612
made the basis for socialist activity.
It is time that the Trotskyites and
all those they have infected with
the disease of "Marxist" orthodoxy
stop intoning the ritualistic phrases
of 1917.
The Fugitives from Politics:
Dwight Macdonald
Another source of criticism of
our editorial is
Politics,
the organ
of Dwight Macdonald. A maga–
zine review in a recent issue of
Politics,
accused our editorial state–
ment of "Stalinophobia" and of be–
ina so
impure
as to weigh the
differences and the contradictions
between democratic capitalism and
Stalinism.
In the face of such criticism one
can only throw up one's hands and
wonder whether it was dictated
by sheer naivete, or polemical con–
siderations, or both. Every politi–
cally conscious person recognizes
that Stalinism is the central poli–
tical question today and the prin–
cipal threat to all socialist and
democratic activity-hence, by def–
inition, all such people are guilty
of Stalinophobia, just as Lenin was
guilty of Czarophobia, and every
anti-fascist of Hitlerophobia. As
for the question of purity, Mac–
donald has simply taken the Trot–
skyite anti-both-camps position and
put a religious veil on it-but we
shall return to this theme later,
for it contains the essence of Mac–
donald's latest idea.
In Macdonald's behalf, we can
say that, as against the Trotskyites,
he at least has two points of con–
tact with reality in holding: ( 1)
that the masses are not revolu-
PARTISAN REVIEW
tionary in the sense that they can
be counted on at present to rise up
of themselves and overthrow both
capitalist and totalitarian oppres–
sors; and (2) that Stalinist Rus–
sia is a new class society with a
peculiar dynamism of its own
which makes it an expanding
threat to the whole world.
The inevitable and overwhelm–
ing question to which these con–
clusions (with which we agree)
immediately lead, is: What, then,
in going to stop Stalinism? But it
is precisely at this point that Mac–
donald flaps his wings and soars
to an empyrean of moral rectitude
and passivity, transcending the up–
roars and skirmishes of the political
arena. For, according to Mac–
donald, democratic capitalism is
equally evil and must not under
any condition be given an iota of
support. In short, the answer to
Stalinism is moral uplift.
But if you turn your back so
airily on politics, politics does not
at all turn its back on you. Since
Macdonald has dismissed every pos–
sible political opposition to Stalin–
ism, what his position comes down
to-in objective terms-is a com-
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