Humanist Specter in Eastern Europe

...I fear only that I may be worthless, Of this I am more afraid than death...

...I am scared...

...a young Hungarian writer, Tibor Tardos, gave voice to the conscience of those Hungarian writers and intellectuals who had discovered for themselves the depth of the abyss into which they had been cast...

...Clearly, Moscow recognizes and fears humanism...

...Specifically, the new humanism contains the thesis of Urban and Zimand that the human being must stand at the center of the economic machinery, that economic laws must be made for human beings and not the human beings made to serve the laws...

...Try to imagine that you yourself are actually building the structure of mankind's fate, with the purpose of giving human beings happiness at last...

...But to achieve that it would be unavoidable that some torture be inflicted, even though on just one little creature, because its tears shed unavenged were essential for the completion of the structure...

...Nevertheless, there is a common denominator which puts them all in irreconcilable opposition, whether or not they themselves realize it, to Soviet Marxism-Leninism...

...Finally, there is the confidence, stated most precisely by Dudintsev, that victory will come only after long and patient struggle...

...We make demands on this earth, for the people who are overworked for hatred of little documents, for holy human time, for safe homecoming " wrote Adam Wazyk...

...5 of 1957, devoted a portion of its lead editorial and an entire article to an attack on humanism...

...We demand through the Party...

...I am not a tiger...

...No, I would not do it," Alyosha replied in a whisper...

...But what is more probable, more immediate and in my opinion equally terrifying is the prospect that man will survive while losing his precious heritage, his civilization and his very humanity...

...it carries with it certain fairly clear political, social and economic corollaries...

...The humanist point of view is not only a matter of basic attitude toward life's problems...

...Another Polish Communist expressed the idea of humanism in this way: "Concern for a human being may be something fairly primitive in the theoretical sense," wrote Jerzy Urban in Poprostu of June 10, 1956...

...It is not my primary purpose here to discuss humanism in the West...

...Among other things, he attacked the standard Soviet excuse for sacrifice of contemporary living standards to headlong industrialization—namely, that such sacrifice is necessary to catch up with capitalism...

...Is that the way it is...

...And through all this runs the theme of internationalism, the concept that all humanity is one, that the world is moving toward the unity of humanity...

...The Kommunist article bluntly asserted that Leninism "needs no sort of 'humanization,' nor any of the reforms proposed by the proponents of 'humanist socialism.'" It castigated "the newly-appeared 'reformers' who are appealing for 'reform' on humanist principles of the existing socialist structure," and said that such critics, though calling themselves Marxists, "in essence . demand a rejection of a number of the most important theses of Marxism-Leninism...

...When one takes all these elements together, they constitute the formidable beginning of an idea-system unalterably and bitterly in conflict with Soviet Marxism-Leninism...

...If now some beginnings have been made in this direction in the East, coming out of the hearts of people who have experienced the bankruptcy and degradation of Stalinism, it should shame Western thinkers into action, challenge them to develop old and new humanist ideas further...

...A right cause must be fought for with right means...

...The editorial claimed a Leninist monopoly on humanism, declaring that "the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of society on Communist foundations" is the "highest expression of love for human beings, of genuine humanism...

...Kurowski criticized this idea because it considers the end all-important and the means inconsequential...

...You'll yet become a politician,' he remembered the words of his friend Galitsky...

...He addressed the living audience: "You must understand, too...

...It is quite possible...

...But nevertheless it's a basic part of a big idea: the idea of humanism...

...This is simply a deceit, a mockery and muddling of the minds of workers and peasants in the interests of estate-owners and capitalists...

...But he went on to demonstrate that, even in terms of its own stated ends, it is a defective concept...

...We make demands on this earth, for which we did not throw dice, for which a million perished in battle: for a clear truth, for the bread of freedom, for burning reason, for burning reason...

...But we are far removed from that system...

...The bureaucrat is uncomfortable with reality, and can't wait to get hack to his comfortable office again where he can forget...

...nodded consent to even-thing...

...It demands the liberation of humanity—and of the individual within the framework of society—from alienation in all titf" .domains of society...

...Yuri Nagibin in his story "Light in the Window" tells of the director of a rest home who keeps the most luxurious apartment in his establishment carefully cleaned and polished—for the Party leader who never comes...

...Lopatkin teaches that human dignity cannot be destroyed by mere imprisonment, that there is virtue in unrelenting struggle against bureaucratic inhumanity, and that the means of conducting this struggle is politics...

...Yet that is precisely where they derive their strength, in the historical context of an Eastern Europe struggling to emerge from Stalinism...

...There is the oft-repeated demand for unconditional adherence to the truth in all of life...

...Milovan Djilas: There is no need here to review the wellpublicized views of Djilas on the class nature of Soviet society...

