PARIS LETTER
685
The answer, I believe, must be found in the phenomenology of the
amateur Communist, a type widespread in Europe today, especially
among the intellectuals.
The first thing to say about the amateur Communist is that he is
by no means a "fellow traveler." He does not receive either orders or
suggestions from the Party; he does not belong to any "front organiza–
tion," and, except for an occasional signature, he does not give any
particular help to the Communist cause. What he is interested in is the
defeat of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat. A truly
independent Communist, and, within the framework of the Communist
ideal,
a liberal, that is what he is. His points of contact with official
Communism are two: (1) he considers it obvious that the Soviet Union
is a socialist, that is, a fundamentally just state; (2) for
him,
it is
self-evident that the CP, being the party of the "masses," is also at
bottom the party of social justice and peace. Hence, he supports bo.th
these institutions in principle, but by no means on all counts. The
totalitarian mentality is utterly foreign to him.
As
for the difficulties and
ambiguities of his position, he is perfectly aware of them. But, precisely,
"one must accept a lot of things, if one wants to change a few."
One would surmise that, being neither a Communist nor an anti–
Communist, neither a totalitarian nor a liberal, and insisting as he does
on the difficulty, if not the illegitimacy, of a resolute political stand,
the amateur Communist should be a rather hamletic character. At this
point, however, we witness a remarkable phenomenon: the fact of
participating (at a variable distance)
in
the massive intellectual universe
of Communism (of being able, i.e., to use Communist arguments without
subjecting himself to the rigid rules by which the militant Communist
must abide) gives the amateur Communist a singular kind of assurance.
Far from feeling uncertain, he feels very certain, and behaves as if his
position were not only politically sound, but also guaranteed by the
laws of logic, ethics, and philosophy in general, not to speak of history.
Which amounts to saying that he enjoys both the prestige of the
Communist uniform which he shuns and the advantages of the civilian
clothes which he ostensibly wears. He considers himself "objectively" a
Communist insofar as he embraces the proletarian cause, but "subjective–
ly" a free man, since he does not obey any order from above. The last,
and most refined, touch of such a character is the conviction he often
expresses that, in case of a Communist victory, he will
~
among the
first to be "liquidated." His heretical orthodoxy will thus receive even
the crown of the martyrs. In what substantial way these refinements can
further the cause of the oppressed is, on the other hand, a question
