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PARTISAN REVIEW
tionary situations." That gravedigger of capitalism which Marx
and Engels saw on the far horizon has finally appeared, wearing
not the overalls of the proletariat but the uniform of the Reich·
swehr. But, although fascism has destroyed the old social order,
it is unable to bring the new society into being. That task is still
reserved for the world workingclass. It is weak, perhaps weaker
and more demoralized today than at any time in the last hundred
years. But history in the next decade will present it a last chance.
The totalitarian bureaucracies are still in their Merovingian phase:
these "Mayors of the Palace" have yet to set up their own imperial
dynasties.
If
they succeed in working out a new and stable
world order, then our civilization will enter on a new age of dark·
ness. But it is premature to pronounce any elegies.
It
is the death
of a world, but not the death of the world.
II.
What Must We Do To Be Saved?
The speed and scope of the Nazi victory abroad has made
national defense the one great theme of American politics today.
Two months ago, the main question was aid to the Allies. Now
France is part of the Nazi war front, and even President Roosevelt
seems to have given up the idea of coming to the rescue of England.
Every one, for various reasons, agrees that "Hitler must
be
stopped," every one agrees that the cause of democracy is as good
as lost in Europe, and practically every one-again for various
reasons-now seems to agree that, for an effective defense program
against the. Nazi menace, we must put our faith in the American
version of the same kind of social system that has failed so miser–
ably abroad to resist the fascist dri:ve. It is as though no one had
ever heard of Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Bel·
gium, France or England.
Here I am not much concerned with the American hour·
geoisie: they will turn to a native fascism or welcome the Nazi
variety, depending on the situation, when it seems prudent to do
so, just as their class brothers have done in Europe. What must
be
of concern to any one on the left, however, is that the blitzkrieg
has stampeded into a
"union sacree"
with the bourgeoisie practi·
cally all those groups and individuals which until May 10 had
continued to resist the mounting war hysteria. The isolationists
have become "insulationists," the insulating material being stout
