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PARTISAN REVIEW
Stalinists or to the neutrals? There are two sorts, the Catholic intel–
lectuals and the Gaullist. The former, who are by far the more num–
erous, embrace the different shades of the traditional opposition, from
Catholics of a conservative or reactionary temper, to Catholics of a
social, and even Socialist tendency, from Henri Massis to Fran'tois
Mauriac, Henry Bordeaux to Etienne Gilson. The latter and less num–
erous sort are difficult to define. They are a group of individuals (of
whom Andre Malraux is the most important) who endeavor, each in
his own way and after a different fashion, to discover the significance
of Gaullism at the present historical moment. Their common aims are
easy enough to express: Revive the energy and efficacy of parliamentary
democracy, which as it functions today in France is more and more
ircapable of action; inspire courage in those who resist Communism by
giving a direction to their struggle, by developing a positive program
suited to the present circumstances; reanimate French patriotism so
that France, instead of resigning itself to its fate, shall make a con–
tribution to the organization of the European or Atlantic community
worthy of its past.
This could serve as the common basis for an accord extending well
beyond the group of intellectuals properly called Gaullist. Unhappily,
however, all agreement ends as soon as the programmatic elaboration of
these leading ideas is contemplated, or the kind of political movement
needed to carry them out. No one will deny that it is necessary to reform
the parliamentary democracies. But how? Is a party built around one
man able to do it? Would it escape degenerating into fascism? Would it
not provoke a resurrection of the Popular Front, the reconciliation of
the Socialists and Communists in a movement for the defense of the
Republic?
Outside of the Catholics and the Gaullists, whom have we in the
Western camp? Perhaps the largest number of the intellectuals-those
who are neither Communist nor Gaullist: the liberals and the rationalists,
all the heirs of the Enlightenment. Do they actively suppport either the
Socialist party, the Radical party, or the present government? For
most of them, I think, the answer is no. They are against what they call
the extremes much more than they are for the present system.
Not one of the smallest paradoxes of the present situation is a kind
of "de-politicalization" of the intellectuals taking place in a period of
religious wars. The misconceptions under which they labor have brought
certain intellectuals to a standstill in a kind of politics of abstention.
(Translated from the French by Martin Greenberg)