PARTISAN REVIEW
"doctrinal trash": Marxism, insofar as it claims to be a prescience
and not simply a resolve. At the same time, he cannot help surrep–
titiously giving a kind of advantage to the man who, like Garcia in
Man's
Hope,
is ready to say: "In times like the present, I'm less
interested in the reasons men may have for giving up their lives than
in the means they have for killing off their enemies." Garcia is su–
perior to the anarchist because he is prepared to neglect "reasons" in
order to organize "means." In the same novel, Manuel appears en–
dowed with a superior kind of rationality because he is ready to take
upon himself the death of the two stragglers who are going to be
executed so that discipline may
be
restored in the ranks of the Peo–
ple's Army.
Where Stendhal and Tolstoy stop and wonder because they
cannot forget the
detail
out of which springs the revelation of an
irretrievable irony or absurdity, Malraux makes allowances for won–
der and proceeds. What fascinates him is what lies beyond any indi–
vidual detail or thought: the general shape of historical destiny
in
our time and the will to master it. Communist tenacity and ruthless–
ness interest
him
in
that they represent a peculiar way of bringing
together a "reason" which is universal in character and a will which
· is essentially absolute, knowing no obstacles and no scruples. Yet, the
same sage, Gisors, who had said: "Marxism is not a doctrine but a
will," added: "You must not be Marxists in order to be right, but in
order to conquer without betraying yourselves." There is, so it seems,
a point where one must "stop and think": betrayal. But then, how
can a will ever be proven wrong as long as it lasts? Where should
the resolve to conquer stop, except in victory, or in defeat? And which
is the traitor: the man who jeopardizes victory bec;mse he refuses to
yield his "reasons" .for wanting it, or the one who is ready to sup–
press these "reasons" as hindrances, and thus jeopardize the
meaning
not only of victory but also of defeat?
In Malraux, when defeat comes, darkness is complete. Hope or
trafP.c lament would appear equally futile. There is room only for a
last flicker of humanity: the gesture by which Katov gives up to two
fellow victims the cyanide that would have spared him the torture of
the furnace.
Andre Malraux is, in fact, the poet of violent defeat. But he
shows a significant unwillingness to accept his role. At the end of
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