On the Ledge Part Four: I Became a Wine Writer and Possibly a Capitalist Toady One!

The Canadian German Friendship League was a bust as far as I was concerned. It was a joke attracting street people and ruffian freeloaders who were powerless lumpenproletarian scum. We Reds love proletarians but not anything below that.

So with the blessing of my superiors I was sent to obtain a Doctorate in Wine from the Karl Marx University in Dresden. I was then sent back to Toronto to become a wine writer. With my flawless English I fit in quite nicely in the Canadian wine writing community. So many of the writers were toadies to the capitalist wineries receiving cases of samples and charging the wineries to review their wines and they labelled themselves as impartial. Capitalist wine writers have no morals unlike me steeled against corruption! It was more important to me to understand the exploitation of migrant workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Thailand and other third world countries that work in vineyards than swill wine and accept bribes. As I wrote about the exploitation of the international proletarian workers I made a few enemies amongst the wine writing establishment with their lackey mentality and lack of critical judgment. But there was a core of disillusioned consumers who saw beyond their corrupt wine writers.

Being a wine writer was a perfect cover for my mission. Meet a lot of people. Attend tasting events. Eat lots of food at other’s expense and never being taken seriously. But what was my mission? It was becoming very unclear. It was as if headquarters didn’t know themselves. The East German population really wanted no part of communism and were becoming more vocal with their discontent. The economy was in shambles and East Germans were selling their blood to the sate who then resold it to West Germany as they were desperate for Western currency. My paycheques were taking longer to arrive to the point the weren’t coming at all. My goodness would I now have to work for a living? Would I become a capitalist toady wine writer?