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PARTISAN REVIEW
dinavian socialism into account. He was pursuing this fruitful line of
argument when he suddenly veered to emphasize (against the claims of
Communist propaganda) that the American working class enjoyed more
rights and privileges and a higher standard of living and degree of par–
ticipation in economic life than the workers
in
any European country–
which left Koestler grinning like a Cheshire cat. Mayor Reuter also re–
joined with a reference to the goals and activity of the Berlin socialist
movement. Spinelli took the floor and needled Koestler about not em–
phasizing sufficiently the dependence of political freedom on economic
security. Several of the discussion speakers, since Koestler had not advo–
cated specific social reforms in his speech, charged him with overlooking
their importance as a method of combating Communism and positively
contributing to a free society.
Then a Herr Grimme arose, a parson of sorts with a voice like a
foghorn, to argue that all these
~oncrete
questions were basically religious.
He spoke with an eloquent emptiness and became concrete only at the
end when he descended to personalities and made some contemptuous
remark about Koestler being a "political convert" who now was fervently
opposing what once he had fervently supported, thus showing he had
never surrendered his dialectical materialism.
The reference to his former Communism left Koestler unmoved
as
it
did Mayor Reuter, another political convert from way back. But
it aroused Franz Borkenau. His delivery left a great deal to be desired
for he was obviously nettled. He forcefully defended the political con–
verts from Communism, of which he was proud to be one, and asserted
that because of their experience in the Communist movement, they under–
stood the enemy better than most others, that Communism made all truly
human existence impossible, and that its leaders were prepared "to go
to the end" in forcing their program upon the world. Borkenau would
have been more effective
if
he had not been so overwrought and had
repeated what Plisnier said earlier at the Congress in explaining the
conversions of the few "old Bolsheviks" present: "It is not because we
surrendered our revolutionary ideas that we left the Communist move–
ment but because we were and remain revolutionists devoted to the
welfare of mankind who realize that not all means are justified
in
the
struggle, that bloody and dirty hands infect with mortal disease the new
society we wish to see born."
In the course of his remarks Borkenau told his audience that despite
all their doubts and criticisms of the United States, each one of them
knew that in his heart he was glad to get the news that the United States,
instead of appeasing Stalin, had come to the defense of the South
