LONDON LETTER
317
lilerature like Barbusse, etc., in the last war? Over here we hear there is
a tendency towards romanticism and escapism in current British wriling.
Is
this true?
So far as I know, nothing of consequence is being written, except in
fragmentary form, diaries and short sketches for instance. The best
novels I have read during the past year were either American or transla–
tions of foreign books written several years earlier. There is much pro–
duction of anti-war literature, but of a one-eyed irresponsible kind. There
is nothing corresponding to the characteristic war-books of 1914-18. All
of those in their different ways depended on a belief in the unity of Euro–
pean civilization, and generally on a belief in international working-class
solidarity. That doesn't exist any longer-Fascism has killed it. No one
believes any longer that a war can be stopped by the workers on both
sides simultaneously refusing to fight. To be effectively anti-war in Eng–
land now one has to be pro-Hitler, and few people have the intellectual
courage to be that, at any rate wholeheartedly. I don't see why good books
shouldn't be written from the pro-Hitler angle, but none are .appearing
as yet.
I don't see any tendency to escapism in current literature, but I
believe that if any major work were now produced it
would
be escapist,
or at any rate subjective. I infer this from looking into my own mind.
If
I could get the time and mental peace to write a novel now, I should want
to write about the past, the pre-1914 period, which I suppose comes under
the heading of "escapism."·
3.
What is the morale of the regular army like? Is there any tendency
towards more democracy? Is it, so to speak, a
British
army primarily, or
an
anti-fascist
army-like the Loyalist army in Spain?
I believe that the morale of the army is very good in a fighting sense
but that there is much discontent about low separation-allowances and
class-privilege in the matter of promotion, and that the troops in England
are horribly bored by the long inaction, the dully muddy camps where
they have spent the winter while their families were being bombed in the
big towns, and the stupidity of a military system which was designed for
illiterate mercenaries and is now being applied to fairly well-educated
conscripts. It is still primarily a "non-political" British army. But there
are now regular classes in political instruction, and subject to local varia–
tion, depending on the commander of the unit, there seems to he a good
deal of freedom of discussion. As to "tendency towa·rds democracy," I
should say that there is probably less than there was a year ago, hut that
if one looks back five years the advance is enormous. On active service
the officers now wear almost the same uniform as the men (hattledress),
and some of them habitually wear this on home service. The practice of
saluting officers in the street has largely lapsed. New drafts of recruits
all have to pass through the ranks and promotion is theoretically on merit
alone, hut the official claim, based on this, that the army is now entirely
democratic should not he taken seriously. The framework of regular
