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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