PARTISAN REVIEW
mine more completely the complicated machine of the State. For
if previous revolutions have until now only ended in a strengthening
of the very thing which they set out to destroy, he thinks it is because
these revolutions were never fully realized; because they did not press
on to their logical conclusions. This was written in 191 7.
If
it was
not finished, it is because Lenin believed that to act is more important
than to write. This 'realized' revolution- he himself created it. To
accomplish it and to perfect it, no sacrifice was too great. The rev–
olution finally triumphs-has triumphed. There have been twenty
years of that. And what is the U.S.S.R. today? The dreaded bureau–
cracy, the administrative machinery has never been stronger. There
is no "up to now" about it: the little sentence is still true and what
Lenin wrote in 1917 he could write again today.*
*
*
*
I worry very little as to whether my writings conform to Marx–
ism or not. This_"fear of the Index", which I used to talk about,
the absurd fear of being found at fault by the
purists,
worried me
a great deal for a long
time,
and to such a degree that I didn't
dare write. What I am going to say will seem very infantile. I do
not care. I have no wish to boast, and I think that it is my own weak–
nesses that I am most willing to expose. But now I am free from
this
paralyzing fear. And
this
fear has taught me a good deal---'-yes,
much more than Marxism itself. The discipline which I imposed
upon myself during three years was not without benefit; but I find
more profit today in freeing myself from it than in continuing to
submit. This plunge into Marxism made me understand the indis–
pensable qualities which ir--lacked.
Was the failure of the U.S.S.R. necessary to bring me to think
thus? The U.S.S.R. merely gives form to my disenchantment. At
first, one tries to tell oneself: it was infidelity that caused this failure.
Then one hears the echo of those sinister words: "There is not a
single revolution which ..."
*
*
*
"I am not a Marxist", they say that Marx himself exclaimed
towards the end of his life. I like this sally. To my way of thinking
it means: "I bring a new method and not a recipe, nor a finished
system which thereupon exempts man from any further effort (I
mean: from any effort of thought). Therefore, do not be limited
by
my words but go beyond them."
It has been too often said that Moliere made fun of medicine.
• These few reflections have been copied from my preface
to
Yvon's book :
l'U.R.S.S.
r,n,
qu'Elle Est
(Gallimard). Editon' Note : Published in this country without Gide's preface
u
Wllat Has B1eome of the Russia" R1uolutiorcl
(International Review, Box 44, Station 0 , N.Y.C.,
25
~ents. )
