LONDON LETTER
323
whether there is widespread feeling against Bevin's policies in Greece
and Indonesia, in so far as these are still live issues. But as for the USSR,
it is hardly denied even by Russophiles that the popular enthusiasm of
a year or two ago has worn very thin.
If
there were no other symptoms
at all, I could infer this merely from my own postbag. As open apologists
i
of the Stalin regime, the Communists are now playing on a losing wicket.
I
And yet if they could get inside the Labour Party as an organised body,
·
j
they might be able to do enormous mischief. Even the worst kind of split
could hardly result in a Communist-controlled government, but it might
bring back the Conservatives-which, I suppose, would be less dangerous
from the Russian point of view than the spectacle of a Labour govern-
ment making a success of things.
Politically there is not much else happening. There has been some
slight activity on the part of the Mosleyites and other Fascist groups,
but there is no sign that they have any mass following. The intellectual
struggle
b~tween
Stalinists and anti-Stalinists goes on and on, with
frequent sensational defections from one side or the other. Wyndham
Lewis, I am credibly informed, has become a Communist or at least a
strong sympathiser, and is writing a book in praise of Stalin to balance
his previous books in favor of Hitler. All who bother about politics are
immersed in the day-to-day struggle over Trieste, Palestine, India, Egypt,
the nationalisation of steel, the American loan, re-housing, the Health
Service bill, and I do not know what else, but no thoughtful person
whom I know has any hopeful picture of the future. The notion that a
war between Russia and America is inevitable within the next few
decades, and that Britain, in its unfavorable geographical position, is
bound to be blown to pieces by atomic bombs, is accepted with a sort
of vague resignation, rather as people accept the statement that sooner or
later the sun will cool down and we shall all freeze to death. The gen–
eral public seems to have forgotten about the atomic bomb, which seldom
figures in the news. Everyone is intent on having a good time, so far as
our reduced circumstances permit. Football matches are attended by
enormous crowds, pubs and picture-houses are always packed, and motor–
ing has revived to a surprising extent considering that petrol is still
theoretically rationed, the "basic" ration being only five gallons a
month. Secondhand cars sell for fantastic prices, and extraordinary objects,
some of them twenty or thirty years old, are to be seen puffing along on
the roads. The forgery of petrol coupons is said to have reached such
a pitch that the authorities may actually give up rationing in despair.
With some difficulty you can now buy a vacuum cleaner, but I still
haven't seen a refrigerator for sale, and it would be impossible to furnish
a house in even the barest way without spending hundreds of pounds and
having
to
make do with a great deal of ugly and ill-made stuff. There is
