4

Lenin. Lenin, however, who had had the advantage of being in a position to study the French Revolution and everything that had happened since, and who had read Marx instead of merely Rousseau, had mastered the rudiments of social engineering and, ignoring political history, was able to see behind the various groups the interests they represented, to make the situation clear to the people and to guide them in doing what needed to be done.

I do not see that there is any very close analogy between the Communists in the United States and the Bolsheviks before the Russian Revolution. The Communists, being the instruments of analysis; but they are not the only people who have them. And they differ from the Bolsheviks fundamentally in their relation to the Third International. The Bolsheviks before the Revolution were simply Lenin and his few loyal followers. Lenin did not have to worry about deviating from a party line: he decided his own party line. I have heard it said by the Communists that the time has gone by when revolutions require great leaders, that discipline and solidarity in themselves, guided by the authority of theCommintern, will be enough to liquidate Capitalism and to establish the socialist state. I do not know whether this is possible; but from my reading of history I am disposed to believe that it is not. And in the meantime I am led for this reason to hope something from the American Workers' Party which is being organized by A.J. Muste. I have seen Muste's co-workers also in the field, and they seemed to me as brave, as devoted and as ideologically sound as any Communists I have ever encountered. And Muste himself, for whose character and intelligence I have always had admiration, is in the fortunate position of not being hampered by the Socialist or the Communist tradition. He is his own man, free to think for himself and to meet situations as they arise, undisturbed by the past monstrosities which the Socialists have to drag in

5

their wake or by the seventeen years of Russian politics in which the Communists are still involved. When the final conflict comes in America, the leaders, as has been the case elsewhere, will be acting under pressure of the masses; they insofar as they sincerely want the new order, they will have to give up their quarreling among themselves and make such speed as they can to catch up with them; and it is certain that on that day they will be successful insofar as they are able to forget about Trotsky and Stalin, and Lovestone and Foster, and who heaved the chair at Madison Garden.

This does not mean that, in regard to fundamentals, I consider the Communists wrong and Muste right, or that I am the "enemy" of the Communists. So far as I am concerned anybody is right who wants to get rid of capitalism, who understands the class nature of politics and who does not trust for the establishment of socialism to institution controlled by the owning class; and I regard myself as any such person's ally.

5

their wake or by the seventeen years of Russian politics in which the Communists are still involved. When the final conflict comes in America, the leaders, as has been the case elsewhere, will be acting under pressure of the masses; they will be insofar as they sincerely want the new order, they will have to give up their quarreling among themselves and make such speed as they can to catch up with them; and it is certain that on that day they will be successful insofar as they are able to forget about Trotsky and Stalin, and Lovestone and Foster, and who heaved the chair at Madison Garden.

5

their wake or by the seventeen years of Russian politics in which the Communists are still involved. This does not mean that, in regard to fundamentals, I consider Muste right and the Communists wrong, or that I am the "enemy" of the Communists. So far as I am concerned anyone is right who wants to get rid of capitalism, who understands the class nature of politics and who does not trust

NEW MASSES

31 East 27th Street - New York City

May 15, 1936.

Edmund Wilson,
234 E. 15th St.,
New York, N. Y.

Dear Wilson:

Our series of articles in the Literary Section will
probably extend over next winter. I hope within that stretch
you will have time and mind free to do a piece in the series.

None of us here object to facts, but to the feeling
shown in the treatment of them. Had your fifth article not
appeared the reader of the first four would have come away
with quite other conclusions than he would draw from it, your
emphases in the others were so negative. If you felt that
such an emphasis was needed as a counterweight, let us say,
to our utopianizing of the Soviet Union, you ignored the
fact that there are the real makers of myth, groups who for
one reason or another are presenting the Soviet Union as a
hell on earth, and are not above collaborating with each
other, like Hearst and The Forward; and these groups are
helped by such an emphasis.

You have spoken about the arranged, compelled
quality of Soviet life without showing it in its relation-
ship to the voluntary dedication of immense sections of the
people, and that the decisive force is chiefly the force of
example; you have not spoken of the immense widening of
opportunity to the average man for a variety of jobs, or
if he has special aptitudes, for a scientific or artistic
career; you have left out the democracy by participation;
and, except in the last article the heroism of the sacri-
fice for the future. We have said there was hunger and
dearth; we have said, to come down to other issues, that
much of the architecture in the Soviet Union was ugly; we
have said these things, however, with the qualifications
that are true in a developing as compared with a stagnant
society, and which should be made of the observations are
to be relevant.

I am taking the liberty of sending with this an
article, "Whose Bad Taste", which will explain my point
of view toward culture and the masses. I can't agree that
increasing the quantity must degrade the quality. There
are no fundamental differences of taste between classes;
if the masses were superstitious remember that it was at
the court that Rasputin operated. If the classes had
culture so had the masses. And the folk arts have further-
more been reservoirs for the fine arts. Vulgarization has

357

NEW MASSES

May 26, 1936.

Edmund Wilson,
234 East 15th St.,
New York, N. Y.

Dear Edmund Wilson:

Our meeting was valuable to me. You can imagine that your statements about Riazanov distressed me. I spoke today to Joshua Kunitz about him. He said that Riazanov admitted not merely run-of-the-mill Mensheviks into the Institute, but some who were implicated in the Ramsin trial and that he helped them to secrete documents there. He said also that the probability is that Riazanov is in exile but carrying on work in his special field. Any notion that Riazanov is dead Kunitz considers absurd. Kunitz tells me that some of his friends were involved in the Menshevik trials, that all are now free and several are back in the government service. He says that one, whom he saw recently, and who now holds an important job, showed nervousness; that is he wouldn't come to see Kunitz at the hotel but visited him when Kunitz was established in an apartment. The man did not want to be seen in a hotel where there was a crowd of foreigners. But that does not seem to me illogical in view of what happened.

Kunitz will do Travels In Two Democracies.
I don't think, all things considered, that I
could have found a better reviewer. I am anx-
ious to read it for myself and will try to get
a copy from the publishers.

When may I expect to get from you the ma-
terial we talked about for the series?

357