Nationalism and Culture (98 page)

Freedom from Fear was one of the great postulates of the Atlantic Charter; it has not been mentioned for quite some time. Today this postulate, like all the other freedoms which had been emphasized in the past, sounds almost like a deliberate mockery. For indeed, where is the small country which in the face of the present situation, would show enough courage to complain and to risk all the trouble which a dominant power can cause a smaller nation? In most of the cases the small country

will simply be intimidated and accept an obvious injustice. To most of the small countries such a course may seem more advantageous than the privilege of being used as a guinea pig in the contest among the dominant powers. As things stand now it becomes more and more obvious that a lasting peace among the peoples within the narrow boundaries of the present national states is not feasible at allj even if for the time being nobody actually intends to provoke a new war. A real solution of this most important of all questions is not possible so long as the interests of all have to yield to the special interests of individual national states. To win time it will be necessary to make all kinds of temporary concessions, until one of the dominant powers feels strong enough to risk an armed conflict, unless for some reason or other the other powers are ready to yield without a struggle.

Even total disarmament, the prospect of which was so often held out in the past and which in view of the present situation should be the first prerequisite of a real policy of peace, has lost all meaning after Stalin, in his speech of February 9, 1946, had openly declared that the strengthening and consolidation of the Red Army were the most important task for the purpose of securing Russia's frontiers, and that perhaps another three or more five-year-plans were necessary for the attainment of that aim. Which, in plain language, means that Russia's further industrialization is to be adopted not for the purpose of peace and welfare of the Russian people, but to anticipate all the contingencies of a new war.

This language is not new. These are the very arguments which Bismarck used after the war of 18701871 in order to justify the militarization of the new Reich, and which Hitler repeated later for the purpose of securing Germany against the alleged aggressive intentions of her hostile neighbours. It is the same language which has always been used by every despot for the purpose of disguising his own thirst for conquest. Bismarck's armed -peace, as they called it at that time, eventually led to the militarization of all of Europe and laid the foundation for that fateful international competition in armaments which later on unloosed the red deluge of the First World War. No man with any claim of political sense will dare to assert seriously that in the case of Russia things would take another course. It is the same old struggle for hegemony in Europe and today in Asia as well—except that the roles have been changed and that the Kremlin dictatorship has taken over the inheritance of the Hohenzollern and Hitler.

So far Stalin has obtained more from the past war than any Russian Tsar could ever have hoped for; and as in matters of foreign policy the appetite comes with eating and increases with every mouthful, it is impossible, for the time being, to foresee the further intentions of Russian imperialism whose game is greatly facilitated by the fact that in every

country it has at its disposal a fanatical and organized following which does not demur at being used as a tool of Russia's foreign policy, while Hitler had a hard time in recruiting his Quislings.

There is now in existence an entire school of intellectuals many of whom pretend to be Liberals—what is in a name?—who attempt to justify the claims of the Bolshevist autocracy by asserting that today Stalin is fulfilling a historical mission in Europe and in Asia, and that by breaking up the great landed estates in the territories of the Russian sphere of influence, he is creating the possibilities for a new social development, which would preclude the reestablishment of the status quo created by western imperialism. And to render this strange opinion palatable they are pointing to the role played by Napoleon and his armies, which spread the ideas of the Great Revolution throughout Europe, breaking the foundations of absolutist regimes and of feudal institutions.

Those who use this language are devoid of all judgment concerning historical facts. The French Revolution was actually the harbinger of a new epoch. It dealt a mortal blow to royal absolutism and broke to pieces its economic and social institutions. In the Declaration of the Rights of Man it laid the foundations for a new humanity and for a new historical development in Europe, just as Jefferson had done in the Declaration of Independence. Even though the ideas and the postulates of these two great documents have only partly been carried out, they have nevertheless stimulated the best hopes of all nations and have had a lasting influence upon the entire subsequent history, an influence which has opened up new vistas to the human race and has not disappeared up to the present day. Nor can it be denied that the soldiers of the French armies, who had grown up in the turbulent days of the Great Revolution, carried its spirit into all countries striking blows at royal absolutism from which it could never recover. Not even Napoleon, who had risen from the revolution, and who later was to sin against it so grievously, was able to stop the dissemination of revolutionary ideas in Europe. These ideas penetrated even Russia where they led to the uprising of the Decembrists who wanted to rid their country of its autocracy and its feudal ties in order to substitute for them a free federation of Russian peoples.

The French Revolution, with its after-effects in Europe, was actually the beginning of a new period in the history of the European nationsj it put an end to the old regime of royal absolutism and paved the paths for the future. Even all the subsequent mass movements which went beyond the economic aims of liberalism and political democracy and were bent upon driving absolutism out of its last fortress, the economic life of present society, were the direct result of those great intellectual trends, which in all countries had been released by the Great Revolution and which have not run their course as yet.

However, those who attempt to compare the great and imperishable results of this outstanding event of modern history and its intellectual effects upon the social development of Europe, with the aims of Bolshevist imperialism and of its foreign policy, are altogether unable to judge historical events j for they make no distinction between things which could be compared only in a negative sense, but are otherwise as different as day and night. Such analogies are not merely misleading j they also constitute a direct threat to any intellectual and social progress, for they advocate the indorsement of things which are an impediment to any healthy development, and, which under false pretenses, are making peoples willing to accept a new reactionary form of social life whose tendencies are deeply rooted in the absolutist ideas of the past centuries.

