[Militant No. 919, 28th October 1988, p. 4]
Fact, fiction or fantasy? reader asks
To mark the republication of Jan Valtin’s classic, Out of the Night, Militant (Issue 916) reprinted a review by Peter Taaffe which first appeared In Militant 291. In response, Mick Jones of Chester wrote criticising this as an „uncritical and romanticised view“.
We do not have room to print his lengthy letter in full, but we will summarise the main burden of his criticism, which is taken up by Lynn Walsh.
„The book“, says Mick Jones, „needs situating in its historical context.“ Out of the Night Is „a work of ‚faction‘, a mixture of fact and fiction, It Is most definitely not a biography. The author mixes gossip, real events, with his own experience and adds a good measure of fantasy.“
Mick refers to some of the factual details which have been disputed, including the existence of Firelei, Valtin’s wife. He also questions the association and conversations of Valtin, a mere functionary, with the top leaders of the German Communist Party.
“Valtin undoubtedly had literary talent, he cleverly utilised It to cobble up this tale of adventure from his knowledge, experience, and imagination. It should be classified along with Robin Hood or the works of Walter Scott, and not be inflicted on unwary militants as fact.“
Mick also draws attention to the fact that „Out of the Night“ was first published in the United States early in 1941 “with the blessing of the FBI.“ The US had not yet been drawn into the second world war, and “the book was designed to mobilise public opinion … against both regimes,“ Nazi Germany and the ‚Communist’/Stalinist USSR.
Mick Jones also raises points about the role of Stalin in the defeat of the German revolution and the development of the German Communist Party. These issues cannot be dealt with here because of lack of space. But they will be taken up later by Rob Sewell, whose new pamphlet on the German Revolution will be published soon.
Lynn Walsh takes up these criticisms of Valtin’s book
Out of the Night is an epic story. Valtin’s own adventures, many of them seemingly ‘stranger than fiction’, are remarkable enough. His personal fate. however. was bound up with a titanic struggle of world-historic importance.
Valtin, whose real name was Richard Krebs, witnessed the German revolution of 1918. He was involved, as a Communist Party militant, in the mass revolutionary struggle of 1923. Later, as part of the secret network which operated under the cover of the International Seamen’s Union, he acted as a Comintern agent. The Communist International, by that time, was the overseas agency of Stalin’s bureaucracy.
Valtin’s narrative conveys the fiery elan of the revolution when there was still hope of victory. But in recounting the defeats, especially the triumph of fascism, Valtin reveals the disastrous mistakes and the cynical, brutal methods of Stalinism.
But the book is „a mixture of fact and fiction,“ says Mick Jones, echoing a criticism that has often been made. Undoubtedly, it is a personal account – neither a critical history nor a documented biography. Ultimately, it has to be judged as literature.
But Robin Hood? Sir Walter Scott’s historical romances? This is taking the criticism too far.
Whatever the embroidery, the key events of Valtin’s story correspond to the historical record. His vivid, personal story adds living detail to more theoretical accounts.
What Valtin revealed about the ruthless methods of the GPU, Stalin’s secret police, has also been amply confirmed. This aspect of Out of the Night, in particular, stung the Stalinists and brought down a torrent of denunciation and vilification on the author. Nevertheless, it is true that Valtin ‚filled out‘ his story. In an interview, he admitted that he „put into the story some things that happened to other people, not in order to make them appear my life, but as typical of the totalitarian way.“
In some episodes Valtin undoubtedly exaggerated his own role. At the end of chapter seventeen, for example, Valtin says that in 1931 he spoke at a mass meeting in Hamburg with Ernst Thälmann, protesting at the murder of Karl Henning by the fascist brownshirts.
As it happens, there is a report from a police spy of Valtin speaking on Henning’s death. “The sailor Krebs opened the event and said a few brief words about the National Socialist murder of Comrade Henning in Hamburg.“ Police agent Schmidt reported that Krebs then asked everyone to rise to show their respects to Henning, and exhorted them: “We swear revenge against the brown murder-plague and (for) the destruction of the capitalist order of society.”
The event covered by policeman Schmidt, however, was not a meeting in Hamburg, but a political-satiric evening held by the Red Reporters in Bremen. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Valtin, by placing himself on a platform with Thälmann, was attempting retrospectively to enhance his own role.
This clearly indicates some ‚poetic licence‘. But it is Valtin’s bold determination to paint ‚typical‘ events and characters in penetrating, dramatic colours which gives his book its tremendous energy. Although quite a long book, the narrative is terse and written with passion. Vivid, sometimes tragic, scenes are fixed in the memory for ever. Even those reviewers who were hostile to Valtin and denigrated the book were forced to acknowledge his style. In The Listener, one critic wrote that „merely as a narrative the book is enthralling, and both in its presentation of characters and vivid dramatic power, it shows a literary skill of an altogether exceptional kind.“
Naïve
The most serious criticism that can be made of Out of the Night does not relate to the accuracy of its detail at all. The real weakness lies in Valtin’s down-to-earth, apparently naive attitude to the tumultuous events he experiences. While he eventually drew practical conclusions and broke with the Stalinists, he is unable to provide satisfactory explanations.
For this reason, it is possible that readers with little understanding of the period might be left with a negative impression. They might possibly see it, in the words of the Times Literary Supplement in 1941 , as an „interminable recital … of plotting, intrigue, agitation and violence … a world of lunatic infamy.“
Readers with some political understanding certainly have an advantage. As they follow Valtin from event to event, they will be able to relate Valtin’s narrative to the advance and reflux of the German revolution, and to the rise and fall of the Comintern. There is no argument, of course, that anyone who wants a theoretical account of the 1930s must turn to the writings of Leon Trotsky and Marxist writers capable of applying his method of analysis.
The question of the authenticity of Valtin’s account is taken up in the Postscript to Fortress Books‘ new edition of Out of the Night. Anticipating the issues raised by Mick Jones, it describes the reaction to the book in 1941 and attempts „to provide the background to the original publication.“
The Postscript also tries to unravel how Valtin came to write Out of the Night, and analyses the circumstances under which it was published.
After breaking with his Stalinist paymasters, Valtin fled to the United States. Unlike lgnace Reiss, one of Moscow’s top agents in western Europe, Valtin did not look towards the Fourth International and attempt to make contact with Trotsky and his followers. Valtin had no comrades to whom he could turn for advice and support.
Instead, through journalistic contacts, he fell into the hands of right-wing publicists and politicians who seized on his potential for ‚anti-communist‘ propaganda. He testified before Congress’s Dies Committee, officially the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was later taken over by Joe McCarthy as the vehicle for his infamous witch-hunting campaigns.
Fugitive
Valtin, like many other refugees from fascism or Stalinism, lost his political bearings in America. For several years, he faced the threat of internment or extradition as an illegal immigrant. The reactionary part he played was the price paid, as an isolated fugitive, for a United States resident’s permit.
The FBI was not surprisingly pleased to see Valtin’s book published. All the resources of capitalist America’s publishing machine were used to ensure a mass audience for Out of the Night.
This is undoubtedly relevant to a full appreciation of the book, which is why it is examined in the Postscript. The circumstances of publication, however, do not in themselves decide the validity of Valtin’s story.
Whatever critics may say, Out of the Night has had a powerful and inspiring effect on scores of Marxist activists, those at least who have been able to get hold of a copy of this (until now) long out-of-print book.
For the moment, let us allow Valtin to have the last word: „It was published in Yiddish and it was published in China. It was fought over, acclaimed. attacked, and it was outlawed in Germany, Italy, and Russia. Goebbels broadcast against it over Radio Berlin, and Moscow campaigned against it viciously.“
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