Bruce Bliven-Don Quixote of Liberalism

...With one stick Bliven tries to beat Sidney Hook (democratic socialist and pro-war), John Chamberlain (anti-col-lectivist and pro-war), William Henry Chamberlain (anti-collectivist and former isolationist), and Milton Mayer (neo-Thomist and still anti-war...

...And then...

...It is a major revolution in America's position in the world economy, one that impels us to a large-scale armaments, oil reserves and minerals stockpile programs...

...Many liberals were inclined to be isolationist during the twenties and thirties . . . they listened receptively to Charles Beard, who told them America could successfully cultivate her own garden...

...The second part of Mr...

...the book critic of a daily newspaper .. a Yale professor," etc...

...THERE was a report," we told Senor Prieto, 'in * the New York newspaper PM that you had entered negotiations with monarchist circles...

...Bliven didn't mention them by nam*-—it might have been fairer in delimiting the fight and sharpening the issues—but he circumscribes the area of the duel by talking of "periodicals . . . representing right wing Socialism, left wing Socialism, the moribund Progressive movement...

...But the war has meant more than an internal revolution, with power centered in the hands of Nelson, Wilson, Stetinius, Byrnes, Vinson and other spokesmen of Big Business and the South...

...but they hate the Communists more than any other group in Spain...

...What about the Catholics," we asked...

...These men have simply carried these mental habit* over into a period where they are highly inappropriate...

...The Mexican correspondent of this same paper PM," we continued, "said that the Junta lacked the support of Spanish labor...

...Bliven calls us "soured liberals...

...The Churchy was guilty of taking sides in the Spanish Civil War...

...Surely a heterogenous lot, but what, ties them together in Mr...

...he waa brought up in a world where other people did things and he sat back and complained about them...

...Bliven has one psychological position and two political points (with various deviations...

...Roosevelt and Russia are plus, everything against is minus...

...Bliven's political polemicizing for he makes the situation a white or black proposition...

...Perhaps we cart establish reservations far the Pole*, as we did with the American Indians...

...I have two objections to Mr...

...On the political side, Bliven's two propositions are a mockery and a hollow...

...Their names," he said (!) "are Schultz, Kum and Mueller"—in oner words, any Tom, Dick or Hsrry that expresses anti-Soviet views...

...Why, therefore, when the monopoly groups have meshed their economic power with the political controls, why, at a time when we are entereing a blatant phase of three-nation power politics, does Mr...

...Jose Antonio Jerez...

...The Basques seek a separate republic...

...the denial of a people tike right to choose their own government Yet he praise* the "democratic Uads...

...We asked Senor Prieto if he had had any government encouragement for the Spanish Council of National Liberation...

...we asked...

...He unites the pro-war New lender and the isolationist Progressive...

...But 1 can't help observing—perhaps because in three instances he employs Freudian terms—that in Mr...

...These are "the hang-back boys"—retreating from Roosevelt and Russia...

...Bliven's stern preaching...

...The Spanish Catholic Church," Prieto answered, "differs from the Church in North America...

...we asked...

...But one would never learn that from Mr...

...Bliven, we are "hanging-back...

...In the 1936 elections, the last to be held, they won only H7 seats, and they were part of the Popular Front then obtaining much of their strength that way...

...We stand for the Constitution...

...I don't speak for men ho grew up in the twenties, but I have my own consciousness of coming to age in the late thirties and early fourties—and at a'time when the critical spirit and function have degenerated "into official apologias, when bureaucratic regime* and monopolistic controls have closed the major channels of free thought, Don Quixote Bliven says surcease to "complaining" and criticising...

...The allied invasion of France will mean the end of fascist Spain...

...Prieto answered indignantly...

...He is ferodoo* in attacking Darlaajaas, i.e...

...But a large section of Bliven's grab-bag (including The New Leader) support FDR, while a middle section of the paragraph which concludes with hosannahs for Roosevelt takes a slap at the State Department (Roosevelt, you know) for deals with Darlan, Badoglio and Franco...

...And in preparation for the overthrow of Franco, the Spanish democratic parties have formed in Mexico City a Spanish Council for National Liberation, with Prieto and Diego Martinez Barrio, the former President of the Spanish Cortes, as the leaders...

