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45. Editorial to Polemic

The December number of the Modern Quarterly devotes one paragraph of its editorial to an attack upon Polemic, which, it seems, is guilty of "persistent attempts to confuse moral issues, to break down the distinction between right and wrong". It is perhaps of some significance that Polemic—and not, shall we say, Truth, the Tablet or the Nineteenth Century and After—is the only periodical that the Communist-controlled Modern Quarterly singles out for attack. But before dealing with this point, it is worth casting a glance at the moral code whose champion the Modern Quarterly sets out to be. The above-quoted statement implies that there are two definite entities called "right" and "wrong", which are clearly distinguishable from one another and are of a more or less permanent nature. Without some such assumption, it has no meaning. In the next paragraph of the editorial we find the statement that "the whole basis of ethics needs reexamination"—which implies, of course, that the distinction between right and wrong is not obvious and unchallengeable, and that to break it down, or to define it in a new way, may well be a duty. Later in the same number, in an essay entitled "Belief and Action", we find Professor J.D. Bernal [1] in effect claiming that almost any moral standard can and should be scrapped when political expediency demands it. Needless to say, Professor Bernal does not put it quite so plainly as that, but if his words mean anything, that is what they mean. Here is one of various passages in which his doctrine is set forth. The emphasis is ours: 

A radical change in morality is in any case required by the new social relations which men are already entering into in an organised and planned society. The relative importance of different virtues are bound to be affected. Old virtues may even appear as vices and new virtues instituted (sic). Many of the basic virtues —truthfulness and good fellowship—are, of course, as old as humanity and need no changing, but those based on excessive concern with individual rectitude need reorienting in the direction of social responsibility.

Put in plain English, the passage emphasised means that public spirit and common decency pull in opposite directions; while the paragraph as a whole means that we must alter our conception of right and wrong from year to year, and if necessary from minute to minute. And there can be no doubt that Professor Bernal and his fellow thinkers have shown great alacrity in doing this. During the past five or six years right and wrong have changed into one another at dizzying speed, and it is even probably true that actions which were wrong at one moment have afterwards become retrospectively right, and vice versa. Thus, in 1939, the Moscow radio denounced the British naval blockade of Germany as an inhuman measure which struck at women and children, while, in 1945, those who objected to some ten million German peasants being driven out of their homes were denounced by the same radio as pro-Nazis. So that the starvation of German women and children had changed from a bad action into a good one, and probably the earlier starvation had also become good with the passage of time. We may assume that Professor Bernal was in agreement with the Moscow radio on both occasions. Similarly, in 1945, the German invasion of Norway was a treacherous attack upon a defenceless neutral while, in 1940, it was a well-justified counter to a previous invasion by the British. One could multiply such examples indefinitely. But it is evident that from Professor Bernal's point of view any virtue can become a vice, and any vice a virtue, according to the political needs of the moment. When he makes a specific exception of "truthfulness", he is presumably actuated by mere prudence. The implication of the whole passage is that telling lies might also be a virtue. But that is not the kind of thing that it pays to put in print.

A little later in the essay we read: "Because collective action in the industrial and political field is the only effective action, it is the only virtuous action." This contains the doctrine that an action—at any rate in political and industrial affairs—is only right when it is successful. It would be unfair to take this as meaning that every action which is successful is right, but the general tone of the essay does not leave much doubt that power and virtue are inextricably mixed up in Professor Bernal's mind. Right action does not lie in obeying your conscience, or a traditional moral code: right action lies in pushing history in the direction in which it is actually going. And what is that direction? Naturally, the direction of the classless society which all decent people desire. But, though that is where we are going, it needs effort to get there. And precisely what kind of effort? Well, of course, close co-operation with the Soviet Union—which, as any Communist would and must interpret it, means subservience to the Soviet Union. Here are some bits from Professor Bernal's peroration:  

The war has been won and the world is about to enter the hard but glorious period of recovery and reconstruction. . . . The great alliance of the United Nations which has been achieved through the bitter needs of the war has now become even more important as a guarantee against future wars which might be far worse than that through which we have passed. To maintain that alliance and to guard it against its open enemies and the more subtle disseminators of mutual suspicion will require constant vigilance and continued efforts to reach ever-closer understanding. ... To the degree to which we can see things in the same light we can go forward together in fellowship and hope.

