THE DIALECTICS OF 'WELL ANYHOW'

...The Patient Observer...

...Relshatxar Court...

...If the material now being turned out by the Konatantin Simonovs and th« Sergei Eisensteins isn't quite as good as it might be what, pray, did the Russians ever have to show in that line...

...if the time would over come in the history of Soviet apologetics here at home when the "Well, anyhow" argument was heard in the ids field from which it has been rather Conspicuously absent...

...And finally when we are^ asked to forget the atrocities of the NKVD because well, anyhow, the Russians never did have a sense of humanity, how many of our people are apt to recall that eighty-five yeara ago mora thai 20,000,000 Russian serfs were peacefully emancipated, partly out of economic considerations to be sure, but chiefly under pressure of a vast upsurge of humanitarian and liberal sentiment...

...Only books like Turgeniev's "Fathers and Sons" and Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and that thing by Dostoievsky called "The Brother* Karamazov" and plays that never got anywhere like "The Lower Depths" and "The Cherry Orchard" and "Three Sisters," and stuff like that...

...Mr, Hesse does not so much renounce war as a political instrument, as he ridicules war policy, in a form which every reader will recognize—the negative form -lor which even yictory after war does not atone...

...Best of all, how many of our people, when they are told that well, anyhow, the Russiana before...

...If the successive five-year economic plans have failed to provide the Russian people with enough shelter and shoes and even tood...

...By the...

...How many of us1, wlwn we hear that well, anyhow, there were always political prisoners in Russia, are likely to make the calculation that there are at least a hundred political prisoner* in Soviet Russia today for every single prisoner under the Czar...

...So far no one has yet jut up thin argument in defense of the current Soviet so-culled literature, but one cannot be ton sure...

...we musl not be too impatient...

...As * concrete illustration of the misconception* concerning tha origins of the Russian Revolution deliberately or ignorantly passed an aa true information, w* refer our reader* to thi* sentence in an editorial in Mf by Saul Padover (January 1.1, 1947): "Finally th* Ruaaian Revolution of 1*17, engineered and executed by Social Democrat* (calling themselves Bolshevik* and later Communists...

...If it cannot be shown that the critic who has found something amias in the world's first workers' state is bitterly prejudiced, or tragically misinformed, or mentally incapable of grasping the inner meaning of a historic situation—if, in other words, your Soviet apologist is compelled to admit that the complaint ia well-founded and that things in Soviet Russia m'ght be better than they are in thia specific instance, he will fall back on the "Well, anyhow" defense...

...Soviet form of freed^omHs much higher than our western idea, Soviet counsel for defense may end the debate by pointing out that well, anyhow the Russians never did have freedom...

...The Forgotten March Revolution But how many non-expert Americans, when they are told that well, anyhow, the Russians before Lenin never did know freedom, will recall that the Russians did begin to taste freedom a dozen years before the Bolshevist revolution...

...If there are, regrettably ami temporarily, concentration camps for political prisoners in the Soviet Union there were always political prisoners in Russian jails and in Siberia...

...soon there will be enough of all such things...

...The author, being' a German, knows the great mistake* of his own nation, and in recognising their faults, expressed in hi* chapter "Brief an einen jungen Deutschen," he become* not only an outstanding German author, but he paves hi* way Into the category of great European writers...

...Ia'his chapter, "Der Europaer," written in January 1918, the author remarkably describe* th* political ami psychological mistakes'of the European who, as Hesse rightly writes, is suffering from political conceit and a superiority cpmplex...

...Lenin's coup d'etat never did know freedom, are apt to recall that it waa not Lenin in November, 1917, who overthrew the Csar, but that the liberal and democratic force* of Russia did it in their preceding March revolution...

...and well, anyhow, the Russian people never did have enough to eat or shoes to wear...

...In context this person *ay* aa an argument: "What yon say about Russia ia true...

...The Art Council of the Committee of Arts in Moscow found the...

...The word "rommibuts" has made its appearance as a kind of verbal Kilroy...

...And that is in the field of Russian literature...

...And from these it is understood why the writer has so rightly been awarded the Nobel Prise of Literature, 1946...

...At present, he Is the author of Ih* dally column, "Topics of the Times," In The New York Times...

...The author's farsightedness, and his realization that it is always easier to make war than to build a real peace, make Krieg und Frieden a contemporary book...

...The last occasion en which the thought came to mind was m few weeks ago when I happened in the game day to take my first look into Professor Simmons' new Life of Tolstoy, then read through the Sergei Eisenstein "Mea Culpa" in The New Leader, and ended up with a special New York Times dispatch from Moscow about Konstanlin Simonov's new play...

