Vol. 59 No. 4 1992 - page 642

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PARTISAN REVIEW
than with the critics, namely the historical novel. The histories of litera–
ture have not had much to say about him, but his best works are still
widely read and enjoyed.
Both became aware early of the danger of fascism; Feuchtwanger
because he lived in Munich where Hitler first appeared on the political
scene. He described the early Nazi movement in a
romal1
de
clif
called
Er–
Jolg
(the English title, for unknown reasons, was
Power,
rather than
Suc–
cess).
Rolland had always closely followed events in Italy, and he became
an early opponent of Mussolini. Neither Rolland nor Feuchtwanger
were ever members of the ComlTlUnist Party; they were not even social
democrats. Though they wrote a great deal about politics, they did so
because politics was so heavily in the air; deep down they were unpoliti–
cal men. I ought to mention a third, even more famous writer, Andre
Gide, who visited the Soviet Union in between Rolland and Feucht–
wanger; his negative impressions, published as
Retollr de l'USSR,
became a
major scandal. Reread now, it seems rather tame and to have been writ–
ten in anguish rather than anger, but it deeply offended the Communists.
Both Rolland and Feuchtwanger attacked Gide's book in
Pravda,
and it
is doubtful whether Feuchtwanger would have been invited had it not
been for the feeling that something ought to be done to repair the
damage. Feuchtwanger was handed his invitation, which led to a three–
hour visit with Stalin, by Mikhail Koltsov, who was, next to Ehrenburg,
the most famous journalist of the day. Koltsov was arrested the year after
and later executed. Ehrenburg was on the list of the spymasters but for
some reason escaped a similar fate.
Rolland's diary, some one hundred-fifty printed pages, covers the pe–
riod between June 17th and July 23rd of 1935. The mood that year in
Moscow was more optimistic than ever before or after. It is true that
there had been mass arrests after the Kirov murder, but the mass execu–
tions had not yet started. The economic situation had improved and a
new constitution, "the freest in the world," had been adopted. There
was a feeling of achievement in the air - at least among the people
whom Rolland met in Moscow.
He spent much time with Gorky but also talked with Stalin, Molo–
tov, Kaganovich, and Yagoda, head of the secret police. Unlike Feucht–
wanger, he was not entirely dependent on a translator; his wife, Masha,
was Russian and had family in Moscow. He was a sick man but also a
great hypochondriac. Among his most frequent interlocutors were Dr.
Levin and Dr. Pletnev, the Kremlin physicians soon to be arrested and
executed. Pletnev tried to explain to Rolland that he should not have
come in the first place and ought to leave Moscow for a place where
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