"My initiation came in the National Student League, which I joined in 1930... Most of its leaders were members of the Young Communist League, but I was not. I preferred being a 'fellow-traveler,' which was how I came to be around it. I was enough of a true believer to be convinced that whatever its faults or shortcomings, only the Communist movement was capable of making the 'Revolution'; a revolutionary, therefore, had to be close to it. Nevertheless, I was unwilling to give up a measure of freedom or absence of discipline, such as I could enjoy as a fellow-traveler."