HICKS AND STONES

It must be admitted that American Communist leaders are a rather clever lot. Otherwise they could never--even to their own satisfaction--have squared Soviet Russia's recent actions with their traditional attitude. Perhaps they did squirm a bit at the outset. But with time and some amazing intellectual acrobatics, they were able to produce an explanation--a proof of the logic and inevitability and complete orthodoxy of the whole business.

Theirs was something of a tour de force. But onlookers will find much more to admire in the course taken by Granville Hicks, who refused to follow them through their tortuous dialectical labyrinths. For he demonstrated his possession of something they did not have: intellectual integrity.

The pronouncements of the New Masses on the recent pact are a confounding structure of logical hair-splitting built upon a sweeping assumption as to the duplicity of all mankind--outside of the Bolsheviks. Let the editors tell you how Soviet Russia pled for a peace front with Britain and France. Let them further explain how the latter powers deliberately sabotaged the negotiations, using them merely as a card against Hitler; how they attempted to isolate Russia and maneuver her into a single-handed war with Hitler. In the light of this, Russia was forced into a rapprochment with the Nazis to protect herself and world peace.

Imperialism? Nonsense. A cynical sacrifice of ideology to power-lust? More nonsense. Russia was protecting peace by strengthening her own hand and by exposing the "Municheers." She was protecting the liberty of Poland by forestalling an imminent Munich--since the only ultimate aim of such another debacle would be a four-way partition of Russia herself.

Mr. Hicks, for one, refused to live in this neat and fanciful little fabrication. While the points of his disagreement are not yet fully known, this much is clear. He refused to crawl before the "bear that walks like a snake" simply because Party rules bade him do so. He refused to prostitute his intellect to Party discipline when every ounce of reason cried otherwise.

The editors of the New Masses mourn Mr. Hicks' fall from grace because he did not--as they did--"thoroughly understand the ideas" of Communism. This is, of course, a perfect example of the militant intolerance which distinguishes Communism as one of the most fanatic of all religions. The true Communist will not grant an inch, even though his intellectual defences are completely shattered. Mr. Hicks, it seems, is not a true Communist. For he still values the integrity of his reason over the dictates of dogma.