14
PARTISAN REVIEW
Trenches of Madrid.
In a future issue we may present some of
this
material.
Last's
BruchstUck,
or "Break-Piece," concludes: "I have out–
grown my infantile superstitions and no longer. believe in Beelzebub
even when he is called Trotsky-or Stalin. I know very well that
my comrades in the trenches fought for something more than just
an efficient economic system, and that socialism is doomed to wither
unless it roots itself in a human sense of truth, justice and love. My
heart bleeds when I think of the series of Moscow trials which de–
stroyed most of those who fought for the revolution. I know that good
Party comrades have light-heartedly referred to these men as bed–
bugs who must be squashed, but how can one speak of socialist hu–
manism when even the difference between a human being and a
bedbug is forgotten?"
We might notice in passing another sensational defection from
the ranks of the Third International's literary fellow travelers:
nt'
other than Romain Rolland himself, for years its most respectable
and revered apologist in international cultural circles. M. Rolland has
by no means broken with Stalinism as drastically as had M. Last.
But he has made a gesture of opposition on the issue which above all
others is vital to the Third International: the war question. Our Paris
correspondent, Mr. Sean Niall, on page 102 reports a fact which, so
far as we know, has not been mentioned in the American press: that
M. Rolland was among the first to sign the anti-war manifesto issued
on October 1 by the Teachers' Union and the Post, Telegraph
&
Telephone Union. Considering that the Communist Party press in
France was practically alone in urging a war policy, M. Rolland's
action takes on considerable significance.
REFLECTIONS
ON A
NON-POLITICAL
MAN
It should, hardly be necessary to state that we
consider Thomas Mann one of the three or four
great figures in modem letters. We have already
printed three articles on various aspects of
his
work, and we plan shortly to publish a fourth. It is with some trepid–
ation therefore, that we make the comments that follow. But we feel
that it is our duty not to remain silent.
"I was always for peace," Thomas Mann told the ship reporters
when he arrived in New York this fall to make his permanent home
in this country. "I always hated war, and I hate it at this moment.
But I must confess that it would mean a defeat of the ideas of democ–
racy to accept this crime against Czechoslovakia without the strong–
est resistance . . . Although I am a man of peace, I would favor
military resistance to the fullest extent." A few days later, the Man
