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PARTISAN REVIEW
Solzhenitsyn's dramatic part in this political configuration was quite
movingly demonstrated at the AFL-CIO reception for him in Washing–
ton, D .C.; and my own feelings were quite mixed not only about this fiery,
bearded figure, almost literally resurrected from the slave labor camps of
Siberia, but also about the assembly of anti-Communists who had come
to
cheer him . One had to be stirred by his passionate indictment not only of the
Soviet Union but of this country, at the same time that one was put off by his
deep-rooted conservatism and old-Russian religiosity , that , as Mary McCarthy
pointed out in a review of
August
1914, suggests all kinds of nostalgias and
affinities with Tsarist Russia . Inevitably he reminded one of Dostoyevsky
whose reactionary politics served extraordinary powers of relating human and
social forces. And in the end, I suppose, Solzhenitsyn like Dostoyevsky will be
honored for his political spirit and his literary talents , and not for his ideology.
The makeup of the audience also brought home our political dilemmas.
My se nse of it was that it was made up mostly of old-line trade unionists and
socialists, who had remembered the anti-Communism better than the social–
ism of their youth, with some conservative politicians , and a sprinkling of
writers like myself, who believed in enough of what Solzhenitsyn stood for
and came for what promised to be an historic event.
It
was a one-sided gather–
ing ; and I never thought I could be so nostalgic for the" united front" of the
old days-however demagogic that slogan usually was, and the strange com–
pany it brought together.
ISRAEL. The increasingly popular game of intellectuals accusing each other of
treason has only added to the intellectual confusion. Still , one must point out
another shocking instance in the failure of the left to protest the current ideo–
logical crusade against Israel , which is a product of-the alliance between big
business, the underdeveloped countries, and the Communists. Indeed ,
liberals as well as radicals are implicated by their idealization of the cause of
the Palestinians and, genera lly, by their acceptance of the myth that all
nationalisms , all backward countries, all minorities , especially if they are anti–
American, are honorary members of the socialist tradition and hence can be
assumed always to be on the right side. Thus , the idea of socialism has been
reduced to any cause supported by the Communists and opposed by America,
l
while Israel has been converted by incessant propaganda into an outpost of
imperialism . As Trotsky once remarked , it would be easy to be a Marxist if all
one had to do was to find out what the reactionary press said and then come
out for the opposite. The only trouble is that in this case the lines are not clear,
for the American government is also going out of its way to appease the Arabs
(in a perverse denial oflong-term national interests) because of the short-term
interests of the business community.
