478
PARTISAN REVIEW
gle point in the argument: his
rejoinder is therefore irrelevant.
2. Some readers of P.
R.
have
written to inquire why I bothered
to reply to Merian's ill-mannered
and factional · attacks. I did so
because his position is such a
beautiful specimen of what I have
called "metaphysical apriorism"
in left-wing politics. I think it is
instructive to lay bare the central
nerve of this apriorism. Consider
what Merian's position entails as
it concerns the war between capi–
talist democracies and Germany.
on the one hand, and 'socialist'
dictatorships and Germany on the
other.
If
Russia is attacked by
Hitler, Merian believes that the
Russian workers should of course
rally to the support of the mili–
tary war. But if the
U.
S. or
England is attacked by Hitler,
Merian urges the workers to refuse
military support even if the con–
sequences guarantee a Nazi vic–
tory. Now, why the difference?
Because, forsooth, Russia is a
"worker's state", though as an or–
thodox Trotskyist Merian believes
it to be rather degenerated. To
say that a totalitarian "worker's
state" should be defended against
attack by Fascism and a demo–
cratic bour11:eois state should not,
is to say that Russian workers
have a greater stake in their coun–
try than En(Tlish and American
workers have in their own. {Even
if
this were true, the main ques–
tion, so far as the war is concerned,
would still remain to be settled:
and that is whether the workers
stand to p:ain more from the pre–
servation of a democratic Emdand
and America than from a victori–
ous Fascism.)
But how is it known that the
Russian workers have a greater
stake in their country than the
English· and American workers
have in theirs? Have they a
greater material stake, a stake in
a freer culture and in a more dem–
ocratic political structure? All
the empirical evidence shows that
the contrary actually is the case.
What, then, makes Russia a "work–
er's state"? A decree nationaliz–
ing the instruments of production
-not more democracy, not a bet–
ter standard of living, not an
unregimented culture. In almost
every respect the workers of U. S.
and Britain may enjoy better con–
ditions than the workers of the
J].
S. S.
R.
{including the right to
organize and agitate for still bet–
ter conditions) but under no cir–
cumstances does this justify their
supporting the present war against
Fascism. For, you
see,
they have
no nationalization decree-that
all-saving abstraction whose pres–
ence or absence has in reality very
few of the differential effects re–
quired by Merian's monistic dog–
ma. Not even the circumstance
that the victory of Russia may
depend upon the support given
their own governments by the
workers of America and Britain
alters the case for the intransigeant
Trotskyist. Until the instruments
of production have been national–
ized,
no
war waged by a bourueois
democracy can he supported by
socialists against
any
enemy in–
cludin~
one whose
a~enda
calls
for the immediate liquidation of
all socialists.
We can now see why instead of
investigating each political pro–
posal and weighing the conse–
quence.f of action one way or an–
other in relation to the ohances of
the workers coming closer to so–
cialism, Merian resorts to a
formula and a faith that remain
valid for every sit!Ultion no matter
what the consequences. That is
why
it
makes no difference to him
