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PARTISAN REVIEW
seems to me that, whatever one thinks of the end invoked by the
CP,
and of the end toward which its means actually tend, the above descrip–
tion of its fundamental attitude remains correct. What people here do
not see, however, is that
if
the CP is indeed not like the others, the others
become more and more like the CP.
They begin, I believe, by organizing
themselves and their propaganda on the Communist model, in order
to compete for power and for key positions in the half-nationalized econ–
omy. This reorganization, which of course is still embryonic, seems to
transform their whole
demarche>
the temper of their militants, their pro–
~ram
(which becomes infinitely elastic, according to circumstances), and
finally their aim (which becomes exclusive power, in function of nothing
but a belief in the party's historical "role"). The Minister of Food opens
an investigation into the black market in wine, and the whole press
reacts as to an operation against the Socialist Party (in the persons of
Gouin and Deffers, Socialist ministers in the
same government!).
The
textile scandal turns into a battle over the Communist attempt to colon–
ize the ministry of Industrial Production. The Socialist Minister of the
Interior leaves no stone unturned in order to uncover the activities of
the fantastic Joanovici, and the Communists see their hold slipping on
certain key positions in the Police Prefecture. Meanwhile,
L'Humanite
crows for days on end over the revelation of H ardy's guilt, attempting
thereby to discredit the non-Communist and anti-Communist (Frenay)
wings of the Resistance. But it is the MRP and the right-wing papers
which play up the discovery that General Alamichel worked for the
Gestapo-for Alamichel is "Tillon's man" (Tillon is the CP Minister of
Air ). Each of these cases, by the way, is passionately interesting in itself :
the story of Hardy, for example, has more to tell us about the tragic
atmosphere of the Resistance, the co-existence of heroism and treachery,
the fantastic complexity of motives, the inhuman tension, anguish, and
doubt which was, hour by hour, the consciousness of these men, than any
deliberate account has been able to tell us so far. (How poor, by com–
parison, is Sartre's
Mort sans Sepulture!)
But the parties, of course,
have nQ interest in values of this order. When a certain number of col–
laborators were found hiding in French convents, Albert Camus raised
ct;:rtain genera l questions about the Church's conception of asylum, etc.
But Camus apart, one can distinguish nothing in the hue and cry about
this affair which does not refer directly and essentially to the question:
are you for or against the MRP?
The other day, a minor weekly published a cartoon showing two
Frenchmen, each holding a newspaper before him. One of the men looks
over his neighbor's shoulder and says:
"Tiens!
Your paper has one more
scandal than mine!" And the editorialist of
Une Semaine dans le Monde
recalls that, in the old days, a well-known Marxist journalist used to
speak of Justice and Truth as "metaphysical sluts" who walked the
