Bertolt Brecht had strong Communist beliefs, so this was part of the reason for him writing the play. It is possible that Brecht used ``The Life of Galileo'' as a way of putting across his own feelings through a character.
He wrote the play in the late 1930's whilst living in Denmark. Then he met a man called Charles Laughton who was an actor. Together they began to adapt the play into English. It took the three and a half years to complete it.
Brecht was very much against the Nazis, so when they were dominant, he moved away from Germany to the USA. He did this because he had heard that in the USA he would be free to do as he wished. When he arrived, he found out that Americans hated Communists - they thought that it was an un-American way of behaving.
Communism is a system of politics where everybody has equal rights. For example, in a factory, the manager will get paid the same as a manual worker. Everybody is paid the same because they believe that every job, no matter what it is, has the same important part in keeping the country running smoothly. This way of running a country is mainly found in the USSR, China and Cuba. All profits made by industry are taken by the state and are redistributed, the government representing the people and the people all having a share in the profits. The government is hardly ever elected in a Communist country. They must always have a strong force to convince people that the money they have made from hard work must be shared out between everybody else.
Lauren Mullany
December 9, 1999.
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