Eastman Replies to Comments on 'Socialism and Human Nature'
EASTMAN, MAX
Eastman Replies to Comments on 'Socialism and Human Nature' Reaffirms Radical Faith, Raises Fear of Govt Bureaucracy By MAX EASTMAN I WANT to express my appreciation to the * distinguished flock...
...In his recent book, Werner himself has revised his calculus: he repeats the same phrases, but instead of 40f"f or 60%, he speaks of 30r/t or 40<?< (page 341...
...is the reason for appealing to a science of human nature— or at least the basic outlines of a scientific attitude to human nature...
...However, even in this ease, Werner jumbled up a few correct observations with a mass of fantastic illusions and exaggerations...
...he picks his facts to fit his preconceived notions...
...He writes: "The break may come if the Third Reich should violate interests which the Soviet Union regards as vital...
...CROM Werner's "history" of the first 14 * months of the Russo-German war it would follow that the relation of forces should have long ago changed in favor of the Red Army: in reality, the reverse seems to be true...
...Max Werner's previsions have proven to be utterly incorrect...
...My opinion is that a government which owned and controlled the economic as well as political life of an entire society would find itself driven by administrative necessity, as well as by its own natural life-impulses, not only to repress the minority but ultimately the majority also...
...It would itself, through a process that might best be described as organic, become a ruling minority...
...IN his "history" of the war itself, Werner in-" terprets its every phase in the most oitimistic manner possible, always endeavoring to show the superiority of the Soviet strategy over the German...
...We cannot go back—we must go forward...
...This is something Werner cannot explain away...
...But I share his state of inquiry on that point, and had been careful to allow for it by alluding to measurement...
...Agreement with | the line of the party leaders was achieved in all districts...
...strategy would be weakened by the fact that her operational bases in Eastern Europe would be located in a zone of political danger (Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Balkan countries) and "Soviet strategy would have the advantage of being able to launch its attack directly on this endangered enemy base of operations...
...As early as 1936 the tank inventory of the Red Army exceeded that of the Wehrmacht in 1940...
...he is not interested.in establishing the real nature of events...
...JACQUES BARZUN agrees heartily with these outlines as I sketched them, and would even fill them in considerably: But he raises his eyebrows at the idea that they belong to science...
...Evidence of this fact is contained in a document just received from the Socialist and labor underground movement which in the past year has grown decisively...
...I believe that his calculations once more suffer from being" "too precise...
...Here his position is one of great difficulty...
...But he neither studies nor analyzes his facts...
...The Red Army is always given out as abcut to undertake a mighty counter-offensive, and the German army is facing one crisis after another...
...ts especially necessary when talking to Socialists, whose faith rests so deeply, even ¦when they don't know it, on the religiously believiag «sind of Karl Marx, To refute the Marxian attitude to human nature, it is not necessary to decide whether acquired characters are heritable...
...Eastman's dependence oh the professional gentleman with the white coat and the callipers...
...Werner, however, simply rejects all German (and even non-German) information of last year's successful German maneuvers, resulting in the encirclement of large sections of the Russian army, of large numbers of Russians captured by the Germans...
...A.few days ago an Associated Press dispatch from Berne, Switzerland, informed us that a •Wke inspired by Socialists had been won by the workers of "Fiat," the greatest industrial Plant in Italy, situated in Turin...
...That is the difference between science and intellectual literature—a small and very Simple difference, I admit...
...He didn't believe that Hitler would attack Russia...
...Dissatisfaction is becoming broader and deeper among soldiers' and sailors, and even among their officers...
...These two commentators interested me most because in my opinion the vital question about my thesis is: How much general knowledge concerning human nature is there...
...According to his scheme, Russia should have attacked Hitler, but, in reality...
...Combing out" of suspicious elements is no longer of any use, for grousers and defeatists have now become the majority...
...The "revolutionary" country became the direct accomplice and helper of the fascist one...
...It also docs not matter what attitude you take to the word "instinct" Marxism, by a negligence that is essential to its plan for the future, failed to allow man any biological character at all...
...But he accepts as fully reliable the Russian explanation that Budenny had only 15 divisions in the Kiev sector, 10 of which had been removed earlier, and 3 broke through the encirclement...
...4FTEN the essence of science is to le*ve a question asked but not answered as in that matter of the heredity of acquired characters...
...But it is out of the question that Turkey will remain aloof in case the Soviet Union enters the war against the Third Reich...
...They only decorate the back-drop, for I've spent a lifetime dodging dogmas...
...This part of his new book is just boring...
...He admits, the German operations east of Kiev were a great success...
