438
PARTISAN REVIEW
DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR EFFORT
BUSINESS AS USUAL: THE FIRST YEAR OF DEFENSE. By I. F.
Stone. Modern Age.
$2.00
WAR BY REVOLUTION. By Francis Williams. Viking.
$1.50
These two short books, by an American left New Dealer and a British
left Laborite, complement each other neatly-and also document neatly,
incidentally, the "10 Propositions on the War" by Greenberg and myself
in the last issue. Mr. Stone writes about the economic failure, Mr. Williams
about the political, of Roosevelt-Churchill 'democracy' in the present war.
The authors do a realistic job of criticism and exposure, whose value is
not at all lessened by their failure to see the underlying causes of the
things they criticise, and hence to show any way out of the mess.
Business as Usual
demonstrates, with overwhelming data, that the
American 'defense' program has up to now been controlled by big busi–
nessmen, that they have sabotaged necessary plant expansion because of
their quite justifie·d fear of catastrophic (from their point of view) over–
production after the war, and that our 'war economy' is to date pretty
much of a bad joke. Mr. Stone, of course, is an excellent reporter; his
Washington letters for months have been the only bit of journalistic
terra
firma
in that slushy mushy quagmire of liberal yearnings the
Nation
has
become. His long account of the Mellons' aluminum monopoly and its
extraordinary--even to a hardened Marxist-record in the 'defense' effort
is the best thing in the hook.
In (unintentionally) ironic <;ontrast to the realistic, even cynical,
tone of Mr. Stone's comment on such matters are the pages at the end he
devotes to What Is To Be Done? He sees, and describes in valuable
detail, certain immediate steps: the Reuther aircraft plan, the Murray–
CIO industrial council plan, the Beaver County (Pa.) Committee for
Industrial Expansion idea-all of them ways of extending democracy (and
effectiveness)
from below
in the war effort. But how to move in that
direction is the real question, and here he merely echoes the despairing
exhortations of the liberal weeklies: "I believe there is a sufficient fund of
good will and a sufficient awareness of common danger in all classes to
make such a program possible
if
the President is prepared to give it
leadership." But it was 'the President' who put into power and who sup–
ports precisely the big businessmen Mr. Stone's book so effectively exposes.
How much longer will it take for left liberals like Mr. Stone to realize
that Mr. Roosevelt is on the other team?
"This war is a revolutionary war.
If
it is fought as ·a national war
for the victory of Britain and the established interests of Britain, it will
in
the end be lost.
If
it is fought as a war of democratic revolution in
Europe, it can
be
won.'' So begins Mr. Williams' little book. And he
ends it with a draft manifesto which he suggests the Churchill Govern-
