THIS QUARTER
13
out that both are, basically, no more than symptoms that capitalism
will
no longer bear materialistic scrutiny. Since they accept the
system, with whatever squeamish shudders, · since they are willing
to criticise everything
except
the economic foundations on which the
whole crazy structure. rests, the liberals find their road blocked and
must retrace their path back to their old idealistic position. The–
substitution of semantics for economic and political analysis is a stage
in the great retreat.
JEF LAST
"Does it say in the
Communist Manifesto:
'A
specter is haunting Europe--the spectre of
Communism.'? Or does it, perhaps, read: 'the
spectre of Trotskyism'? 'Trotskyism'-that convenient epithet which
disposes of all thos_!: who do not believe that the Green columns stuck
on the Tverskaya are beautiful! All those who think Lenin is insulted
by a sixteen-metre statue so long as Moscow's working class continues
to live
in
hovels! All those who compare ·the
S,OOO
pictures of Stalin
carried in some Red Square demonstration to the 3,000 images
of the Madonna carried in a procession at Lourdes!"
Thus
Jef
Last, the well-known Dutch author, begins an article
announcing his break with Stalinism. We translate from a recent
issue of
Gegen den Strom,
a German radical monthly published in
New York. Last's denunciation is a serious blow to what little prestige
the Third International still enjoys among intellectuals. He was one
of the five companions of Andre Gide on
his
Russian journey-and
much the most ardently pro-Stalin, as may be verified by reading
Gide's reports of their conversations. We think it worth noting, by the
way, that the common attempt to discredit Gide's testimony on the
U.S.S.R. as the naive and uninformed reactions of a 'mere literary
man'
will
not work in the case of Last, who is a Marxist and revolu–
tionist of long standing. Nor does it apply to another of Gide's com–
panions, who has also broken with the Party since the 1936 trip,
namely, Pierre Herbart, formerly editor of the French edition of
International Literature.
From Russia, Last went directly to Spain, where he fought for
a year as an officer in the International Brigade. His first-hand ex–
periences there with the reactionary program and the G.P.U. tactics
of the Communist Party began a process of disillusion which the
Bukharin trial completed. Last's account of his experiences in Spain
ha_, been published in Holland as a book entitled,
One Year in the
