25th October
In October 1938 he was thinking about Communism. He wrote to the poet Cecil Day-Lewis about the troubling political situation in Europe. Having spoken up for Communism before, Forster now noted that he had 'disillusionments which don’t altogether proceed from my own weakness’. In particular, 'Russia, perhaps through no fault of her own, seems to be going in the wrong direction; too much uniformity and too much bloodshed’. He held out some hope for the future: after what he called 'the next European catastrophe’, perhaps Communism might 'do better’. (Source: Selected Letters of E.M. Forster, ed. Mary Lago and P.N. Furbank (London: Collins, 1983-1985), letter of 30 October 1938)
