MAX EASTMAN: THE MAN UNDER THE TABLE 21
This-and this alone-is the reason why I now repeat the words
I wrote during the
11lahogany
"pogrom" which Eastman cites: "I wish
to and will work onl:,' for Soviet literature, for that is the attitude of
every honest writer and man." I am not alone in; this attitude; that is
how all Soviet writers feel today because they realise what Eastman is so
anxious to conceal: that the Soviet Union is showing humanity the road
to a socialist world.
2. BUNK BY A BOHEMIAN
Leon Dennen
I
N THE
MAY issue of the Modern Monthly, in an article entitled
Bunk
about Bohemia,
Max Eastman has written a passionate protest against
the "fal.sification of history." In
Artists in Unifo7'm
*
the same Eastman
has treated us to one of the most brazen falsifications of Soviet history
and SovIet literature.
That this little volume is a distortion of facts is unwittingly admitted
by the author himself. "I have debated in my mind," he wntes in his
introduction, "whether this book should be delayed in view of the reac–
tionary world-tendency of the moment." Why, if this book tells the truth,
should the author have had any doubts as to the expedIency of publishing
it at this or any moment? Why conceal the truth?
I have no doubt that irresponsible though Eastman may be, some–
where in the depths of his soul his conscience bother.> him. But Eastman is
not a "girl-baby." Besides, there are a million ways of appeasing one's
conscience. I don't know how he appeased it in those red-baiting war
days when at""The Second Masses Trial" he disowned and discredited the
anti-war articles of his colleague on the Masses, John Reed. Here, how–
ever, he sought the advice of people whom he considered "politically wise."
It was these "politically-wise-heads" who have unanimously decided that,
at the present moment when the capitalist world is hastily preparing to
dig its greedy claws into the throat of the Russian working class, a bit of
slander against the Soviet Union
will
help matters along.
Eastman's motive for slandering the accomplishments of the Soviet
'\
Artists in Uniform,
by
Max Eastman. Alfred A. Knopf.
$2.50
