MALRAUX AND THE DEMONS OF ACTION
Malraux's break with communism came in 1939, with the Hitler–
Stalin pact. There, unmistakably, was
betrayal:
the official notice
served to the world that from then on the Soviet Union (and its
agencies, the Communist parties) meant the Soviet State, and no
longer a universal cause. Malraux then decided that there was only
one thing for him to do: to be in the war against Hitler. That was
the only way to be consistent with the logic of history betrayed by
Communism. He enlisted as a private in the Tank Corps.
Before the Pact, however, there had been the Spanish War.
There, really, the "sickness unto death" of the European Left, and
of Europe itself, had begun. There also, in spite of appearances, and
of what he himself would have been willing to admit, Malraux found
himself for the first time at odds with the logic of Stalinism.
Malraux was in Madrid when Franco's revolt broke out. He
saw something unforgettable: the first, almost miraculous, upsurge of
popular spontaneity and courage. The Canton and Shanghai insurrec–
tions might have appeared as engineered and led from above. But
in Barcelona and Madrid, the people had taken everything into their
hands, and won,
almost.
Malraux went back to Paris, and told the
popular audiences there of two things: the extraordinary courage of
the Spaniards, and the powerlessness of courage against the instru–
ments of modem warfare. He launched the slogan "Planes and guns
for the Spanish people," and, with a group of influential friends,
started out to organize the smuggling of planes, guns, and volunteer
pilots, into Spain. The French C.P. remained aloof, and recommended
the sending of ambulances and bandages. Later on, when Malraux
had begun to form his escadrille, the Spanish communists circulated
the rumor that the planes had really been sent by Thorez
&
Duclos.
Malraux could hardly have liked that.
Yet, without Soviet tanks and planes, Franco would have won
in 1936. Before
this
fact, all the rest became secondary for Colonel
Malraux. He accepted the Communist line in Spain as being identical
with the supreme necessity of war. He refused to see that military
logic meant turning the Spanish war into a senseless slaughter. He
refused to consider the fact that things like the massacre of the Bar–
celona anarchists, in May 1937, were not only debasing the dignity of
the Spanish cause, but also attacking its physical energies.
It
was
logical that, in March 1937, when, in connection with the Moscow
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