After the Thirties, by Jack Lindsay

[p036] AFTER THE THIRTIES AFTER THE THIRTIES by Jack Lindsay. (Lawrence and Wishart, 15/-). Borrow this book, if vou must, with its wrapper still hanging to it. For once, we have a blurb which is almost accurate and it must be confessed that, in this case, a lot of time will be saved by possession of this foreknowledge. The pity is that in spite of his liberal disregard for either literary or political truth and his banal repetition of crippled siogans that should by now be 10 years dead, Mr. Lindsay is realiy trying to do something which needs doing—to clarify our ideas about the nature and function of art and to clarify our ideas about the society in which we live. Of course the artist desperately needs to see his environ- ment clearly, though one would have thought that a great many artists are showing daily through their work that, in fact, they see society far more clearly than does Mr. Lindsay, in that they do not overlook the most deadly enemy an artist can have—the ‘“thought-policeman”. I suppose that Mr. Lind- sav can see McCarthy as most of the rest of us can, but what Mr. Lindsav can’t see and the peop'e he criticises can is the “thought-policeman” Zdanhov, who is McCarthy’s twin. One expects to see policemen, narks, stooges, stool-pigeoons, provo- cateurs and similar things in the corrupt societies Mr. Lind- say is trying to analyse, but the majority of people are re- volted when they see the alternative posed by Mr. Lindsay— that vast network of barbed wire and double-dealing which keeps the rouble fortunes of socialist realism safe from pre- mature socialisation. Thus when the blurb, speaking of Orwell’s 1984, evokes “that tortured conception of a mind gone sour”, one is unfail- ingly reminded of a famous remark of Picasso’s. In Paris during the occupation a group of Nazi officers came to Picasso in his studio to examine his work. On the walls were some sketches for his immortal Guernica, burning with the terror of the Fascist bombardment of that city. “Did you do this?” said one of the conquerors. “No,” replied the master, “you did.” Mr. Lindsay’s blindness to the betrayal of socialism by the ruiers of the Soviet Union, immediately revealed by his treatment of Orwell, makes spurious most of his case against the majority of ex-communist writers who lost sight of the ideal of socialism, in the bloody haze created by Stalin’s men as they carved it up all over the world, whilst they cynically flashed the label of socialism on their executioners’ axes for the benefit of Mr. Lindsay and the Dean of Can- terbury. But his treatment of the writers whom he claims as soci- alist-realists is no more objective. The index contains five teferences to Sean O’Casey but no assessment of his work. This enables him to canonise O’Casey as a sort of socialist- saint and at the same time to condemn James Joyce saying of his discoveries in form, that there can be “only a weak- ening repetition, not a creative renewal.” Of course O’Casey’s autobiography must, if this is true, be a “weakening repeti- tion” of Joyce instead of what it is, a vital and inspired work of socialist art firmly rooted in the Irish peoples’ strug- ges on the one hand and in Joyce’s all-important new tra- dition on the other. He similarly invokes Hugh MacDiamid, with the kind of praise which shows a complete lack of understanding, even ignorance, of his work. MacDiamid is perhaps the greatest poet of the age. His latest published work is, In Memoriam —James Joyce. What a crass deviation! Quite rightly Mr. Lindsay devotes a fair deal of space to Grassic Gibbon, who was a novelist of the very highest stature and unjustly neglected by socialists today. Only when he can separate Marxism from Stalinism and socialism from theocracy will Mr. Lindsay be able to separate himself from these dishonesties. When this separa- tion has been effected by the workers, they will do things which wi'l make even Mr. Lindsay see straight in spite of himself. We shall defeat the “thought-policeman” McCarthy when we are strong enough to defeat his brother Zdanhov, and vice versa. Artists who see this are nearer to “clarity” and nearer to the workers than either Mr. Lindsay or his Party. KEN COATES. Printed & Published by New Park Publications Ltd., 266, Lavender Hill, London, S.W.11.

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[p038] @ NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. @ @ NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. NEW PUBLICATIONS PARK LTD. PUBLICATIONS PARK NEW LTD Writings by Leon Trotsky ... Price First Five Years of the Comintern, Vol. 2 (paper cover) 12/6d. Stalin (published 25/-) 8/ 6d. The New Course 3/6d. Draft Programme of the Communist International: A Criticism of Fundamentals, 1928 1/0d. Suppressed Testament of Lenin with Introduction 6d. Death Agony of Capitalism (Transitional Programme) and the Tasks of the Working Class Russian Revolution (Copenhagen Speech) Two Conceptions of Socialism (duplicated) I Stake My Life! Dewey Report on Moscow Trials The Communist Manifesto Today Marxism and Science Plekhanov 1905, Before and After; 1905, Results and Perspectives Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay Last Words of Adolf Joffe What is a Peace Programme? Whither Europe? Stalinism and Bolshevism nN Pp BRERESSRESLER ° = The Kirov Assassination 1/6d. The Lessons of Spain, 1937 6d. Hungarian Tragedy by Peter Fryer 5/0d. America’s Road to Socialism by J. P. Cannon 6d. Revolution and Counter Revolution in Hungary 6d. Outline of the Permanent Revolution by C. R. de Silva 1/0d. (Study Course) The Algerian Revolution by Messali Hadj 6d. Negroes on the March (Negroes in U.S.A.) by Daniel Guerin paper cover 7/6d.; hard cover 12/6d. Postage extra. Classics by Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc., and all new books may be ordered; also Penguins and Pelicans. Periodicals of Pioneer Publishers, New York: International Socialist Review (quarterly, post free) 1/9d. The Militant (weekly, post free) 6d. Vanguard (Canadian Trotskyist publication, periodical) 3d. Samasamajist (Ceylon Trotskyist publication, weekly) 3d. La Verite (French Trotskyist publication, weekly) 4d. NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD., 266, Lavender Hill, London, S.W.11. Phone Enquiries: MACaulay 7029. NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD Zz ™ = uv > vy) A ~~ Cc ier] = QO > = ie) Z “n & ae 9 Z mm = uU > v2) Aw ~ Cc ee) s Q > a eo) Zz nv —j o Z, m = ru > Zz A uv o>, ee) s e) > = ie) Z 77) — 4 o - @