Daniel and: ‘Sinyavsky | trial,.occurring ten years after "Khrushchev's report," shows in the most striking way the limit.to . the. reforms within the capacity of the bureaucracy: And, as a con- |. sequence, it proves the historic necessity for the Soviet. proletar-. iat to break through these limits and reestablish. workers democracy | by means of a political revolution. Nowhere in the world,.-it- “is... obvious, will the bourgeoisie reach such a-conclusion. A: revolution, if only a political one and directed against the Soviet bureaucracy, is: a dangerous example which it neither can nor wishes. to visualize~
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The officials of a number of Communist parties. have condemned the trial. The Italian Communist party pointed to a part of the problem, pursuant with the line of Togliatti's "testament." According to l'Unita, the trial poses "the vaster problem of relations. between Soviet society and its intellectuals, between politics and culture."
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To pose the problem like this narrows it, but actually 3 it is.an at- . tempt to put it in rather general- terms.
As for Aragon's "direct and frank" criticism -- this is a joke. The declaration does not express sincere indignation. It was... . not an immediate reaction, being issued twenty-four hours after the ~ trial so that it could be formulated in agreement with the leadership of the French Communist party and in terms reflecting their immediate political preoccupations. Most of. Aragon's declaration aimed at telling the Mitterands, the Mollets, etc., that the sentencing of the two writers must not stand in the way of moves for an alliance in the next elections.
The fact that l'Humanité featured the declaration prominently has been correctly interpreted almost everywhere--as a sign of the _ evolution of the leadership of the French Communist party, a public. indication that on occasion it will take its distance from the Kremlin. At the same time, independently of the rightist objectives which the leadership aims at, conditions are nmaturing.that will provide | openings for criticism in a different direction. The opposition within the French Communist party must take advantage of this. But nothing would be worse than to grant any credit whatsoever to Waldeck Rochet or Aragon. a .
‘The part of the declaration. referring to Aragon himself is particularly slimy. Aragon says, without. saying it, that the condemned writers are "mediocre," just as he says, without saying it, that their writings were "injurious. to the interests of socialism." He murmurs something personal about the Soviet law, but he. does it in an inaudible way. The~sentences appear-to. him to-be primarily a. blunder, a simple "penalty" would have taken care. .of things.
Aragon promises’ that in France there:.will.be no trials of this kind if his party comes to power. We-don't ask him to make any such promisés because we doubt that his party will ever come to power. Today'it’ utilizes the working class as "small change" in deals with the left bourgeoisie. To°conquer power, the. working class needs a revolutionary party, not a _ party of “peaceful roads.
On the other hand, we are. curious to know Aragon’ s opinion about the measures taken by his party against the Communist students.
Naturally Aragon felt no need to say anything about the other Moscow "trials" of the period when he ran out of words. howling for death to the Bolsheviks murdered by Stalin. Aragon's present de- _ claration differs from.those he made then due to the difference in | the situations. (At the time, in its way, the League for the Rights” of Man approved Stalin's crimes.) But Aragon remains the same; at the most, after engaging in street-walking for decades in literary and artistic:-circles, he now finds himself a little tired out due to age and he wishes to take on only easy and less disagreeable chores. on3 2)?
“Times: ‘have changed and they will change still note. But it is not the. -Aragons and the other Stalinist dregs from whom one can ex-
pect a frank criticism of the past and hope for the future. No Lesson can be passed on by those who participated in the "days of public -~.... murder."
February 19, 1966