PARTISAN REVIEW
munists--these amount at best to a plastering of minor symptoms.
Under such circumstances, American aid may
be
oil poured into
a motor with ruined cylinders. The oil will
be
burned up
in
a few
miles, and the machine will still be a wreck.
I have, in fact, come to believe that
in
our day major economic
problems are not solved by economic means. The New Deal in the
United States was a remarkable instance of this paradox. The eco–
nomic measures instituted by Roosevelt when he took office in 1933
did not greatly differ from those of Hoover, and many of them were
ridiculous from a narrowly economic point of view. It was the
dynamic and integrating myth of Roosevelt and his "new deal" that
swept the nation out of the depression. The War was another illus–
tration. You will remember how the economists had proved that
Germany could not fight for even six months, because of its "un–
sound" fiscal policies; and that the United States would collapse
economically when the national debt passed one hundred billions.
Let me return, however, to France. The newspapers in Paris
are full of articles and manifestoes about the "Third Force," the
force that is alleged to be "the true France," the middle way between
the frowning extremes of Communism and Gaullism.
The phrase, "Third Force," was, I am told, coined a short
time ago by Claude Bourdet, who has been editing the newspaper
Combat
since the withdrawal of the original group (Piat, Camus,
Aron, Olivier, and yourself) who had made
Combat
the most distin–
guished journal in postwar Europe. (I note, by the way, that of
that original group, all of you except Camus are now with De Gaulle,
and Camus has declined to support the Third Force. ) The point
of departure for the Third Force was, however, the Schuman govern–
ment, which rests on a narrow parliamentary majority made up of
the Socialists, the Popular Republicans, and a section of the Radical
Socialists.
The formation of the Schuman government,
in
tum, resulted
from the October municipal elections, which caused the downfall of
Ramadier. Those elections showed that the present relationship of
parties in the Assembly has no correspondence with the actual sen–
timents of the electorate: a substantial majority of the voters is
divided between the Communists and the Gaullist "Rally of the
French People." The Assembly group supporting Schuman repre-
410
