There are those on the one hand who say , 'absolutely not .sx People would panic and start pulling the communication cord .sx They might even surge up the corridors and try to get on the engine themselves , whereupon the whole vehicle would be brought into greater peril than ever .sx Leave the men on the engine alone .sx With a large hatful of luck they might get us somewhere without a smash-up .sx And if not , well , that just goes to show that journeying through the world is a hazardous business and it is a mistake to look for too much security .sx ' The people who take this view exist everywhere- in Communist countries no less than in others .sx It was one of the reasons why Stalin got left on the engine a long time after he was visibly unfit to run the train .sx Others , and they , too , exist in millions everywhere , are all for spreading the dire news among the passengers as speedily as possible .sx They think these unfortunates have the right at least to know what is going on up there at the head of the train .sx Some of them think that just spreading that news , and pointing with derision at the way the driver is acting , is all that they can usefully do .sx They are satirical and unconstructive .sx They admit they probably could not operate the engine any better themselves , while claiming as credit to themselves that at least they are not even pretending to .sx Some others are firm in the belief that once the passengers know what is happening they will somehow find ways and means to avert the threatened catastrophe- perhaps , somewhere in the second class coaches , there are some real engineers .sx These call themselves democrats , but as they have never yet got full control of the footplate , nobody knows what their large claims amount to .sx What arouses the indignation of the honest satirist is not , unless the man is a prig , the fact that people in positions of power or influence behave idiotically , or even that they behave wickedly .sx It is that they conspire successfully to impose upon the public a picture of themselves as so very , very deep-thinking , sagacious , honest and well-intentioned .sx You cannot satirize a man who says 'I'm in it for the money , and that's all about it .sx ' You even feel no inclination to do so .sx In the 1930s it was easier , or perhaps simply more stimulating , to satirize the leaders of the British Government than to go to work on Hitler or Mussolini .sx For these latter , at least in the eyes of other peoples than their own , were creatures who roared out in public their bestial thoughts and intentions .sx Hitler in particular , because he had the enthusiastic support and spiritual concurrence of the vast majority of Germans , had no need of that hypocrisy which Wilde described as the tribute vice pays to virtue .sx He said he was going to persecute and murder the Jews , and no sooner was it said than it was done .sx He proclaimed his delinquent's contempt for civilization , and , to ensure that nobody misunderstood him , organized such fe@5tes and galas as the 'burning of the books .sx ' He lied certainly- lied continuously .sx But his lying was of a special kind- it did not , and could not by him have been expected to , deceive anyone who did not secretly wish to be deceived .sx In this he resembled the great confidence tricksters .sx The confidence tricksters , it seems , consider it axiomatic that no wholly honest man can be regarded as a likely victim of the confidence trick .sx It is not the mere fools that the confidence men successfully delude .sx It is , in their pregnant phrase , the 'larceny in the blood' of the victim which results in his victimization .sx And that was how Hitler operated- exploiting and using as his leverage the 'larceny in the blood' of innumerable politicians in every country who wanted to believe that here was a man who really had found a way of making diamonds out of plastics ; a way , that is to say , of making a quick profit out of an illicit sale of the Western soul .sx You cannot satirize a confidence trickster- the best you can do is expose him , send for the police .sx But when you find a respectable citizen- the victim- who , beneath his air of solid good sense and goodwill is secretly hoping to turn a dishonest political profit by getting a flashy-looking collection of goods labelled 'peace' or 'security' or 'the end of Bolshevism' for some minimal down-payment in the way of a betrayal of the Jews , or the sacrifice of a couple of small nations , then you have a subject which invites and excites the attention of the satirist .sx The satirist , as I have remarked , is certainly among those who cannot bear that the passengers should be left for a moment longer in ignorance of the incompetence of malignancy of the engine driver .sx He is also likely to feel that having done that much his particular function has been accomplished , and he is not apt to pay much heed to those who keep asking him for his 'solution' .sx He will reply that while he may , in some other capacity- as , say , a voter or a magistrate or Trade Union secretary- feel able and bound to propose and work towards 'solutions' , as a satirist that is not his job .sx Myself , I hold this to be a self-evident truth .sx And having , during the early 1950s , had some particular opportunities of watching at close range the way the wheels of neo-Elizabethan Britain went round , together with the very great advantage of viewing the whole box of tricks in the perspective of Ireland , I was more than happy to find myself suddenly and , for me , startlingly in close collaboration with a man whom , for many years , I had learned to regard as an incarnation of the Devil .sx 9 .sx I THINK it was a few months after the wind-up of Seven Days that I got a letter in Youghal which surprised me not a little , for it was an invitation to write an article for Punch .sx Not only that , but