...Don Juan is no solution...

...No, "the dynamic energy" which is Russia is net something for liberals to be proud of...

...With all its faults, one of these Is the Roosevelt Administration...

...When the Church is a majority it seeks to dominate...

...However, if the Republic is strong, it is possible that the Church will fall into line...

...We have the official support of the UGT, the largest Spanish trade-union body...

...Prieto is in New York on the invitation of the Spanish-American Committee of the U. S. Treasury Department, a private organisation, to help sell U. S. War Bonds...

...and with all its faults, the other is Russia...

...But no one can forget their disruptive role in Spain, we learned from bitter experience, and we can never unite with them again...

...About Stalin's Seydlits policy—the choice of Junker officers and SS leaders to form Free German Committees, Tk* New Republic is silent My town feelings are more vehement, because I ban just finished a book by Anton Ciliga, called Rtuumn King ma and published in England about six years age, Ciliga, a Yugoslav Communist, spent nearly ten years in Russia, half of them in GPU priso and exile far having expressed "oppositionist" views...

...He is perturbed with the vehement anti-Russian feeling among true liberals...

...As to the CNT, the other trade-union body, they are anarcho-syndicalists and opposed to political action...

...This is silly and again part of the Communist slander campaign," Prieto stated...

...His only public appearance in the country will be made Sunday evening at Manhattan Center in New York City...

...Bliven's political soul lurks a guilty conscience, which , he satisfies by sniping back snappishly at the men who hit him from "the left...

...Franco will be overthrown...

...The parties included in this new Spanish Junta are the Spanish Socialist Party, the left Republican Party, whose leader was the late President Azana, the Republican Union, led by Martinez Barrio, the Left Republican and Republican Action Parties of Catalonia—in short every national party of republican Spain except the Communists and the Basque Nationalist Party...

...That in foreign policy—ever which FDR holds tight rein—we have made a "people's war" into a conservative war, we have made the Darlan deal, we have propped up Badoglio and sidestepped de Gaulle...

...Everybody in Spain hates Franco and his Falange...

...But this is weird from the editor of s journsl which in American polities today is forced into championing big-businessman Edward Stetinius, Jr., sgainst Cordell Hull, and accepting the right-wing conservative Senator George against Bernard Baruch...

...But this is gross and insulting...

...I'd rather not be a hangnail on the moving finger of "dynamic energy" history...

...If there is no foreign intervention," said Prieto with a half-bitter emphasis on the last phrase, there will be a democratic revolution led by the Spanish republican parties organized underground and in Mexico...

...issues of autonomy can be settled only when the Republic.is re-established...

...The result is that he has put in one grab-bag, interventionists who are anti-Soviet and liberal isolationists who are anti-Roosevelt, men who are collectivists and pro-war and col-lectivists who are anti-war, anti-collectivists who are pro-war and anti-ccllectivists who are anti-war...

...Bliven got on his side...

...This is a complete and unequivocal lie, spread by Communist slanderers, to discredit our movement I say now flatly and for the record...

...On the foreign field it rationalises the unilateral diplomatic aggression of Russia against Poland and eastern Europe—which is in violation of the "spirit of Moscow and Teheran" conference* which this journal hailed as great steps to international organisation...

...The division of the world among three giant power states is not a oV * velopment to be applauded, the fusion of the Roosevelt administration with the top sections of big business is noun davelopmeut to be cheered, Possibly, Mr...

...It is ridiculous to think that the monarchy could establish a stable regime in Spain...

...THERE is a curious illiberality in Mr...

...The former Loyalist Minister srronco of War smiled faintly at the incredulous tone and continued: "It is quite simple...

...Bliven is indulging in liberal-baiting, that would have been the moment for a little breast-beating, for The Sew Republic, was the most articulate liberal mouthpiece for the isolationist cause until 1940...

...Bliven's piece: I don't like his style and 1 don't like his politics...

...Our Council is composed of all national democratic parties of the Republic and we have the support of a large majority of the Spanish parliamentary deputies in exile...

