THE CULTURE CONFERENCE
511
some compulsion to extremc commitment or "martyrdom," he plunged
into a defense of Fadeyev, saying that he found the Russian's remarks
to be "direct and forthright." That was all: no qualifications about cen–
sorship and state pressure, not even of the sort present in his book.
And then Shostakovich. I confess myself somewhat at a loss to for–
mulate a definite attitude towards the Russian composer. At the writers
panel he confined himself to a brief ritualistic statement: Russian cri–
ticism had helped his music go forward. (He did not say to what.) The
next morning he delivered a long speech attacking "formalism" in music
and repeating the stock Stalinist phrases about culture. One wondered
then: was he, as he sometimes seemed, a pathetic little man, obviously
ill at ease and wishing to be away from these painful discussions? or
did we think him pathetic because we expected him to be so? There was
no way of knowing whether he wrote his speech himself or delivered it
under pressure. Was he a victim, as we liked to think, or had he too
become calloused by the alternate privileges and rebukes of the Stalin
regime? No one could answer these questions, for in the Waldorf too
the Iron Curtain hung.
Finally, Norman Mailer, in response to cries from the floor, spoke.
Mailer's hesitant, painful, but obviously deeply felt talk was a perfect
illustration of a politically inexperienced mind freeing itself from Stalin–
ist influence. A supporter of Wallace in the last election, Mailer now
said that he thought both the U.S. and Russia were drifting to state
capitalism, that he saw little hope for peace, and that he regretted
his
pessimism but could not honestly avoid it. The audience listened quietly,
with emotions one can imagine.
The conference, on the whole, was a failure. It aroused articulate
and aggressive oppositions; it was disturbed by deviant speeches from
among its own spokesmen; it could hardly have offered its supporters
much reassurance. My final impression is that the Stalinists must soon
decide to enter a new political phase in which they will largely aban–
don their independence and, following a Browder policy, work only
through front groups-or face disintegration and destruction. I must
also record my perplexity with regard to the behavior of certain Ameri–
can intellectuals. I think I understand Fadeyev and Howard Fast. But
Shapley and Matthiessen : what shall one make of them? How can a
man like Matthiessen, cultivated and intelligent, lend his support to a
creature of a slave state like Fadeyev? What are the drives
to
self-de–
struction that can lead a serious intellectual to support a movement
whose victory could mean only the end of free intellectual life?
