Irving Howe
THE CULTURE CONFERENCE
Nothing at the "Cultural and Scientific Conference for
World Peace" happened quite as one expected; consequently it had
an importance beyond its attendant flare of headlines and picketlines.
From it one could learn something about the current condition of Stal–
inism, the possible appearance of a new political tendency in the U.S.,
and perhaps even the behavior of certain American intellectuals. Since
PARTISAN
REVIEW
readers have by now no doubt seen detailed reports of
the conference proceedings, I shall largely confine myself to general ob–
servations and conclusions.
Outside the Waldorf, the Catholic War Veterans were picketing
aggressively; inside, some three thousand middleclass Wallaceites, braced
by the usual strategically placed party fraction, sat passively listening
to speeches. It was interesting and important to observe that the per–
centage of young people seemed smaller than at previous conferences
of this sort; apparently the Stalinists are not doing well on the campus.
It was also interesting that in addition to the breathless middlebrows,
half grasping and half fearful in their culture-hunger
(did you
SEE
Shostakovich?),
there were untainted innocents who really thought the
conference had some genuine relation to working for peace. Somehow the
Stalinists always find new innocents, each batch on a lower cultural level.
At the very first session there were significant divergences from pre–
vious Stalinists-front conferences. None of the speakers was either a
prominent or a serious intellectual; no official representative from the
Communist Party of the U .S. appeared; each speaker deplored, if only
in passing, the absence of democracy in Russia. None of these things
would have been possible ten years ago.
Few commentators on the conference have said anything about the
first speaker, a retired Bishop from Utah who nearly broke up the whole
affair by talking forever, but to me his speech and its enthusiastic re–
ception were particularly revealing. Apparently not having enjoyed so re–
ceptive a congregation for some time, the Bishop indulged in every con–
ceivable pulpit witticism and rhetorical flourish. To watch the Stalinists
