Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR THE TALE OF LEON T. In his piece on Bruno R. ("The Strange Tale of Bruno R.," NL, September 28), Daniel Bell wrote: "'However onerous . . . the perspective may be,' as Trotsky put it,...
...I know,' Hitler responds, as if it were a question decided long ago...
...They feared that the abolition of the double college system of voting, weighted in their favor, would mean that they would be overwhelmed by the Moslems...
...It is true that Trotsky refused to consider it, but he had his doubts about it...
...The full quotation gives us a better idea of it: "However onerous the second perspective may be, if the world proletariat should actually prove incapable of fulfilling the mission placed upon it by the course of development, nothing else would remain except to recognize that the socialist program, based on the internal contradictions of capitalist society, ended as a Utopia...
...Does he know that complete integration (as opposed to assimilation) was proposed by Jacques Soustelle, then Governer-General of Algeria, in a report to the French Government on June 1, 1955...
...In his speech of September 16, de Gaulle speaks in glowing terms of "out-and-out [Algerian] identification with France" and says that the Algerians would then "become part and parcel of the French people . . . spread from Dunkirk to Tamanrasset...
...And Trotsky's comment on it provides a strange postscript to the strange tale of Bruno R. London LEOPOLD LABEDZ ALGERIA I would like to ask George B. Boswell ("The De Gaulle Gamble," NL, October 5) where he discovered that de Gaulle "obviously prefers" local autonomy for Algeria...
...It is self-evident that a new 'minimum' program would be required—for the defense of the interests of the slaves of the totalitarian bureaucratic society...
...Sal Tas ("The Army, the Ultras, the Allies," NL, October 5) reduces integration to a "slogan" invented by the "French ultras...
...It is not superfluous to inquire about this among our class enemies...
...But this of course is not the essence of this dramatic conversation at the very moment when diplomatic THE NEW LEADER welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...In the weekly of the well-known newspaper Paris-Soir of August 31, 1939, an extremely instructive conversation is reported between the French ambassador Coulondre and Hitler on August 25, at the time of their last interview...
...Then they realized that by integrating the Algerian departments with the rest of France, there would be only eight million Moslems and 50 million Frenchmen...
...DEAR EDITOR THE TALE OF LEON T. In his piece on Bruno R. ("The Strange Tale of Bruno R.," NL, September 28), Daniel Bell wrote: "'However onerous . . . the perspective may be,' as Trotsky put it, if the Stalin regime was not merely an 'abhorrent relapse' on the road to socialism, but a new exploiting class, then true believers everywhere would have to repudiate the Soviet state and refuse to defend it as progressive...
...The source of the information is undoubtedly Coulondre himself...
...relations were ruptured...
...Are there any genuine reasons for such a perspective...
...Integration, as outlined by its French advocates, calls for political, economic and social unity but respects the religious and cultural rights of the Moslem Algerians...
...Have you thought this over?' "'I know,' der Fuehrer responds, 'but why did France and Britain give Poland complete freedom of action?' "These gentlemen like to give a personal name to the specter of revolution...
...The industrialization of Algeria, which, according to Tas, the "French ultras" doubted could be effected, has taken place, as evidenced by this statement in de Gaulle's speech: "Over the past 10 months, a hundred industrial concerns have applied for authorization to construct plants...
...But,' Coulandre objects, 'Stalin displayed great double-dealing...
...I know.' Astonishing dialogue...
...Astonishing indeed...
...I must also note that Boswell confuses integration with assimilation, the latter of which the French know to be impossible and even undesirable...
...Their opposition disappeared...
...Would de Gaulle have struck this patriotic chord if he did not wish to incline the people of France to the idea of integration...
...Hitler sputters, boasts of the pact which he concluded with Stalin ('a realistic pact') and 'regrets' that German and French blood will be spilled...
...The real victor (in case of war) will be Trotsky...
...It is true that the European population in Algeria was opposed at first to Soustelle's plan of integration...
...In the longer perspective, if the larger thesis was true, that socialism was no longer the inevitable stage after capitalism, then...
...War will inevitably provoke revolution.' the representative of imperialistic democracy, himself chilled to the marrow, frightens his adversary...
...But Trotsky refused to consider the alternative of bureaucratic collectivism...
...How could the ultras doubt the industrialization of Algeria when oil, natural gas, high quality iron ore and other minerals have already started to arrive in Algeria...
...To suppress his doubts, this last of the Utopians indulged in some extraordinary flights of optimistic fancy: "I endeavored to demonstrate in my article, 'The USSR in the War,' that the perspective of a non-worker and non-bourgeois society of exploitation, or 'bureaucratic collectivism,' is the perspective of complete defeat and the decline of the most profound historical pessimism...
...New York City BEN PROTTER...
Vol. 42 • November 1959 • No. 40
