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PARTISAN REVIEW
again in 1942. In the summer of 1942, the turning-point of the war,
most of them held it as an article of faith that Alexandria would fall
and Stalingrad would not. I remember a fellow broadcaster, a Commu–
nist, saying to me with a kind of passion, "I would bet you anything,
anything,
that Rommel will be in Cajro in a month." What this person
really meant, as I could see at a glance, was, "I
hope
Rommel will be
in Cairo in a month." I myself didn't hope anything of the kind, and
therefore I was able to see that the chances of holding on to Egypt were
fairly good. You have here an example of the wish-thinking that under–
lies almost all political prediction at present.
I could be right on a point of this kind, because I don't share the
average English intellectual's hatred of his own country and am not
dismayed by a British victory. But just for the same reason I failed to
form a true picture of political developments. I hate to see England
either humiliated or humiliating anybody else. I wanted to think that
we would not be defeated, and I wanted to think that the class distinc–
tions and imperialist exploitation of which I am ashamed would not
return. I over-emphasized the anti-Fascist character of the war, exag–
gerated the social changes that were actually occurring, and under-rated
the enormous strength of the forces of reaction. This unconscious falsifi–
cation colored all my earlier letters to you, though perhaps not the more
recent ones.
So far as I can see, all political thinking for years past has been
vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it
coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can
be ignored when they are unwelcome. For example, right up to May
of this year the more disaffected English intellectuals refused to believe
that a Second Front would be opened. They went on refusing while,
bang
in
front of their faces, the endless convoys of guns and landing
craft rumbled through London on their way to the coast. One could
point to countless other instances of people hugging quite manifest delu–
sions because the truth would be wounding to their pride. Hence the
absence of reliable political prediction. To name just one easily isolated
example: Who foresaw the Russo-German pact of 1939? A few pessi–
mistic Conservatives foretold an agreement between Germany and Russia,
but the wrong kind of agreement, and for the wrong reasons. So far
as I am aware, no intellectual of the Left, whether Russophile or Russo–
phobe, foresaw anything of the kind. For that matter, the Left as a
whole failed to foresee the rise of Fascism and failed to grasp that the
Nazis were dangerous even when they were on the verge of seizing
power. To appreciate the danger of Fascism the Left would have had to
admit its own shortcomings, which was too painful: so the whole phe–
nomenon was ignored or misinterpreted, with disastrous results.
The most one can say is that people can be fairly good prophets
