MAGAZINE CHRONICLE
BRITISH PERIODICALS
Between the armament boom and the conciliatory temper of the
Comintern, British liberalism has not only survived the Great Crisis but,
in recent years, revived as well. Its relatively authentic and stable char–
acter is attested by its response to events in Moscow. "No one can believe
the stuff about the poisoning of Gorky," remarks
The New Statesman
(March 4) and proceeds to dismiss the Trial of the 21 as substantially
a frame-up. We miss in such editorials the note of remorse, the guilty
whine, the obfuscating rhetoric which characterized American liberal
commentaries on the recent trial. The reaction of English liberalism is
candid. It is outspoken because it has little to regret or to conceal. Its
vanity is not involved, its prestige is not threatened, it has given few
hostages to Stalinism--or, for that matter, to any other force, reactionary
or progressive.
If
British liberalism is more genuine than the American product,
British Stalinism is by the same token more impotent; and in England
the contradictions between right and left, near-left and far-left, do not
reach the same pitch of violence as elsewhere. The literary output is
largely poetic in form, lyrical in temper, and heterogeneous
in
ideology. Good fiction is scarce, the plebeian note occurs rarely, and
critici~m
(with exceptions to be noted) resembles the intimate and frag–
mentary conversation of college cliques.
One cannot be sure how the trial, the foreign policy of the Cham–
berlain government, and the declining prosperity will affect the English
scene in coming months. But to judge by the periodicals, the first quarter
of 1938 was a time of comparative truce among literary factions. The
Colosseum
(Catholic) continues to agitate for Franco, and the
Left
Review
(Stalinist) for Negrin, but between the two extremes there is
a large area of political agnosticism or mere indifference. The latest
statements of some of the older writers are significant. A few years ago
Wyndham Lewis was writing his admiring study of Hitler, and T. S.
Eliot was deciding to exclude any large number of "free-thinking Jews"
from his snug agrarian Utopia. Now, questioned as to his stand on the
Spanish Loyalists, Mr. Eliot merely pleads for detachment: "While I
am naturally sympathetic, I still feel convinced that it is best that at
least a few men of letters should remain isolated, and take no part in
these collective activities"
(Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War,
published by
Left Review).
And Mr. .Lewis: "I have learnt my lesson,
and, in spite of being the pure revolutionary, I am a bit of a realist too.
Hence my extraordinary broadmindedness in politics.... I have been
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