Vol. 4 No. 3 1938 - page 26

26
PARTISAN REVIEW
estimate correctly the progressive or reactionary character of a social
movement, however, is infinitely more difficult. When divorced from
an evaluation of the real class interests involved, the concept of pro-
gress becomes a purely meretricious phrase. The Stalinists are now
wholesale importers of Progress, that opium of the 19th century!
Who is so base as to oppose Progress? Beasts, not men.
In 1935 Freeman shuddered at the word "people." Now he
makes smooth speeches about "restoring control of the government to
representatives of the people's organizations through a broad People's
Front. It seeks to restore and raise the living standards of the people,"
etc., etc. His formulation of the hoary cliches of reformism is sleek
and up-to-date. But how can the government, which never belonged
to the people, be "restored" to them? Freeman, who has been
educated in Marxism, knows very well that lasting social reforms are
only the by-products of revolutionary struggle and cannot be attained
by subjecting the working people to the middle class. In its very
nature this class, grumbling at those above it but inevitably their dupe,
is incapable of resolute and protracted resistance to big capital. In
his speeches at the second Congress Freeman waved the bloody shirt
of fascist terror to reduce the opposition to silence. His arguments,
however, boil down to this: Either you become a bourgeois democrat
or else the capitalists will really get sore and bring in fascism. This is
the sum total of the wisdom of the People's Front.
The second Congress met "in the shadow of the coming world
war." But it was not a congress against war. On the contrary, it was
calculated to aid in mobilizing American intellectuals for the support
of the imperialist government of the United States in a possible war
against the fascist powers. At the first Congress Harry F. Ward,
president of the League Against War and Fascism, said that "it is
understood that we are dealing not with war in general, but with the
war which the United States government, in common with the other
great powers, is now so strenuously preparing ....
It is manifest that
the declaration of war will bring the attempt to fasten down the full
tyranny of repressive fascism in those capitalist countries where a
vestige of democratic procedure still survives." In 1937 all this wa~
forgotten. Not one word was spoken in criticism of the huge military
budgets piled up by our own government. The writers of America
were enjoined to support one imperialist coalition against another.
Literature was being coordinated with the propaganda for a new
crusade to make the world safe for democracy.
Presidents Come and Presidents Go
The first Congress set up a permanent organization called the
League of American Writers, and elected Waldo Frank its president.
I...,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25 27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,...66
Powered by FlippingBook