she wrote CP leaders and criticized the party for going underground. At that time, her request to resume a normal lifestyle was rejected by the CP. After she was allowed to come out of hiding, she rekindled her relationship with her future husband at a New Year's Eve party in 1955. End of tape. *** File: refebertolini6.mp3 (0:00-2:15)... Her fiance was employed with the People's World, for which she wrote some articles. When they were engaged, they scheduled their wedding for May 1st of that year. In April 1956, they planned a dinner with friends and family to announce their engagement. Just before the dinner party, however, she was arrested by FBI and immigration officials on a deportation order. She was taken to a jail cell at the immigration office. Her friends raised enough money to post her bail later that evening. (2:15-5:25)... She discusses the reasons why she finally decided to get married. Although she pursued other relationships prior to meeting her fiance, those relationships did not work out because her partners were not ready to settle down. She feels that it was an opportune time for both her and her fiance to get married because they were in their forties and ready to give up bachelorhood. At the time they met, her fiance was working for the People's World but was not a member of the CP because he did not want to hinder his chances of gaining citizenship. He was involved with the CP while he lived in Italy and was arrested on several occasions for his activities. (5:25-9:07)... After she married, Bertolini returned to work in the garment industry and spent her spare time writing. In 1960, she quit working and decided to focus on her writing activities. Bertolini discusses the 1956 reports of Joseph Stalin purging the old guard of the CP. A substantial number of people in the American CP left the party following these reports. Although she felt that Stalin's actions were unjust, she went along with his explanation that he did what was necessary "for the revolution and to protect the socialist state." There was little discussion in the party regarding his actions and people were simply told to take it or leave it. Even though she accepted this stance, she ran into conflicts with the party when she questioned things of this nature years later. Some discussion was generated in 1959 following the release of a book documenting the developments in the Soviet Union under Stalin's leadership. (9:07-12:10)... Her first book, And My Heart was at Home, chronicled the persecution of foreign-born communists during the McCarthy era. John Howard Lawson, a playwright with whom she worked for six months on the book, wrote jacket copy for the book. [Editor's note: John Howard Lawson was one of the "Hollywood Ten."] The book was used by the Los Angeles Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born during its efforts to prevent the government from deporting 160 foreigners, including Bertolini. At the time of the interview, Bertolini's third novel was circulating among publishers and a book of short stories was submitted to Tilly Olson in anticipation of her writing the book's forward. Bertolini's husband, Angelo, worked for the People's World for over twenty years; he also performs Italian plays on stage and the radio. (12:10-14:44)... Although Bertolini believed the CP played an integral role in organizing and guiding the 1960s anti-war movement, she has since learned otherwise. The party published several papers and journals around this issue during the 1960s and she mobilized a contingent of people from Los Angeles to participate in a demonstration in San Francisco. She was active in anti-war and civil rights protests until 1968 when she was sidetracked by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. She believes that her criticism of and conflict with the party regarding this incident contributed to her subsequent expulsion in 1974. (14:44-16:53)... Bertolini agrees with Dorothy Healey's assessment that the CP began to discourage discussions relative to soviet matters around 1967. In fact, Bertolini's main argument during her citizenship proceedings has been that her membership in the CP after 1967 "was not meaningful and that citizenship has been won for other members of the CP that did not have a meaningful membership with the party." (16:53-19:27)... Bertolini did not have any physical difficulties during menopause and often thought something was wrong with her because she did not experience the symptoms about which women commonly complained. She believes that being in good physical and emotional shape contributed to her ability to go through this stage in her life with ease. In addition, she has a very supportive husband. She thinks that the most physically difficult and debilitating time in her life was the four-year period she spent underground evading anti-Communist forces. (19:27-25:25)... Bertolini never regretted not having children. By the time they married, she and her husband did not think it would be fair to bring a child into the world at their late age. As a result, she considers her nieces and nephews and the youngsters she has worked with over the years as her children. She digresses regarding her work with political prisoners, one of whom she considers her son. (25:25-30:35)... Over the years, she distanced herself from the prisoners she wrote about in one of her books because corresponding with them on a regular basis is emotionally draining. While she never visited them in jail, she met with a few of them upon their release from prison. She talks about one prisoner in particular and the reasons why she would like to discontinue communication with him. (30:35-36:07)... She and her husband were expelled from the CP in 1974 when they disobeyed a direct order from the party leadership to attend a lecture circuit featuring Angela Davis. The most difficult aspect of being expelled from the CP was losing the friendships she developed over the fifty-year period she was a member of the party. On a positive note, however, their expulsion was "one of the most liberating experiences for us.... We removed those pink eyeglasses that were shading our vision and I began to read and study things" from an international perspective "not from the viewpoint of what Stalin use to say or what the party feeds me." (36:07-38:10)... Although she is no longer a member of any political organizations, she follows what she refers to as the "Mann line," subscribing to their magazine, donating funds to their school and occasionally attending their lectures. [Editor's note: This reference is unclear, unless she was referring to group of socialists who later founded the Labor Action Strategy Center] . Her political views have broadened and become more tolerant since she left the CP. She now subscribes to eurocommunism, which she maintains "is the thing that I feel gives answers to the needs of our society at this level of development [and] at this moment, they come closest to a Marxist analysis of reality." (38:10-41:29)... Upon reflection, Bertolini is most proud of her decision to join the YCL and the CP. She comments: "Those were the most rich and fulfilling years of my life. Anything that I learned was because I was a communist and inspired by socialism...." However, she regrets not fighting the party on the underground issue during the McCarthy Era because it caused the party's membership to diminish and created a vacuum that contributed to its disintegration. She also has regrets being bigoted and backward in her views for so many years, "but that was part of the process of growth and development and dedication to a cause." End of tape.
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