THE HOME FRONT
BOHN, WILLIAM B.
7<4e Jlame tylont ¦y W1UMM & fOHN Dictatorship Among the Artists 1ACKING an FBI mentality, I am the last who would pretend to under-standing: of all the Communist gyrations on the road to power....
...Their methods remain the methods of the gunman...
...The moment they left the party, it was discovered that their novels Were no good...
...Though held together by a dramatic plot, it presents a varied and vibrant picture of life in Germany as the Hitler tragedy reached its climax...
...He gives us human nature as he sees it...
...Perhaps it happened because ,he was growing up . as an artist and could no longer tolerate leading-strings...
...Like a poster or a leaflet, it is filled with slogans...
...In this connection it is interesting to note that as late as August 22, 1945, a delegation of the Lithuanian-American Council called at the State Department and was told that the American Policy on non-recognition of the Soviet conquest of the Baltic States remains unchanged, and that the principles of the Atlantis Charter alone continue to guide American policy...
...But there is one field in which the maneuvering...
...In 1944 he published a novel called The Croie and the Arrow...
...These principles constitute the very foundations upon which the existing relationship between the twenty-one sovereign republics of the New World rests, "The United States will continue to stand by these principles, because of the conviction of the Americsn people thai unless the doctrine in which these principles sre inherent once again governs the relations between nations, the rule of reason, of justice and of law—in other words the basis of mod em civilisation—cannot be preserved...
...In a bourgeois country, like America, the writer, artist or actor is dependent "upon money-bags, upon bribery, upon patronage...
...The only point I want to make is that when he steps over the Com...
...It will be a "wheel and a screw" in a political mechanism, but somehow in this subordination it will be endowed with true freedom...
...Like a cartoon, it' is filled with symbolic characters...
...Vulgar errors are confessed...
...The only change is in the attitude of the American Government which now does not "continue to stand by these principles...
...The logic of this part of the gospel may be a bit difficult to follow, but the disciples of Lenin on this side of the water deserve great credit for the seal with which they have endeavored to interpret the words of the master and the quick-changing nervousness with whieh they have striven to follow it in the devious ways of this confusing world...
...There can hardly be any argument, however, about the fact that Albert Malta's plays, which were produced during the i» tO's, were kept curiously thin and stylised...
...They write pages upon, pages to prove that the novelist or playwright should present things—not as they sre or ss he sees them—but as he is told to present them by a party committee...
...Albert Malta never goes to tins length...
...The Communists praised them to the skies as long as they wore the party button...
...In the mighty discussion which now engages the Communist pundits, there ia 1 rank acknowledgment of partial failure...
...But his article, with Which any conscientious writer would agree, has kicked up a whirlwind of controversy in the Communist press...
...Malts is, I suppose, a Communist, be wrote with due regard'for the writer's obligation to his art and his public...
...The whole theory of the Stalinists about art and the ways in which it can be, and should be, controlled, is generously spilled before all the world...
...We have miners <*s they are imagined by a writer sitting here in New York...
...Communists were super-patriots...
...Nobody expressed our disapproval better than the then acting secretary of state, Sumner Welles...
...How a party which can never corral more than a few thousand votes can wangle its way to the control of great trade unions or, even, worn its way to powerful Influence in departments of the Federal Government, will be forever beyond me...
...The author is writing as an honest artist...
...The Baltic Sstes and Poland remain the add test.—Th« Sfditore...
...In his New Mattel article, Albert Malta gives us something of what hat bean going on ia his mind aa he has developed from a parjy-liner to the status of an honest and independent artist "Writers must be Judged by their work and not by the committees they join.'^ That sentence produced a mighty splash of opposition in the pool of Communist thought And then—horror of horrors I—Malta goes on to defend James T. Fsrrel and Richard Wright These two men are fine novelists...
...And what did Byrnes get from Molotov in exchange for bartering away the rights of small nations T [This article was written before the reoent speech by Byrnes promising an and to appeasement...
...And what-is happening in this field right now would be an eye-opener to the American people if they could get a ringside view of it...
...Peace on Earth (1988) was produced when the Communists were hotly against war...
...The "deviousness" and the "predatoriness" of the "processes whereunder the . . . independence and territorial integrity of the three small Baltic republics" were annihilated still remain the same...
...In Soviet Russia it will be "free" as long as it receives all its emolument from the Government and follows th« rules laid down by the properly designated commissar...
...To all honest and conscientious writers his ideas seem self-evident...
...The central character is a non-political workingman, son of a Social Democrat Next in importance is a Protestant pastor, also the son of a Socialist When Communists a pear, they do not play the parts of supermen...
