THE CULTURE CONFERENCE
509
At the heart of such conferences, and in fact of the whole Stalinist
movement, lies the Russian myth. How deeply the hope of socialism
must have sunk into the Western mind can be seen by the fanatical in–
sistence with which millions of people in Europe and America (not,
after all, the worst people
in
the world) cling to the fantasy that in
Russia socialism is, in one or another way, being built. To admit that
the slave society of Russia is a cruel distortion of the original socialist
hope is to face a terrifying world in which all the trodden paths of his–
tory seem only to lead to destruction. One often wonders why the Euro–
pean worker and the American middle class fellow-traveler cling to the
Russian myth. There is certainly no one answer to that question, but
perhaps one of the answers is itself a question: what must they face if
they abandon the myth?
In the meantime, the conference's sense of unanimity was severely
disturbed by the presence of an opposition of several hundred anti-Stal–
inist intellectuals, headed by George Counts and Sidney Hook. Hur–
riedly organized but supported by intellectuals of various anti-Stalinist
persuasions (including liberal supporters of capitalism, pacifists and vari–
ous kinds of socialists), the Americans for Intellectual Freedom was a
committee which largely confined itself to several specific immediate
issues : a disclosure of the true sponsorship of the Waldorf conference,
a challenge of the Russians' claim to be free intellectual agents, and an
exposure of the conference sponsors' failure to include any known anti–
Stalinists among its speakers. The AIF issued informative press releases
on these points, held a public meeting, and gained the support of writers
from abroad, among them
T.
S. Eliot, Ignazio Silone, Arthur Koestler
and Bertrand Russell .
Its effectiveness in combatting the Stalinists was at least partly
due, I think, to not having tried to work up any kind of general politi–
cal program. As soon as questions of program are raised-the sociologi–
cal meaning of Stalinism, how to oppose it politically, with whom al–
liances against Stalinism are permissible and profitable-there must un–
doubtedly appear sharp disagreements. (As it was, there were a few re–
marks in one AIF statement in support of U.S. foreign policy which
some anti-Stalinists, including myself, could not accept, as, I imagine,
might not even some of those who signed the AIF releases or were active
in its work. Nonetheless, on the specific issues raised by the conference, it
was possible for those who support and do not support U.S. foreign policy
to work together.) At the AIF meeting there was expressed a consider–
able range of political opinion, including that of the pacifist
A.
J.
Muste.
(No pacifists were invited to the Waldorf "peace conference.") I cite
