56
PARTISAN REVIEW
those responsibilities should carry a man from one stage of his develop–
ment to the
ne~t,
particularly if his convictions tend in the direction of
Communism which is in itself a moral ordering of so6ety.
A
writer, in reproducing the pattern of his life through a special
medium, reveals a number of seeming inconstancies; a fact that has been
noted by Whitman, and one reason why I think that Gorky is not a
member of the Communist Party. Gorky has kept his "frames of refer–
ence" clear of confusion; again, they are not separate, nor do they coincide;
they ""e normal, but his "frame of reference" as a writer is of first con–
sideration, and because he has recognized this fact, his value to the Party
has its value in proportion to his ability as a writer.
This brings me to the point of another common confusion in the
definition of revolutionary literature. This confusion is one that rises
to the surface frequently in the critical section of
The New Masses.
It
appears in Miss
Le
Sueur's essay when she says that she too .has been
trying to write poetry. I have not seen any verse written by Miss
Le
Sueur; I had always supposed that she was an able journalist whose writing
contained an interesting variety of emotional conflicts. I remember one
admirable sketch that was included in an anthology of journalistic prose
issued by
Scribner's.
Miss Le Sueur hints something of sacrifice in the
kind of writing that she is doing now. Isn't she doing her best work: now?
Is there anything in the character of her beliefs that would prevent her
from doing her very best? I think not. But her question may be divided
into two sections.
The first is a confusion of terms between literature and 'ournalism.
This is a problem inherited from Russia. Following the revolution, the
U.S.S.R. had few if any good journalists. I doubt if Russia had any
good journalists before the revolution; I mean journalists in the sense
that H. G. Wells or Walter Duranty or Louis Fischer, or Maurice
Hindus are journalists. Journalists had to be created overnight and
• John Strachey's value to the Communist Party in England and America rests
upon a threefold premise:
1). That he has an intelligent, open-eyed faith in Marxist ideology. He un–
derstands not merely the implications of Marxism, but also the dangers inmplicit in
Capitalist society and in the philosophy of Parreto. He uses Marxism as an
instrument of thinking.
2). That he is both a good journalist and an effective economist. He has
combined these talents and made them his "medium."
If
he were an ineffectual
economist-journalist, his Marxian convictions would remain an inarticulate virtue.
3). He is not a member of the Communist Party. His activity is of a· parti–
cular kind. Though being a member of the Party would not necessarily limit his
virtues he has chosen to remain outside a field of activity where his particular
talents would not function.
