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PARTISAN REVIEW
could resist, why couldn't the others? No one spoke on their behalf.
Only the correct Marxist philosophy was left on the field. A terrible
generation gap resulted. The struggle with bourgeois scholarship
was raging everywhere. The strategy was simple . Out of sheer curi–
osity I went once in the fifties to a meeting of a youth organization.
A big blonde fellow got up and said it was time to finish with bour–
geois professors. Who would take care of Professor Konrad Gorski?
"I will," said somebody from the floor. Very well. How was it done?
The professor entered the classroom and started a lecture, let's say
on Krasinski. The young man jumped up and said: "You are telling
us about Krasinski, but you do not stress the importance of the class
struggle ." The elderly professor interrupted his lecture to explain
that the class struggle was not the subject of his lecture, and tried to
continue. But the vigilant youth jumped up again: "But what about
the class struggle?" And what if we extend our analogy to the events
in Vienna shortly before the
Anschluss?
Both here and there lectures
of such "enemies" as Wittgenstein or Tatarkiewicz were disrupted by
howling thugs. They howled from different ideological premises, but
we can safely forget these differences because Lenin was worthy of
Chamberlain and vice versa.
iT:
I remember those years very well . People expressing different
ideas were being isolated . The exchange of ideas was forbidden .
ZH:
And the warnings that we would all end up on the garbage heap
of history. There was a certain young man who always emerged
from behind the nearest street corner and followed me, mumbling
that I lived on the garbage heap of history. That was his party
assignment. He did not try to beat me . Well, he was weaker than 1.
Besides, he came from a good bourgeois family. The sadistic ele–
ment is one of the foundations of fascism . The incredible ease with
which one disposes of one's opponents.
iT:
The hatred for the "old" as opposed to the "young" is also charac–
teristic not only of fascist but also socialist realist language. But how
do you understand Gombrowicz's bet on the "eternal youth?"
ZH:
Well, that was innocent, erotic - immaturity as an aesthetic
concept.
iT:
But it was also an ontological concept. It is hard to tell whether it
is positive or tragic . Probably both . I once saw the French premiere
of his
Operetta
in the Theatre National Populaire during the student
rebellion in Paris shortly after 1968 . There was a masquerade in the
streets - "chienlit" - to use De Gaulle's term. I think it was a very ac–
curate description. I was teaching at the Sorbonne and at Nanterre
