VARIETY
Republic."
Certainly, the friendly
attitude of the liberals toward Rus–
sia is older than the Bomb. The
charge that the liberals suddenly
became "Russian patriots" can
readily be thrown where it belongs
-in the garbage can of political
slogans.
More interesting, on the other
hand, was the intimation that Sta–
lin may go too far, forcing the
liberals to pull in their horns, and
that they are already giving signs
of pulling back. In spite of PAR–
TISAN REVIEW'S warning that all
that is needed to reverse this trend
are a few benevolent remarks about
peace and the UN from Stalin, it
may be appropriate in this connec–
tion to call attention to another
editorial, entitled "To the 'Neutral'
Liberals," in the June-July, 1946,
issue of
The Protestant.
PARTISAN
REVIEW charged the liberals with
saying that "in American hands the
atomic bomb constituted a threat
to the peace of the world, but of
course, if Russia had possession of
it; the world could rest secure."
The Protestant,
on the other hand,
discovered that "the attitude of
some liberals toward this war is
tragic. Apparently these liberals
would prefer atomic war to the
spread of communism beyond the
borders of the Soviet Union." And
it accused the liberals of preparing
"to support the war against the
Soviet Unicn.'·
I don't quite know what variety
of liberals the two journals are talk–
ing about, whether with or with–
out quotation marks. But I have
a hunch that it is the same species.
In any case, I would not bring
603
up the editorial in
The Protestant
if it had not dealt, like that of
PARTISAN REVIEW, with political
motivations. PARTISAN REVIEW, as
a matter of fact, had sanctified its
vitriolics with the strange axiom
that "political positions are weigh–
ed by objective consequences and
not by subjective intentions." The
editorial surely proved it.
If
inten–
tions, even though they are good,
are obviated by "objective conse–
quences," it is indeed unnecessary
to examine or at least present truth–
fully "subjective intentions."
Falsification of "subjective inten–
tions" can only result in the most
bizarre interpretation of "objective
consequences." This the juxtaposi–
tion of the PARTISAN REVIEW and
The Protestant
editorials with their
diametrically opposed conclusions
as to "objective consequenccs"–
"appeasement" in the former, "war
against the Soviet Union" in the
latter-amply demonstrates. But is
it not actual behavior, and not
arbitrarily discovered "objective
consequences," which is the socially
effective and decisive reality in po–
litical life? This, I think, was part–
ly, if inadvertently, recognized in
PARTISAN REVIEw's statement that
the liberals are neither fish nor
fowl as far as the issue of capi–
talism vs. socialism is concerned.
It may explain the liberal attitude
toward Soviet Russia.
Liberal behavior toward Russia
is essentially ambivalent. Because
they are not socialists, the liberals
can look upon certain features of
Soviet reality rather uncritically.
Their lack of proper socialist stand–
ards of judgment-mistaking, for