...2—The existence of a deep dissatisfaction among the people, and the springing np of groups, movements and anti-fascist sections of those who represent the best type of the underground work which is now being undertaken in Italy...
...Marxists can not even discus* the instinct psychology...
...We had thus, in Max Werner's book, a complete blueprint and forecast of the war...
...In his 'View, a European war with Russia as a member of the anti-Hitler coalition was unavoidable...
...For one thing, some of us have never .had the courage to forget it...
...Not in a single case does he give a lucid presentation of the terrain and locality where the operations take place...
...It then became necessary to "believe" that Moscow had accomplished an especially cunning maneuver in order to take up a better position for attack...
...And I feel little doubt that the discussion will be enough, taken in connection with what we have seen happening in Russia and the other morbidly dilated states, to bring most flexible and still radical minds to my conclusion that we must "be cautious about the scheme of common ownership and state control . . . cautious about the extent to which it may be carried...
...Why then did the Red Army show such weak resistance until Kharkov, which has to this day remained in German hands...
...Turkish support is definitely assured...
...Horace Kallen, who is also by way of being a psychologist, consented to "go along with Max up to a certain point...
...Geography was always Werner's weakest point...
...The Italian Socialist Party was ordered dis-btnded by the Fascist Government in 1926, and the party leadership was compelled to move to r«risV from where Under the leadership of Filipp^«Turati and Claudio Treves, then alive, »nd Hfter of Giuseppe Modigliani, and Giuseppe Psravelli, Italian Socialist activities, inside or outside Italy, were directed...
...He only wanted to remind me that the geneticist could change hereditary human nature by selective breeding —which is true but hardly relevant until the geneticist becomes dictator...
...On the contrary, he expected the war to begin as a result of Russia's initiative...
...To ?. E. Ed son, a more limber and less vitriolic Socialist, I would like to say that arguments from Australia and the Scandinavian countries are barred, because those countries have done just what I say: they have proceeded cautiously with the scheme of state control...
...Fascism, which brought Italy to ruin, feels the end approaching...
...That pattern did not permit a deal between a "revolutionary" and a fascist country...
...I was much flattered, and more instructed than usually happens in such a whir of wings...
...Such is his procedure in his chapter on the origin of the war...
...The Fascist police answered with wholesale arrests of elderly people who 20 or 30 years ago had belonged to the Italian Socialist Party...
...I experience a gratification in being smiled at in just this way—not only because the smile was very graciously introduced—but because it makes clear that I am still in the camp of the radicals...
...He "foresaw" only what he wanted to see and what fitted into his preconceived political pattern...
...As a rule, he completely discards the German version of events...
...But an historian should have taken cognizance of the fact and should have thrown some light on the change of the command...
...As to the first, most Socialists— it is true of me at least—have merely withheld attention from it...
...He finds "astonishing" the notion that "we must read oar poor, unhappy, confused psychologists and sociologists in order to learn all this...
...That fact, and the loose flux of opinion which made it possible...
...In Scandinavia, consumers' cooperatives have played a strong part, and they are the one scheme of radical progress besides anarcho-syndicalism which by-passes the state...
...Thus, as we have seen...
...Is there enough so that I am justified in citing it in support of my opinion that it is impossible to reconcile a free culture with a state-owned economy...
...Should some incurable appeasers still believe that the present puppet King of Italy or his son, known as the national dope of Italy, can contribute in any degree to the liberation of the country from fascism, they deserve to Sc characterized the way Salvemini has characterized them—as international dopes, or the way I want to describe them—international enemy aliens of democracy...
...Werner, without any critical examination, completely accepts Hitler's version published on the first day of the war...
...We have been in this battle since its very beginning...
...So important that if we disregard it, we will end by renouncing the guidance of the mind...
...It is true that you can find most of the valid concepts of modern psychology in classical literature...
...We were told in particular that "Soviet tank superiority is very great and cannot be made up for the Third Reich under any circumstances...
...A horrified Mussolini is witnessing the failure of his dream to change the nature of the Italian people, 'the failure of his dream to brutalize the Italian youth with sports and goose-stepping: the failure of his dream to enslave and bribe the workers and the peasants of Italy through his corporate and police state...
...Its only weakness is that everything has happened contrary to Werner's forecast...
...As to the second point, however...
...That will stand when the obscurity which results from his not having thought his bask theses through is no longer confused with ckmde of intellectual glory'- And to that I am firmly loyal...
...We soe before our eyes what kind of a job it is...
...Neither Marxian theory, nor the end-term concepts of complete collectivization, have played a strong part there...
...But you can also find the invalid ones...
...Hence, Werner is hard put to it to represent the situation as one where Russia, by her preparations for an attack on Germany...
