4.92
PARTISAN REVIEW
invariably belong to the decadent third-generation rentier class. Those
who are
of
the capitalist class would regard the destruction of the Soviet
Union by Hitler with, at best, mixed feelings. But it is an error to suppose
that they are plotting direct treachery or that the handful capable of doing
so are likely to gain control of the State. Churchill's continuance in office
is a guarantee against that.
The working class.
All the more thoughtful members of the British
working class are mildly and vaguely pro-Russian. The shock caused by
the Russian war against Finland was real enough, but it depended on the
fact that nothing was happening at that time in the major war, and it has
been completely forgotten. But it would probably be a mistake to imagine
that the fact of Russia being in the war will in itself stimulate the British
working class to greater efforts and greater sacrifices. In so far as strikes
and wage disputes during the past two years have been due to deliberate
trouble-making by the Communists, they will of course cease, but it is
doubtful whether the Communists have ever been able to do more than
magnify legitimate grievances. The grievances will still be there, and
fraternal messages from
Pravda
will not make much difference to the feel–
ings of the dock-worker unloading during an air-raid or the tired muni–
tion-worker who has missed the last tram home. At one point or another
the question of working-class loyalty to Russia is likely to come up in
some such form as this: if the Government show signs of letting the Rus–
sians down, will the working class take steps to force a more active policy
upon them? In that moment I believe it will be found that though a sort
of loyalty to the Soviet Union still exists-must exist, so long as Russia is
the only country even
pretending
to be a workers' State-it is no longer a
positive force. The very fact that Hitler dares to make war on Russia is
proof of this. Fifteen years ago such a war would have been impossible
for any country except perhaps Japan, because the common soldiers could
not have been trusted to use their weapons against the Socialist Fatherland.
But that kind of loyalty has been gradually wasted by the nationalistic
selfishness of Russian policy.
0ld-f~shioned
patriotism is now a far
stronger force than any kind of internationalism, or any ideas about the
Socialist Fatherland, and this fact also will be reflected in the strategy
of the war.
The Comm·unists.
I do not need to tell you anything about the shifts
of official Communist policy during the past two years, but I am not cer–
tain whether the mentality of the Communist intelligentsia is quite the
same in the USA as here. In England the Communists whom it is possible
to respect are factory workers, but they are not very numerous, and pre–
cisely because they are usually skilled workmen and loyal comrades they
cannot always be rigidly faithful to the "line." Between September 1939
and June 1941 they do not seem to have attempted any definite sabotage
of arms production, although the logic of Communist policy demanded
this. The middle-class Communists, however, are a different proposition.
