316
PARTISAN REVIEW
excluding their own country). Yet peaceful relations are best maintained
with those who live far from the scene, who are very small and hardly
more than a legend. And so a sort of global class hatred has come
into
being against the ruling class called America. America is not a capitalist
power made up of rich and poor; it is-rich
or
poor-the exploiting class
of the world. Outside America, "American," "Croesus," and "exploiter"
are synonyms. Everyone knows that.
Fewer know that America also qualifies as scapegoat by virtue of
its weakness. It is weak in its method: its method of ruling Europe
as
though Europe were America. It rules by helping and arguing. And
everybody knows that it will go no further-neither to the extreme of
complete isolationism nor to that of sending in an army, which are the
two possible radical methods. The conclusion which Europeans draw
from all this
is
manifest in their inclination to pursue, under American
protection, a playful flirtation with America's mortal foe. This is less
obvious in high diplomacy than in spheres which are less political and
hence less under wraps. A striking example of this practice of making
up to the protector's enemy was the production of Bertolt Brecht's
Good W,oman of Setzuan
in Frankfurt. Brecht is an honest and active
propagandist for the cause of present-day Russia, a producer of unam–
biguous poems in praise of Stalin and Stalin's methods. The Frankfurt
press tried to convey the impression that it had never heard of the
man Brecht; it discovered Christian elements in his work and curried
favor with East Germany by insisting that art had nothing to do with
politics, and that poor Bert Brecht was sitting between two stools (al–
though actually he is sitting not on a stool but on a veritable throne).
Possibly Frankfurt's enthusiasm for Brecht would have reached no such
proportions had it not been for the fact that the (American)
Neue
Zeitung
(a few hundred thousand miles nearer to East Germany)
had
a critic from Berlin tell the city of Frankfurt a few things about Brecht's
functions and the export of his plays. But this was American intervention.
It was triumphantly rejected, together with Berlin.
It is in the less well camouflaged domain of cultural policies that
current anti-American practices can best be studied.
What Is Anti-American?
Three years ago the French complained about Marshall Plan
canned goods. They insisted that fresh vegetables are healthier. In
re–
cent months many Germans have complained that their requisitioned
villas have not yet been returned. The wives of American airmen
in
