616
answer most of the .questions
raised by our correspondence, in–
cluding many of the letters we
have not had space to print, but
the point about war in Mr. Kol–
odny's letter seems to demand sep–
arate notice, for in some sense it
is a question common to all the
foregoing positions. Though we
thought the editorial made suffi–
ciently clear why war was not a
political issue now, and wonder
'where Mr. Kolodny
aljJpear~
to .
have found the doubletalk, never–
theless we are glad of this op–
portunity of further clarifying our
position.
In the first place, it has got
to be dinned into liberal heads
that it was Staliin himself who
called the tum at the end of the
war, and gave the signal for the
onslaught against the Western de–
mocracies. The war ended with the
greatest good will toward Russia
on the part of the capitalist pow–
ers, and it has taken a year of
continual aggressions on the part
of Stalin to mobilize capitalist
opinion against him. (In fact, he
won a good many of his early ad–
vantages because the capitalist
powers were still deep in the slum–
ber of wartime amity toward Rus–
sia.) Stalin could have obtained–
if he chose to be friendly-all the
security he wanted, but instead he
decided to follow another path.
We have, therefore, every reason
to believe that it will be Stalin who
will call the tum if it comes to
war, and no matter how many
concessions America makes to him,
he will choose his own moment
for the military, as he has for the
PARTISAN REVIEW
dipl~atic,
onslaught-if in the
future war should turn out to be
his program. That is why we
in–
sisted that appeasement could not
possibly avert war.
When we asserted in the editorial
that war was not an issue
now,
our principal point was to warn
against using the war issue as a cam–
ouflage for Stalinist propaganda.
We would agree, however, with the
implication of Mr. Kolodny's letter
that the possibility of war cannot be
c0:mpletely dismissed by making
this point, valid though it be.
Every serious political program of
opposition to Russia must take in–
to account the possibility of even–
tual war between, America and .
Russia.
If
Mr. Kolodny wants to
know whether we will support
America in a war with Russia, we
can only say now that that will
depend on the existing situation
when and if war comes. But we
do have
now
this principle to offer
the Left: that we propose to sup–
port the American policy of of re–
sistance to Stalinism so long as this
policy meets the test of genuinely
liberal and democratic standards or
serves to promote a democratic
judith ROTHSCHILD
JOSEPH LUYBER
GALLERIES
paintings
TO
NOV.
16th
Hotel Brevoort • 8th St.
&
5th Ave.
