TWO YEARSOF PROGRESS-FROM WALDO
FRANK TO DONALD OGDEN STEWART
I
T IS
not for the sake of raking up old speeches that we have set
out to examine the record* of the writers' congresses that met in
New York in the spring of 1935 and of 1937. The congresses were
run, of course, on the strict schedule imposed by their organizers, and
to anyone not taken in by the art of political showmanship they may
seem devoid of interest. But their importance Jies in what they reveal
about the history of the litera.ry Left. Today revolutionary .thinking
in literature has virtually come to an end-at least so far as concerns
those who once wrote and talked most about it. To consider the back-
ground of the two congresses, the amazing contrast between the first
and the second, and the political mystifications employed by the
party that staged them, will help us to understand how this has come
about.
The Communist Party has captured an entire sector of literary
opinion. This sector-of considerably less importance culturally than
politically-it now exploits for its own peculiar ends. The phenomenon
is new to this country, and as a factor in the literary situation it may
not be ignored. In organizing gatherings of writers this party cleverly
transfomlS its barrack ideology into the angelic diction of culture-
yearning and humanist largesse. Its representatives are skilled in
palming off administrative notions as principles of criticism and in
suppressing intellectual freedom in the name of the defence of cul-
ture. There is, also, the emergence of the stooge as a leading character.
In the mechanism of political seduction his function is that of a
necessary lubricant.
Two Congresses: Two Policies
The Call to the first Congress was straightforward enough.
"The capitalist system," read its opening paragraph, "crumbles so
rapidly before our eyes that, whereas ten years ago scarcely more
Philip Rahv
*
AMERICAN WRITERS'
CONGRESS.
Edited by Henry Hart. New Tork:
1935. International Publishers. $1.00.
THE WRITER IN A CHANGING WORLD.
Edited by Henry Hart. New
Tork:
1937.
Equinox Press. $2.00.
22
