PARTISAN REVIEW
curiously ambiguous, that it would deserve a detailed analysis), it has
no moral at all, and is not really an anti-Communist play. In spite of its
tragic plot, it is a comedy, the reduction to absurdity of Communist logic
with no particular conclusions drawn from it. But from the point of
view of the public,
Les Mains Sales
inevitably appears as a savage
attack on Communist mentality and tactics. An irresistible piece of
theatrical engineering in the good oldfashioned nineteenth century
tradition, the play certainly owes a great deal of its success to the mo–
ment in which it was produced. Sartre knows a lot about timing. Such
a public undressing of the "Stalinist situation" as his latest play could
hardly have been conceivable in 1946, when the CP was still "the
party of the executed."
The decline of the CP does not mean at all that light is beginning
to shine over France. It simply suggests that, in an atmosphere of poli–
tical freedom and peace, in which people would at least begin to have
the feeling that their urgent needs are being reasonably taken care of,
the CP would constantly lose ground. For the 'time being, however, the
rabid anti-Communism of the Right (which intends to make the defeat
of the CP a victory for nationalism, colonialism, and social conserva–
tism) , together with the ineptitude of the Socialists, tend to slow .down,
rather than accelerate, the process. So that, up to now, the most ef–
ficient agent of Communist disintegration remains Comrade Stalin.
Nicola Chiaromonte
1014
