THE HISS CASE
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avert war with Russia by "understanding." They believe that to fear
Russia is to place oneself squarely on the side of the war-mongers. This
was not their position on Hitler Germany. They did not substitute
understanding of Nazism for opposition to Nazism. These are the same
people who were most resolute against fascism, but they cannot admit
that the socialist revolution has produced an equally virulent totalitarian–
ism. They may acknowledge that the Soviet Union has certain totali–
tarian features. What they refuse to see is that by definition totalitarian–
ism is nothing if not a totality. Either you have a free vote, or you do not.
Either you have the freedom to criticize your government and change it,
or you do not. Either you can write and speak and work as you choose,
or you cannot-and all such criteria as "free for whom," "free for
what," are only rationalizations. When the anti-Communist liberal says
you need not be either a war-monger or a reactionary just because
war-mongers and reactionaries are on the same side with you on this
or that specific issue, they counter with the statement that you need not
be a Communist just because you are on the same side with Communists
on a specific issue.
And certainly, they are right to this extent: there is no reason to fear
being in agreement with Communists on a specific issue,
if
one brings to
this agreement as much awareness of the Communist danger as of the
reactionary danger. But this is a big "iL" For it is the very essence of
contemporary liberalism that it thinks so differently about reaction and
about Communism.
The liberal who brings to all his associations the clear knowledge
that he is opposed to totalitarianism in whatever form-that of the
Soviet Union no less than that of Hitlerism-has nothing to fear from
the motives which may be assigned to him because of his decisions
on specific points. Clarity and honesty are all the protection he needs
against being tainted. Take, for instance, the official in the State De–
partment who advises a certain line of conduct which happens to coin–
cide with the Russian line. Does he fully realize that the iliterests of
Russia are the interests of an expanding totalitarianism?
If
he does and
can yet believe that the line is to the best interests of a democratic
America, then let him proceed with a clear conscience.
But the task of persuading the liberal who is not afraid of Com–
munism that he should be afraid of it is a gigantic one, and one which
involves changing a climate of opinion and feeling over the whole of
our culture. Perhaps, however, it is here that the Hiss case can be
helpful, by clarifying for the liberal the historical process of which he
