MANES SPERBER
65
many years I had dealt with questions of youth, not only on the
plane of psychology but also on the political plane.
If
my function
was to be essentially that of an advisor, it was taken for granted that
I would also assist with the publication of journals, propaganda ma–
terial, and books . Decisions on all important matters were supposed
to rest with the Comintern bureaucracy in Moscow, but in actuality
they rested with the Russian members at the highest levels, who
were carrying out the orders of Stalin and his closest associates.
The international Comite had a great number of world-famous
men and women as patrons, who gave it moral and intellectual sup–
port. On its envelopes, journals, and leaflets all the names of the
sponsors were printed . I called this roster of names "Miinzenberg's
rubber stamps."
Most of the Comite's members, chiefly noncommunists, seldom
criticized the proposals formulated by the communists. With time
these Catholic, Protestant, liberal, and working-class delegates be–
came active sympathizers or even party members. But this had to be
kept secret, for these young people were useful only so long as they
represented noncommunist organizations.
•
•
•
No one at that time in possession of his senses, above all no in–
tellectual, to whom all the information was available, had to believe
in the truth of the confessions made at the Moscow trials. On the
contrary, to anyone with any common sense, a knowledge of the
previous life of the defendants, as well as the reading of the official
bulletins should have made it clear that these judicial proceedings
were not genuine by any stretch of the imagination. No one knew
this better than the intellectual communists and sympathizers, who
had known for years who these men were and what they had done
with their lives. I do not believe anyone who maintains that he did
not grasp the truth until twenty years later, after Khrushchev's in–
complete admissions .
Then as now intellectuals played a far less significant role in
politics than they and their followers imagined. They were and are
at best opinion-makers who produce effects in their surroundings not
unlike theatrical successes . But the political decisions are made by
others. Some of these may be intellectuals who have become profes–
sional politicians, but then they behave as such.
One could know, in fact one had to know, that Dachau existed
