ROGER SHATIUCK
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types and girlfriends with their faces craftily painted in ochre and
carmine, their fingernails tinted every color in the book."
Aragon's and Nizan's monthly
Commune-
which was in a posi–
tion to be considered the horse's mouth - announced that all the
speeches would be collected and published in a book. Many duller
and less significant works burden our shelves, but somewhere an
editor showed the wisdom not to feel bound by the announcement.
The principal speeches can be found scattered through various re–
views and the sequence reconstructed. After Benda's rash challenge
to materialism almost everyone closed ranks and found continuity
and harmony in all directions. Writing in New York about what he
called the "Writers' International," Malcolm Cowley had this to say
in
The New Republic
after digesting the reports: ". .. nobody spoke in
favor of abandoning 'bourgeois culture' in favor of proletarian cul–
ture. " He was generally right, but he can't have read everything.
Saturday night was the main event.
It
must have been worth
standing in line to pay the three franc entry fee to hear what the
heavy-weights would say about "the individual." Gide led off. He
had made an address the previous October called "Literature and
Revolution" in which he met socialist realism head on by calling for
something more to his liking: "communist individualism ."
It
must
have been hard for him now to raise the ante. Nevertheless, he pro–
duced a long, carefully thought-out speech and was followed by
Malraux , Ehrenburg, and Max Brod, Kafka's friend and executor,
who spoke of the individual as a pure dream in a world defined by
society and reason .
The next three days became very confused. The order of
speakers had to be changed; squabbles arose about who should be
allowed to "intervene" and for how long. On Sunday afternoon, hu–
manism was the announced subject. Brecht got three minutes, whereas
he was supposed to have had fifteen Friday night on "Cultural Heri–
tage ." Every topic began to sound the same. Sunday night was "Na–
tion and Culture." Chamson gave a solid talk. Barbusse scuttled it
with his leaden echoes. Mike Gold shook out his long hair and re–
cited his working-class background. Except for a few tense ex–
changes, things sank into the doldrums until the closing session
Tuesday night. Apparently, the audience never failed to fill the hall .
The organizers were very efficient. On the final evening, came the
most vivid moment of all. Pasternak had been brought to Paris on
the last day , under duress and under guard. His name was not in the
program. Kolzoff had insisted on his presence . His entrance into the
