Revolution Baby

Revolution Baby - a first novel by Montrealer, Joanna Gruda - is based on stories told to her by father Julek Gruda (pictured here).

It opens with a prologue: "My story begins on March 17, 1929. It was a very important day for me because that was the day my existence was put to the vote." The voters were members of a Polish Communist Party cell who felt a socialist revolution was imminent.They had just found out that one of their young comrades was pregnant. 

Was having a baby good for the proletarian struggle?  Or bad because the comrade would waste time nourishing an infant instead of nourishing the revolution? "Fetuses of the world unite." The debate raged.  Should the comrade be ordered to have an abortion? Or not?  

By the end of the meeting a compromise was struck: she would be allowed to give birth.

But she would have to give up her baby, hand it over to another couple so that she could continue her illegal undergeround work, making Poland into a worker's paradise."

That story may sound implausible, that debate almost insane. But it happened. It is true. The pregnant comrade was Joanna Gruda's grandmother.  The baby: Julek Gruda, Joanna Gruda's father.  

Revolution Baby is based on the countless stories of his growing up...as told to his daughter. It is a look at day-to-day life in France and Poland in the years before and during the Second world war, through the eyes of a funny, rambunctious and insightful little boy.  Joanna Gruda (left) talks to  Michael Enright.