Nationalism and Culture (97 page)

AFTER MANY YEARS of preliminary research, often interrupted by other activities, this book was completed shortly before the seizure of power by the Nazis. This is why its publication in Germany became impossible although all the technical preparations for its printing had already been made. The first Spanish edition (in three volumes) was gotten out in Barcelona, in 1936-1937, by the publishing house Tterra y Liber tad. The first English edition came out in 1937 (Covici-Friede, New York). A Dutch edition, in three volumes, appeared in Amsterdam in 1939. The second Spanish edition was published in 1942 by Ediciones Imdn in Buenos Aires. Yiddish, Portuguese and Swedish editions are in preparation at present in Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Stockholm, respectively.

In this book I have tried to present an outline of the most important causes of the general decline of our civilization j causes which, ever since the Franco-Prussian war of 18701871, became more and more apparent, and which a few years after the publication of this book, led to the monstrous catastrophe of World War II. Many things that had been predicted in this volume have later come to be literally true. That prognosis to be sure, was not so difficult to make, for everybody who attempted to penetrate into the causes of the great decline was bound to reach similar conclusions. All of which points quite obviously to the ways and means which alone are capable today of bringing about a gradual recovery and of steering the general development along lines which may render possible a fruitful and peaceful collaboration of the various national groups. It is up to mankind whether it is going to take to heart the lessons of this greatest of all social catastrophes and whether it is determined, by mending its ways, to open up the possibilities for a better future, or whether it is determined to continue the old game of secret diplomacy, military and political alliances and unbridled power politics which can lead only to new catastrophies, resulting finally in the total destruction of our civilization.

Nor will it be easy to make a new start, and an undertaking of this kind will require the work of several generations. Nobod)- can expect the frightful chaos left in the wake of a world war to be suddenly followed

by a millennium healing all wounds with one stroke and presenting mankind without a struggle, with a world of freedom and justice. A catastrophe of such enormous dimensions cannot be overcome in a few years. The ruin-covered wilderness which we have inherited cannot be cleaned up and cultivated overnight. The demoralizing effects caused by the barbarity of the Nazis and by the war itself, cannot be removed at one stroke.

However, it will be of decisive importance what road we will take, and it will depend upon us whether this road will be a new rise or merely another wrong turn. In the course of history the human race has hardly ever been so urgently confronted by the task of taking its fate into its own hands. Compared with this general task all other questions, including that of what is to become of Germany, pale into utter insignificance, because a new Germany can evolve only in a new Europe and in a new world. Even the complete destruction of Germany and the decimation of her population would be of no avail so long as the premises of the old power politics remain intact and the real causes responsible for the bloody decline of our civilization are not eliminated. A mere change in the power relationships will never succeed in eradicating the evil. One does not remove a danger by shifting it to another place. The same causes always produce the same effects. According to circumstances these effects may assume different forms, but these differences do not touch the core of the evil which always leads to the same consequences.

The belief that the problem could be solved through an alliance of three or five dominant powers likewise denotes a complete misconception of the facts. Even under the most favorable circumstances such an alliance could solve only some definite tasksj but it could not conjure away the danger that threatens us, nor does it offer any protection against new catastrophes affecting the life of the human race. It can force the small nations to accept, temporarily and against their will, certain forms of life, as long as this benefits the big powers j but it will fall to pieces as soon as the internal political and economic contradictions among the dominant powers become more accentuated, leading once more to chaos.

This can be seen even today, when the whole world is still bleeding from a thousand wounds, and millions of human beings are literally starving and being compelled to live under the most appalling circumstances. Instead of concentrating all their efforts upon healing those wounds and upon saving millions from certain death or incurable physical and mental degeneration, by facilitating the reconstruction of the countries destroyed and devastated by the war and by bringing about speedily more or less bearable conditions which could bring about a further development—the dominant powers, in resuming their power politics, are

preventing the accomplishment of this all-important task and are sowing the seeds of new dissensions which will inevitably result in disaster.

