PARTISAN REVIEW
no longer define beauty by the form nor even by the matter, but by
the density of being.
3
II
The C.P. aligns its politics with that of Soviet Russia because
it is in this country only that one finds the rough draught of a socialist
organization. But if it is true that Russia began the social revolution,
it is also true that she has not ended it. The retardation of her in–
dustry, her shortage of supervisory personnel, and the masses' lack of
culture have prevented her from realizing socialism by herself and
even from imposing
it
on other countries by the contagion of her
example.
If
the revolutionary movement which started from Moscow
could have spread to other nations, it would have continued to evolve
in Russia itself in proportion to the ground it gained outside. Con–
tained within the Soviet frontiers, it congealed into a defensive and
conservative nationalism because it had to save, at any cost, the
results it had achieved. But at the very moment when it was becom–
ing the Mecca of the working classes, Russia then saw that it was
impossible on one hand for her to assume her historical mission
and, on the other, to deny it. She was forced to withdraw into herself,
to apply herself to creating supervisors, to catch up on her equip–
ment, and to perpetuate herself by an authoritarian regime having
the form of a revolution at stasis.
As
the European parties which
derived from her, and which were preparing for the coming of the
proletariat, were nowhere strong enough to take the offensive, she
had to use them as the advance bastions of her defense. But as they
could serve her, in regard to the masses, only by fostering revolutionary
politics, she has-having never lost hope of becoming the leader of
the European proletariat if circumstances should some day show
themselves more favorable-left them their red flag and their faith.
Thus the forces of the World Revolution have been diverted to the
3
From this viewpoint, absolute objectivity, that is, the story in the third ·person
which presents characters solely by their conduct and words without explanation
or incursion into their inner life, while preserving strict chronological order, is
rigorously equivalent to absolute subjectivity. Logically, to be sure, it might be
claimed that there is at least a witnessing consciousness, that of the reader. But
the fact is that the reader forgets to see himself while he looks and the story
retains for him the innocence of a virgin forest whose trees grow far from sight.
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