THE
WORLD OF "LA MISERIA"
231
trolled by the industrialists of the north and the landowners of the
south, to "realize" seriously much-advertised reforms. The peasant is
no doubt aware of the increased investments in the south, but he is
equally aware of waste and corruption and of an incredible confusion
of competing or overlapping efforts. Furthermore, his new awareness
excludes a solution of the problem exclusively from above. Investments
on the part of a government, even
if
honestly made, would not be
enough.
((La miseria"
always has been more than the sum of its ob–
jective conditions. Today, solving its problems according to the neces–
sities of a dynamic age means more than the endeavor to raise the
standard of living: it means giving the peasants a chance to participate
in the determination of their destiny.
The policy of the Communist party consists in trying to show
that only within the framework of dialectical materialism can the par–
ticipation of the peasant in the making of history become real. Their
successes are to be ascribed to their intimate knowledge of local con–
ditions and also to their ability to translate their ideology into the
mental language of the average peasant. In a society in which the
newspaper is practically unknown, they have concentrated upon "ex–
plaining" the news orally in the local Union Halls. In a world in which
a down-to-earth realism is closely related to a magico-religious concep–
tion of life, they have chosen St. Joseph, the protector of cattle, as
their patron rather than the official party saints. As a consequence
one can step today into some of the most miserable huts and find a
map of the North Korean People's Republic as the only decoration on
the fly-stained walls. "After all," you would be told, "is not theirs the
same heroic fight against landlordism and exploitation?"
The democratic states must attempt to apply to the Communist
problem the lessons learned in the struggle against fascism. We know
now that the military defeat of fascism-itself the most disturbing
symptom of the crisis of the middle classes--did not solve that crisis.
But we still have to learn that the phenomenon of Communism in
Italy, in India, and even in China or Russia, is but the symptom of a
profound crisis in the peasant world. By limiting ourselves
to
the
struggle against the symptom we are not reaching toward a basic
solution of the problem.
F. G. Friedmann
