MEET ME ON THE BARRICADES

“Very well, then, nothing remains to be said. Meet
me on the barricades!”

When Hitler came to power and when the Krem-
lin’s international policies began to savor more and
more of conservatism, Simpson’s faith in the Stalinist
leadership began to wane. Then the leaders of the
1917 revolution fell before the G.P.U. firing squads.
Stunned and bewildered he now found himself, for a
time, without a political resting-place.

But Simpson was an incurable revolutionary sym-
pathizer. His dream-world turned upon the axis of
revolutionism. For what mental fiction can be more
satisfying than one which holds forth the promise to
destroy old concepts, to create new social forms and
which is at once the life and the resurrection?

Once more Simpson changed his political line.
Stalin, he said, was pursuing a counter-revolutionary
course. At the same time, however, he still believed
the Soviet Union to be a workers’ state which was
unfortunately saddled with a voracious, dictatorial
bureaucracy. If only this bureaucracy could be in-
duced to resign, or at least to mend its ways! Sadly,
he came to the conclusion that bureaucracies never
resign and so, one bright morning, he boldly an-
nounced that while he still considered himself a
staunch defender of the Soviet Union and while he

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