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During the nine years that had elapsed between the visit to the United States in 1945 and the trip to the Soviet Union in 1954, Sartre's political stance Sartre and the Press 41 had evolved dramatically. From the mid-to-Iate 1940s he had remained trapped in an isolated political enclave. His growing hostility both to what he perceived as the anti-democratic forces of the French right and to the increasing belligerence of US imperialism, was mitigated solely by a suspicion of a Stalinistdominated PCF and Soviet Union, with the result that for approximately two years, from 1948 until 1949, Sartre had struggled unsuccessfully to create a new revolutionary socialist movement, the Rassemblement Democratique Revolutionnaire (RDR),47 However, following his total disenchantment with the RDR episode in late 1949, and in the context of an increaSingly polarised Cold War international political situation, Sartre was inevitably drawn into an ever closer relationship with the Soviet Union.

Only when the process of socialisation is complete does the aspiration towards individualism emerge in the American psyche. The city of New York symbolises in Sartre's eyes the relationship between individualism and conformism in the United States. The geometric conformism of the street planning at the horizontal level is challenged by the individuality of each towering skyscraper as it reaches towards the heavens in the vertical axis. 38 American individualism appeared to me initially as a third dimension', notes Sartre.

Several aspects of the American worker's psychology appear particularly significant to Sartre: first, the lack of any sense of what he refers to as 'collective property'. Sartre cites the example of a hospital entirely paid for by workers' contributions, and yet over which the workers themselves exercise no democratic control whatsoever; second, the rootlessness of many American workers who, because of their previously immigrant or rural backgrounds, feel closer to their nation or to their religion than to their working-class origins; third, the relatively affluent state of the US economy, which encourages workers to embrace the American ideal and promote the idea of individualism and free enterprise;26 fourth, the conviction that not only differences in the standards of living between workers and the middle classes are minimal, but also that American society actively promotes social mobility, so that today's worker is tomorrow's middle-class professionalP Despite this catalogue of reasons why American working-class consciousness is underdeveloped, Sartre notes one or two areas of potential change: first, increasingly inhuman working-conditions brought about by the demands of the war effort - workers are literally dehumanised by the speed and repetitiveness of production-line tasks: 'I went through the workshops during the quarter of an hour rest period, and I was struck by the blank stupor that was visible on their faces ....