'By being out and outspoken, I contributed to the normalisation of homosexuality in the Netherlands': an interview with Evelien Eshuis, Dutch communist MP 1982-1986
The 1970s and 1980s are often characterised as sober and gloomy, a prolonged anti-climax to the swinging 1960s. The oil crisis of 1973 led to widespread unemployment in most industrialised countries, which was only exacerbated in the early 1980s by a worldwide economic crisis. In the Netherlands, people – especially youth – struggled to find employment, and class antagonisms, which had been largely absent in the 1960s, resurfaced. Despite these growing social tensions, the Dutch communist movement began to embrace single issues that were not necessarily rooted in class struggle. This new course, while condemned by some hardliners, opened up space for closer links between the Communistische Partij van Nederland ('Communist Party of the Netherlands'; CPN) and anti-racist, feminist and gay politics. In a parallel development, membership demographics changed significantly. Among new CPN members in the early 1970s there were just as many workers as there were artists, students and unemployed. In this interview, Eshuis looks back on her life and, in particular, her experiences in the CPN in the 1970s and 1980s.