552
PAR.TISAN R.EVIEW
will cease. (The State will wither away, Justice will reign.)
It
was a main article of faith that great men (or women) did not influ–
ence the tides of history. I have forgotten how this particular error was
categorized. A left-wing deviation? A
petit bourgeois
distortion? Just to
make sure the point is not lost, this was in the time of Stalin and Hitler
and of Mussolini. Not to mention Churchill.
We believed there would never again be nationalist wars or religious
wars. Nationalism was obviously a thing of the past. So was religion. We
used to congratulate each other: at least we can never have a religious war
again, or a nationalist war.
We were supposed to believe - it was the "line" - that an interest in
people's emotions or motives was "Freudian" and reactionary.
Only "proletarian" literature was "correct."
We took it for granted that when the working class - or the blacks or
any other disadvantaged people - took power, they would be inspired by
only the purest and most disinterested ideals. Of all the absurd things we
believed this was probably the worst.
If
anyone dared to murmur about
"human nature" we would reason patiently with them, explaining they
had not understood the regenerative and transforming powers of
Communism.
The most powerful idea, the one that underpinned all the others,
taken for granted, and not even discussed, was that capitalism was
doomed, had been voted out by history itself. This frightful war was the
creation of capitalism: capitalism spelled war, socialism was inherently
peaceful. capitalism had created the last war, and the great Depressions in
Britain, in Europe, in America - the Depression had formed most of the
people who came to the Left Club. When we had a lecture on the
Depression, the speakers and most people in the audience spoke from
personal experience of unemployment and hard times , and passionate
discussion went on until long after midnight in the spirit of what we now
call
bearing witness:
" I testify that this is how things were." The books ev–
eryone had read included
The Grapes of Wrath, Love on the Dole, How
Green Was
My
Valley,
plays like
Waiting for Lefty
and Lillian Hellman's
plays. We sang:
I built a railroad, now it's done,
Buddy, will you spare a dime.
The physical results of the Depression in Britain were evident to any–
one who had watched the RAF arrive in the Colony: the officers were a
good foot or more taller than the Other Ranks, who were the product of
a diet of bread and margarine and jam and strong tea. Capitalism was a
killer and that was all that could be said about it.
