20
PARTISAN REVIEW
Mahogany
was finished January 15, 1929. On February 14 I began a
novel .•.. in which
Mahogany
is worked over into chapters." The novel
referred to is
The Volga Flows into the Caspian Sea.
The first draft of
this novel was completed on May 29, 1929,
prior to the events arising out
of the publication of Mahogany.
About these events Eastman writes:
"PiInyalc: in extreme misery, came to Gronsky, the editor of
IZ'fIestia,
begging him to intercede with the powers, and declaring that if some
one did not call off the .mad dogs of Auerbach, he would commit suicide."
And then, according to Eastman, the inevitable Gronslc:y told me "to re–
write
Mahogany
in the form of propaganda for socialist construction and
the Five Year Plan." How Eastman, who has' not been in the Soviet
Union for eleven years, can know my most intimate feelings, including all
alleged desire to commit suicide, is a question which I cannot ailswer.
But about well-known objective facts I can speak. In my opinion,
Mahoganjl
has not the great historical significance which Eastman ascribes
to it. It was RAPP which created a rumpus around it and in my opinion
i~
was not very clever of them. According to Eastman, RAPP was the
"monster-child of Stalinism" and served Stalin as a weapon in the realm
of literature. But since we are speaking of facts, let us recall one fact
perfectly well known to Eastman. RAPP was disbanded by the Central
Committee of the Communist Party, probably not without the participa–
tion of Stalin.
Revolutions are not made with white gloves. The revolution of the
proletariat in no way resembles a Thursday afternoon literary tea. Revolu–
tions are victorious only when the class that makes them is disciplined.
In the trenches, under the enemy's fire, it is tiresome and futile to chatter.
He who accepts the revolution
fully,
naturally accepts its discipline. But
he who accepts the revolution conditionally accepts discipline only on COll–
dition that it does not interfere with his own conditions. A man who
insists 'on standing on his head will see everything upside-down.
If
such
people insist that they see things rightside up, they are either scoundrels
or fools and deserve either contempt or pity. Some times such people arc
big enough to realize that they have been standing on their heads, and
stand up like men on their feet.
As
I write this, the morning's paper
carries a letter by Christian Rakovsky-so often "murdered by Stalin" in
the pages for which Eastman writes-in which he says:
"It
is the revolu–
tionary duty of every Communist-Bolshevik to cease completely and un–
reservedly the ideological and organizational struggle against the leader–
ship and the general line adopted by the Party at its last congress and to
submit to its decisions and discipline."
