RETURN FROM THE U. S. S. R. Also by Andre Gide THE COUNTERFEITERS
THE IMMORALIST TRAVELS IN THE CONGO These are Borzoi Books
published by ALFRED A. KNOPF I DEDICATE THESE PAGES TO THE MEMORY
OF EUGENE DABIT, BESIDE WHOM, WITH WHOM, THEY WERE LIVED AND
THOUGHT THE HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER relates how the great goddess,
in the course of her wanderings in search of her daughter, came to
the court of Keleos. No one recognized the goddess under the
borrowed form of a humble wet-nurse and Queen Metaneira entrusted
to her care her latest-born child, the infant Demophoon, afterwards
known as Triptolemus, the founder of agriculture. Every evening,
behind closed doors, while the household was asleep, Demeter took
little Demo phoon out of his comfortable cradle and with appar ent
cruelty., though moved in reality by a great love 1 and desirous of
bringing him eventually to the state of godhoodj laid the naked
child on a glowing bed of embers. I imagine the mighty Demeter
bending ma ternally over the radiant nursling as over the future
race of mankind. He endures the fiery charcoal he gathers strength
from the ordeal. Something super human is fostered in Mm, something
robust, some thing beyond all hope glorious. Ah, had Demeter only
been able to carry through her bold attempt, to bring her daring
venture to a successful issue But Metaneira becoming anxious, says
the legend, burst suddenly into the room where the experiment was
be ing carried on and guided by her mistaken fears, thrust aside
the goddess at her work of forging the superman j pushed away the
embers, and, in order to save the child, lost the god. CONTENTS
FOREWORD XI RETURN FROM THE U. S. S. R. 3 APPENDICES r. Speech
Delivered on theOccasion of Maxim Gorkis Funeral 65 n. Speech to
the Students of Moscow 70 in. Speech to the Men of Letters of
Leningrad 74 iv. The Struggle against Religion 78 v. Ostrovski 83
vi. A Kolkhoz 86 vu. Bolshevo 89 vni. The Besprizornis 91 FOREWORD
THREE YEARS AGO I declared my admiration, my love, for the U. S. S.
R. An unprecedented experi ment was being attempted there which
filled our hearts with hope and from which we expected an immense
advance, an impetus capable of carrying forward in its stride the
whole human race. It is indeed worth while living, I thought, in
order to be present at this rebirth, and worth while giving ones
life in order to help it on. In our hearts and in our minds we
resolutely linked the future of culture itself with the glorious
destiny of the U. S. S. R. We have frequently said so. We should
have liked to repeat it once again, Already, without as yet having
seen things for ourselves, we could not but feel disturbed by cer
tain recent decisions which seemed to denote a change of
orientation. At that moment October 1935 I wrote as fol lows It is
largely moreover the stupidity and unfair xi Xll FOREWORD ness of
the attacks on the U. S. S. R. that make us defend it with some
obstinacy. Those same yelpers will begin to approve the Soviet
Union just as we shall cease to do so for what they will approve
are those very compromises and concessions which will make some
others say There You see but which will lead away from the goal it
had at first set itself. Let us hope that in order to keep our eyes
fixed on that goal we may not be obliged to avert them from the
Soviet Union Nouvelle Revue Frangaise, March 1936 Resolving,
however, to maintain at all costs myconfidence until I had more to
go upon, and pre ferring to doubt my own judgment, I declared once
more, four days after my arrival in Moscow, in my speech in the Red
Square on the occasion of Gorkis funeral The fate of culture is
bound up in our minds with the destiny of the Soviet Union. We will
defend it. 1 have always maintained that the wish to re main true
to oneself too often carries with it a risk of insincerity and I
consider that if ever sincerity is important, it is surely when the
beliefs of great masses of people are involved together with ones
own...
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