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PARTISAN REVIEW
has made wild and irresponsible charges, too many are inclined to
dismiss the Communist danger in its total global impact as relatively
unimportant. American intellectuals were more frightened of Franco
in 1936 and of Hitler in 1933 than they are of Stalin today. In 1933
and 1936 they did
no-t
say that, after all, there were few Fascists
in
America, fewer Fascists than there ever were of Communists since
1919.
As
country after country has come under Stalin's knife, concern
in the colleges, in literary circles, even scientific quarters has
not
in–
creased. The term "anti-Communist" has not got the same overtones
as "anti-Fascist."
It
is
not enough to say that McCarthy and reaction–
ary demagogues have ruined the term "anti-Communist." Why didn't
the Communists ruin the term "anti-Fascist"? They were just as
vehement in their anti-Fascism as McCarthy
is
in his anti-Com–
munism and even more irresponsible, because they called men like
Dewey, Kallen, and Norman Thomas "fascists."
The task of the intellectual is still to lead an intellectual life, to
criticize what needs to be criticized in America, without forgetting
for a moment the total threat which Communism poses to the life
of the free mind. Our own vigilantes and reactionaries are much
more like witches and straw scarecrows than are the paid and unpaid
agents of the Kremlin who constitute the membership of the Com–
munist Parties in all countries. They can be cleared out of the way
by a little courage and a sense of humor. They have nuisance value
especially because of their effects abroad.
We face grim years ahead. The democratic West will require
the critical support, the dedicated energy and above all, the intel–
ligence, of its intellectuals
if
it is to survive as
.a
free culture. With
the possible exception of the technical arts and their theoretical
ancillaries, great creative visions, conforming or non-conforming, can
today flourish only in the soil of a free culture. It was not always so.
But modern totalitarianism is not the same as ancient absolutisms.
Let the neutralists of the world remember. In the West non–
conformists, no matter how alienated, can always win a hearing,
even if they do not win a place in the Academy or earn the Order
of Merit. In the land of Purges and Brainwashing, the only thing a
non-conformist can earn is a bullet in the neck. This is the historical
premise of our age whose recognition is binding on
all
humanists
whether they are democratic socialists or civil libertarian conserva–
tives or members of the alienated avant-garde.
