64
PARTISAN REVIEW
LETTERS IN BRIEF
From England two letters: D . S.
SAVAGE writes that "PARTISAN RE–
VIEW is being well spoken of in Lon–
don. I have talked to several writers
who think we ought to have as good
a journal over here, but they admit its
English circulation would be small.
There is a very silly paper here, as you
may know, called the
L eft Review,
which badly needs such a corrective as
PARTISAN REVIEW would supply." And
JULIAN SYMONS, editor of
Twentie th
Century Verse :
"Did I tell you how
good I think PARTISAN REVIEW is?
There are very few papers today that
have so clear and integrated a point of
view, whose Editors know so well wttat
they're at." . .. From CARL PETER–
SON, of Chicago, a frank statement of
the Stalinist position. He writes, apropos
of Philip Rahv's article "Trials of the
Mind": "Before the 'intellectuals' can
be denounced for their espousal of col–
lective security it will first be necessary
for those who do the denouncing to
prove once! more that the class struggle
of Marxism is a great reality." Mr.
Peterson believes that the assumption
of Marxism that capitalism causes war
may have been true prior to 1914, but
is now "outmoded." "Why," he asks,
"should capitalists fight each other?"
since "capitalism has nothing to gain
by war. It has learned that lesson
rather well if it has learned few other
lessons." Charging Mr. Rahv witli. over–
estimating economics, he asks why no
allowance is made for "spiritual
factors," and concludes that revolution–
ary opposition to capitalism in war–
time is utopian and can only lead to the
victory of fascism.... From SYDNEY
JUSTIN HARRIS, editor of
The
Beacon,
Chicago: "I agree with Philip
Rahv in his estimation of the Soviet
Union and the Communist Internation–
al. I can see no hope, however, from
the Trotskyites or other anemic splint–
ers which have no mass base.. .. At any
rate, I think that PARTISAN REVIEW is
doing a splendid job of cleaning house
on the left, .... I admire you people :
you'll land either in a fascist or in a
communist concentration camp. And I'll
probably meet you there." . . . From
H. KATZ, San Francisco: "Having
admired the old PARTISAN REVIEW I was
not entirely convinced by the attacks on
you in the
Daily Worker.
But now after
readi,ng several recent numbers I am
convinced that your task is to stab all
progressive causes in the back. Your
adoration of a confused religionist like
Franz Kafka is obviously intended to
undermine honest proletarian writing.
Novels like Upton Sinclair's
The Jungle
and Jack Conroy's
The Disinherited
are
worth fifty Kafkas plus Delmore
Schwartz and Elizabeth Bishop, who–
ever she may be. In reviewing a book by
Mr. Wilson, of anti-Soviet fame, your
Mr. Dupee tries to hide the fact that
Mr. Wilson is an enemy of Marxism–
which Joseph Freeman proved in a
recent issue of
New Masses.
And in the
same issue of your magazine a pedant
by the name of Eliseo Vivas ridicules
the dialectical materialist philosophy
which provides the working class with
a firm base in its struggles against
reo
action and for a democratic front."
