Was I really a leftist? Had I ever been? Did I really want to change the social system I was living under? Apparently that was what I’d stood for at one time. But what shit! Everything I had of value I’d gained under that system. After seventeen years of watching the Soviet Union turn into an imperialist power, was that truly what I wanted here? Hadn’t I been clinging to once-held loyalties that were no longer valid?

Wasn’t what I’d been defending up until now by my silence a conspiracy working for another country? Hadn’t I watched my “comrades” staggering through political switch after political switch by instructions not written in this country?