Right from the start it has become obvious that there are great conflicts between America, England and Russia j the three countries which were called upon to secure a lasting peace. These conflicts are daily becoming more and more difficult to solve. They will not be removed even if an attempt is made to reconcile them through all kinds of superficial compromises. As things now stand these contradictions will remain in existence until an open break becomes inevitable. And if the peoples do not steal a march on their governments, they will again be faced by an accomplished fact, with the atom bomb possibly putting an end to everything. One can hardly expect the heads of the various governments to mend their ways; hence no other end can be foreseen as a result of such suicidal tactics, unless the peoples themselves see the light at last.

By a peculiar irony of history it is precisely Russia, the "red^fatherland of the proletariat," the "land of socialist reality," as it was frequently called, which in its unlimited expansionist ambitions greatly surpasses the imperialism of the western powers. Its insatiable claims are continually conjuring up new dangers unless a stop is put to them in time. Russia, the biggest country of the world, which covers one-sixth of the surface of our planet, has already succeeded—partly due to her secret pact concluded with Hitler in 1939, and partly due to her military operations— in achieving an increase in territory and population, unequaled by any other country. According to a report published in the New York Times of March 14, 1946, this increase is distributed as follows:

Territories Square Miles Population

Lithuania 24,058 3,029,000

Latvia 20,056 1,950,000

Estonia 18,353 1,120,000

Eastern Poland 68,290 10,150,000

Bessarabia & Bukovina '9>36o 3,748,000

District of Moldavia 13,124 2,200,000

Carpatho-Ukraine 4,922 800,000

Eastern Prussia 3>500 400,000

Finnish Karelia '6,173 470,000

Petsamo, Finland 4,087 4,000

Tannu-Tuve (Central Asia) 65,000 64,000

South Sakhalin '4,075 415,000

Kuril Islands 3,949 4,500

Total: 273-947 24,355,500

To this are to be added the following countries of Eastern Europe: Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and to a large extent also Hungary and Czechoslovakia, which have now been brought completely within the orbit of Russia's sphere of influence and are used by her as an instrument of her further expansions towards the South and West. Not to speak of Russia's claims upon Iran, certain parts of Turkey and the former Italian colony of Libya. We are omitting any mention of Russia's ambitions in the Far East because the confusion prevailing there does not permit, for the time being, the formation of a clear picture. The fact that a country which covers such vast expanses is continually pressing new claims for further expansions of territory, should demonstrate to everybody capable of independent thinking that such a course can lead only to another catastrophe, and that it is certainly not apt to give the world the peace which it needs so badly.

It has been repeatedly pointed out in this book that ever since the formation of the big European national states every one of these new powers at first attempted to do away with the local liberties and federative ties which had sprung up from the very life of those nations. This was done by means of violent interference and centralization of all authority, and, after this aim had been attained, they proceeded to extend the influence thus secured upon neighboring countries and to force them to submit to the interests of their foreign policy. Power politics does not know any other limits but those set by a stronger power or those which it cannot overcome at one blow. But the urge to achieve political and economic hegemony does not permit any dominant power to call a halt, and its effects are all the more pernicious the better it has succeeded in enslaving its own people. The degree of despotism in any country has always been the best measure for the danger with which it kept threatening other countries. The entire history of the dominant European powers has for centuries been an almost uninterrupted struggle for hegemony on the Continent i a struggle which always meant a temporary success for the stronger power, until sooner or later new power combinations or other circumstances set limits to their ambitions. However, the same attempts were always soon taken up by another dominant state—with the same sinister results leading to ever new disasters.

