WRITERS IN EXILE
511
feeling of love for freedom and a faith in the normal potentials
of democracy.
I think that one of the greatest ironies in history is that the
peoples of the Soviet Empire, having long ago overcome the
seduction of evil at the cost of unimaginable sacrifices, watch in
horror as the West, as the entire free world, heads in the direction
from which they have come, at least morally-toward the epi–
center of seductive evil, where the free creative spirit of man
resides behind heavy bars. Are not the sympathies toward Com–
munism of millions of French and Italians tragicomic?
I understand that enlightened awareness and the fearless
confrontation of world evil are repeatedly hindered today by the
marvelous facility of evil to pass itself off as good. After argu–
ments with some of my American friends, I think, why, by some
strange laws of fate, has not, or cannot, this most horrifying
experience of a people that surrendered in the beginning to
seductive evil be inculcated into their consciousness? After all,
as one wise person has it, only fools learn from their own mis–
takes; intelligent and observant people try to learn from the
mistakes of others.
For the alleviation of many grave and at times insoluble
problems of existence, the human race is provided with the ability
to distinguish between good and evil. True, I don'tknow whether
this splendid gift distinguishes us advantageously or not from
the lions, fish, gazelles, lovely birds, cats, crocodiles, spiders,
and elephants-from those so successfully freed of wandering in
the labyrinths of moral problematics. The expression "Better
red than dead," a favorite with both Soviet war criminals and
weak-sighted pacifists whom they encourage, is justifiable only
for one representative of the planet's animal world: the chameleon
which is saved by turning red or yellow.
And, once more, I am personally convinced that the turning
red of today's capitulators, bought at the cost of denying essential
human values, if it saves them temporarily from death, then
later at best will throw them into unimaginable chaos. This
occurred at one time in Russia with the overwhelming majority
of the Russian liberal intelligentsia, which had sympathized with
the demons of revolution.
Recall for a moment recent Soviet history, and you will no
