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PARTISAN REVIEW
longer doubt that the demons of revolution, the demons of chaos
and social entropy, never display a noble attitude (there's no
reason even to speak of an esthetic one), either toward the capitu–
lated enemy or even toward representatives of their own biological
species. We humans are so full of the arrogance of superiority
over the whole animal kingdom that, in a certain sense, we have
dulled in ourselves a number of powerful instincts. I dare say
that none of us has ever seen a wild animal considered a victim in
the hierarchical system of the jungle graciously prance, crawl,
leap, jump, and run headlong into the jaws of its predator. Of
course, the classic exception is the poor rabbit, whose will is
crushed and perverted by the hypnotic stare of the boa constrictor.
Here in America, after conversations and arguments with my
American friends, with students, with several representatives
of the intellectual elite and the artistic intelligentsia, I think
dispiritedly that the public opinion of the free world, consciously
or unconsciously, is "rabbitized" and-what is even more sad–
willingly accepts this risky "rabbitization." Of course, Moscow
itself ordered Communists, leftist terrorists, and extreme radicals
to be "rabbit breeders." They gratify themselves with illusions of
being in blissful symbiosis with the powerful boa constrictor.
Why, I think, don't many of the living gratefully grasp
the experience of those who have been destroyed by the evil that
is correctly called Communism? The essence of the disquieting
voice of Solzhenitsyn is only partly in his criticism of the state
of Western life. The true pathos of the writer is in the passionate,
sympathetic attempt to bring the West to an understanding of
the suffering, the instructive experience of the peoples enslaved
in Soviet camps.
Fortunately, many people throughout the world sensibly
and cautiously look upon the logic of left wing radicalism and
its potentials of fascism. Sages and psychologists have long
known that, in defending their political and philosophical
convictions, people selflessly lose their logic, their common sense,
and most importantly, their sense of reality.
Let's just observe for a moment the "fans" of the USSR,
"fans" of so-called socialism, "fans" of the phantom of .Com–
munism. Some of them are quite inaptly called " liberals."
According to the ardent conviction of these fans, neither the
inhumanity of tyrannical regimes, the chronic economic ills of
