THE GREAT ALLIANCE
19
he has given credence to the trick: phrases of the Social Democracy,–
phrases out of the "revolutionary democracy," such as "a dictatorship for
the purpose of restoring democracy." We would not conceal the fact
from Heinrich Mann that we have our doubts as to certain of his ideas
and pronouncements.
But we are mindful of and esteem the valiant anti–
fascist fighter,
the one who, in his greetings to this Congress, has informed
us that "the emigre literature, which takes in certain writers still left in
Germany, is on the way to becoming better, where before it was but the
profile of a literature"; he it is, too, who has pointed to the anti-fascist
German literature as the "intellectual anticipation" of the Germany to be.
In the name of this Germany to be, in which a true workers' democracy,
a democracy of the Soviets, shall rule,
we hereby call for an alliance of all
those endqwed with a loyal hatred of Fascism and cultural barbariS7u.
In his latest anti-fascist novel,
Die Geschwisttr Oppenheim
("The
Oppenheims"), and in his earlier book,
Die Erfolg
(' 'Success"),
Lion Feuchtwanger· has given evidence of that reason-directed passion with
which he is ready to espouse
the cause of the truth.
He has pointeJ out
how the German Fascists have "shattered all the standards of civiliz::;.ion,
and have trodden under the foot of the hangman's helper all the ideas of
freedom, reason, humanity and human dignity which have become current
since the French Revolution." Feuchtwanger raises the question as to
whether the Third Reich can come to an end in any ether way than th rough
the force of revolution. In a literary form brimming with a
lo~·e
of
freedom, irony and a death-dealing hate, the same writer has contributed
to the unmasking of the German counter-revolution and the N atioi;al
Socialist movement. Yet, in his lack of acquaintance with the German
worker, he has had more than one skeptical word for the Communist
movement; and when he for the first time takes upon himself the task of
describing the heroic underground struggle of the German Communists,
he falls into a romantic distortion and a mode of exposition that is utterly
out of keeping with his clearly reasoned point of view. The unconvincing
construction in such passages shows plainly in a slackening of the artist's
command over his form, as if the material were recalcitrant about follow–
ing the creator's whim.
In his greetings to this Congress, Heinrich Mann further informs us
that the anti-Fascist writers are "in the majority thinking socialistically,"
the chief thing being "that they at any rate are in a mood to think." We
are convinced that this will to comprehend the happenings of our day, this
loyal will to know and serve the truth, is bound to bring such writers as
Heinrich Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger and many other haters of Fascism
nearer to the working class. We await their assistance, their clearly
manifested readiness to enter the arena and to cast the weight of their
word into the struggle against war and Fascism.
