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PARTISAN REVIEW
conversations, Gromyko, so the article declared, underwent a change
of heart and outlook. He became convinced that the businessmen
were not such terrible imperialists as the communists had thereto–
fore imagined, that they had not decided on a war to smash the
Soviet state, and that they were anxious to get together with the Soviet
Union on a constructive basis. Gromyko returned to the Soviet Union,
so the story continued, an altered man with an altered mission. He
told Stalin about his experiences in the United States, and about these
conversations. Stalin, at first skeptical, finally saw the light under
Gromyko's insistent guidance. With a sigh of relief, Stalin realized
that here was his chance to liquidate the cold war (which, apparently,
he never wanted in the first place, but was driven to by his fear of
American imperialism), and to enter a period of world cooperation
and reconstruction. Toward this happy consummation, Stalin then
set his course.
*
Shall we laugh or weep at the naivete with which this sugared
dose was swallowed? It is really humiliating to reflect on how easily
the Kremlin propaganda directors can pull the stops of American pub–
lic opinion and the American press. Today a fortissimo of war and
revolution, tomorrow the throbbing Vox Humana of "the peaceful
collaboration of capitalism and socialism," the deep pedals of fear and
anxiety alternating with the treble chirps of the longed-for dove: and
for total effect in the responsive audience, a chronic schizophrenic
imbalance that paralyzes action, as the schizoid individual is paralyzed
when his finger, following a string, reaches a point where the string
splits into two branches.
I do not know who the author of this article (and its sequel) is,
why he wrote it, or where he got (or was fed) his material. It is quite
likely that Gromyko talked with leading American businessmen, and
that he proved an affable conversationalist. But the picture of the
junior errand-boy, Gromyko, acting on his own, getting bright new
ideas, and then persuading Stalin to change
his
mind about the nature
and intentions of American "finance-capitalist imperialism" is comic–
ally absurd. To the dewiest sophomore in communism-the business–
men are for the most part pre-freshmen-the Kremlin's play should
be obvious. Gromyko, so far as there is anything to the story, acted, as
*
Two months later, a follow-up along the same lines was published in
United
Nations World.
