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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 17, 24 April 1950, pp. 4–5.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
(Concluded from last week)
The center of the argument in France over the proposal of David Rousset, French writer, to institute an investigation of Russian slave-labor camps, to be conducted by former inmates of Nazi concentration camps, revolved around the rejection of this proposal by Jean-Paul Sartre and Merleau-Ponty.
What causes these two leading French intellectuals to answer NO to the Rousset proposal? Here we must follow one of the most reactionary lines of reasoning this writer has come across in a long period of time, not to mention its confusion and elementary lapses of simple logic. What is the twisted line of thought as presented by Sartre and Merleau-Ponty in their magazine, Les Temps Modernes? (January 1950)
The authors begin by blandly and calmly informing us of their awareness that Russian citizens can be deported to labor camps, without trial and without any time limit to their sentences. They quote at length from the now famous Labor Correction Code of the USSR, indicating a lively familiarity with its details. They acknowledge not only that the prisoners under this system number millions (between 10 and 15 millions), but ask with deep concern whether a country in which one out of every twenty in the population is a prisoner can be considered a “socialist society.”
Evidently, from the way in which the question is posed, they do not consider Russia to be socialist. Sartre and Merleau-Ponty even ridicule the hypocritical formulas in the code itself, describing the alleged “re-educational” aims of forced labor, etc. Phrases describing the totalitarian bureaucracy, the police-terror system, etc., are freely employed. Evidently, we are dealing with men who know their subject and are not duped by routine Stalinist propaganda!
But hold, this is only the first part of the article. Henceforward, intellectual rationalizing and confusion take over. The basis is laid by an abstruse distinction between the goals of fascism and those of Marxism.
By “Marxism” the authors ask us to understand not the practice of Stalinism, in Russia, but its theoretical objectives. Having slipped this over, we are then informed that the authors “have nothing in common with a Nazi, but we have the same values as a Communist.” This abstract Communist (is he or is he not related to the living Stalinist?) has “values in spite of himself.” This holds particularly true if he is a Stalinist from Martinique or China. That is, if he bears some relationship to the working class or labor movement.
And, here comes the heart of the position, “Whatever be the nature of the present Soviet society, the USSR is found, grosso modo, on the side of those who struggle against those forms of exploitation known to us, in the given equilibrium of forces.” How, why, in what sense – that is no serious effort at any answer. This blunt statement is simply presented for acceptance.
ls it not clear what follows from this? “From which we do not conclude that one must show indulgence toward Communism, but that one cannot in any instance make a pact with its adversaries.” Is it possible for the Stalinist regime to desire a better brand of “indulgence” than that which forbids it to show any form of “indulgence” toward its adversaries? Are all “adversaries” of the regime in Russia war-mongering imperialists and reactionaries? The Sartre-Merleau-Ponty world becomes a two-camp, pro- or anti-Russian world.
The balance of the article is a repetition of the . charges directed against Rousset in other sources – that of lining up with reactionaries, covering up the existence of colonial and concernration camp systems in other parts of the world, ignoring the Negro question in America, etc. We note again, as in the case of Bourdet, no proposal for a “better” type of inquiry, faultless and without the drawbacks of the Rousset commission. In summation, the proposal of Rousset is rejected; Sartre and Merleau-Ponty will not join or give their support to such an inquiry.
The real issues tend to be lost in the conflict around the political personality of Rousset. But we must insist that the politics of Rousset – which undoubtedly tend to take on a more and more openly pro-American coloration – have no direct bearing upon the political validity of his proposal. Nor does the fact that various politically reactionary elements will unquestionably use the information uncovered for their purposes (as they have done, for some time already) mean that the truth shall not be revealed. We had thought that this line of argument, notorious as a cover for all forms of apologism and capitulation, had been buried in past ages, but we were wrong.
Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, as well as the others of the French leftist-intellectual circles, must be forced to face the real question: are they for or against an effective and popularly-proposed method to uncover the truth of Russian slave-labor camps? Are they for or against launching a movement which could conceivably assist the 10 million prisoners whose existence they readily acknowledge? Have they criticisms of the proposed commission? Do they desire to broaden its membership and extend the scope of its inquiry? Then let them offer their criticisms and make their proposals. But first let them accept the principle of an inquiry into Russian slave labor.
To this very day they have not done so. Until they make themselves clear on this, they have no right to protest if they are described as apologists of Stalinism and its labor camps.
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