PARTISAN REVIEW
but benevolent hand of De Gaulle. In discussing, for instance, a
European federation, Malraux seems to take for granted that the
African colonies would remain part of the existing empires. Similarly
there are several indications that Gaullism
is
entirely compatible
with the present form of capitalism and the profit system.
What is most disturbing, however, is Malraux's high-pitched
nationalism and Messianism, so reminiscent of the mass movements
of the right before the last war. Thus Malraux insists that politics,
unlike culture, is national. And at one point Malraux actually says,
"In every country, resistance to Communism takes on the color
given it by the practical spirit of that country. In Germany, it was
Nazism;
and with us it is something which looks like the First Re–
public." Perhaps we should not push the association too far. But this
much we have learned from the past: that the most dangerous move–
ments of the right set out to freeze the existing social order and make
their appeal by dedicating themselves to authority, the nation; and
the leader. And all these elements, while not presented in full dress
by Malraux, still may be seen lurking behind
his
humanist rhetoric.
Thus, while not coming out openly for an authoritarian government,
Malraux does speak rather contemptuously of the parliamentary
system, as when he contrasts De Gaulle's "decisiveness" with the
"talent for trading" of the parliamentarians, whom he dismisses as
a "party of logrollers."
As
for the leader, Malraux's image of De
Gaulle is not that of a political man but of a spiritual force-the
ghost of Joan of Arc in the uniform of the general. He is the incarna–
tion of French destiny: and one is led to believe that the similarity
between
his
name and that of France itself
is
more than a verbal
accident.
So
far, on the evidence presented by Malraux, we see no reason
why any liberal or radical movement should ally itself with Gaullism.
Perhaps the situation in France is such that there may soon be no
other alternative to Communism but De Gaulle. On this eventuality
we must reserve judgment. But on the scale of world politics, it is
already clear, even from Malraux's eloquent statement, that Gaullism
is
at present nothing more than a French phenomenon, with about as
much meaning for us as Ukrainian or Polish nationalism. True
enough, various nationalist forces are bound to ally themselves against
the imperialism of the Soviet regime, and, like the liberation move-
454
