PARTISAN REVIEW
fascist tag on any movement that is ready to oppose Stalinism, still
we have felt there were many unknown quantities-perhaps many
grave political dangers-in the new political force being generated
by General de Gaulle. So far, however, our attitude has been based
largely on rumor and speculation. Now that we have before us Mal–
raux's explanation of Gaullism, we should at least be in a better posi–
tion to make up our minds about it. Hence, the document published
in this issue of PARTISAN REVIEW has for us the double interest of
presenting Malraux's latest views, and of being the first semi-official
statement to be published in this country of the aims of the Gaullist
movement. (Since Burnham's role in the dialogue is largely that of
an interlocutor,
his
own political opinions are not at issue here, so
that we need not discuss the serious differences between his views and
those of the editors of PARTISAN REVIEW. It might be said in passing,
though, that Burnham's questions strike us as being acute and fre–
quently more concrete than Malraux's replies.)
Taken as a whole, the dialogue is both a political and cultural
statement. But the cultural views expressed in it might easily be
separated from the political views, because the main question it poses
for us is a political one, and because Malraux, being a cultural plural–
ist, would probably be the first to disclaim any systematic relation
between his ideas on art and his ideas on politics.
As
for the political
content of the dialogue, that, too, might be divided into two parts:
the diagnosis of the crisis today and the political cure offered. In other
words, Gaullism is not presented solely as another theory of the good
society, but also .as the only immediate and feasible way out of a
desperate situation.
The desperate situation is simply that the Russian drive for world
power is sweeping across the entire European continent, enslaving
th<: populations of the occupied areas, and threatening to disintegrate
the political and intellectual life of those countries as yet out of the
reach of the Red Army. Hence the main political and human problem
today is how to stop the advance of Stalinism, without losing sight
of our radical goals. And insofar as Malraux and Burnham may be
said to share this general
aim,
we are in agreement with them.
Frankly, we have little patience with those bohemian radicals
who are more concerned with making a show of their purity and
intransigence than with formulating a serious opposition to Stalinism.
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