PARTISAN REVIEW
The day of the Bedell Smith-Molotov affair I saw a young man
whom I have known for many years, and toward whom personally I
feel very friendly. He is a CP member, and, because of the outstanding
role he has played in the resistance movement, occupies now a rather
important position. That day he appeared to be immensely amused by
the trap sprung on that dope of an American ambassador by Comrade
Molotov. I told him that maybe the joke was not so funny, and that, in
any case, I didn't feel that it took us nearer a state of peace. My friend
didn't agree: Molotov's was a master stroke, and it would force America
to accept negotiations, instead of being so irresponsibly "tough." He
went on to say that the real obstacle to an understanding between Amer-·
ica and the Soviet Union were Messrs. Bidault and Bevin, with their
ridiculous claim that, before making peace, Moscow and Washington
should listen to British and French quibbling. "In other words," I said,
"you would like America and Russia to get together." "I certainly would,"
he said, "otherwise we haven't got a chance." "And on what basis do
you think they could agree?" I insisted. "On the very good basis of our
backs, my dear," answered my Stalinist friend, with a hearty laugh.
Earlier in the conversation, he had explained to me the Stalinist line
of "chauvinism in every country," and its systematic opposition to any
idea whatsoever of a United Europe, by saying that European capitalism
was selling countries wholesale to its American masters, and couldn't
carry out its schemes without the cover of Europeanism. Hence, the
defense of national interests had become one of the main tasks of the
working class.
This, it now appeared, was a theory for the possibly transitory period
of the "cold war." As soon as the atomic lightning of naked power poli–
tics struck, however, dialectics would automatically be put out of ac–
tion, and the only rational thing to do would be to resign oneself to
naked force, with no illusions as to the softening effects of ideologies on
it. Which is, after all, what Europeans are doing right now. They hardly
need Marxist indoctrination in this, since their backs are already sore
enough from the burden of geopolitics. What is the use of improvising
cumbersome theories, if they can't even hide the fact that they finally
serve no purpose, and the fundamental question remains the same for
everybody?-! could have asked my friend. But I didn't, and just took
notice that, for him too, black and white were colors for public use,
while in private he saw gray, like everybody else.
The gray became even darker for this particular Communist when
the Tito affair burst into the headlines. The ideological hocuspocus of
the Cominform hB didn't find hard to swallow, except for the style,
1010
