The same issue of the Observer carries news from Calcutta that Gandhi,

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule. Maisky’s evaluation of Gandhi reflects the official Soviet critical view of Gandhi, whose ideology of non-violent resistance was identified with the interests of the national bourgeoisie.

tired and disillusioned, is retiring, and that the Indian Congress, which now consists almost exclusively of highly pragmatic political dealers, is ready to reconcile itself to the reform of the Indian Constitution being prepared by the British and to take full advantage of the positions and cosy jobs that it will make available. Gandhi’s ‘impractical idealism’ merely inhibits these dealers. That’s why they are glad to see him bowing out…

One should, of course, treat the Observer’s report with the utmost caution. Its British-imperialist tendencies are inescapable. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that Gandhi’s political role is played out. The manual spinning loom has been cruelly defeated by the modern mechanical spindle. British imperialism has once again won out over homespun Indian nationalism, skilfully taking it apart by the tactics of ‘carrot and stick’. How long for? Only the future will tell. Yet one thing is clear: when Indian nationalism recovers its strength to fight anew for the independence of the country, it will no longer do so under the banner of Gandhi. An entire historical epoch in the development of the Indian national idea has come to an end. A new epoch is beginning, but it is still in its infancy…

Gandhi! I have Fülöp-Miller’s book Lenin und Gandhi, published in Vienna in 1927. The author sketches the two leaders with considerable talent, juxtaposing them as the two equal ‘peaks’ of our time. Seven years ago this comparison seemed absurd only to communists, and perhaps to a few of the more perspicacious representatives of the European bourgeoisie. But now? Who, even among the ranks of bourgeois intellectuals, would dare equate Lenin

Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Ulyanov), founder of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, 1917, and chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, 1917–24.

and Gandhi? Today, any man, even an enemy, can see that Lenin is an historical Mont Blanc, who will forever remain a radiant guiding peak in the thousand-year evolution of humanity, while Gandhi is just a cardboard mountain who shone with a dubious light for some ten years before rapidly disintegrating, to be forgotten just a few years later in the dustbin of history. This is how time and events separate authentically precious metal from its cheap imitation.