116 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
The thirties were important historically. The political impact of the economic crisis that engulfed the world topk the shape of the dictatorship of Hitler and his Nazi party in Germany. Ruthless fascist repression was fast spreading from Italy to other countries. "It has become clear that it (fascism) is not a peculiar Italian phenomenon, but that it is something which appears when certain social and economic conditions prevail in a country. Whenever the workers become powerful and actually threaten the capitalistic state, the capitalist class naturally tries to save itself .... If the owning and ruling class cannot put down the workers in the ordinary democratic way by using the police and army, then it adopts the fascist method."2 To discredit the communists. Hitler and his henchmen conspired and arranged the Reichstag fire (March 1933) and got several communist leaders ayrested on the plea that it was their doing.
Progressive Writers9 Conference
At this great danger,'intellectuals, eminent writers and scientists rose to the cause of peace and against war and fascism. Maxim Gorky, Romain Rolland, Andre Malreaux, Thomas Mann, Waldo Frank and others organized the World Congress of Writers for the Defence of Culture in Paris in 1933. In 1937, Rabin-dranath Tagore issued a flaming appeal to the conscience of humanity to come in millions to the aid of democracy and in support of the people of Spain. A meeting was held on 26 July, 1935, at Calcutta to protest against the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, and an "Anti-war Day" was observed on 1 August, 1935. A manifesto sponsored by the Indian Progressive Writers5 Association, signed by Rabindranath Tagore, Saratchandra Ghatterjee, Munshi Premchand, Parafulla Chandra Roy, Pramatho Ghow-dhury, Ramananda Chatterjee, Nandalal Bose and others was sent to the peace conference convened by Romain Rolland on 3 September, 1936, at Brussels. Therein they declared: "To-day the spectre of a world war haunts the world. Fascist dictatorship has revealed its militarist essence by its offer of gun instead of butter and the lust of empire-building in place of cultural opportunities."
Though the second All-India Conference of Progressive Writers was held in Calcutta in 1938, the movement suffered a severe set-back from the lack of a proper organizational basis. Also, the political confusion regarding war, fascism and the way to achieve Indian freedom created a rift in the leftist movement. Marxist writers and artists came together under the