466
PARTISAN REVIEW
Bulgaria. Panslavism is now the immediate weapon of Russian foreign
policy, and the western European communist parties will be expected
to string along, cutting off whatever sacrificial arms or legs are de–
manded.
All circumstances considered, the Parri government has been
acquitting itself as well as could be hoped. Parri himself is a figure to
be respected, and he still has a hold on the popular admiration, even
though some of the reactionary press has begun sniping at him. But his
task looks hopeless, the political wheels can be made to turn only for
so long when the economic gears are smashed or out of mesh. The other
day I read Ickes's statement that 6,000,000 tons of American coal would
have to be sent to Europe this winter to avert "chaos". The coal situa–
tion I knew about months ago, and have spoken about it above, but this
statement was interesting as the first indication of what will be the Amer–
ican policy for Europe. We are now about to embark on a policy of
pump-priming for Europe: pour enough capital into the European
economy to get the old patched-up capitalist mechanism turning again.
Don't forget that with all the news of mass demonstrations, mass parti–
san movements, general strikes and so on filling the papers, there are
still a lot of capitalists lurking about Europe, a little bit frightened per–
haps, more than a
!itt!~
bit tarred with the brush of collaboration and
fascism, but still casting deer-like glances of timid hope towards Ameri–
ca for the stuff that will set them up again, start their factories humming,
so that the workers, coming back to their jobs will forget everything
that's happened during the last six years, like a bad dream. But pump–
priming in Europe may not work any better than pump-priming back
home, and the peoples of Europe may gravitate away from it even more
sharply towards Russia. Nobody likes a handout which outrages at the
same time all his aspirations towards dignity and self-respect. Lend a
man money and make an enemy of him is an old piece of wisdom
some of us learned personally during the depression years of '29-'39.
MosEs BRowN
