608
the hands of reactionaries. Con–
structive suggestions as to what
policy liberals might adopt on
Spain, Greece, Trieste, the Ruhr,
Germany, the atomic bomb, and
how to win Russian co-operation
if possible, would be more truly
worthy of a courageous and truly
independent review.
Sincerely yours,
HENRI PEYRE
New Haven, Conn.
•
The Politics of Illusion
T
HE EDITORS
bow to Professor
Dewey's kind compliment, and
hope it is not discourteous to cite
the opinion of America's leading
philosopher as our answer to the
first part of Mr. Peyre's accusa–
tion.
With all due respect, Mr. Peyre
strikes us as having missed the
whole point of our editorial,
which aimed-nothing more, noth–
ing less-to demonstrate that the
current attitude toward Russia of
a good many liberals is confused,
illogical, and deceitful. Mr. Peyre's
list of other subjects we might have
discussed instead of the one that
we were discussing-Spain, Greece,
Trieste, the Ruhr, Germany, the
atomic bomb, etc.-seems to have
lacked only mention of Palestine
in order to be a pretty complete
agenda of all political problems
currently troubling the world. Evi–
dently, politics is the one field
where people still expect you to
say everything about everything at
once. (But not the only field, un–
fortunately, where people think
they can say anything about any-
PARTISAN REVIEW
thing- and get away with it.)
However, one remark by Mr.
Peyre does come within the terri–
tory covered by the editorial. When
he says that he is afraid the edi–
torial, "can only play into the
hands of reactionaries," he is fall–
ing right into that abject mode
of thought which the editorial
did
attempt to castigate: precisely the
line followed by
PM
as a camou–
flage for its Stalinist propaganda.
Presumably, Mr. Peyre must have
ceased condemning Hitler when the
NAM began to condemn him. It
is about time we learned that poli–
tical wisdom is reached through
the analysis of an objective situa–
tion and not by mechanically negat–
ing any and every position of cer–
tain designated figures, Luce, Mc–
Cormick, or whom have you;
which is, after all, only an inverted
way of having Luce,
et al.,
do your
thinking for you.
In general, the reactions to the
editorial all fall into one or an–
other recognizable position, and
perhaps we may deal better with
the above correspondence, and with
Mr. Eulau's contribution, not by
going from point to point in each,
but by taking up the possible posi–
tions that have by this time come
into public view on the subject
with which the editorial dealt.
Three definite positions on the
present situation with regard to
Russia have appeared on the Left:
( 1) The position of the Trotskyites,
or that of "the third camp"; (2)
The pacifists, quietists; the fugi–
tives from politics: Dwight Mac–
donald may be taken as the most