What exactly does Professor Bernal mean by "fellowship" and "ever-closer understanding" between Britain and the USSR? Does he mean, for instance, that independent British observers in large numbers should be allowed to travel freely through Soviet territory and send home uncensored reports? Or that Soviet citizens should be encouraged to read British newspapers, listen to the BBC and view the institutions of this country with a friendly eye ? Obviously he doesn't mean that. All he can mean, therefore, is that Russian propaganda in this country should be intensified, and that critics of the Soviet regime (darkly referred to as "subtle disseminators of mutual suspicion") should be silenced. He says much the same thing in several other places in his essay. So that, if we reduce his message to its essentials, we get the following propositions:

Apart from "truthfulness and good fellowship", no quality can be definitely labelled good or bad. Any action which serves the cause of progress is virtuous. Progress means moving towards a classless and scientifically planned society.
The quickest way to get there is to co-operate with the Soviet Union. Co-operation with the Soviet Union means not criticising the Stalin regime.
To put it even more shortly: anything is right which furthers the aims of Russian foreign policy. Professor Bernal would probably not admit that this is what he means, but it is in effect what he is saying, though it takes him fifteen pages to do so.

A thing that is especially noticeable in Professor Bernal's article is the English, at once pompous and slovenly, in which it is written. It is not pedantic to draw attention to this, because the connection between totalitarian habits of thought and the corruption of language is an important subject which has not been sufficiently studied. Like all writers of his school, Professor Bernal has a strong tendency to drop into Latin when something unpleasant has to be said. It is worth looking again at the passage italicised in the first of the quotations given above. To say "party loyalty means doing dirt on your own conscience" would be too crude: to say "(virtues) based on excessive concern with individual rectitude need reorienting in the direction of social responsibility" comes to much the same thing, but far less courage is required in saying it. The long, vague words express the intended meaning and at the same time blur the moral squalor of what is being said. A remark that occurs in F. Anstey's Vice Versa, "Drastic measures is Latin for a whopping", illustrates well enough the essential principle of this style of writing. But there is another characteristic of writers friendly to totalitarianism which has been less noticed. This is a tendency to play tricks with syntax and produce unbuttoned-up or outright meaningless sentences. It will be seen that one of the sentences quoted from Professor Bernal has had to be given a "sic" to show that there is no misprint, and there are other and more extreme instances. In the Partisan Review for the winter of 1944, the American critic Edmund Wilson makes some interesting remarks on this subject, apropos of the film "Mission to Moscow".

"Mission to Moscow" was founded on a book by Joseph E. Davies, who had been United States ambassador in Moscow during the period of the purges. In the book he expressed grave doubts about the justice of the verdicts in the sabotage trials, whereas in the film (in which he figures as a character) he is represented as feeling no doubts whatever. By the time the film was made the USA and the USSR were allies, and part of its object was to "build up" the Russian purges as a fully-justified extermination of traitors. The first version even contained "shots" of Trotsky engaged in secret negotiations with Ribbentrop: these were afterwards cut out, perhaps in deference to the feelings of the Jewish community, or possibly because they were too like the real photographs of Ribbentrop negotiating with Stalin. Davies gave his imprimatur to the film, which was in effect a falsification of what he had said. Discussing this, Wilson gives some samples of Davies's prose, for the sake of the light that they probably cast on his mentality. Two extracts will do: 

The peace of Europe, if maintained, is in imminent danger of being a peace imposed by the dictators, under conditions where all of the smaller countries will speedily rush in to get under the shield of the German aegis, and under conditions where, even though there be a concert of power, as I have predicted to you two years ago, with "Hitler leading the band".

Here is Mr Davies on the subject of Eugen Onegin: 

Both the opera and the ballet were based on Pushkin's works, and the music was by the great Tchaikovsky. The opera was "Eugen Onegin", a romantic story of two young men of position whose friendship was broken up over a misunderstanding and lovers' quarrel, which resulted in a duel in which the poet was killed. It was significant of Pushkin's own end and, oddly enough, was written by him.

The confusion in this passage is such that it takes several minutes to sort out the various errors. But here is Professor Bernal: 

Our British democracy, from long practice, does enable us to secure without coercion or bloodshed, but clumsily, far too slowly and with a heavy bias on ancient privilege.

