Land of humbug and cant
TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN
Few summers, even in this horrible modern cen- tury, have been so full of so much news as this. We have had a nauseating display of English complacency, mendacity, and national conceit—the last based on no reasons I can discover. It has also been a bad time for prophets. If one may mention another journal, the prophetic talents of an editor were dis- played in his confident assertion that the Russians have made a terrible mistake in Czechoslovakia and will shortly repent it.
For the moment, the Russians seem to be sitting ugly, and no editorial rebuke, even from the Skibbereen Eagle, will alter their course or make the rulers of Russia repent of their base but not uncharacteristic action. A great deal of the current imbecile chit-chat—sOme of it has been worse than that—is based on a view that the Russian rulers are deeply con- cerned for the opinions of the enlightened inhabitants of Hampstead, and are open to social democratic rhetoric from people who have even fewer forces at their disposal than the Pope. The Iron Curtain is falling again. So, many Czech intellectuals are on the run— if they are lucky enough to get away—and England is its own self, full of humbug and cant.
Reading about the educational effect of in- tellectuals' disapproval of the behaviour of the Russians, I wonder if they do not realise that the apparatchiks really care nothing for this kind of censure and are not thinking in the same terms at all? It may well be that the rulers of the Kremlin are afraid that, in the long run, opinions on freedom, decency, law will penetrate into the mass of the Russian people. They have already penetrated, but those who respond to the penetration are being arrested just as if they were mere Czechs. Paul Litvinov is one of them. It should be realised that the praesidium in Moscow is com- posed of men who have made a good thing out of rising in the odious bureaucracy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After reading the cheerful speculations about the domestic effect of our censures on them, I could not help remembering a conversation I had with an important right-wing Republican leader in a state whose Republican governor was making great claims, some of them justified, that he was reforming the Republican party. I asked him if he supported the governor. He said very firmly, `No. There is no place in a reformed Republican party for me'—and there is no place in a reformed Communist Party of the Soviet Union for its present rulers. They will hang on to their jobs and their privileges, as dons, trade union leaders. and authors do.
This brings me to another problem which is being debated this week with a great mixture of arguments that are mere nonsense—the most valuable discussion of it came from Mr Kenneth Tynan in his letter to The Times on Tuesday. Should we ban not only the Red Army Choir but other official emissaries of Soviet culture? A music critic has reported with gratification that the Russian musicians now in this country are receiving rapturous recep- tions. Music is above politics. This is not the doctrine of the Kremlin. Everything is politics. That musicians should not know this is not surprising. Although some great musicians have been strong politicians—Beethoven and Wagner, for example—the opinion of music critics (with one exception) on political matters or, indeed, on any matters except music, is at least as unimportant as that of actors and dramatic critics—and it could hardly be much lower than that.
I am entirely on the side of Professor Bernard Lewis and Dr M. L Finley that we should boy- cott these cultural emissaries. They may be great musicians or great actors, but they are not and cannot be free agents. They are an instrument of war in the hands of an odious government. If it be answered that American orchestras, plays, and the rest are also instru- ments of policy, it must be pointed out that the United States government is not nearly as capable of disciplining artists as is the Soviet government, nowhere is opposition to the policy of the United States government more public, more violent, possibly even excessive, than it is in the United States itself. Mayor Daley of Chicago is the normal cultural guide of a great Russian city. (Just to make things clearer, we should remember that Mayor Daley, whose face appeals to Alistair Cooke more than it does to me, goes to Mass every day, and I am sure fully accepts Humane Vitae.) It is already obvious that we are going to accept the enslave- meat of Czechoslovakia, and quite soon numerous free-loaders will be off on conducted tours. We must remember that many free- loaders went cheerfully to Hitler's Germany before the war—indeed, up to the very out- break of the war. We must also remember that, even if it is hard on Mr Rees-Mogg, the attack of lzvestia on the record of The Times has a great deal of justice in it. The modern Times is paying heavily for the role of Geoffrey Dawson, a man who, by temperament, was perfectly fit to edit Pravda, mutatis inutandis.
The Times once paid a great deal for the editor- ship of Buckle, and I think great institutions, especially such pompous institutions as The Times, deserve to have to live with their history.
Already, the Guardian tells us, many mem- bers of the 'TUC think that quite soon they will have resumed their relations with the Soviet unions. Their distress and disapproval are in- tended to have no meaning. It must be remem- bered, too, that there are always people who admire power and who admire success. I can remember a group of Oxford and Cambridge dons dining in the Reform Club during the last war and discussing the question why Cam- bridge had been bombed and Oxford not.
The Cambridge theory was that Oxford was being preserved to be the Adolf Hitler Univer- salt. Someone raised the question of who would present the Fithrer as Chancellor and perhaps write the citation for his honorary degree. Before anyone could answer, I suggested, `Let's get bits of paper and write down what name seems the most appropriate to us.' The Cam- bridge dons did not vote, so I for a moment cast myself as an Oxford don. When the papers were opened, everyone had written down the same name.
On the question of participating in sporting events, some very curious arguments have been advanced to advocate sporting relationships with the Russians. Mr Philip Goodhart, me, seemed to think we should welcome the chance of seducing the Russian athletes in Mexico City.
I suggest that the Soviet government will be able to take precautions against this interest- ing ploy. I heartily agree with Celtic Football Club in refusing to play the Hungarian team, Ferencveros. Some other football statesmen are made of sterner stuff. Thus, Alderman Percy Woodward, chairman of Leeds, is above —or below—politics. But my favourite piece of odious nonsense of the week was put out by Sir Stanley Rous. Sir Stanley is planning to go to Budapest for the match between Feren- cveros and Leeds the week after next: 'I have already received a telegram which read, "Usual sporting welcome awaits you. Spectators full of keen anticipation." ' The welcome given to this invitation by Sir Stanley Rous is probably the meanest of the expressions of idiocy in the Greek and any other sense of the term, and there have been plenty more. I was about to say that words fail me, but in fact they don't. I can only comment merde. Sir Stanley can get one of his Hungarian hosts to translate for him.
With the double spectacle of the Mother of Parliaments conducting abortions and mis- carriages at the beginning of the week and of the Convention in Chicago, with a tactful quotation of Saint Francis of Assisi by Hubert Humphrey and a flow of nonsense in all the papers, especially in the letter columns of the Guardian, I have decided that political com- ment is beyond me. I shall leave it to my betters and reflect how soon this country will be ready for a possibly more ignominious spectacle than that of exactly thirty years ago.
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