This struggle for hegemony is at the root of the ever spreading political centralization which has been continually striving to throttle all local rights and liberties and to reduce the entire life of a people to certain definite norms, because this was most useful to the domestic and foreign ambitions of its rulers. The inevitable result of these senseless efforts in the direction of unintelligent power politics was the same in practically all cases: after its champions had succeeded, by all means of continuous threats and open warfare, to subject other peoples to their will.

they themselves eventually became the victims of their insatiable hunger for power. The fact that until now England has constituted an exception to this general rule, is to be explained on one hand by the circumstance that after the defeat of royal absolutism the liberties attained could never be completely cancelled even during the most reactionary periods of her historyj and also because her political representatives have until now been the only ones who have learned something from history. This was fully realized by Peter Kropotkin when in his speech delivered on January 7, 1918, to the League of Federalists in Moscow, he stated:

"The British Empire supplies us with a drastic lesson. Both the federalist and the centralist methods were tried by it, and the results are quite obvious. Due to the influence of the Liberal Party upon the English people, the British colonies, Canada, Australia and South Africa obtained their full liberty which found its expression not merely in the autonomous management of their own affairs but in a completely independent political administration, with their own legislative bodies, their own finances, their own trade agreements and their own armies. As a result these colonies flourished economically, and they were always ready, whenever England was in trouble, to offer her their assistance at the cost of the greatest sacrifices, as if she were an older sister or mother. The same spirit could also be noticed in the small autonomous islands of Jersey, Guernsey and Man, which enjoy such an independence with regard to their domestic affairs that they are still recognizing the Norman laws in matters of landed property, and that—as far as their relations with other governments are concerned—they do not permit the application of the customs duties on foreign goods which are binding upon England. An autonomy of this kind which is so close to independence, and the federal ties resulting from it, have thus proved to be the most secure foundations of a spiritual unity.—On the other hand, what a contrast in Ireland where in the course of the entire nineteenth century the strong hand of Dublin Castle, that is the administration of a Governor General, had to take the place of a legislative body and of the domestic organization of the country. . . . Centralism is a curse which affects not only autocratic regimes, it has also brought about the ruin of the French and German colonies, at a time when British colonies nearby could flourish and prosper, because they enjoy a broad autonomy and are now gradually developing into a federation of peoples."

Instead of taking to heart these precious lessons of history and going to the root of the real causes of the greatest catastrophe that has ever befallen the human race, it would seem that even the Western countries, for all their long traditions of liberal intellectual trends which pla\ed a prominent part during the greatest epochs of their history, are now veering more and more toward the same views which had given rise to the

idea of the total state. Not to speak of Russia, because under the so-called proletarian dictatorship it has developed into a full-fledged totalitarian state whose institutions were frequently accepted as a model by victorious Fascism.

These ideas, which today are spreading rapidly, have also given rise to the naive and dangerous belief that armed conflicts could be eliminated in the future by placing the entire world under the police control of a few dominant powers to which all small countries are subjected for better or for worse. The entire situation becomes all the more hopeless due to the fact that, under Russia's pressure, the other powers were forced to consent to the principle that all decisions have to be adopted unanimously by the three or five dominant states, and that even the best proposal could be thwarted if one of these powers made use of its veto. Any important decision can be easily sabotaged by rhis method.

The effects of such a situation were illustrated during the first sessions of the Council of the United Nations^ at which it was impossible to engage in any serious deliberations so that, time and again, it became necessary to postpone the discussion of the most important questions upon which the fate of millions of people depends today. There is possibly a saving grace in the fact that this critical situation has become apparent right at the start, for it might open the eyes of many people and show them that such arrangements are a mockery of the most elementary principles of democracy and that no good results could ever be achieved that way. For by following that course the Council of the United Nations which had held out such great hopes, can become merely the scene of conflict of a few dominant powers, at which the smaller countries would have hardly anything to say. Granted even that they are permitted to submit their grievances to the Council, the decision will always depend upon a few powers, even though it may not be prevented by a vetoj with the result that the smaller nations are delivered to the tender mercies of the Big Three or the Big Five, without being able to raise an effective protest. The best they can do is not to give offence and by compliance buy the favor of that dominant power whose claims in a given situation would be most dangerous to them. This, however, leaves untouched the real foundations of power politics and consequently also the results and the dangers inevitably bound up with such a situation.