PARTISAN REVIEW
in Marxism, then he is not a bolshevik." "Doctrinal trash" exasperates
him.
For Garine, "the revolution cannot be born except from its
actual beginnings ... is, above all, a state of affairs."
The true bolshevik is Borodin: "a great business manager .
a man who, before each and every thing, has only one thought: 'Can
I utilize it, and how?'" Garine obeys Borodin's orders, but this
is
what he thinks of him: "He wants to make revolutionists the way
Ford makes automobiles. This will end in disaster, and before long."
There is no doubt with whom Malraux's sympathies lie.
Garine is a man of action unleashed. To him, "there is only one
reason that is not a parody: it
is
the most effective use of force,"
and there is only "one thing that counts: not to be defeated." He
says of himself that he has put "a complete lack of scruples at the
service of something which is not my immediate interest." An adven–
turer? Of a sort. But since he does not seek personal profit, since he
has chosen a cause and not a career, Garine finds himself bound by
laws that he cannot control. He is committed to his action and to
the demons evoked by it. He cannot simply kill and send people to
be killed. He must account for his acts, to himself as to others. He
must follow to the bitter end the course he has chosen.
If
he had
wanted just adventure, then he
is
indeed trapped: "Those who want
to soar above the earth soon come to realize that the earth sticks to
their fingers."
The actual fate of the "great action," the Chinese Revolution,
to which Garine together with Katov and Kyo of
Man's Fate
are
committed, can be described in a few words. The Canton insurrec–
tion, which Garine organizes, is connected with the great boycott
of Hong Kong, which threatens the very life of the British Empire.
Any successful development of the situation depends on Chiang
Kai-shek on one side, and on the Comintern on the other, simply
because these are the main forces behind the events. The revolt, one
must add,
is
mainly a revolt of the Chinese against foreign imperial–
ism. The Japanese are looking at it with great interest, but they are
as worried as the Western powers by Russia and its Comintern.
As
for the Communists
on the spot,
they think they can turn the whole
situation into a proletarian revolution. When his victories bring
Chiang to the point where he must either have a showdown with
the Western powers or appease them by dropping the Communists,
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