Flaubert discuss problems of authority
which press brutally upon us. No one
in the labor world would profit more
from considering them than your re-
viewer. His thorough negligence im-
plicatesour Party not only in a breach
of literary manners, but as well in a
violation of professional morals.
Matters even more serious are at
stake.This review is unsigned. It there-
fore carries the formal weight of an
Appeal
editorial. But it does not speak
for Left Socialism.
The PARTISANREVIEW has been
founded to fight the tendency to con-
fuse literature and party politics. The
mere rumor of so independent an at-
titude brought forth (to the delight of
nations) such
Daily Worker
fits of anti-
Trotskyismwhich to describe would in-
volvethe use of a lexicon of mental
pathology. Your editorial pointed out
the political weakness of the
Partisan's
un-Trotskyist retort. But your intricate
distortion of its inter.tion is that the
Reviewproposes to "remain neutral and
indifferent only towards the labor
movementand independent of revolu-
tionary Marxist politics with toplofty
indifferenceand alienation turning their
backs upon political questions,"-just
whatthe
Daily Worker
with its limited
vocabularywas trying to say: "slander-
ers of the working class, turncoats,
agentsprovocateurs, strikebreakers."
This identity with the
Daily Worker's
view towards conscientious persons
whomthey cannot control is far from
accidental.Your view is that "Accord-
ing to the correct Marxist position,
there need be no discord between re-
volutionarypolitics" (our National Of-
fice) "and revolutionary literature"
(the PARTISANREVIEW'S office). "All
depends upon establishing a correct
workingrelationship between them and
their organizational expressions." With
Stalinism'shistory behind us, no one
can be surprised when this so correct
threatgives way to meaching plea: "It
willbe easy enough to find fruitful con-
ditionsfor collaboration. A revolution-
ary organ should be open to the best
productionsof living literature, regard-
RIPOSTES
63
less of the special political views of
their authors"!!!
Once a Trotskyist watchdog is ken-
neled in the
Partisan's
office desk, the
doors of literature open upon vista after
vista of opportunism. In all conscience,
this is something worse than literary
Stalinism has yet got at. Contrariwise,
the PARTISANREVIEWpays regard to
the politics of its authors in order to
open up the best of contemporary
literature, and, even without the col-
laboration of our political organizers,
to bring proletarian politics to a Marx-
ist position.
Graciously, you concede "complete
autonomy for the workers in the arts
and sciences within their own fields."
What are these cut and dried cate-
gories? Who charts these realms as
Pope Paul divided the terrestrial globe
between Spain and Portugal? Who is
being toplofty now? You say, "Politics
dominates everything in our world, in-
cluding literature." This is an error
which Bonaparte phrased better: Politics
is the modern destiny. William Blake
said: Art does not follow empire. Em-
pire follows art. Scientific Socialism
finds Blake and Bonaparte equally at
fault in special pleading. Mode of pro-
duction underlies all culture; literature
and politics respond autonomously;
each retarded, each advanced by the
other.
But you, with high authoritarianism,
declare it necessary for a literary cir-
cumference to have a political center
from which all the rest logically
radiates.
0,
formal pundit!
The
PARTISANREVIEW will get a super-
logical center empirically by methods
of objective test, finding chords and
diameters of the circles, spheres and
spirals of a reality beyond yours. It
must do so without a political center
if yours prove unfit.
The brain behind the hand that
wrote your editorial is the brain behind
the tongue which would with
proletarian
us. intellectual
demagogy transform
Trotskyism into a Stalinesque interna-
tional slum.
JOHN WHEELWRIGHT