...A start in concern for a human being is answering his material needs...

...They do not control their deeds, but are forced into them by reality...

...The methodology of humanism is clearly expressed...

...R. Zimand: Writing in Poprostu on December 9, 1956, R. Zimand also struck the note of concern with human beings and their needs: "Someone will accuse me of not mentioning socialism...

...He comes to personify idealism as contrasted with Soviet materialism, courage as contrasted with the typical Soviet submissive-ness, individualism as contrasted with the bureaucracy or "collective," and asceticism as contrasted with the crass-ness and bankruptcy of the Soviet upper class...

...To be sure, as Nowa Kultura recognized, there is not one brand new idea or emotion in all of this...

...But it is not so easy to kill it off...

...First...

...They spend more time defending themselves from world reality and attacking it than they do in getting accustomed to it...

...I fear only that I may be worthless . . . ," wrote Zoltan Zelk...

...It has always been apparent that Leninism could never be defeated by mere negativism...

...It declared that "Marxism-Leninism is in principle against petty-bourgeois humanism, which operates under the slogan of defense of an abstract human being and humanity in general...

...Tibor Tardos: In Irodalmi Ujsag on April 7, 1956...

...Ivan replied: "You have answered too quickly, my friends...

...Thus, Andre Piettre of the University of Paris writes in the magazine Realties: "To oppose a vision of the world that is total even though out-dated, we still lack a new humanism, also total, to express the future of our era...

...How can I be brave...

...There are no iron rules for managing the national economy that couldn't be abolished...

...And the imaginary Ivan Karamazov in Paloczi-Horvath's allegory declares, as did Dostoyevsky's Ivan, that society cannot accept "the bloodshed of one small creature tortured unjustly...

...It is older than Marxism, it is the heritage of the ages...

...They were brought up in a manner which only filled their hearts with cold and abstract feelings, and they thought that the generation of the day after tomorrow could be happy even if it was conceived in suspicion and fear that everything was permissible against the people of today provided that it would benefit the man of the day after tomorrow...

...There is the argument of Kurowski that living standards are more important than heavy industry statistics...

...The aim is to obtain the real sovereignty of the masses, to destroy the division between those who are deprived of freedom and the ruling group which is not responsible to the people...

...The power of reality and the power of life have always been stronger than any kind of brutal force and more real than any theory...

...At least through all of Eastern Europe there roves a specter, the specter of humane socialism, and it frightens not only the capitalists but also the Stalinists," wrote the Polish journalist Edda Werfel last November, paraphrasing the first words of the Communist Manifesto...

...In the same issue of the same magazine, J. Robert Oppenheimer seeks to find a word to express the universality of science, and turns up the classic concept of humanitas...

...Here is the poem's ending: "We make demands on this earth, for the people who are overworked, for keys to open doors, for rooms with windoivs, for walls which do not rot, for hatred of little documents, for holy human time, for safe homecoming, for a simple distinction between words and deeds...

...However,: I suggest we refrain from a long and thorough discussion of socialism until the standard of living in Poland approaches that of, say, France.' Stefan Kurowski: The Polish economist Stefan Kurow-ski, in an article in Zycie Gospodarcze on November 26...

...And we...

...The first and more fundamental is the tension between the rapid changes being wrought in human culture by unlimited technology, on the one hand, and the slowly changing forms of social and political organization, on the other...

...Wrote the Polish newspaper Nowa Kultura on April 28: "The Communist ideal demands the reconstruction of the entire mode of social life...

...People must be fed, they must have clothes to wear, they must cease living like cattle, they must entrench and widen their new found freedom...

...Let us see the elements which unite all these writers in the new humanism...

...It represents people with widely different views in many respects, some of whom would no doubt resent keenly being grouped with some of the others...

...when he assumed the reins of power in Poland...

...am a human being...

...And in the meantime we have neglected the human factor, not only in the small everyday issues, but in the big decisive ones...

...They fell in love so deeply with the generation of tomorrow, with the mankind to come, that there was hardly any love left for those who happened to live in today's world...

...It is, rather, to show that the ideas of humanism—often called "socialist humanism," "humane socialism"—are afoot in the realms of Communism—with dangerous implications for totalitarian dictatorship...

...Zoltan Zelk: A poem by Zoltan Zelk in Irodalmi Ujsag of May 5, 1956 testified vividly to the passionate desire of poets to regain their dignity as human beings: "I am not worthy of praise...

...The concept of humanism is, indeed, a key which unlocks the door to understanding of an entire movement among Eastern Europeans and Soviet citizens as well...

...Thomas P. Whitney, Soviet-affairs expert of the Associated Press, served in Moscow as an economic analyst and correspondent from 1944 through 1953...

...No, we do not," a chorus responded...

