parties of the Left are in the happy position of people who have received a revelation telling them what is good and what is bad. They know that private property is the source of all ills, and that public control of the means of production will transform the earth into a paradise. They wash their hands of any responsibility; this “imperialist” war is simply an outcome of capitalism, as all wars have been. But if we pass in review the political activities of the socialist and communist parties in the Western democracies, we can easily discover that they did all that they could to encourage the Nazi plans for aggression. They have propagated the doctrine that disarmament and neutrality are the best means to stop the Nazis and the other Axis powers. They did not intend to aid the Nazis. But if they had had this intention, they could not have acted differently.
The ideals of the Left are fully realized in Soviet Russia. Here is Marxism supreme; the proletarians alone rule. But Soviet Russia failed even more lamentably than any other nation in preventing this war. The Russians knew very well that the Nazis were eager to conquer the Ukraine. Nevertheless, they behaved as Hitler wanted them to behave. Their policies contributed a good deal to the ascendancy of Nazism in Germany, to the rearmament of Germany, and finally to the outbreak of the war. It is no excuse for them that they were suspicious of the capitalist nations. There is no excuse for a policy harmful to one’s own cause. No one can deny that the agreement of August, 1939,5 brought disaster for Russia. Stalin would have served his country far better by collaborating with Great Britain than by his compromise with the Nazis.
The same holds true for the conduct of all other European countries. One could hardly imagine a more fatuous policy than that of Poland, when in 1938 it annexed a part of Czechoslovakia, or that of Belgium, when in 19366 it severed the ties of the alliance which linked it with France. The fate of the Poles, the Czechs, the Norwegians, the Dutch, the Belgians, the Greeks, and the Yugoslavs deserves profound pity. But one cannot help asserting that they helped to bring their misfortune upon themselves. This second World War would never have broken out if the Nazis had expected to encounter on the first day of hostilities a united and adequately armed front of Great Britain, France, Russia, the United States, and all the small democracies of Europe, led by a unified command.
An investigation of the root causes of the ascendancy of Nazism must show not only how domestic German conditions begot Nazism but also why all other nations failed to protect themselves against the havoc. Seen from the viewpoint of the British, the Poles, or the Austrians, the chief question is not: What is wrong with the Nazis? but: What was wrong with our own policies with regard to the Nazi menace? Faced with the problem of tuberculosis, doctors do not ask: What is wrong with the germs? but: What is wrong with our methods of preventing the spread of the disease?
Life consists in adjusting oneself to actual conditions and in taking account of things as they really are, not as one would wish them to be. It would be more pleasant if there were neither germs nor dangerous barbarians. But he who wants to succeed has to fix his glance upon reality, not to indulge in wishful dreams.
There is no hope left for a return to more satisfactory conditions if people do not understand that they have failed completely in the main task of contemporary politics. All present-day political, social, and economic doctrines, and all parties and pressure groups applying them, are condemned by an unappealable sentence of history. Nothing can be expected from the future if men do not realize that they were on the wrong path.
It is not a mark of hostility to any nation to establish the fact that its policies were entirely wrong and have resulted in a disastrous failure. It is not a sign of hostility to the members of any class, pressure group, or organization to try to point out wherein they were mistaken and how they have contributed to the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. The main task of contemporary social science is to defy the taboo by which the established doctrines seek to protect their fallacies and errors against criticism. He who, in the face of the tremendous catastrophe whose consequences cannot yet be completely seen, still believes that there are some doctrines, institutions, or policies beyond criticism, has not grasped the meaning of the portents.
Let the example of Germany stand as a warning to us. German Kultur was doomed on the day in 1870 when one of the most eminent German scientists—Emil du Bois-Reymond—could publicly boast, without meeting contradiction, that the University of Berlin was “the intellectual bodyguard of the house of Hohenzollern.” Where the universities become bodyguards and the scholars are eager to range themselves in a “scientific front,” the gates are open for the entry of barbarism. It is vain to fight totalitarianism by adopting totalitarian methods. Freedom can only be won by men unconditionally committed to the principles of freedom. The first requisite for a better social order is the return to unrestricted freedom of thought and speech.
Whoever wishes to understand the present state of political affairs must study history. He must know the forces which gave rise to our problems and conflicts. Historical knowledge is indispensable for those who want to build a better world.
Unfortunately the nationalists approach history in another temper. For them the past is not a source of information and instruction but an arsenal of weapons for the conduct of war. They search for facts which can be used as pretexts and excuses for their drives for aggression and oppression. If the documents available do not provide such facts, they do not shrink from distorting truth and from falsifying documents.
In the early nineteenth century a Czech forged a manuscript in order to prove that his people’s medieval ancestors had already reached a high stage of civilization and had produced fine literary works. For many decades Czech scholars fanatically asserted the authenticity of this poem, and for a long time the official curriculum of the Czech state gymnasiums of old Austria made its reading and interpretation the main topic in the teaching of Czech literature. About fifty years later a German forged the Ura Linda Chronicle in order to prove that the “Nordics” created a civilization older and better than that of any other people. There are still Nazi professors who are not ready to admit that this chronicle is the clumsy forgery of an incompetent and stupid backwoodsman. But let us assume for the sake of argument that these two documents are authentic. What could they prove for the nationalists’ aspirations? Do they support the claim of the Czechs to deny autonomy to several million Germans and Slovaks, or the claim of the Germans to deny autonomy to all Czechs?
There is, for instance, the spurious dispute as to whether Nicholas Copernicus was a Pole or a German. The documents available do not solve the problem. It is at any rate certain that Copernicus was educated in schools and universities whose only language was Latin, that he knew no other mathematical and astronomical books than those written in Latin or Greek, and that he himself wrote his treatises in Latin only. But let us assume for the sake of argument that he really was the son of parents whose language was German. Could this provide a justification for the methods applied by the Germans in dealing with the Poles? Does it exculpate the German schoolteachers who—in the first decade of our century—flogged small children whose parents objected to the substitution of the German catechism for the Polish catechism in the schools of Prussia’s Polish provinces? Does it today entitle the Nazis to slaughter Polish women and children?
It is futile to advance historical or geographical reasons in support of political ambitions which cannot stand the criticism of democratic principles. Democratic government can safeguard peace and international coöperation because it does not aim at the oppression of other peoples. If some peoples pretend that history or geography gives them the right to subjugate other races, nations, or peoples, there can be no peace.
It is unbelievable how deep-rooted these vicious ideas of hegemony, domination, and oppression are even among the most distinguished contemporaries. Señor Salvador de Madariaga is one of the most internationally minded of men. He is a scholar, a statesman,