it was signed by my friend Anthony Powell who , it astonishingly appeared , had become Punch's literary editor .sx A pleasure of living in Ireland is that you can , so to speak , turn England on or off as desired , and at that time , having been a little soured of London by the Seven Days episode , I had turned it off altogether and become absorbed in whatever I was doing at the time .sx I had thus had no knowledge of the volcanic disturbance which started to shake Bouverie Street with the appointment of Malcolm Muggeridge as editor of that publication .sx Furthermore , had I heard this bit of news it would certainly not have occurred to me that it boded me any particular good .sx True , I had no intention of writing for Punch , but if I had , the appointment of Mr Muggeridge would have seemed to me to rule out any possibility of successfully so doing .sx For although we had never actually met I had hated him for years .sx Those were , of course , principally my Communist years when Malcolm Muggeridge had great prominence in our Rogues' Gallery of men who , for example , had gone to Moscow to bless and stayed to curse ; of hardened , obstinate and vicious enemies of Truth and Progress ; of particularly able , and , therefore , particularly detestable and dangerous journalistic and literary swordsmen in ranks of wickedness and reaction .sx Nor was conflict with Muggeridge in those days restricted to the battle of the typewriters .sx For he was often deadly active in the affairs of the National Union of Journalists- his activity always directed towards frustrating or defeating some vital activity of our own .sx At that time the National Union of Journalists was as a running sore to the anti-Communists of the T.U.C. For the London Branch , being by far the largest in the Union , was at most times able to play a preponderant part in framing the policies of the Union as a whole , and the London Branch , in its turn , was for long periods at a time , dominated by the Communists for the sufficient reasons , first , that the Communists were united in pursuit of various objectives whereas the anti-communists were in general united only in their anti-communism , and secondly , that the Communists were the only people who held it as a holy though often irksome duty to attend the Branch meetings .sx ( These were usually held on Saturday afternoons at the St Bride's Institute , in one of the lanes just south of Fleet Street .sx There are not many drearier meeting halls in that part of London , which is saying a good deal , and in any case Fleet Street on any Saturday afternoon is one of the dreariest places anywhere .sx Add to this that I personally detest meetings and speeches , and all the business of resolutions and points of order .sx Naturally , I am entirely aware that all this is of the absolutely indispensable essence of democracy , and that when you attend such meetings you are seeing and taking part in the true life and work of democracy .sx All the same , I wished profoundly that it were possible for me personally not to have to do that thing .sx ) More than once it had happened to me that my reason for asking to be excused attendance at St Bride's on a given Saturday afternoon had been accepted as valid by the Communist Party leaders , and then , just as I was rejoicing over such a release , the word would come that Malcolm Muggeridge was going to attend that particular meeting , was going to launch some major attack ; in consequence all 'leave' was cancelled , no excuses for non-attendance were any longer to be deemed valid .sx On such Saturdays I looked upon that man with more than ordinary political hostility .sx I humanly loathed him .sx In a paradoxical manner he represented all those disciplines of Communism and democracy which I had always found excessively irksome .sx He embodied for the moment everything that could make life vexatious , particularly on a Saturday afternoon in the desert parts of London .sx Knowing nothing of his appointment to the editorship , I was still bewildered by the presence in the literary chair of Anthony Powell who I had known since Oxford and whose novels , with their exquisite sinuosities and profound risibility had enchanted me for years .sx What , I had to ask myself , in God's name was he doing in that gale@3re ?sx And what , admitting that he personally was aboard the sluggish old hulk , on earth made him suppose that my presence would be welcome ?sx Just making the matter more mysterious was a note in his letter- he was asking for an article about Ireland- saying that he would like the piece to be 'somewhat astringent' .sx If he were simply trying to do me a good turn by arranging for me to get a small piece of money out of Punch , surely , knowing my general line of literary brew , he would instead have put in some cautionary note urging me to draw it mild ?sx I certainly needed the small piece of money , so I wrote the piece , signing it discreetly 'J .sx H.'- initials of James Helvick , under which name I then principally wrote .sx Within an hour or so of the earliest time the piece could have reached Bouverie Street from Youghal , I had a telegram from Anthony Powell offering hearty congratulations upon it , but asking had I any objection to signing 'in full' .sx I wired back to say he could certainly sign it James Helvick .sx To this the response was equally prompt , and its contents made me ask myself whether Tony had gone actually off his head .sx For it emphatically urged me to sign 'Claud Cockburn' .sx Resignedly , I telegraphed back that it was all right with me if he insisted .sx But to myself I thought that this bit of be@5tise must inevitably mark the end of my connection with Punch- surely it ought to have been obvious to Tony that nobody in authority there was going to have a person with my sort of reputation writing articles- 'astringent' at that- in their paper ?sx