126
PARTISAN REVIEW
lengthy commentary-! see no dis–
crepancy between the plot of my novel
and the tone of the style. It seems to
me that my characters, under the
cir–
cumstances, acted with the greatest hu–
man dignity in a situation that called
forth both the best and the worst in
human nature-even the worst being
relatively free of the meanness that
afllicts the bourgeois order of today.
The bourgeois is like Mother Goose's
son Jack-not very good and not very
bad; having a certain mediocrity of all
qualities. Thus one justification of the
people in my book would be that they
were driven
to
the extremes of experi–
ence--to good and evil; but there
I know that I enter a region where no
Marxian will have the patience to fol–
low me. Sincerely, ALLEN TATE.
We realize that Mr. Tate's is an in–
formal letter. But we want to point
out that his phrase, "the necessary limi–
tations of human nature," suggests that
he rejects one kind of "absolute" only,
to embrace another: an absolute of
limitation.
Human nature and society
depend, we think, on the degree of
man's mastery over his material en–
vironment. But the scientific basis of
in Marxism precludes the admission of
absolutes, either of perfectionism or
imperfectionism. And so we feel that
the decay of the Old Smith which Mr.
Tate's novel describes was the product
of historical factors rather than of any
"necessary limitations of human na–
ture."- THE
EDITORS.
Leon Trotsky to Andre Breton
My Dear Breton:
With all my heart I congratulate
Diego Rivera and yourself on the crea–
tion of the FIARI-an international
federation of truly revolutionary and
truly independent artists. And why not
add-of
true
artists? It is time, it is
high time! The entire globe is becom–
ing a dirty and reeking imperialist bar–
racks. The heroes of democracy, with
the inimitable Daladier at their head,
make every effort to ape the heroes of
fascism (which will not prevent them
from landing in a fascist concentration
camp). The duller and more ignorant
the dictator, the more he feels called
upon to prescribe the development of
science, philosophy and art. The sheep–
like servility of the intelligentsia is, in
turn, a not unimportant sign of the
rottenness of contemporary society.
France is no exception.
Why speak of the Aragons, the
Ehrenburgs and other
petites canailles?
Why name those gentlemen (death has
not absolved them) who compose, with
equal enthusiasm, biographies of Christ
and Stalin. Let us also pass over the
pitiful, not to say ignoble, decline of
Romain Rolland.... But one feels too
strongly to ignore the ·case of Malraux.
I followed his first literary steps with
much interest. At that time there was
already a "strong element of pose and
affectation in him. His pretentiously
cold studies of heroism in other lands
often made one uneasy. But it was
impossible to deny him talent. With
undeniable power he aimed at the
very peak of human emotion-of heroic
struggle, self-sacrifice, extreme anguish.
One might expect-and I, for one,
earnestly hoped-that the se.nse of rev–
olutionary heroism would enter more
profoundly into his being, would purify
him of pose and make him thf! major
poet of an epoch of disasters. But what
in fact happened? The artist became
a reporter for the GPU, a purveyor
of bureaucratic heroism in prudently
proportioned slices, just so long and so
wide. (They have no third dimension).
During the Civil War I was obliged
to fight stubbornly against the vague
or lying military reports submitted by
officers who tried to hide their errors,
failures and defeats in a torrent of
generalities. The present productions
of Malraux are just such lying reports
from the fields of battle (Germany,
Spain, etc). However, the lie is more
repugnant dressed up in artistic form.
The fate of Malraux is symbolic for a
whole stratum of writers, almost for a
whole generation. It is the generation
of those who lie from pretended
