Adorno suppressed criticism of the Soviet Union to protect it from Western attack.

Evidence

This was the masochistic side of those references to the Institute’s special theoretical tasks which Horkheimer was always making. Adorno held that Hitler was a pawn in the Western monopoly-capitalist powers’ manoeuvres against Moscow, and feared in 1936 that In two years at the most, Germany will attack Russia, while France and England stand back on the basis of the treaties which will have been signed by then.' On the other hand, he found the show trials and the cultural policies of the Soviet Union disappointing, and thought that the most loyal attitude to Russia at the moment is probably shown by keeping quiet’. This was underlined when he emphasized melodramatically that, in spite of everything, it seemed to him that `in the current situation, which is truly desperate, one should really maintain discipline at any cost (and no one knows the cost better than I!) and not publish anything which might damage Russia’. 39 All this was very much in accordance with Horkheimer’s line. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 182

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The ‘maliciously sharp eye’ Adorno withheld from Moscow reveals how anti-fascist intellectual discipline required self-censorship whose psychic cost Adorno names himself.
• XREF: connects to: Fear of strengthening anti-democratic forces made Adorno abandon a public critique.

Broader Connections

• Fear of strengthening anti-democratic forces made Adorno abandon a public critique. #expands (0.85)