MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
THE July number of the American Reader's Digest (a periodical which has a deservedly wide circulation in the United States) has reached England and is causing a certain amount of perplexed and anxious comment. Members of the United States forces, having received this number from home, are apt to pass it on to their British comrades, who are rightly inclined to regard the Reader's Digest as a fan sample and exposition of current American opinion. A friend of mine, now serving in the Canadian forces, has sent me a copy of the July number and asked me to tell him whether I consider its opening article to be " true or not." That article is written by Mr. Max Eastman and constitutes a direct and dangerous attack upon the U.S.S.R. Mr. Eastman, when he was a younger man, was filled with love for the Soviet theory; twenty years ago he visited Russia and was profoundly disillusioned ; the demonstrable contrasts which he observed between theory and practice turned his love into dislike ; and he has chosen this most unsuitable of all moments to communicate to his compatriots the disappointment which he himself experienced in 1922. His article, as one would expect, is written in lucid and persuasive style. Mr. Eastman begins by paying a warm tribute to the valour of the Soviet armies and the patriotism and endurance of the Russian civilian population. He recognises that collaboration between the United States and Russia is essential to both. He contends, how- ever, that this collaboration must be based, not upon illusion and adulation, but upon a clear-sighted understanding of facts. " If," he writes, " we want the Russians to respect us, we must let them know that we are not dupes." He has no patience with those politicians who seek to gain popularity by encouraging Soviet- worship : never, in his opinion, has it been more necessary for the " hard-minded patriots of democracy " to speak out openly: " the mush-heads," he asserts, " and the muddle-heads are doing us in." And thus, in the July number of the Reader's Digest, Mr. Eastman, as a hard-minded patriot, decides to speak out.
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Mr. Eastman has made the startling discovery that the system established in the U.S.S.R. is not a liberal democracy. He points out that Marshal Stalin is in fact little more than a dictator. To call present conditions in Russia an "economic democracy' is, in Mr. Eastman's opinion, " pure gush." The system, in his judgement, is run by " one boss and his foremen," and the latter are described as " some 200,000 feudal lords raised above the enslaved masses." The standard of life in Soviet Russia is, according to. Mr. Eastman, so low that no dish-washer in the United States would exchange his position for the most privileged among the Russian workers. Moreover the illusions which are entertained and propagated regard- ing the domestic policy of the Kremlin are only slightly less dangerous than the optimism which places confidence in Russia's foreign policy and in her loyalty to her allies. "Those," he writes, " who are eager to be fooled about Russia make eloquent pleas for Stalin's ' good faith.' But Bolsheviks do not believe even theoreti- cally in good faith. They believe that moral principles are a reflection of class interests and that Communists are right merely because they represent the interests of the advanced class." An adulatory attitude towards the U.S.S.R. only makes the Kremlin laugh : we should be polite to them, but lucid, outspoken and firm. Anybody who seeks to tell the truth about Russia is regarded as an enemy of the Soviets and as " doing a service to Hitler." He is well aware that he, and the Reader's Digest, will be " denounced" for writing and printing such an article. Yet somehow, somewhere, Mr. Eastman imagines that his article will do somebody good.
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I have a great respect for the Reader's Digest, which has for twenty-two years exercised a useful educational influence upon the American public. I have no prejudice whatsoever against Mr. Max Eastman. Yet I regard his article as one of the most mistaken that I have ever read. In the first place it is based upon the common but always irritating fallacy that conditions in foreign
countries can in some way be-compared with, and judged by, con- ditions in the United States. The soil from which sprang the political, social, hygienic and industrial circumstances of modern America is something wholly different from that upon which the Soviet system had to be sown and in which it had to be nurtured. It is not only that the Soviet system arose and was maintained in constantly renewed revolutionary conditions, but it is also that the Russian people were not in any way capable of liberal democracy. Mr. Eastman thinks of his dish-washer as in some Bowery eating' house and compares his standard of living with the modem Russian worker ; that is a totally unfair comparison ; the only fair com- parison is between the Russian worker of 19to and the Russian worker of 1935. I do not know whether, Mr. Eastman had any acquaintance, as I had, with the Russian system of 191o: had he possessed such acquaintance his attitude today could scarcely be one of contempt disguised as outspokenness ; it would be one of amazement. As an English liberal I should deplore the importation into this country of the autocratic or oligarchic methods of the Soviet Government: but to ignore the fact that the lot of the Russian proletariate has been immensely bettered by their revolution is as foolish as to complain that the Russian peasant prefers black bread to white. It is possible for a man of candour and intelligence to contend that the material benefits which the Soviet system has secured for the Russian people are outweighed by its moral and intellectual defects ; but I do not see how any man, however patriotic and outspoken, can suggest that the Communist party in Russia is a bunch. of " feudal lords," imposing itself upon a cowed and resentful people. Such a suggestion is demonstrably false. Patriotism such as theirs could never have flowered upon so dry a soil.
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Mr. Eastman fortifies himself with the reflection that in any case his article will not disturb Soviet-American relations, since under no circumstances will one word of it be printed within the confines of the Russian Union. That is a most specious consolation. His article will certainly be read in the Kremlin and will cause justified offence. But, what is more important, it will be read by many millions in the United States, where it will confirm prejudice. It may well be that the sentimental, the almost religious, enthusiasm for Russia which one meets with in this country is based upon a deliberate, and wholly unnecessary, rejection of facts ; but the American tendency to look only upon the black side of the Soviet system is equally ignorant and far more dangerous. It may be distressing, and at times alarming, that the Kremlin should not repose in the western Powers that unstinted confidenoe which we
accord to each other ; it may be awkward that there should exist in Wall Street and Washington influential elements which are
definitely hostile to the Russian theory; these dangers can be, and
are being, mitigated by wise leadership,on both sides ; but it would assuredly be disastrous if the American people were encouraged
to believe that the purposes and principles of the Soviet Union are in some way in disaccord with the purposes and principles of the United States.
* * * * We should force ourselves rather to consider unremittingly the Russian point of view. We should force ourselves to concentrate
eattention, not upon the virtues or defects of their system, but upon the actual sacrifices which they have made and the triumphs which they have achieved. Compared to the deep wounds which have been inflicted upon Russia the hurts which we have sustained seem no more than surface scratches. It may be irritating to the Americans and ourselv6 that Russian propagandists should ignore our own military victories and minimise the extent of the assistance which we have so gladly been able to give. We should be hale enough and wise enough to ignore such temporary slights. For we should remember, as Mr. Eastman has forgotten, that the Russians are suspicious and sensitive, and that if they were to become estranged this war might well last for several years.
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