280
PARTISAN REVIEW
tent, it is said that the coal owners, while reading the miners sermons
on patriotism, are doing jiggery-pokery by working uneconomic seams,
saving up the good seams for after the war when the demand for coal
will have dropped again.
Everyone ex·cept the interested minority is aware that these condi–
tions can't be cured without nationalization of the mines, and public
opinion is entirely ready for this step. Even the left-wing Tories, though
not facing up to nationalization, talk of compelling the coal-owners to
amalgamate into larger units. It is, in fact, obvious that without cen–
tralizing the industry it would be impossible to raise the enormous sums
needed to bring the mines up to date. But nationalization would solve
the short-term problem as well, for it would give the miners
something to look forward to, and in retum they would certainly under–
take to refrain from striking for the duration of the war. Needless to say
there is no sign of any such thing happening. Instead there has been
a hue and cry after the Trotskyists, who are alleged to be responsible
for the strikes. Trotskyism, which not one English person in a hundred
had heard of before the war, actually got the big headlines for several
days. In reality the English Trotskyists only number, I believe, about
five hundred, and it is unlikely they have a footing among the full-time
miners, who are very suspicious of anyone outside their own community.
As
this end of the war approaches its climax, the extraordinary con–
tradictions in the attitude of the intelligentsia become more apparent.
Even now large numbers of pinks claim to believe that no Second Front
is intended, in spite of the vast American armies that have been brought
here. But at the same time as they cry out for the Second Front to be
opened immediately they protest against the bombing of Germany and
Italy, not merely because of the loss of life but because of the material
destruction. I have also heard people say almost in the same breath
(a) that we must open a Second Front at once, (b) that it is no longer
necessary because the Russians can defeat the Germans singlehanded,
and (c) that it is bound to be a failure. Simultaneously with the desire
to finish the war quickly there is quite frank rejoicing when something
goes wrong, e.g., the stalemate in Italy, and a readiness to believe any
rumor without examination so long as it is a rumor of disaster. Almost
simultaneously, again, people approve the Russian proposals to partition
Germany and exact enormous reparations, and tell you what a lot Hitler
has done for Europe and how much preferable he is to the British Tories.
Again-1 notice this every day in the short stories and poems sent in to
the
Tribune-numbers
of left-wingers have a definitely schizophrenic
attitude towards war and militarism. What one might call the official
left-wing view is that war is a meaningless massacre brought about by
capitalists, no war can ever lead to any good result, in battle no one has
any thought except to run away, and the soldier is a downtrodden slave
