32
PARTISAN REVIEW
nalistic apparatus which still calls itself "Communist," the secret police of
Moscow murdering or kidnapping its adversaries as far away as Spain and
Switzerland. We have
seen
this gangrene spread throughout revolutionary
Spain, compromising, perhaps irretrievably, the destiny of the workers. And
it is not over
yet.
All the values which comprise the greatness of Socialism
are from now on compromised, soiled, obliterated. A fatal division, between
the blind and the clear-sighted, rascals and honest men, deepens in the
ranks of the working class, already provoking fratricidal conflicts, rend–
ering all moral progress impossible for the time being. For it is no longer
possible to discuss with good faith and intellectual courage a single one of
the theoretical and practical questions that grow out of Marxism. The social
catastrophe in the U.S.S.R. taints in its growth, in its very life, the con–
sciousness of modern man.
I wrote to Andre Gide in May 1936, before he left for Russia: "We
make .a common front against Fascism. But how can we bar its way with
so rr.any concentration camps behind our own lines? One's duty is no longer
simple, and it is no longer permitted to anyone to\Simplify it. No new
orthodoxy, no sacred falsehoods can any longer dry up this running sore.
. . . In one sense only does the Soviet Union remain the greatest hope of
mankind in our day; in the sense that the Soviet workers have not yet
said their last word."
Every social conflict is also a competition.
If
socialism is to win out
over fascism, it must bring humanity social conditions which are clearly
superior.
8.
Is it necessary to emphasize again that the confused, distorted and
bloody Marxism of the gunmen of Moscow-is not Marxism? That it
negates, belies and paralyzes itself? The masses, unfortunately, will take
some time
to realize this. They live not according to clear and rational
thought but according to impressions which the lessons of experience
slowly modify. Since all this
goes
on under the usurped banner of Marx–
ism, we must expect that the masses, unable to apply Marxist analysis to
this tragedy, will react against Marxism. Our enemies have it all their
own way.
But scientific thought cannot regress below the Marxist level, nor
can the working class do without this intellectual weapon. The European
working class is still recuperating its strength, sapped by the blood-letting
of the world war. A new proletariat is arising in Russia, ' its industrial
base greatly extended. The class struggle
goes
on. For all the dictators'
replastering, we hear the framework of the old social edifice cracking.
Marxism will go through many vicissitudes of fortune, perhaps even
eclipses. Its power, conditioned by the course of history, none the less
appears to be inexhaustible. For its base is knowledge integrated with the
necessity for revolution.
(Translated
by
Nancy and Dwight Mardonald.)
