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THE ORIGINAL SIN OF THE INTELLECT
49
No, as long as the worker and especially the intellectual does not
find another, more illuminating explanation of these phenomena,
and therefore another way out than the way of socialism. That the
Soviet system has nothing to do with socialism is equally difficult to
discern. Aren't there plenty of intellectuals in the West who, in spite
of the reports of thousands of Soviet refugees, still subscribe to the
theory which the Soviets themselves advance to explain their forced
labor camps (while suppressing the truth about their economic
function and the number of inmates)-namely, that these are the
fate of opponents of a system which leads humanity toward hap–
piness, of those, in other words, who belong to the minority respon–
sible for all misfortune, who must be suppressed in the interest of
the majority. Could there be greater justice on earth?
While I, as a prisoner of war, had to suffer under the system
myself, I could not, from my relatively limited point of view, refute
the further contention that the desolate economic conditions ob–
served by us in the Soviet Union, from which the population suf–
fered no less than we, were only the transitory effects of the war, for
which fascism was responsible.
"If
you hadn't attacked the Soviet
Union ..." We heard this often enough in 1944-45, also from the
population, who had had it drummed into them for years. To indicate
the general level of prosperity reached in earlier times, it was often
said, "Before the war we had begun to give bread away free, in
some regions of the Ukraine, on a trial basis.
If
you hadn't attacked
..." Later, in 1947-48, this was replaced by
"If
the American
imperialists weren't planning a new aggression, if we didn't have to
pay for armaments and stockpile as much clothing, shoes, and
food as possible . . . Yes, then we would now live in abundance,
'each according to his needs,' in Communism."
In the prison cell I had enough time to think about my own
past.
If
only the war had not come! The war, and always again, the
war! It had forced me into the hated uniform, into the barracks, to
the front, and now-into the prison cell. The war-but who was
responsible for the war? I read Marx and Lenin and found an
explanation. I read the speeches and essays of Karl Liebknecht and
found an enthusiastic prophet of this explanation, a passionate
humanist who hated militarism. The NKVD commissar claimed to
