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grandeur and permanence can be realized among men." A Communist
could say that in 1934 or 1935, even though he held and acknowledged
the conviction that grandeur and permanence could never in fact be
realized on his terms; he could say it because he also held the con–
viction, which was both a truth and a delusion, that it is man's effort,
his reaching out for the stars beyond reach, that is the truly splendid
thing in life: "All perfection unachieved has to it a measure of grandeur.
This is the only grandeur available to happiness as an end. As for hap–
piness as a means, failure is certain. Lethe water deprived of almost all
its power.... [Everything] good that has been done in the world has
been done in this attempt to achieve the unachievable.
It
follows that
the finest use which a man can make of his life is to live as though
preparing himself for an unrealizable state in which what is of dignity
in him will find permanence and-who knows?-grandeur." Thus could
confirmed unbelievers make themselves a new Mother Church.
The hope was sublime, and that was the trouble with it: the un–
precedented grandeur of the Communist end made inevitable the un–
precedented vileness of the means, which overwhelmed, and became, the
end. Holding shares in a sublime vision is rather like holding shares in
a rich corporation: when the vested interest is endangered, the share–
holder
is
easily lured from the paths of righteousness. "We know exactly
what's happened over there," a German Stalinist says of the Soviet
Union, "but we'll save it ... we'll hide its decadence with lies." Why?
Because "the lies will become truth and the fraud will be fraud no
longer . .. the crooked will be made straight once again."
Gradually, it became evident that there was nothing for the lies to
save. What they loved was not in a temporary state of decay, it was
already dead and stinking, and the permanence that had been achieved,
without being sought after, was the permanence of death. In Sperber's
metaphor, it was discovered that the bush was not simply on fire: it
was already consumed. "Even the roots were burned out and became cold
cinders. And once again there was darkness and cold." This bitter
chill, paradoxically, rekindled the Communist conscience, and I assume
that, since this is said to be the first volume in a series, its successors will
go into the matter of what the ex-Communist conscience had evolved
into. I hope so.
Richard H. Rovere