...The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States bar* denial of right* to citizen* because of conditions of previous servitude...

...Well, anyhow, the Russians never did have it any better...

...Hermann Hesse is not a pacifist, he does not belong to the class of writers including Ossietzky or Ludwig Renn, but his wish for peace and international understanding is very clearly expressed in his writing of every essay and article...

...Well, anyhow," etc., etc...

...There's no telling how soon a really didicated champion of the Soviet cause may feel driven to my well, anyhow, in an emergency...

...It ia the reply which is usually forthcoming when a critic of Soviet conditiona has made out*a case which any fpir-minded byatander would describe as unanswerable...

...No matter how bad the Soviet picture may be in this particular case it was always worse in the past...

...The author's political articles, which be wrote during 1917 and IflK, ami in which he warned us not to create new nationalistic tendencies in Kuropc, could have been written shortly before or after the unconditional surrender of Germany and .Japan, It is here where the greatness in Hesse's work lie...

...It deals with American newspaper life as observed on his recent visit here in the company of that equally objective reporter, Ilya Ehrenburg...

...Their Provisional Government thereupon proclaimed a Mil of rights whjeh caused Lenin, on his first arrival in Russia soon after this democratic revolution, to call Russia the freest country in the world...

...The Logic of Fellow Travelers FoK some time now the democratic left has been searching for a word with which to designate those proponents of the Soviet line who apologize amid protestations of independence...

...Possibly there were fewer shoes worn in pre-Soviet Russia than today, though it may have been otherwise if you count the extinct bourgeoisie which did wear shoes...

...If the method.* of the nkvd in defending the workers' State against its domestic enemies may seem harsh at times one should remember that the humane spirit never was known in Russia...

...Russia achieved a Duma or parliament in 1900, and thereafter there was enough freedom of the press in Russia for Lenin to publish his Pravda...

...Yet, a* Strunaky point* out, logic of this sort aa regords the eitlsea* of Russia, forma the Arat line of defense of Soviet totalitarianism by party-liners...

...Russian Literature latere Stalin I HAVE been much longer in getting back to my point than I intended, which is the one instance in which a person does not recall hearing, the pro Soviet "Well, anyhow" argument...

...For what really happened, consult any authoritative history text Strunsky haa written the following volumes, among others: "The Living Tradition-' "King Ahknajon...

...This first half measure of freedom was enough to energise the economic life of the nation so that the decade before the outbreak of the First World War witnessed a remarkable industrial awakening...

...In defense of the plays and novels that aie now being produced by Soviet writers operating in the party-line straitjacket, 1 cannot recall anybody, ever saying, "Well, anyhow, the Russians never did know how to write a nov:;l or a play...

...Well, anyhow" argument I mean the final, clincher, knockdown proSoviet answer when everything else has failed...

...It delineates those persona who say: "I'm not a Communist, but...

...Simonov play to be "talented and truthful," concerning itself as it did with an American newspaper office "wbere most horrible crimes are committed...

...In this collection1 of twenty-three essays and article* on war and peace, Hermann Hess* does not only prove to readers that hi* winning of tha Nobel Priaa for Literature In 1046 ia fully justified, but that he has taken his place as the Goethe of the twentieth aenturr...

...It is by no means sure that the Russian people today have more to eat than they did before the Bolshevist revolution, though, there too, the matter is debatable...

...Romain Holland wrote in the Journal de (Unevt in 1915 that Hermann lipase's attitude during the firtt world war could have been compared with GoefrtV'» attitude during the war of liberation of 1813 1815...

...We can see how this "Well, anyhow" argument would tend to become unanswerable, since so few averagely informed Americans would ever dream of challenging the validity of the "Well, anyhow" assertions of fact...

...W* don't know the origin of the word but of its appropriateness we are certain...

...It is easy to subscribe to the axiom that no matter how bad things may be in the Soviet Union everything in the old Russia was worse, because a good many things were undeniably Worse once upon a time...

...Nobel-Prize Winner 1946 HERMANN HESSE'S latest work Krieg vnd Frieden is a collection of his political essays and articles between 1914 and 1946...

...Previous Servitude- at a Detente In this way it often comes about that alter a valiant attempt^to show that tha...

...In this article, Simeon Sfrunkay, accomplished essayist and political thinker, offers as a key to the psychology of such fellow-travelers the phrase, "Well, snyhow...