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PARTISAN REVIEW
which should not be confused with Marxism, since Marxism plays about
the same role in it as the problem of Grace in the official answers given
by the Catholic catechism). He finally gave up the attempt because he
felt that to him, as an individual and a poet, truth and genuine emotion
were more important than the infinite rhetorical possibilities (and the
good salaries) offered by socialist realism. I do not know any description
of what happens to the mind under a totalitarian system comparable
to the one given by Milosz in his book, the mind, not the body, or the
individual as a psycho-biological compound. Intellectuals are well taken
care of, under the System; the individual as such can manage to satisfy
his needs; the mind, however, undergoes strange mutations. Milosz con–
centrates on describing them objectively, from a point of view which is
not smug nor self-righteous. His sarcasm is directed against himself rather
than against his adversary: "Maybe all this is inevitable and right," he
seems to say, "while my incapacity to believe is indeed an emotional
luxury. This, however, does not change the facts." By sticking to the
essential facts, and avoiding any political polemic and secondary issues,
he forces the mind to wonder. Which is no small feat in a time of set
ideas and ideological quibbling like ours.
In the ordinary outward life of a community, tragedy is followed
by yearning for normal life, the attempt to go back to one's occupation,
to adapt to the new situation; to rebuild, and even to forget. In the in–
dividual consciousness, however, tragedy can have only tragic conse–
quences: "In the second half of the war," Milosz explains,
a serious crisis in political consciousness took place in the "underground state."
The underground struggle against the occupying power entailed great sacrifices;
the number of persons executed or liquidated in concentration camps grew con–
stantly. To explain the need of such sacrifice solely on the basis of loyalty left
one a prey to doubt. Loyalty can be the basis of individual action, but when
decisions affecting the fate .of hundreds of thousands of people are to be made,
loyalty is not enough. One seeks logical justification. But what kind of logical
justification could there be? From the East the victorious Red Army was drawing
near. The Western armies were far away. In the name of what future, in the
name of what order were young people dying every day? ... At this moment,
Communist underground organizations began to be active. . . . The country, it
was fairly clear, was going to be liberated by the Red Army; with its aid one
should start a people's revolution.... The Warsaw uprising begun at the order
of the Government-in-Exile in London . . . was intended to oust the Germans
and to take possession of the city so that the Red Army would be greeted by an
already functioning Polish government. Once the battle in the city began, and
once it became obvious that the Red Army, standing on the other side of the
river, would not move to the aid of the insurgents, it was too late for prudence.
The tragedy played itself out according to all the immutable rules.... For two
months, a kilometer-high column of smoke and flames stood over Warsaw. Two
hundred thousand people died in the street fighting.... After the uprising,
the city which once numbered over a million inhabitants was a wilderness of
ruins,
