BOOKS
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under capitalism. They are not afraid of Mr. Mumford's individual
and private revolution. Ana surely he must know that he is not sneaking
up on them under the disguise of a verbal barrage, putting something over
that they are not aware of. He will not make them swallow the pill of
revolution by coating it with prepostercus doctrines or neat verbal syn–
theses that have no connection with the realities of capitalist society.
What they are afraid of is that intellectuals will follow the course of
John Strachey or the world famous sociologist H. M. Muller-people whom
Mr. l'vlumford, because of his interest in ecqnomics and science, should read.
Will Mr. Mumford remain content to dream about the good life (much
of which, no doubt, he already enjoys), and end up in an American fascist
concentration camp, where his return to the organic will consist of digging
ditches or shovelling manure? Or will he swallow his pride (and this is
not much to swallow, after all, since he has so much to learn) and lend,
first, his presence and, later, when he has learned more about the class
struggle, his mind to the working class? Will he join the workers in a
real fight to rid the world of capitalism, and help build a new society
where everyone can enjoy the good life that is so dear to his heart?
DAVID RAMSEY.
MALRAUX AND THE REVOLUTIONARY NOVEL
LA CONDITION HUMAINE,
par Andre ill/alraux. Gallimard,
1933.
Paris.
M. Malraux has written two important novels.
Les Conquerants,
published in Paris in 1928, is now out of print in English.
La Condition
Humaine
is about to appear under the title
ill/an's Fate.
The excuse for
this review is to call the attention of English readers to one
of
the most
significant radical novelists in any country. Our curiosity about hIs novels
can for the present be only partially satisfied. They are historical docu–
ments of the Chinese revolution under a disguise which can be pierced
only by one who has had as intimate a knowledge of the events as Malraux
himself. They are
romans a clef,
invaluable for the vividness and detail
of their picture of this troubled period in Chinese hIstory. The earlier
work gives a cross section of the conflict of national and class interests
during the Honkong and Canton uprisings of 1925, particularly of the
relationship between the representatives of French imperialism and the
still undifferentiated revolt of the Chinese masses and bourgeois together.
La Condition Humaine
is confined to the smaller canvas of the conflict
that emerged two years later bteween the Chinese Communists and bour–
geoisie and that ended in the victory of the latter under the leadership of
Chiang-Kai-Shek. In spite of the historical connection between the material
of the two books, they do not form a single unit.