...Truth is necessary only for meetings, for holidays, like criticism and self-criticism," remarks one of them...

...The allegory brought three famous characters of Dostoyevsky—Rodya Raskolnikov of Crime and Punishment, and Ivan and Alyosha Karamazov from The Brothers Karamazov—together with the author in front of an immense and silent audience which obviously consists of men who experienced Stalinism...

...After all, humanism can have as much meaning for the West as for the East...

...It waited for him, stretched out in front of him, drew him with its clandestine windings, with its severe responsibility...

...Would you, would you be willing to go ahead with the work at that price...

...One of them asks what truth is—and he gets varied, mostly cynical reactions in which the speakers compare what is said and what is...

...My ivorn heart is a nest of fears, Believe me, I am scared...

...And though Lopatkin's machine was already built and delivered, he suddenly saw before himself that road leading off into the distance, of which there was probably no end...

...It pictured Ivan Karamazov putting "the question, the very question of the times" to Alyosha and the audience: "I beg you to answer frankly...

...Answer and don't lie...

...It is obvious that his whole new book is permeated with humanist aspirations...

...His shoulders had now become powerful, but more weight had been added to his load...

...The second, more obvious but secondary, is the race for world leadership between two superpowers representing different attitudes toward social organization—the United States and the Soviet Union...

...but its disparate elements add up to a definite and coherent view toward the moral and social problems which now grip Eastern Europe...

...I am a human being...

...His conclusion reads: "There is, in the background, something new and more essential: an irresistible aspiration toward the unification of the world "To the extent that one class, party or leader stifles criticism completely, or holds absolute power, it or he inevitably falls into an unrealistic, egotistical and pretentious judgment of reality...

...No, I would not think that possible, brother," Alyosha replied again...

...No, it's not enough to be sorry for all...

...Urban went on: "We have created iron rules and principles for the national economy, 'highest laws,' 'unshakable systems' of managing our production, etc...

...Vladimir Dudintsev: The new note of humanism, of concern for human beings, also turned up in the Soviet Union, glimmering through the pages of the most important Soviet novel of the postwar era—Vladimir Dudintsev's Not by Bread Alone...

...Khrushchev called Dudintsev's book "slanderous...

...The idea of Communism, of humanism put into life, is universal...

...The new humanism begins with concern for the material welfare of people, and demands restoration of their dignity, their freedom, their privileges...

...In any case, the world will change and will go on in the direction in which it has been moving and must go on —toward greater unity, progress and freedom...

...But Ivan replied: "It is not enough to repent...

...One finds the ideas implied in the word humanism in many different forms in different places...

...Maybe for the first time then he really understood...

...He wrote: "And the time came when suddenly we even discarded respect for human life sacrificing it to faith...

...There are advantages in this...

...The cult of personality," Gomulka said, "is a specific system of exercising power, a specific road of advancing in the direction of socialism, while applying methods contrary to socialist humanism, to the socialist concept of the freedom of man, to the socialist concept of legality...

...There is the forthright, universal and vehement rejection of the thesis that the end justifies the means...

...The humanist point of view underlying all of this emerges in the last scene as Lopatkin stands on a balcony with his wife Nadya and looks out into his own future: "He leaned more heavily on the granite of the balcony as if to adjust his load before setting out again on his way...

...Kommunist noted with grave disapproval that efforts to criticize the Soviet system had become more frequent recently on the part of persons basing themselves on "so-called humanist positions...

...Alexander Yashin in the short story "Levers" deftly depicts a small group of collective farm Communists who sit frankly discussing their affairs, their relations with the Partv...

...Finally one night the charwoman who cleans this holy of holies breaks into it to entertain her family there...

...Believe me, my friend, it chills my bones When you praise my courage...

...It can hardly be surprising that in their gropings some of these people often turn to the word humanity itself to express their feelings...

...In the face of these conflicts and of the omnipresent fact that this is, despite its divisions, one world, there are people everywhere who are groping for some set of principles which can furnish a basis for future unity...

...A right cause must be fought for with right means...

...Or N. Zhdanov in the story "A Trip Home" tells of a Moscow bureaucrat who returns to his native village to bury his mother...

...The West has had a good many decades to elaborate a non-totalitarian scheme of ideas which would endow the social development of humanity with a human purposefulness which could inspire men in East and West alike with the vision of the future...

...You must understand that you cannot build a clear, magnificent future with a split personality, with a double standard of morality...

...At that point, all the men begin talking in the accepted Party jargon without any relation to reality...

...Its foundations are clearly idealism and love of personal freedom—an idealism intimate, simple and concrete, rooted in love for human beings and faith in them...

...One must not be afraid of long journeys," said engineer Lopatkin in Not by Bread Alone...

