PARTISAN REVIEW
It is a curious fact that the Third Force, whose adherents are
anti-Communist in their own minds, could not exist, politically speak–
ing, without Communism. Imagine that tomorrow in France the
French Communist Party should disappear, or even be seriously
weakened. The automatic political consequence would be a Gaullist
assumption of power. Third Force theory and practice
is
compelled
to take account of this political reality. The theoretical symptom is
the argument that suppression of the Communist movement is
"in–
compatible with the principles of democracy." (Leon Blum, in a
conversation I had with him the other day, insisted once more on
this argument, which he has of course always upheld.) The prac–
tical result is that the Third Force cannot solve the Communist
problem; cannot stop Communism's advance, much less reduce it
to harmlessness.
The Third Force type (of individual and of organization) exists
not only in France, but in all the other nations at least of western
Europe and America. What I have been saying applies quite gen–
erally. The belief that democracy prohibits the suppression of Com–
munists is a touchstone. In the United States, the organization called
"Americans for Democratic Action," which is trying to become a
center for our Third Force of anti-Communist liberals and demo–
cratic socialists, officially reaffirms the taboo. After all, is not Benes
a typical embodiment of the Third Force?
The Third Force, as you have suggested, conceives of the demo–
cratic state as a united front with Communism. So far there have
been no exceptions to the law that governs the destiny of
all
united
fronts with Communism.
The meaning holds internationally as well as internally. (The
international side should, indeed, come first. Your present crisis in
France is at least as much a reflection of the international crisis as
internally caused.) The Third Force conception of the desirable
world political order is, once again : a united front with the Soviet
Union, that is, with Communism. The ideal is expressed-and com–
mented on- by the United Nations. It emerges no less plain, if
negatively, from the manifesto of your Third Force intellectuals.
They are equally against "Soviet totalitarianism"-and "American
imperialism." What, then, are they for? That, in the manifesto, is
not so plain.
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