politics 25# a copy Edited by Dwight Macdonald June C o m m e n t ................................................... 129 Our Golden Age, by Dwight Macdonald..144 Odin, a poem by Isabella Fey ................. 133 The Revolution at Dead-End (1926- JIM CROW IN UNIFORM 1928), by Victor Serge ............................ 147 Croce and Italian Liberalism, by Nicola Jjojo SswAalionaL PERIODICALS ..........................................151 C h ia ro m o n te ..............................................134 ( D n a i m o n h u BOOKS "I Was a Seabee", by Isaac G. McNatt..l37 Reviews by Louis Clair, Frank Freidel, Nancy Macdonald, Paul Mattick and The Story of the 477th Bombardment ‘1 Was a Seabee” Irving Kristol ..........................................153 Group, by "Bombardier" ........................ I4 l T H E IN T E L L IG E N C E OF F I C E ....................158 Mr. Joseph Stalin's Revolution in Eco­ The Story of the 477th nomic Science, by Peter Meyer ............... 143 CONTRIBUTORS ...................................... 160 Comment kindly words about Spain.” “The word ‘Empire’ is per­ mitted to be used, which may be a great shock to a cer­ tain strain of intellectual opinion.” One can almost hear the sarcastic growl, see the ironical sideglance at the Labor The Shape ol Things to Come benches that accompanied such words. The key sentence in the speech was: “As this war has HURCHILL’s speech in the House of Commons on progressed, it has become less ideological in character, in May 25 was refreshingly outspoken. It provoked m y opinion.” (Almost simultaneously, Archibald MacLeish, C the usual moans and protestations from the liblabs. a reliable liberalistic weathervane, showed he too under­ Even the N. Y. Times felt it necessary to raise an editorial stood which way the wind was blowing: “As things are eyebrow, and Roosevelt, who embargoed American aid to now going, the peace we will make, the peace we seem to the Spanish Republic and has loyally supported Franco be making, will be a peace of oil, a peace of gold, a peace ever since, washed his hands of Churchill’s too-blunt en­ of shipping—a peace, in brief, of factual situations, a dorsement of the Franco regime. The English are tradi­ peace without moral purpose or human intent, a peace of tionally considered the arch-hypocrites of imperialist poli­ dicker and trade. .”) tics, but in this war it is Churchill and Smuts, alone among By "ideological” Churchill meant two things. First of United Nations’ statesmen, who call ^sD ^e a spade. all, he meant revolutionary communism and “the other ide- What Churchill had to say has b||flfl|H ent for a long ology”, fascism. The latter he said, has already been time, and was said long ago by m^^^^Ecals, including overthrown in Italy, and “as to nazism . we intend to myself—with the significant differenc^^rat we said it at wipe that out utterly.” Nor does communism, in its Rus­ the beginning of the war and he says it at the end. In sian form at least, hold any more terrors for Churchill as the first years of the war, when idealism and big promises a realistic Tory: were needed, Roosevelt made the major speeches for the “Profound changes have taken place in Soviet Russia. United Nations; for the past two years, Roosevelt has been The Trotskyite form of communism has been completely discreetly silent, while Churchill has delivered tire weighty wiped out. [William Gallacher, Communist member, in­ policy speeches. It is a sensible division of labor: New terposed: “There was never such a thing.”] The victories 11 r^etor^c t0 Set us to accept the war, and tough Tory of the Russian armies have been attended by a great rise talk to prepare us for the peace. Churchill seems to relish in strength of the Russian state, and a remarkable broad­ 8 r°Ie- He does not apologize for his Tory views, he ening of its views. The religious side of Russian life has trumpets them in the face of the liblabs, whom he knows had a wonderful rebirth. The discipline and military nave no fight left in them. “I am here today to speak etiquette of the Russian armies are unsurpassed. There 130 p o litics is a new national anthem. [Laughter and interjection by subject refer only to enemy powers . whom we shall a member, to which Mr. Churchill replied: “The honorable not allow to become again an expression of those peculiar gentleman had belter be careful to keep in step.”] The doctrines associated with nazism and fascism. Surely terms offered by Russia to Rumania make no suggestion any one can see the difference.” of altering the standards of society in that country. “What is the difference?” asked another Labor member. The Comintern has been abolished. These are marked Churchill: “There is all the difference in the world be­ departures from conceptions which were held some years tween a man who knocks you down and a man who leaves ago for reasons we can all understand. [Mr. Gallacher you alone. We pass many people in our ordinary daily interposed: “On both sides.” Mr. Churchill replied: “Cer­ life about whose internal affairs we do not feel ourselves tainly, on both sides.”]” called upon to make continued inquiry. I look forward The other sense in which the war is less “ideological” to increasingly good relations with Spain.” is that progressive principles play less part in it (less, It could not be put much plainer than that. that is, ideologically; they have never been important in reality). “The House will know that all questions of monarchy or republic or leftism or rightism are strictly Churchill’s speech was the most detailed glimpse we have subordinate to the main purpose we have in mind. In yet had of The Shape of Things to Come. This is the one place we support a king, in another a communist. kind of postwar world the present governments in Britain, There is no attempt by us to enforce particular ideologies. Russia and America will create so far as lies in their We only want to beat the enemy, and then in happy and power. The pattern will probably be modified—let us hope serene peace, let the best expression be given by the will drastically—by the coming social upheavals in postwar of the people.” Europe, whose first tremors have already made themselves How long this respect for the will of the people lasts felt in Italy and the Balkans. The strength of these revo­ will depend, of course, on what the people will. If they lutionary forces, and the form and direction they will take will socialism, we may expect a different tune. For the are as yet obscure. The one safe prediction is that they moment, however, Churchill is banking on the fact that the are explosive and that practically anything may happen Soviet Union has been sterilized as the center of communis­ in Europe in the next decade. In this very speech of tic infection. (As a rival imperialistic power, the Soviet Churchill, for example, the world first learned of the extent Union offers a very real and growing threat to Britain, of the anti-royalist mutinies in the Greek army and navy, but Churchill is too much of a gentleman to allude to mutinies so serious they had to be put down by force of such things—prematurely.) It is true that Churchill speaks British arms. of supporting a “communist” (Tito), but he evidently uses The most important political aspect of the speech was the word in a Pickwickian sense. For a few paragraphs the revelation that the Big Three intend to dominate the earlier he states: “Marshal Tito has largely sunk his com­ postwar globe by force of arms, with no nonsense about munistic aspect in his character as a Yugoslav patriotic a democratic league of nations, or the “sovereign rights” leader. He has repeatedly proclaimed that he has no in­ of small powers. tention of reversing the property and social systems which Last month in this department I analyzed the long-range prevail in Serbia.” antagonisms, mostly economic, between Britain, Russia and this country. These antagonisms exist alongside the kind Churchill’s present lack of interest in “ideologies”, his of unity emphasized in Churchill’s speech, a unity for the broad tolerance for the popular will is based on the fact purpose of dominating the rest of the world. The pattern he thinks one of the two great ideologies has been removed is: afhibination against the “outsiders” (lesser nations, as a revolutionary threat by the changes in Soviet Russia, colonial peoples), division between the “insiders”. It should while “the other ideology” still has a base on the contin­ never be forgotten that each of the Big Three fears and ent which, with proper support from England and America, suspects the other two, and that in these fundamental an­ may be maintained in the postwar period. An Italian friend tagonisms are the seeds of the future’s wars and revolutions. of mine recently developed the interesting idea that the “We intend to set up a world order,” said Churchill, perpetuation of the Franco regime in Spain is essential “and an organization equipped with all necessary attri­ to the postwar plans of the United Nations, that our war butes of power in order to prevent future wars. For leaders look on fascist Spain much as revolutionaries looked this purpose of preventing wars there must be a world- on Bolshevik Russia (but with a reverse content, of course) : as a base from which revolutionary crises in postwar Europe can be fought, a center of international counter-revolution.