...In America, that U, it will be "free" as long as it follows the dictates of the 'Communist, Party...
...The people of the United States are opposed to predatory activities, no matter whether they are carried en by the use of force or by the threat of force...
...and "Sources of Anarchism" THE Associated Press released a report on January 1 from Washington that anonymous officials of the State Department had declared that the US Government will recognize the annexation of the three Baltic States by Soviet Russia...
...And they are suffering from self-deception, poor souls, if they imagine that any artist has freedom...
...The five years which passed since the release of Welles' statement could not alter the criminal character of Stalin's annexation...
...A couple of years later came Black Pit, a play about miner' Now, minera are men with all the variations exhibited by other men...
...of the Stalinists must be carried on in the open...
...The mighty line of Lenin was incompletely comprehended...
...I need not try reproduce for you all the super-subtle argument whereby the faithful Daily Worker scribes attempt to prove that Albert Marts is wrong...
...In a restrained and carefully written niece in The New Manet of February 12, Albert Malts expresses his views on the extent to which literary men should, place their talents under control of party bosses...
...In five months American foreign policy has sadly declined...
...From longshoremen to bishop, everyone talks exactly as he is supposed to talk...
...The fact that there are men in America who think this way, talk and act this way, has a certain importance...
...The day on which the American Government okays the Soviet rape of Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia will mark the lowest point in the long and tragic decline of American foreign policy...
...They are likewise opposed to any form of intervention on the pari of one State, however powerful, in tht domestic coricerne of any other sovereign Slate, however weak...
...No one car...
...The Cross^ind the Arrow was written during the era of "Browderism...
...deny that it makes interesting reading...
...In a genuine "proletarian" novel like Ruth McKenny's Jake...
...It is hard to read without a sympathetic tear of books which ten years ago were hailed as masterpieces and of which today the very titles have been forgotten...
...During that time the Communist line waa to support the American Government in the war effort and, consequently, the bars were let down...
...If a man goes on for years using the word proletarian to designate all the persons in the world who perform useful work, he will, I suppose, in the end come to picture' them as robots, looking and acting alike and uttering nothing more than rude, animal cries...
...Whether it is on this account that Albert Malts felt free to let himself go and write a good novel, I cannot pretend to know...
...But once you havo literature "allied with the proletariat," it will become "truly free...
...He read the following statement in his press conferencs on July 23, 1940: "During these past few days the devious processes whereunder the political independence and territorial integrity of the three small Baltic republics—Esthonia, Latvia and Lithuania—were to bs more powerful neighbors have been rapidly drawing to their conclusion...
...The policy of this government is unU vertally known...
...But in this play we have, instead of real miners, t. species of animal fashioned in the likeness of miners...
...The spokesmen of the worker's paradise whose capital is Moscow are tireless in announcing their discovery of new and higher standards of international moralty...
...From the day when the peoples of these three republics first gained their democratic and independent form of government the people of the United States have watched their admirable progress in self-government with deep and sympathetic interest...
...The Decline of American Foreign Policy By Julius Epstein Author of "The Nonsense of Autarchy" "Japan on the Threshold of World Domination...
...It does not follow a party line...
...The Daily Worker returns to the subject day after day...
...Lest you think I am giving you irresponsible outpourings of the little men on East Thirteenth Street, let me quote from the great prophet himself, even Lenin...
...It is probable that few have suffered more from its crippling effects...
...Home, you have a Communist superman appearing among these X 4rs * Z If * pygmies...
...AlBERT MALTZ has good reason to bestir himself with regard to the iron rule of the arts which is s psrt of the Communist code...
...munist line, he produces good work...
...Though Mr...
...Albert Malta protests against this whole dishonest and ridiculous business...
...In his essay on Party Organization and Party Literature, published in 1906, this Moses of the Communists referred to literature as "a little wheel and screw in the great one-and-indi-visible party mechanism...
...intellectuals" might object, Lenin properly put them in their place by dubbing them mere '"bourgeois individualists...
...When Stalin grabbed the three little states and made them "autonomous republics" of the Soviet Union, the American public overwhelmingly condemned this clear violation of international treaties...
...Wicked boergeoia notion...
...The interesting point is that the Communists cannot accept them...
...were tolerated...
...The results were thin and stilted plays and novels...
...Foreseeing that some "hysterica...
...The New York Timee carried an editorial on July 24, 1940, under the title "Burglary in the Baltic," from which we quote: "Under-Secretary of State Welles did not overstate the case yesterday when he spoke of the 'predatory' manner in which Soviet Russia has absorbed the three small Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Esthonia...
Vol. 29 • March 1946 • No. 10
