54
PART ISAN REV IEW
were very cynical about their Soviet counterparts. They tried to outwit them
by defending their separate national loyal ty but, in doing so, had to cope w ith
the residual conviction that the Soviet Uni on neverthel ess represented hi stor–
ical progress. The Ketman they practi ced in relation to Moscow was therefore
not just a matter of deceiving the despot. T he other form of Ketman set its
hopes not on a possibl e victory of a hberal group within the leadership but
on the di sintegration of socialism. Hence they could help accel erate the desir–
able changes whil e compl etely di stancing themselves fi'om the party and the
system's legitim.izing ideology. Unhke Ketman, theirs was a conscious effort
to liberate intell ectual and cultural hfe fi'om the gri p of the offi cial doctrine.
But till s game required severe rul es of self-control and therefore did not allow
unres trained self-expression. [t could be effective in transforming the ideo–
logical legitimation of the sys tem but refrained from openly chall enging it.
The fin al state in the transformati on of consciousness took the form of
an ostentati ously public, sometimes intensively provocative, refu sal of partic–
ipation. Thi s form of moral fundamentali sm is an indirect confirmation of
the validi ty of Milosz's view of spiritual pressure under communi st regimes.
Under pos t- Stalini sm thi s spiritual oppressio n was greatly weakened and, as
a rul e, ceased to be internalized, but it was prec ise ly because of thi s that its
residual presence in public life was becom.ing more and more intolerable. If
the oppression were purely external , there would be no need to proclaim the
principl e of living in truth; if the practi ce of playing games were not firmly
associated with accommodationi st attitudes, there would be no justification
for moralisti c straightforwardness and the anti- politics of symbolic ges tures.
If the sys tem lacked any moral foundati on, as Herling-G rudzii1sk.i claimed,
and did not need any moral support, it would be absurd
to
hope that it could
yield to organized moral pressure. In other words, if Herling-Grudzmski
were ri ght and communi sm reli ed only on physical force, then the collapse
of communi sm could be bro ught about onl y by stronger physical force.
To sum up, Mil osz's
Th e Captive
Milld
proved to be too pess imi sti c
and , in thi s sense, w ro ng. But Mil osz's an alysis o f to talitari ani sm as a
sys tem of spiritu al tyranny, above all hi s prese ntati o n o f different meth–
ods of resisting thi s tyranny fr om within , co nstitute a mas terpi ece of
las ting valu e. MiJ osz's concept o f Ketman ca n also be used in a modifi ed
versi o n for a better understanding o f th e lo ng process o f deto talitari an–
izati o n whi ch preceded and made possibl e th e fin al co llapse o f the
C ommuni st regime. T hi s process was a res ult o f th e combin ed efforts o f
many gro ups hav in g different genea logies and usin g different methods.
Therefore, a th o ughtful reading of Mil osz mi ght promo te th e mu ch
needed mutu al understandin g and nati o nal reconciliati o n in Poland .
Thank you.
