McDowell, the new right and Stalin’s ghost
One must wonder if he is not projecting his own dilemma onto his enemies. If 'Stalinism' meant anything outside the USSR, it meant some 1930s leftists pretending to believe that Stalin in faraway Moscow was the infallible leader of all progressive movements the world over.
These intellectuals would have despised a man like Stalin in real life, yet they felt their only choice was to agree always with the leader of the Soviet Communist Party or to become politically irrelevant. So they defended the indefensible as long as they could first the purges, then the show trials, then Hungary, etc.
McDowell's venomous abuse of the anti-war marchers does not stem from any real belief that they are marching at the behest of the ghost of the Soviet Communist Party. I believe it stems from the awful realisation that he, and right-wing intellectuals like him, are now faced with a similar choice of blind obedience to the leader of the Republican Party in Washington, or with political irrelevance, because there seems no realistic place on the right for anyone who does not toe the party line.
People like McDowell face a future not unlike those 1930s leftists, wondering just how long they can stay on board. Today they must swallow the attack on Iraq, tomorrow maybe Iran, maybe next the democratic governments of Venezuela or Brazil.
Tim O'Halloran,
23, Ferndale Road,
Dublin 11
