FAILURE OF THE LEFT
175
Or Reynolds ranting about dangers to the Bill of Rights. Yet
politically it is very effective. But with Wallace and other ad–
mirers of Russia's "economic democracy" in the camp of Roose–
velt, the uncritical support by progressives of all measures in–
creasing the scope of administrative law, their attitude towards
Congress which often implies that it is superfluous, if not a positive
obstacle, in the era of collectivism,-against all, this social reaction
can masquerade as defence of the abiding values in the spirit
of liberalism.
To the extent that the Left is supporting measures as tem–
porary expedients that are likely to result in permanent social
disabilities, it bt:trays not only a failure of nerve but a failure
of intelligence and morality. A correspondent in a recent issue of
The
Na~,ion,
protesting against a lapse from its customary line,
has unwittingly summarizea in one sentence the futility of this
policy of the left: "The issue before the democratic world today
is victory, regardless of cost or ethics." In other words let us beat
the Nazis even if we become like them. Stated in this extreme
form the progressive front recoils from the position. Since recent
events in North Africa, the liberal weeklies, at any rate, have
returned to the oppositional benches in respect to foreign policy,
although the political groups and trade unions, that are m a
position to exercise greater pressure, still remain silent,
Perspective
Is there, however, any alternative to Utopianism
for the Future
and opportunism in politics? The presupposition
of our criticism, of course, is that such an alterna–
tive exists. It may be briefly characterized as the acceptance of
the "Clemenceau thesis" from the left towards the conduct of the
war. During the first world-war, Clemenceau, from the right,
undertook a campaign against the existing French administration
on the ground that it was not waging the war effectively enough.
By
the end of the war he was hailed as the organizer of victory.
Today the great labor organizations and their political allies,
instead of concentrating mainly on time and half for all overtime
over forty hours and similar measures, ought to build an inde–
pendent political bloc, outside of the major existing parties. Their
immediate program should insist that
in the very interest of a
complete military victory over Hitler
all the submerged interest