...The relation of power between the Red and the German armies has also turned out to be —more is the pity!—quite unlike Werner's original picture...
...DY this time, one would expect Werner to take " stock of the situation and to do some thinking...
...Rousseau, Burke—to name...
...This could and should be acknowledged without illusions and without any artificial constructions, the purpose of which is not to clarify the truth about Russia's resistance, hut to provide justification for the blunders of the Soviet Regime...
...Even the veritable catastrophe which overwhelmed Budenny's armies is modestly minimized by him...
...Although Marx did not know what science is, and indeed the German language does not know, the idea of making social revolution scientific was the biggest thing—in a large view the most revolutionary thing—he proposed...
...In the universities there is a fjreat revival of the spirit of freedom among students...
...The Italian people, in its long history, has never loved freedom as much ? now...
...But didn't Molotov denounce Hitler's declaration as "a lie and a provocateurs act...
...wherein Hitler, quite fittingly—from his own viewpoint—tried to represent Russia as the aggressor and his attack on her—as an act of legitimate "self-defense...
...Following the German invasion of France, the Party leadership moved first to Toulouse, then ? Marseilles, where it was compelled to cease *U activity...
...He further wanted to raise the question whether "it is established beyond reasonable doubt that inherited characteristics are not modifiable...
...or that acquired characteristics are not inheritable...
...Barxun confesses he is 'nqt sanguine about getting the clean slate, the leisurely Um«, the arrested tide, for drawing up a new course for mankind...
...In that case, only two divisions were lost...
...And why was Budenny relieved of his command...
...In order to evaluate...
...The Battle for Italy was started by the Italians themselves more than 20 years ago when they began the fight against fascism...
...It became necessary, therefore, to invent a new scheme of Soviet strategy...
...Socialist, Labor Underground Key Force In Anti-Fascist 'Battle for Italy7 By LUIGI ANTONINl »PHE Battle for Italy was not started by Amer-I ica, nor by any of the United Nations...
...But the attacking was done by Hitler, and—somehow— proved to be utterly unexpected by Stalin...
...Those who took Werner's book and his calculations seriously- must now demand an answer to the question: Why is not the Red Army today on the Rhine—and the German army is on the Volga...
...The contemporary reader knows, of course, of the replacement and change...
...The Strategy of Coalition Warfare...
...A horrified Mus-solini is witnessing results the very opposite to what he had expected...
...Scientists, like literary people, have their grandiosities and foibles, and science, especially among intangible things like buman behavior, has gone but a little way...
...THE Italy of tomorrow will be the Italy of * labor and democratic and Christian Socialism and not the Italy of feudalism, plutocracy and corporate slavery...
...Moreover, Germany's...
...But when it fits his scheme, Werner is willing to accept even German propaganda as lOO^r truth...
...never as now has the Italian people felt .so strongly that there is no security without liberty, nor- that there can be any human dignity and social life without freedom...
...Eastman Replies to Comments on 'Socialism and Human Nature' Reaffirms Radical Faith, Raises Fear of Govt Bureaucracy By MAX EASTMAN I WANT to express my appreciation to the * distinguished flock of intellectuals who lit on my essay, Socialism and Human Nature, in The New Leader last spring...
...the fact that science asks the question is enough...
...He finds the idea of a continued literary empiricism—if I may so describe 1rfa attitude to social reform—"a much more cheerful prospect than Mr...
...NO systematic effort is made to find out which is which...
...However, even in such cases, one ought to inquire whether everything in the given German communication is a lie...
...Socialists have not merely shut their eyes to facts...
...The results of the "anti-war week" have been extremely satisfactory...
...Werner is an industrious worker with an ability for constructing generalized patterns...
...The most.one can say of his new book is that he is a little more cautious about his prognostications...
...And now it is the Italian youth that fascism tided to isolate from world civilization and separate UOm the great Italian heritage of freedom, who ire revolting against fascism...
...We have also received reports from time to time thuk the 3,000 cities, towns and villages which before fascism were controlled by the traditional political party of Italian labor, The Italian Socialist Party, are becoming centers of revival of socialist activity among the dissatisfied masses of Italy...
...But he did not reckon with the prospect'of an intermediary phase of Soviet-German friendship...
...For him, the campaign begins with Timoshenko's offensive against Kharkov...
...For this purpose...
...To revise his pet schemes would mean to revise his whole attitude to Soviet realities, a thing for which he seems to lack the necessary intellectual courage...
...We don't want the United Nations to bolster the King the way Wall Street once bolstered the Mussolini regime...
