266
PARTISAN REVIEW
towards implementing it? Is not the workingclass everywhere in
full retreat, where it has so far escaped the fascist yoke? And even
if the workers later on show some signs of revolt, where will they
find their leadership? From the corrupt and discredited Second
and Third Internationals? From the tiny, isolated revolutionary
groups, split by sectarian quarrels? And finally, has not the
authority of Marxism itself, the very fountainhead of all revolu–
tionary science, been shaken by the failure of its disciples to give
adequate answers, in practice and in theoretical understanding, to
the historical developments of the last two decades?
I must admit that these questions are, to say the least, justi–
fied. The sort of "revolutionary optimism" favored in certain quar–
ters-an optimism which becomes more obstinate and irrational
the worse things turn out-seems to me to do no service to the
cause of socialism. We must face the fact that the revolutionary
movement has suffered an unbroken series of major disasters in
the last twenty years, and we must examine again, with a cold and
sceptical eye, the most basic premises of Marxism.
But I cannot see that we must, therefore, do what so many
intellectuals of the left are now doing: give up the struggle for
socialism and accept as the "lesser evil" to fascism a form of
society which they themselves well know is historically bankrupt,
without health and without hope. Those who are now hastening to
rally to the Roosevelt defense prograiJl are betraying that working–
class movement which is the only hope for our civilization's future,
and they are stultifying themselves as intellectuals. The intellec–
tual, if he is to serve any useful function in society, must not
deceive either himself or others, must not accept as good coin what
he knows is counterfeit, must not forget in a moment of crisis what
he has learned over a period of years and decades. Only if we meet
the stormy and terrible years ahead with both scepticism and devo–
tion-scepticism towards all theories, governments, and social sys–
tems; devotion to the revolutionary fight of the masses-only then
can we justify ourselves as intellectuals.