...The neglect of the human factor in Soviet industrialization, he pointed out, is self-defeating: decreased incentive and the sapped will of workers will combine to lower the productivity of labor...

...To those who will be able to raise them, the future is open...

...This was the weight of new concern—concern for human beings...

...Ivan continued: "Then could you possibly conceive of the idea that human beings for whom this building is actually being done would accept the happiness resulting if this involved the bloodshed of one small creature tortured unjustly, and further, that if they accepted it, they would be able to be happy forever after...

...They, too, were trying to build the structure of mankind's fate, the happiness of future generations...

...Edda Werfel was right...

...Whatever kind of Communism Nowa Kultura may be talking about, it obviously has little to do with Soviet ideology which can reunite their peoples with the rest of mankind in EASTERN EUROPE Communism...

...George Paloczi-Horvath: Out of all the soul searching of East European writers, perhaps the most impressive single document is an allegory by the Hungarian writer Ceorge Paloczi-Horvath called "A Meeting of Two Young Men"—published in Irodalmi Ujsag on July 7, 1956...

...The theoretical magazine of the Soviet Communist party, Kommunist, in it3 issue No...

...By now these builders, the ones who are building the happiness of the many, know that on their way to victory they must prove their righteousness through all their lives, that their cause must be clean...

...It's inapplicable to business...

...1956, demanded a new concept of economic development for Poland...

...who not long ago in our youth had sworn bv the tremendous power of thought...

...Here are some examples: Adam Wazyk: Few East European appeals calling for a new concern for human beings have contained quite so much passion as the famous "Poem for Adults" by Adam Wazyk, published in Warsaw's Nowa Kultura on August 19, 1955...

...There have been many others, some of them equally able and vivid...

...Do you understand it, you miserable creatures...

...This is what is happening today to the Communist leaders...

...Ivan turned to the living audience: "And you, the others, all of you, would you think that possible...

...However, there are also disadvantages, because these leaders basically lack realistic, or even approximately realistic, views...

...These have been basic ideas of Western civilization for thousands of years, expressed in considerable detail by democratic and social democratic movements in the last century...

...This is perhaps particularly true of the last portion, which discusses the forces making for world unification...

...Then the meeting breaks up and all go their way: "And again they were clean, sincere, direct human beings, human beings and not levers...

...I live like a human being...

...The word humanism has boon heard in official documents in Poland...

...But there are many other vivid and no less touching examples of warm concern for human beings in current Soviet literature, including some which have not been criticized...

...they are now more practical men than they used to be...

...If the new humanism constitutes a challenge to Soviet Marxism-Leninism, it also constitutes a challenge of a different type to the West...

...What has been presented here is only a random sample...

...It is a challenge to thinkers in Western countries, whose scope is not limited by totalitarian controls over expression, to carry this torch, to develop this idea-system further and faster, to add to it the new concepts and ideas born in Western freedom—• with the ultimate aim of reconciling and reuniting mankind...

...We demand these eeery day...

...The director evicts them, but in their eyes as they depart he reads the real and inhuman essence of his own character...

...But the stones to build it are ready...

...Dudintsev's hero is a young engineer named Lopatkin who struggles long and stubbornly to gain recognition for his invention, a new piece of machinery...

...For a few hours, he is taken out of his office and hears ordinary people discuss their real problems, their hardships and difficulties...

...They wanted to make the world clean, livable, magnificent...

...I myself am sure that all this is closely bound up with socialism...

...He has written on Russia for the New York Times Magazine...

...The discussion continues in the same vein until finally all the Party cell has gathered and its meeting is called to order...

...Alyosha Karamazov intervened at this point, addressing the living audience: "But now you already know and see that you cannot go on living like this...

...Other Soviet Authors: Dudintsev is not the only Soviet author who has raised his voice for a humanist outlook...

...Wladyslaw Gomulka used the term in his declaration of October 20, 1956...

...One could go on almost indefinitely citing such examples of the humanist trend in writings from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe...

...The dignity and the privileges of the citizen should be restored so that everyone knows he is the center of all these activities...

...The humanism for which they speak is no closed metaphysical system, to be sure...

...No matter how crowded the establishment is, this apartment always remains vacant...

...These stories, like Dudintsev's novel, have all been condemned by the powers that be in the Soviet literary world...

...Do you understand what has happened to you...

...By now you know that this is not the path to happiness...

...Only humanism, together with socialist ideology, can be said to be our limit and our purpose, according to which our system of production should be changed...

...He declares: "Nuclear weapons and all the machinery of war surrounding us now haunt our imaginations with an apocalyptic vision that could well become a terrible reality: the disappearance of man as a species from the surface of the earth...

...Its motive forces are courage and compassion...

...Then he turned to Alyosha: "You know what happened to them, don't you...