What has been developed in Russia for more than a quarter of a century, is a new absolutism whose internal and external forms greatly surpass anything that had been achieved by the power politics of old time absolutisms. All the political and social rights and liberties obtained as a result of the French Revolution and its after-effects upon the rest of Europe, including the inviolability of the individual and the right to express one's opinion, have altogether ceased to exist in the Russia of today and in the countries which are in her sphere of influence. The entire press and the printed word in general, the radio, in short all organs of public expression, are subject to a triple censorship, so that practically no opinion may be expressed but that of the government which, consequently, is not subject to any criticism. Of the events occurring in other countries the Russian people learn only what its government believes it advisable for them to know. Even at the time of the tsarist regime the country was never so hermetically sealed, so secluded from all foreign countries as it is today. In a country which can claim the sad distinction of having the most unscrupulous and most despotic police dictatorship, even most elementary personal security is out of question. Only he is secure who unconditionally submits to the men who hold power, provided no unfortunate accident attracts upon him the suspicion of an all-powerful spy system. The ruthless and cruel extermination of all other political trends, and the brutal slaughter of most of the old leaders of the Bolshevist Party under the most revolting circumstances, are the best evidence that this statement is not exaggerated.

To be sure, there are people who are ready to put up with all these undeniable aspects of an unrestricted political absolutism because they believe, or pretend to believe, that the new economic order of the Russian state is amply making up for these features. In their opinion that new economic order is likely to further the development of a socialist economy in other countries as well. This blind faith is based upon a complete misconception of all actual facts. That which today is proclaimed

in Russia as a socialist economy has as little in common with the real principles of socialism as has the autocracy of the Kremlin with the struggle of the French Revolution against absolutism. That which today is called by this name in Russia—and unthinking people abroad are repeating it mechanically—is in reality only the last word of modern monopoly capitalism which uses the economic dictatorship of the trusts and cartels for the purpose of eliminating any undesirable competition and of reducing the entire economic life to certain definite norms. The last link of such a development is not socialism but state capitalism with all of Its inevitable accompaniments of a new economic feudalism and a new serfdom J and that is the system which today is actually operating in Russia.

The French Revolution had removed the old compulsory ties with which royal absolutism and its twin brother, feudalism, had for centuries kept the peoples in fetters. This is its imperishable merit and the great historical importance of its immediate results. But the Bolshevist dictatorship has restored the old bureaucracy and the feudal ties which had ceased to exist even in Tsarist Russia, and has developed them to their utmost extreme. If it were true that socialism could be achieved only at the price of the complete destruction of personal liberty, individual initiative and independent thinking, then preference would have to be given to the private capitalist system for all its inevitable defects and shortcomings. This truih should be spoken out frankly. Those who deny it can only contribute to subjecting mankind to a new and still more abject slavery.

If the Russian example taught us anything it is only the fact that Socialism without political, social and spiritual freedom is inconceivable, and must inevitably lead to unlimited despotism, uninfluenced in its crass callousness by any ethical restraints. This was clearly recognized by Proudhon, when, almost one hundred years ago, he said that an alliance of Socialism with Absolutism would produce the worst tyranny of all times.

The old belief that dictatorship is only a necessary transition and that the abolition of private capital in industry and agriculture would automatically bring about the liberation of humanity from all reactionary ties of the past, has been so thoroughly discredited, that in the face of reality it has lost all meaning. No power is willing to abdicate voluntarily, and the greater its strength, the less it is inclined to do so. In this respect Proudhon again hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that every provisional government wants to become permanent. This is a trend which has always been the substance of every power organization, a fact which cannot be glossed over with empty verbiage. An all-powerful bureaucracy with its insatiable desire for exerting its tutelage and inescapable network of mechanical rules and regulations for all aspects of private and public life, is a much greater danger to general cultural and social progress than

any other form of tyranny, even if private property of the means of production no longer exists, and particularly if the whole economy is subject to the rigid control of a totalitarian state.

In expressing this truism, confirmed by bitter experience, 1 by no means intend to make the slightest concession to or excuse for the imperialist aspirations of the Western powers, as clearly appears from the contents of this book. The power politics of the national states, and particularly of the dominant powers, with their secret diplomacy, their political and military alliances, their colonial policy and their methods of economic pressure, which in the past so often hampered, if not totally thwarted the social development of smaller nations, added to the perpetual intrigues of high finance and the international armament cartels, has continuously subjected the political and economic life of the peoples to increasingly intolerable periodical convulsions, establishing war danger as a permanent condition. No one who learned his lesson from the two world cataclysms can deny that this problem must be solved if we wish to create a new relationship among the peoples, a relationship in which peaceful conciliation of all interests might be possible. Only those stricken with incurable blindness will fail to recognize that the continuation of imperialist power politics and the old game of hegemonies must in the age of the atom bomb and the prodigious development of modern war technique lead inevitably to the end of all human civilization.

But even considering all these dangers and fully recognizing their importance, it is obvious that the abandonment of the old ways will only be possible where the spiritual and social conditions for a complete transformation of the people are present. Only in countries where the free expression of opmion still exists, and the thoughts and actions of men are not yet entirely subject to the tutelage of the state, is it possible to influence public opinion and to make it recognize these facts. In contemporary Russia, as in any totalitarian state, these important premises are lacking entirely. But wherever free exchange of opinions between peoples is prevented artificially, mutual understanding is impossible due to the absence of their first conditions for advantageous cooperation.