LETTERS
77
himself, the main lines of the answer so that he can use it as an implicit
and consistent criterion throughout the work. But evidence is lacking that
there is any such viewpoint underlying the approach to the events and
problems here touched upon. It is characteristic that the author now bor–
rows Lenin's outlook, now Trotsky's, now Luxemburg's, now Martov's,
even Masaryk's. He has seen the structure of his own views crumble into
ruins but has not succeeded in the subjective reconstruction which is a
prerequisite for full usefulness in undertaking the collective task of re–
building the revolutionary movement and the socialist system of thought.
He is too informed to let his disillusion with the Russian Revolution restore
an impossible faith in decaying capitalism. His strength is in negation–
a significant task- for the rest he wrings his hands and laments at the ruin
and the waste places he has helped to clear.
However, he has done a mighty job of clearing. Those undertaking
the tasks he hut indicates will be deeply grateful for this book. Those who
spurn it because it leaves certain big questions unanswered or calls in
question things they would rather see untouched, can avail little in finding
the answers Souvarine has failed to find.
LEnERS
SURREALIST PROTEST
Sirs:
Louise Bogan's article, "The Poetry of
Paul Eluard," seems, to us, transparently
composed of the opinions of a literary
mob, insufficiently inducted into the fur-
111Ce8
of modern esthetic experience. A
&Jaring clue to the rigid pattern of mis–
llllderstanding which Miss Bogan has
~~~~~~aged
to make seem so slight is the
factual inaccuracy: "... that he (Eluard)
llu
never rebelled against Breton's mani–
feetoes and excommunications." This may
be
consistent with Miss Bogan's general
portrait of Eluard's ideological (and
weak)
acquiescence, but, as everyone
bows,
the F.I.A.R.L manifesto did ruin
dte
intellectual partnership.... And there
Ia
the anti-climax of Miss Bogan's article:
'That Eluard's gifts should have been
fen:ed,
by the fashion or neurosis of his
,mod,
to disguise themselves as 'uncon–
ICiou'
(so that their true imaginative
liPta
will
not lie open to scorn) and be
~~~Chaced
to the level of a word game is
BERTRAM
D.
WoLFE
peculiar enough.'' The "forced disguise"
of Eluard's gifts is a clean donation of
Miss Bogan. Some may love Mis.s B.'s
superb journalistic ease in regard to all
this fol-de-rol and sickness of Surrealism.
It is neat to say that the typical surrealist
is the "rage-type," namely the professional
sick man. We do not say this analysis of
Miss B.'s is morbid, but we say it may
well be. Yet it does seem completely ir–
responsible to the legitimate psychologi–
cal assumptions of a given art movement
(Surrealism) in the same way that pro–
fessional neurologists depredate society
in search of "perverted" artists.
Miss Bogan is apparently unaware of
the danger of soberly invoking old-fash–
ioned outcries against the inexorably ad–
vancing footstep of esthetic revelation.
Let us come out and say that to pose the
situation of Eluard as the true imagina–
tion somehow wriggling away from the
false is a slander on the slippery back of
Surrealism. Surrealism is not defined by
a parlor game, a set of rules, or a psy–
chotic type. Surrealism exploits these
