4
PARTISAN REVIEW
puts it on page 103 of this issue: "Daladier bears a more sinister re–
semblance to one Heinrich BrUning than to the Napoleon Bona–
parte he apparently fancies himself to be."
The French masses still have a respite left them-several months,
a year, even two, perhaps-in which to set in motion the only kind
of anti-fascist struggle that can succeed: a revolutionary struggle
against the whole capitalist order. The nucleus of such a movement
already exists, in such militant left-wing organizations as the Lutte
de Classe, a semi-syndicalist trade union group, the Pivert group
(PSOP), which split off last summer from the Socialist Party of
France, and the International Workers Party (POI), affiliated with
the Fourth International.
If
a serious revolutionary opposition to
fascism crystallizes around these groups,
it
will need and should
get all the sympathy and all the material aid that we in this country
who are concerned for the future of European culture and democracy
can give to it.
ANTI:FASCIST
JITTERBUG
Mr. Lewis Mumford's essay on Spengler in the
New Republic
of January 11 would make an ideal
contribution to an anthology of writings by the
anti-fascist jitterbugs who are nowadays providing the liberal peri–
odicals with their thrills and throbs. We are aware, of course, that
Mr. Mumford is what is popularly known as a "man of good will",
that is to say, he belongs to that advanced school of backward think–
ers who have converted the Christmas spirit into a philosophy of
history. Therefore we were not at all surprised to see him turning into
a jitterbug under our very eyes. The modern situation demands it.
Now that the post-war era is definitely behind us and we are
again stumbling in a pre-war fog, "men of good will" are called
upon by ·the reactionary
Zeitgeist
to fulfill their historic mission.
It is only proper that they should take
it
upon themselves to furnish
cultural sanctions for the second . world-conflict between the
im–
perialist powers. In the afore-mentioned essay Mr. Mumford does
his bit for democracy by proclaiming the "pathology of the German
mind" to be the "sinister world-problem" of our time. This mind,
don't you see, has something "deeply irrational" at its basis: naturally,
it is responsible for Hitlerism, of which Spengler was the prophet. In
the past it produced such intellectual hobgoblins as Treitschke, Hous–
ton Chamberlain, and ... Fichte, Hegel, Wagner. Thus, without
so much as an apologetic gesture, Mr. Mumford reverts to the
Hun-baiting of 1914-1918.
