130
these things? By stepping on the
paper that is piled up in front of
me so that it will become the
paper that is piled up under my
feet?" "Sure," I said.
"If
you
climb high enough you will be able
to transform it." "Transform it?"
he said. "Never heard of such a
thing as a revolution from above,
unless you mean by it the public
suicide of all high-ranking bureau–
crats, diplomats and statesmen. Do
you really believe that, after you
have gotten used to this kind of
existence, to this stench and this
lingo, and especially to this charac–
ter-wrecking servility, you will be
able to transform what has already
transformed
you?
Have you ever
heard of such a thing as a man be–
ing devoured by his own excre–
ment?"
He agreed with Mussolini, and
more so, with Hitler, on one point.
"We need a new mythology,'' he
said. "I have it. Take the State
for instance. The State should be
represented as a beast in the posi–
tion of a dog at play, with the
head low, touching the floor, be–
tween the front-paws, and the rest
of the body high on the hind legs.
The growing generations come to
him, like insects on the floor, and
ask to be devoured. He takes them
in with his large tongue, then
chews them thin, and gulps them,
yes, and here's where my mytho–
logy comes in: he gulps them UP,
not DOWN. And up they go,
higher and higher in the body
politic or bureaucratic, each single
bureaucrat eager to be digested
quicker than the next one, anxi-
PARTISAN REVIEW
ous to slip through as smoothly as
possible, until they all eventually
"emerge,'' and I shall not describe
the rest. You know what they are
called when they get there:
Your
Excellency.
You, my friends, are
all welcome to make a quick and
brilliant career. I prefer to remain
in
the dark, undigested."
NrccoLo Tucci
Stalin the Infallible
T
HE wAR
was no sooner over
than the flow of dithyrambs
in honor of the great Stalin began
once more, and the wreaths of in–
cense again mounted to heaven.
Hundreds of newspaper articles
and thousands of orators in Russia
point out that Stalin foresaw and
forecast everything, and that is why
the war ended victoriously. The
war was "a great verification" of
the
kolkhozi,
of industrialization,
of Russia's foreign policy, of Com–
munism in power. Stalinism
passed the test, ·because at the
helm of the state there stands a
pilot who never errs.
This praise beyond measure is
now quite opportune-! do not
speak in jest. It is indispensable,
because the course and outcome
of the war may lead many to scru–
tinize the basic principles of Stal–
inist policy-to scrutinize critically
and to question its infallibility.
It
should not be supposed that behind
the gray screen of dull and trivial
newspaper articles there are no in–
quisitive Ininds striving . toward