...But facts remain stubborn, and the situation of the Red Army, in spite of its truly heroic resistance, was becoming more and more serious...
...Why does Werner in this case so unreservedly trust Hitler and as unreservedly distrust Molotov...
...Werner placed a high valuation on the military might of the Soviet Union, and rightly protested against the notion that Germany would crush Russia with the same ease that she crushed France...
...and in fact the numerous arrests by the police have not touched the organization of the socialists...
...He imputes to me the notion that "Socialism is doomed because its leaders usually forget the fighting instinct...
...Marxists loyal to their credo can not ask sock questions...
...for another, the same nourishing matter can be found mora clearly and elegantly put in the great political theorist* —Machiavelli, Swift, Hobbea, Spinossy Mwrtas quieu...
...OTHING could better illustrate the organizational strength of the Italian Socialist Party in Italy than the fact that this party was in a position to organize and lead a full-fledged "anti-war week," which was held from April 1 to April 7, 1942...
...I do not think that can be disputed...
...Si Sente Salire VAequo...
...The first blow to Werner's scheme came with the German-Soviet pact...
...It also demanded the superiority of the "revolutionary" army as against the fascist one...
...No need of invoking science here...
...They have believed in a false theory—swallowed an antiquated philosophical notion, rather, and called it science...
...All he can see in geography is the larger rivers...
...It is possible that Turkey will enter the war against the Third Reich, while the Soviet Union will continue to hold aloof...
...How such a thing is possible in Italy today em be understood from the following extracts tsken-from a long report about the struggle of Jtaliaa Socialists in Italy received by the writer ™hi» capacity as secretary of the Italian Social-u* organization in America...
...As I said in "The Literary Mind," science is nothink but a persistent and organized effort to talk sense...
...In Max Werner's evaluation, the prospects of the war itself were, from its very outset, all in favor of the Soviet Union...
...Parts of it may be true...
...All we get is a procession of unconvincing abstractions...
...but the party's underground organization was not touched...
...Box Score of A Military Expert — Max Werner's Record: One Hit, Ten Errors By GEORGE DECKER MAX WERNER'S book The Battle for the "* World appeared a short time before Hitler's invasion of Russia...
...The feudal aristocratic, plutocratic and militaristic forces which gave birth to fascism must go down together...
...Man is a complex of social relations...
...The necessity of going beyond organizational and political inner-party work and of starting activjjy among the masses in order to mobilize themv against Fascism and against the war was accepted by afl members of the party...
...highly Russia's contribution to the struggle against Hitler, it is not at all necessary to pervert facts...
...Rosenberg, bat you've got to get inside the ring...
...How ^Timoshenko suddenly replaced Budenny as commander-in-chief of the southern armies is not explained...
...As the Socialist Party had declared in its call to action that the week from April 1st to 7th was only the beginning of a systematic and progressive action against Fascism and the war, the greater part of the other anti-fascists saw in this the end of the pernicious illusion which regarded the fall of Fascism as possible only as the result of a miltary defeat...
...Arthur Rosenberg misconceived me so com-completely that I think he must have read my article in early January, and answered without seeing it again in late February...
...In May...
...It goes without saying that iron-jointed True Believers like James Oneal and August Clees-sens will reply to this plea for advancing knowledge by throwing dogmas at me filled with vitriol...
...This—as shown above—had been ruled out by Werner's blueprint...
...and answers: "You can accuse Stalin and Hitler of anything you want save foe-getting the fighting instinct...
...The best way for the United Nations to win the battle of Italy is not to encourage or assist such enemies of popular freedom as the Monarchists, but to help the labor and liberal forces which are fighting over there under the flag of liberty...
...He was no less confident that Russia could count on Balkan support...
...In his opinion, "the Red Army already occupies a highly favorable strategic opening position against the Third Reich...
...The most logical solution would be a great bloc of labor, democratic Socialists and Christian populists of Don Sturzo's type...
...Werner's treatment of Aia-sources is in keeping with his method of "selective reading...
...rjURING the last year, alL reports coming from inside Italy have told us that opposition against fascism and nazism on the part of the Italian masses, and even...
...The first assurance the United Nations must give the Italian people is that they will be free to choose their own form of government...
...I said: "Nothing has happened in the brief span of racial life called 'civilised' to alter ¦measurably what we are at birth...
...The results of the "anti-war week" can be summed up as follows: 1—The Italian Socialist Party after its many years of absention from political life is once more an important element in Italian internal politics...
...The actual experiment of state ownership in Russia and state control in Germany have made that semi-voluntary blindness no longer possible...
...He describes military operations as if they were developing on a chess-board...
