'In short, I am still in the same bind: a desire to continue to talk to Communists, to workers (and that is why I decided to resign without a major split and I have succeeded), and the impossibility of doing so except in publications such as the official Communist press which uphold a policy that I know is against the workers and the Communists themselves. Still, the new aspect of the situation might be the existence of Communists outside the party, or rather the new way in which this new type of ex-Communist who remains a Communist can structure his relationships today. Naturally, if I can manage this, I owe it to the fact that I have been able to exist for all these years also as an independent writer, that is to say as a producer - with a public (a 'base') that does not identify itself with the Party, and in this sense nothing has change.'Calvino Letters 1941-1985
It is to his great honour that Calvino quit his membership of the Communist Party in 1957 whilst remaining a communist. But he is mistaken in assigning a role to the 'independent' communist writer who demonstrates his involvement with the desire to contribute creativity to the cause. Cioran is closer to the truth where he observes that the author cannot innovate in the manner of his commitments. Creativity (the state of constantly having something new to say) in relation to a cause is interchangeable with having nothing to say about it. The object is only re-encountered through the fixed labyrinth that surrounds it. Only through repetition of an invariant approach is the cause reinvigorated. And it is only from the spontaneous regeneration of eternally repeated forms that fascination is elicited. By contrast, the logic of creativity (so easily captured by mere advertising) is actualised as an endless parade of superficiality which dulls the senses.
