Suzanne, later the second wife of the Hungarian poet György Faludy, seems to have been a lovely person, with strong ideals for the betterment of the human condition.   This led her to join the Hungarian Communist Party. 

‘What could you do for the party, Suzy?’ he asked her.

 

Suzy blushed.

 

‘I could die for it,’ she said after a second’s consideration.

 

‘That is not enough,’ Komor said with obvious disappointment.

 

‘One must be able to kill for the party.’ 

One wonders whether this exchange gave her pause for thought?  Faludy doesn’t tell us though he believed she would eventually wake up from her ideological attachment but that it would take time. 

As the Russian writer Vasily Grossman repeatedly implored, beware the Big Idea for bringing about heaven-on-earth as it usually turns into hell-on-earth.  Better an ongoing mess of actions, responses, kindness and tinkering. 

Source: György Faludy, My Happy Days in Hell, trans. by Kathleen Szasz (London: Penguin Classics, 2010 (1962)), p. 264

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