120
PARTISAN
REVIEW
looking nor clean, but we conclude that our author didn't mind, since
he has told us about it at length. The book was published, and Mr.
Lanzmann was expelled from the Communist party. This young inno-
cent had been a card-carrying member. He was also dismissed from
his position as dramatic critic for
Les Lettres Franfaises.
I imagine that the most serious charge made against him was not
that he had disclosed that some people in Russia live poorly, or
that
Russians get bored while on vacation. Nor was it that he mentioned
the Armenians, whose predicament was already well-known to every-
one here. But a prostitute who would sell herself for twenty rubles?
That was going too far!
It was going so far, in fact, that Jacques Lanzmann was attacked
not only by the Communists, but by some who themselves had
been
expelled from the party. Claude Roy, who lost his membership because
of his protest against the Budapest massacres, wrote an article in
the
leftist
Liberation
in which he was even more outspoken than usual.
"I know," he said, "that gravity is often the mask of a fool. There are
some subjects, however, that do not lend themselves to clowning
and
caricature. This is such a one. The result is that a good writer has
given us a bad book." Subjects that do not lend themselves to a light
approach are, naturally, those that have to do with Soviet Russia.
Obviously, where Russia is concerned, humor cannot be permitted;
neither can the amorality of which Jacques Lanzmann has given such
a lamentable example.
Speaking of clowning, the best part of this story is the sequel. This
frequenter of working-class brothels, this onetime Communist dramatic
critic lost no time in finding himself another job: writing under
an
assumed name, he is now society editor of
L'Express.
It
must
be
said
that his column is somewhat on the acrid side ; doubtless he was hired
more for his wit than for his wide acquaintance among members of
Parisian high society.
But to return to Claude Roy's sudden fit of righteous indignation
about the somber revelations of his old comrade, this must be seen as
a new aspect of the attitude which some intellectuals are now taking
toward the Communist party. In the past, there were Communist in–
tellectuals and ex-Communist intellectuals. The ex-Communists, though
they allowed themselves no excessive display of bitterness about their
former associations, did behave like blind men able to see again. These
ex-prisoners found the fresh air of freedom exhilarating. And even now
we get some of these. A case in point is the moving document by Louis
de Villefosse appearing in the current number of
Preuves,
in which
