PARIS LETTER
167
dochina, etc. have no right to talk about Soviet concentration camps
(this was the thesis of the fellow-travelers).
The above-mentioned Monsieur Daix, automatically called Rousset
"a forger" in his article on the appeal. This of course gave Rousset
the opportunity to sue
Lettres
FTan~aises
for libel; hence, another
Kravchenko trial is looming on the Parisian horizon. And it will be
another demonstration that Stalinism cannot resist cross-examination.
Also, a few more sympathizers will be overcome by disgust.
As for intellectuals, the erosion of the communist-Stalinist equivo–
cation can be called complete after Maurice Merleau-Ponty (who as
late as the summer felt obliged to give apologetic explanations to the
Stalinists for printing in
Les Temps Modernes
some fragments from
Victor Serge's Notebooks) has finally written in so many words that
with Stalinism "communism has passed from historic responsibility to
naked discipline, from self-criticism to self-denunciation, from Marxism
to superstition." The occasion for this discovery was the publication in
the magazine of some documents on the merciless persecution and final
atonement of George Lukacs the Hungarian Marxist, for having studied
Tolstoi and Goethe instead of fathoming the depths of Soviet literature.
After the Tito, Gomulka, and Kostov affairs it has become im–
possible even for the most desperate sophist to re-establish a connection
between Stalin and, I don't say Marxism, but any notion of a system
based on a principle other than sheer domination. The myth of the
"progressive democracies" still so powerful last year, has been destroyed
by Stalin, and one should insist, by Stalin alone. How is it then possible,
one might ask, that there are still people who think that "Stalinism
goes in the direction of the historical process?"
The reasons are not simple. Nothing, in fact, is simple in a world in
which synthetic formulas have taken the place of common sense. First
of all, people long ago stopped thinking that the "historical process"
marches on towards more and more rationality. Whatever the direction,
they think the motor is force guided by singleness of purpose. Stalin
seems to have both, and the atom bomb to boot. America has force too,
and her intentions are, let's say, human. As for her purposes they are
certainly vast, but who can say that they are clear? The Marshall Plan
was a marvellous thing, but this year it has been completely superseded
(at least in the headlines) by the Atlantic Pact, the European Com–
mand at Fontainebleau, the PAM, meetings of generals, etc.
Force. What force? General Bradley has explained to the French
people in an interview that America will help Europe get started on the
way to rearmament, but that Europe has then to build her own
ef-