What word, or phrase, is missing here? We do not know, and probably Professor Bernal does not either, but at any rate the sentence is meaningless. And curiously enough a rather similar kind of English turns up in the editorial: 

If science has much to teach us which we still have to learn, science must also be aware that it is fiercely assailed today by those who fear that man has power at his disposal beyond his moral capacity to control it. This is precisely one of those glib and pretentious ideas that is in need of ruthless criticism.

One non sequitur, one tautological phrase and two grammatical errors, all in sixty words. And the writing of the editorial nowhere rises far above this level. It is not suggested, of course, that the causes of slovenly or meaningless writing are the same in every case. Sometimes "Freudian errors" are to blame, sometimes sheer mental incompetence, and sometimes an instinctive feeling that clear thought is dangerous to orthodoxy. But there does seem to be a direct connection between acceptance of totalitarian doctrines and the writing of bad English, and we think it important that this should be pointed out.

To return to the Modern Quarterly's attack on Polemic. We have shown that Professor Bernal teaches, and the editorial seems to endorse, the doctrine that nearly anything is right if it is politically expedient. Why then do they simultaneously charge Polemic with "confusing moral issues", as though "right" and "wrong" were fixed entities which every decent person knows how to distinguish already ? The reason can only be that they are a little nervous about the reactions of their more tender-minded readers, and think that their real aims should not be stated too bluntly. So, also, with their claim that they will give a hearing to all viewpoints, or very many viewpoints: [2] 

There is (says the editorial) wide scope for differences of opinion within our terms of reference. A certain speculative freedom and adventurousness of presentation is not only allowable but eminently desirable. No one should be deterred by feeling that his views may shock any kind of orthodoxy, left or right, from stating his case. On the other hand, if the holiest canons seem to be unwisely and ignorantly challenged, there is always a remedy—instant and effective reply.

It would be interesting to subject this statement to a few tests. Would the Modern Quarterly, for instance, print a full history of the arrest and execution of Ehrlich and Alter, the Polish Socialist leaders ? Would it reprint any extract from the Communist Party's "Stop the War" pamphlets of 1940? Would it publish articles by Anton Ciliga or Victor Serge? It would not. The above-quoted statement, therefore, is simply a falsehood, the aim of which is to make an impression of broad-mindedness on inexperienced readers.  

The reason for the Modern Quarterly's hostility to Polemic is not difficult to guess. Polemic is attacked because it upholds certain moral and intellectual values whose survival is dangerous from the totalitarian point of view. These are what is loosely called the liberal values —using the word "liberal" in its old sense of "liberty-loving". Its aim, before all else, is to defend the freedom of thought and speech that has been painfully won during the past four hundred years. It is only natural that Professor Bernal and others like him should regard this as a worse offence than the setting-up of some rival form of totalitarianism. According to Professor Bernal:

The liberal, individualistic, almost atomic philosophy started in the Renaissance and grew to full stature with the French Revolution. It is a philosophy of the "rights of man", of "liberty, equality, and fraternity", of private property, free enterprise, and free trade. We have known it in such a debased form, so unrelated to the pattern of the needs of the times, that only lip-service is paid to it, and honest but ignorant minds have preferred even the bestialities of Fascism to its unreal and useless tenets.

We have to contend here with the usual cloudy language and confusion of ideas, but if the last sentence means anything, it means that Professor Bernal considers Fascism to be slightly preferable to liberalism. Presumably the editors of the Modern Quarterly are in agreement with him about this. So we arrive at the old, true, and unpalatable conclusion that a Communist and a Fascist are somewhat nearer to one another than either is to a democrat. As to the special accusation levelled against us, of "breaking down the distinction between right and wrong", it arose particularly out of the fact that one of our contributors objected to the disgusting gloating in the British press over the spectacle of dangling corpses. We think we have said enough to show that our real crime, in the eyes of the Modern Quarterly, lies in defending a conception of right and wrong, and of intellectual decency, which has been responsible for all true progress for centuries past, and without which the very continuance of civilised life is by no means certain.

[Unsigned]

Polemic, No. 3, May 1946

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[1] Professor J.D. Bernal (1901-), physicist and crystallographer, Marxist and author of books on science and sociology including The Freedom of Necessity, 1949.

[2] Professor Bernal was asked to write for the first and second Polemics. He is now invited to contribute to the next. [Author's footnote.] Professor Bernal never wrote for Polemic.

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