160
PARTISAN REVIEW
it
is
probably still true to say that U.S. policy, so far from being too
radical,
is
not radical enough. It merely gives an impression of undue
intransigence by being stubborn about side-issues like the recognition
of China (which everyone in Washington or elsewhere knows to be
inevitable) .
And what can the Left do? In Britain, obviously very little.
The British Left committed itself to Churchill's premature and
iIl–
considered gestures last May and is now caught in the trap it thereby
laid for itself. Most of it
is
traditionally pacifist and would be horrified
by the suggestion that discreet pressure and threats should be ap–
plied, just as in 1933-38 it was horrified by the suggestion that Ger–
many might have to be resisted by force. The initiative
will
have to
come from the American side of the Atlantic, and why should it not
come from the American Left, now out of power but presumably
not totally bereft of influence? It
is
about time American liberalism
identified itself more clearly with the idea of building a durable At–
lantic community-and with the sort of clear-headed, resolute and
non-demagogic attitude toward Russia that ought to go with it.