...Blivea's amalgam, and entitling them to be railed "(he hang-back boy*," is that "they have cut themselves off from the two great centers of dynamic energy In the world today...

...Bliven turn ai.grily on "the liberals...

...And for the past year, The Sew Republic has bitterly attacked the constant setbacks administered the New Deal by Roosevelt...

...Roosevelt has disavowed the New Deal, but The New Leader is fully as much for a new New Deal as is The Sew Republic...

...Well, History with a capital H, a wave of the future ("the two great centers of dynamic energy in the world today"), and the sadly tattered remnants of the New Deal...

...The first is that the liberals are fighting an administration which "is genuinely progressive...

...my political thesaurus would place (he antonym for Bliven as a pollyannish liberal...

...Or as Harry Gideonse once put it in answering Max Lerner's plaint "disillusicned liberals," would he have us be "illusioned liberals...

...As for the Communists, they never played any real role of importance in Spain, until the intervention of Russia during the Civil War...

...a former editor of a well-known liberal journal . . . several newspapermen formerly stationed in Moscow...

...ship" of Stalin...

...On the side of Freud: "A* he existed in the twenties, the liberal was more likely to be a critic than a man of action...

...I don't like ex cathedra pronouncements or writing that is oracular, pontifical, orotund and just plain snotty...

...Would you repeat that...

...nothing is more stupid than to think in terms of re-creating the monarchy...

...His book is a detailed document, from a socialist viewpoint, of th« systematic terror and extermination of all Socialist, Anarchist, Social Revolutionist, Zionist and Communist opposition viewpoints...

...This regime has no popular support anywhere...

...Where the Church is a minority it agrees with what the majority wants...

...If Mr...

...Mr...

...These are the choices of "liberal" politics...

...Surely this is a prime example of the impotence of the modern critical spirit...

...Perhsps Bliven feels, or hopes, that the war is a passing phase and the New Deal will return...

...As yet, the American and British Governments have maintained relations with Franco and we have received no encouragement...

...The Spanish people are bitter about the role of the Communists in Spain...

...And about Russia's western boundaries, be writes: "If territory is allotted to a power towards whom some of the local population feel deep tnimeeity, these individuals should be given the opportunity to g« elsewhere...

...He has on The Sew Republic, an expert in Freudian analysis, a specialist in combining political questions with psychosnalysis, so perhaps we ought to leave the problem there...

...I am more perturbed by the casual manner in which Bliven abandons any attempt at maintaining a sense el "liberal valass* in t»yt world...

...This support we cannot make public as yet...

...I don't like an attitude which is holier than thou...

...Over the past two years I learned from The New Republic that big business baa moved effectively into domination of the key War Production Board, that the liberals have been shoved out of OPA, crowded out of the PEA, handcuffed on the WLB, etc...

...The Spaniah Republicans seek to separate the Church from the state, therefore the Church will not support the Republic...

...to the currant issue (March «) of The New Republic, he has loaded his blunderbuss and aimed in a wide circle at The S«w Leader, The Prearetetve, Th» Call, Politic*, Oswald Garrison Villard, Eugene Lyons, Max Eastman, Charles Beard, John Chamberlain, Fred Rodell, and several other people...

...But I do not like ycur "totalitarian liberalism...

...However, we do have the unofficial support of a number of Latin-American republics...

...There is growing opposition to Franco among Spanish Catholics...

...And recently, in the Dewy Worker, Hans Berger, the spokesman for the Germsn Communists, wsrned Psul Hsgsn, who was seeking terms for an alliance with the CP, that "there will bt more Alter and Erlich cases in Germany after the war...

...Franco stays in power today only on the strength of the German divisions mobilized on the Spanish border, and the Gestapo agents within...

...Bliven's piece is taken up with Russia...

...What has Mr...

...An Interview with Prieto t~l NDALECIO PRIETO, the i Spanish Socialist leader, hunched forward on his chair, in his small hotel room, and said slowly and evenly: "Franco's regime will fall before the end of the war...

...At a time when few people dare make predictions, and political leaders qualify every remark, this bald and simple declaration was quite astonishing...

...The Communists and the Basques were excluded for simple reasons," Prieto explained...