550
PARTISAN REVIEW
As the preacher Koheleth has said: "In my empty existence I
have seen it all, from a righteous man perishing in his righteousness
to a wicked man growing old in his wickedness. Be not over–
righteous and do not be over-wise."
My early sorrows, fortuitous as these were, had come with the
awareness of "Kronstadt." That knowledge, combined with my tem–
perament, made me a lifelong Menshevik - the chooser, almost al–
ways, of the lesser evil.
Having lived through - as an observer, with God's grace, rather
than as a victim - the Nazi frenzies and the Stalinist purges, the
Holocaust and the Gulag, the calculated decimation of an educated
class in Cambodia and the gleeful butchery of different tribes in
Uganda, all of which has made this the most dreadful century in hu–
man history, I long ago came to fear the masses in politics and those
who would whip up the passions of the mob "in the name of the peo–
ple," as was once done in the name of God.
I have always thought myself a Socialist in economics, in that I
have argued the principle that the resources of the community, as a
first lien, need to be used to satisfy the "basic needs" of all (and the
concept of "basic needs" is not that ambiguous; it is that which is be–
low the "discretionary income" of the middle-class purse). And be–
cause I cherish deeply the cords of continuity that a tradition can
provide, as against the syncretism which indiscriminately jumbles
all cultures, I am a conservative in culture. And as for politics: if
there is any lesson to be learned from this dreadful century, it is that
ideological politics, politics
a
outrance-
the politics shouted in the
name of the people which, as Groucho Marx once observed, seeks
power for those who shout "power to the people" - destroys the peo–
ple and often those who shou t as well. The ethic of responsibility , the
politics of civility, the fear of the zealot and the fanatic - and of the
... In the intellectual sphere, the front of idealism is the
front
oj
Fascist counter–
revolution and its accomplices the Social Fascists.
Every concession to idealism ,
however insignificant, spells
danger
to the proletarian revolution . .. . With
the help of the Comintern , of the All -Union Communist Party and of its lead–
er, Comrade Stalin , the sections of the Comintern will struggle .. . for that
iron ideological implacability and refusal to compromise with all deviations
from Marxism-Leninism (italics in the ori ginal).
(Quoted by Morris Watnick in "Georg Lukacs: An In tellectual Biography,"
Soviet Survey
(London), April-June 1958.)
