NORMAN
MANEA
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cially keen eye to recognize the perverted ideal in profane socialist real–
ity), many intellectuals from the West served simultaneously as their ac–
complices in the free world by preserving, in a corrupt fashion, an already
compromised communist ideal. They transferred their dissatisfaction with
the imperfections of the democracy in which they lived and whose privi–
leges they enjoyed to a specious ideal. Yet it would be as false once again
to hold intellectuals entirely responsible for the "totalitarian compromise,"
as it would be to credit them with all anti-totalitarian heroism. There
were enough blue-collar, as well as more or less influential white-collar
workers in the East and in the West, who played the same double-dealing
game. Some situations must be judged within their historical contexts, for
only thus do they gain the complexity and clarity that justifies analysis.
Those rushing to condemn or glorify today, after the fall of the Iron
Curtain, should be reminded that for the totalitarian regime, an intellec–
tual was, at best, a fellow traveller, and for democratic society he remains
an odd, marginal figure.
Lorca and Mandelstam symbolize the martyrdom of thousands of
artists and intellectuals. This does not excuse those who collaborated with
power out of naivete, fear, or greed. And many did- from all social strata.
The totalitarian system sadistically manipulated basic preconditions of
humanity and relied on the apathy, confusion, egoism, and enslavement
of the masses. For intellectuals, the pitfalls of intimidation, temptation,
and remuneration were also constructed upon basic human preconditions.
lt is hardly surprising that nonetheless intellectuals stood up before those
who opposed tyranny either in secret or in open confrontation. They
simply followed their vocation. Freedom is in fact the main precondition
for intellectual works in which the ideal and critical intelligence reinforce
each other. They are ultimately inseparable.
Politics is obsessed with power. Creativity is synonymous with free–
dom. The totalitarian state represents absolute power; under a totalitarian
system, art is not only a provocation, as it is for any form of authority; it
is, purely and simply, the
enemy.
Remaining honest and maintaining one's
moral and artistic integrity, under continual surveillance and censorship,
under the pressure of constant risk and growing taboos, requires a silent,
lonely heroism. There were many clear instances of defiant courage,
however: artists and scientists rebelled against the terror, boldly opposed
the opportunism of their surroundings, and overcame their own mistrust
of rhetoric by explicitly opposing tyranny.
In a political system that considers culture one of its greatest weapons
and honors its artists with astonishing privileges and punishments, the
writer is beset with traps, intended in the long run to compromise and
destroy his identity. So he learns to protect himself even from the pitfalls
