Variety
The "Liberal" Fifth
Column: A Discussion
We are printing below a rejoin–
der by Heinz Eulau to the editorial
in our Summer
1946
issue, together
with several letters ·On the subject,
and a reply by the editors.
I
N PUBLISHING their ill-tempered
editorial, "The 'Liberal' Fifth
Column" (Summer 1946), the ed–
itors of PARTISAN REVIEW have
done themselves an injustice because
they have lost an opportunity.
If
it was their intention to come to
grips with the present dilemma of
American liberals vis-a-vis the real–
ity of Sovietism, they utterly failed.
This is the more deplorable as the
effort at a critique of American
liberals attempted in the editorial
was worth undertaking, and be–
cause the editorial contained some
valid censures.
The reason for this failure,
I
believe, lay in the editorial's ex–
clusive emphasis on the problem of
the liberal attitude toward Russia.
This,
I
will undoubtedly be told,
was its purpose. But it would have
been justified only if the editorial
had concerned itself solely with
substantive charges instead of also
seeking to discover motivations for
the liberal position. However, this
position cannot be appraised sat–
isfactorily within the narrow limits
set in the editorial. Had it discussed
present-day liberal attitudes gener–
ally, it would not have found it
impossible to see any consistent
principle behind the liberal ap–
proach to Russia except the poten–
tial advantage or disadvantage of
the Soviet Union.
The editorial touched a desir–
able explanation when it pointed
out that the liberals have never
committed themselves to socialism
against capitalism, or to capitalism
against socialism. But this line of
reasoning was dropped, and the
editorial reverted to the rather tire–
some, because repetitive, harping
on the theme of "fifth columnism."
For some reason, which
I
do
not quite understand, the editorial
saw in the liberal demand for the
internationalization of atomic en–
ergy control- and this they want
rather than that "the secret should
be given immediately to Russia"–
it saw in this demand the "first
clear-cut indication that a new
standard of judgment for all poli–
tical and social questions had been
found." Now,
I
am sure, the edi–
tors of pARTISAN REVIEW do not
really believe
this-even
if they be–
lieve Victor Kravchenko that "the
Russian employees in the Soviet
Embassy at Washington were al–
lowed to read, of American pub–
lications, only
The Daily Worker,
PM, The Nation
and
The New