...1942, he was writing: "It is impossible to state precisely how great a part of the German war machine was destroyed by the Red Army: 40 or 50 per cent...
...And you can not find out which is which...
...A large part of the book dealt expressly with the problems of the then probable Russo-German War...
...The Third Reich cannot very well adopt an aggressive attitude toward the Soviet Union until after it has achieved victory in the West...
...I merely think it is an important difference...
...He might also have reminded me that natural selection is still on its way, though we don't know where it's going...
...Alle Gola!' Hate against Mussolini's anti-national government is becoming a will and a determination to fight for freedom...
...PAIRNESS compels us to admit that in one * respect Werner has turned out to be more in the right than other (though, not all) forecasters, and this has helped to raise a vast advertising ballyhoo around his writings...
...I OOMNG backwards at Werner's literary *¦* activity for these last seven to eight years, the basic causes of his errors become sufficiently clear...
...The outstanding fact for me was that the sole psychologist in the flock, Gordon Allport, was also the sole member to endorse my position without criticism...
...Nothing daunted, Werner has, in his new book and recent articles, further repeated and persisted in his basic errors...
...But the fact is that Werner's so-called "history" has nothing to do with history...
...But even there it is necessary to insist on the importance of being scientific...
...The Italy of tomorrow will be the Italy of Matteotti and Rosselli rather than the Italy of Cavour or Giolitti or Facta...
...the moderns...
...Nor is this question answered in Werner's book: "The Great Offensive...
...The German military machine has been worn out considerably, and a large part of the German army will remain stuck in Russia's vast spaces...
...He performs the feat of writing the history of the 1942 campaign without once mentioning Kertch...
...My contention is that we must discuss this and all such problems, and discuss them with the terms and concepts of biology and psychology instead of either philosophy or literature...
...compelled Hitler to attack first...
...dissatisfaction among people known in the past for their pro-fascist views, is jfeereasing day by day...
...Indeed, I am constantly at war with those who pretend I have a "romantic," a "mystical," a "vastly exaggerated" notion of this difference...
...We must not forget that, and I didn't...
...3—The Socialist initiative has been well received by other anti-fascists...
...But eo far as it has gone, no man who wants to talk sense can ignore it...
...There are two factual judgments here: The nature of the administrative problem and the nature of man...
...This 'unrest is spreading from the great industrial centers of...
...Hitler did the attacking...
...To try to appease a King who for 20 long years has betrayed his sacred duty to his people is equivalent to betrajiing the Italian people, and imposing from the outside a soluti e they reject...
...He pictured it as an offensive war on the part of Soviet Russia...
...In his opinion, "the numerical superiority in corresponding arms and the Red Army's better adaptation to waging a mobile war in Eastern Europe—these are two of the most important trump cards the Red Army holds over the Wehrmacht...
...No holds axe barred in this debate, Mr...
...The Italy of tomorrow-will be a Commonwealth based on social justice, for its workers and peasants, for all its people...
...Italians were the first victims of fascism...
...North down to the fiery Wands of Sicily and Sardinia, snd has even assumed the •speet, of open and violent demonstrations...
...But, when it comes to the removal of Budenny and Voroshilov, Werner doesn't even mention these events...
...In connection with the winter campaign, he affirms that the German losses were "extremely high" while Russian losses were "at a minimum...
...But he has gone too far in his political theorizing...
...The world would then see that like a seed beneath the snow, in the land of the Communes, of Humanism, of the Renaissance and the Risorgimento, would flourish new glorious forms of human civilization and progress...
...In the industrial plants, in the shipyards workers are reorganizing around our groups...
...Many democrats, republicans and Catholics, tired of the endless twisting and turning of the so-called anti-fascism of high monarchist, militarist and clerical circles and remembering the betrayals of 1922 and 1925, have expressed their satisfaction at the initiative of the Socialist Party, who are also quite aware that the so-called 'high circles will only move when the people are in action...
...Its cadres are disciplined and courageous and its slogans express the deepest aspirations of the Italian people...
...To put it in another way, the size and complexity of the administrative problem gives rise to an enormous bureaucracy, and the power and privilege involved in governmental status become so unique and so vital that this bureaucracy is impelled by the basic drives or tendencies in human nature to crystallize into a ruling class...
...Nevertheless, it was precisely after the winter campaign and during the summer campaign that we were invariably told in the Soviet official communiques that the Germans everyhere had numerical and strength superiority while the Russians nowhere enjoyed such advantage...
...Nevertheless, Max Werner's picture of the beginning of the war was utterly unlike the subsequent event...
...In many cases, this attitude is correct...
Vol. 25 • November 1942 • No. 47
