Why Don't We Learn From History? (11 page)

Meanwhile, however, a more extensive and prolonged guerrilla war had been waged in the Far East since the 1920s by the Chinese Communists, in whose leadership Mao Tse-tung played an increasingly dominant part.

Since then the combination of guerrilla and subversive war has been pursued with spreading success in neighboring areas of Southeast Asia and also in other parts of the world—in Africa, starting with Algeria; in Cyprus; on the other side of the Atlantic in Cuba; and now, once again, in the Middle East. Campaigns of this kind are the more likely to continue because it is the only kind of war that fits the conditions of the modern age, while being at the same time well suited to take advantage of social discomfort, racial ferment and nationalistic fervor.

Two of the most significant and influential modern treatises on the subject are Mao Tse-tung's farseeing epistle Yu Chi Chan, produced in 1937, when the Japanese advance into China developed, and Che Guevara's 1960 manual, a textbook synthesis of the methods applied and experience gained in the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro.

As to the role of “resistance,” the armed Resistance forces undoubtedly imposed a considerable strain on the Germans during World War II. But when these back-area campaigns are analyzed, it would seem that their effect was largely in proportion to the extent to which they were combined with the operations of a strong regular army that was engaging the enemy's front and drawing off his reserves. They rarely became more than a nuisance unless they coincided with the fact, or imminent threat, of a powerful offensive that absorbed the enemy's main attention.

At other times they were less effective than widespread passive resistance—and brought far more harm to the people of their own country. They provoked reprisals much severer than the injury inflicted on the enemy. They afforded his troops the opportunity for violent action that is always a relief to the nerves of a garrison in an unfriendly country. The material damage that the guerrillas produced directly, and indirectly in the course of reprisals, caused much suffering among their own people and ultimately became a handicap on recovery after liberation. But the heaviest handicap of all, and the most lasting one, was of a moral kind.

The habit of violence takes much deeper root in irregular warfare than it does in regular warfare. In the latter it is counteracted by the habit of obedience to constituted authority, whereas the former makes a virtue of defying authority and violating rules. It becomes very difficult to rebuild a country, and a stable state, on such an undermined foundation.

A realization of the dangerous aftermath of guerrilla warfare came to me in reflection on Lawrence's campaigns in Arabia and our discussions on the subject. My book on these campaigns, and exposition of the theory of guerrilla warfare, was taken as a guide by numerous leaders of commando units and resistance movements in the last war. But I was beginning to have doubts—not of its immediate efficacy but of its long-term effects. It seemed that they could be traced, like a thread running through the persisting troubles that we, as the Turks' successors, were suffering in the same area where Lawrence had spread the Arab Revolt.

These doubts were deepened when re-examining the military history of the Peninsula War, a century earlier, and reflecting on the subsequent history of Spain. In that war, Napoleon's defeat of the Spanish regular armies was counterbalanced by the success of the guerrilla bands that replaced them. As a popular uprising against a foreign conquerer, it was one of the most effective on record. It did more than Wellington's victories to loosen Napoleon's grip on Spain and undermine his power. But it did not bring peace to liberated Spain. For it was followed by an epidemic of armed revolutions that continued in quick succession for half a century—and broke out again in this century.

It is not too late to learn from the experience of history. However tempting the idea may seem of replying to our opponents' “camouflaged war” activities by counteroffensive moves of the same kind, it would be wiser to devise and pursue a counterstrategy of a more subtle and farseeing kind.

The problem of world order

For the prevention of war, the obvious solution is a world federation, to which all the nations would agree to surrender their absolute sovereignty—their present claim to be final judge of their own policy in all respects and in any disagreement which affects their interest.

Regrettable as it may seem to the idealist, the experience of history provides little warrant for the belief that real progress, and the freedom that makes progress possible, lies in unification. For where unification has been able to establish unity of ideas it has usually ended in uniformity, paralyzing the growth of new ideas. And where the unification has merely brought about an artificial or imposed unity, its irksomeness has led through discord to disruption.

Vitality springs from diversity—which makes for real progress so long as there is mutual toleration, based on the recognition that worse may come from an attempt to suppress differences than from acceptance of them. For this reason the kind of peace that makes progress possible is best assured by mutual checks created by a balance of forces—alike in the sphere of internal politics and of international relations. In the international sphere, the “balance of power” was a sound theory so long as the balance was preserved. But the frequency with which the “balance of power” or, as now described, “the balance of terror” has become unbalanced, thereby precipitating war, has produced a growing urge to find a more stable solution—either by fusion or federation.

Federation is the more hopeful method, since it embodies the life-giving principle of cooperation, whereas unification represents the principle of monopoly. And any monopoly of power leads to ever-repeated demonstration of the historical truth epitomized in Lord Acton's famous dictum “All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” From that danger even a federation is not immune, so that the greatest care should be taken to ensure the mutual checks and balancing factors necessary to correct the natural effect of constitutional unity.

Federation has proved effective in preserving peace among different nationalities in successively large groupings. Where it has been adopted it has stood the test of crises. Although the United States of America is the most commonly quoted evidence of its success, the Swiss Confederation is in some ways a more remarkable case. It is painfully clear, however, that the idea of world federation has no practical chance of acceptance in the near future.

The problem of world faith

As a historian of our own times, I have had only too much chance to observe how legends spring up around living figures—and how the acts and words of any leader or prophet become encrusted with stories that have no foundation in fact. The greater the personal devotion they inspire, the deeper the crust becomes. If this process takes place under modern conditions, where there are so many fact-finding checks, how much more likely that it occurred in a period where an historical sense had hardly developed and checks were lacking.

As a student of ancient history, moreover, I was only too well aware that the idea of a scrupulous fidelity to facts was uncommon even in the writers of history in the ancient world. Most of them were concerned mainly to bring out a new lesson. While scrupulousness about historical facts would have been a new idea to them it would have seemed almost irrelevant to religious teachers. The gospels were compiled as a basis for religious instruction and worship—not for the service of history. That is an essential difference of purpose which cannot be overlooked.

The oldest gospel manuscripts belong to the fourth century A.D. They are copies of copies so that there was an immensely long interval during which copyists might alter the original text to fit the religious ideas of their own generation. Biblical scholars have to base themselves on nothing more definite than tradition in ascribing the origin of the earliest written gospels to the second half of the first century A.D. If they are correct in their deductions—which is really speculation—there is still no means of telling how much they were altered by editing in the course of three hundred years—a period that abounded in controversy and schisms in the Church.

Even on the most hopeful estimate there was still an interval of a generation during which the disciples' memories were in oral circulation—more than long enough for any memory to be colored and altered by emotional retrospect, as well as by subsequent circumstances. For we have to remember that the disciples were preaching their faith in the face of doubt and opposition. They were an exception to all experience if they did not tend to “improve” their Master's sayings and acts in order to meet criticism and carry conviction.

At the same time Christian doctrine was itself in evolution, with consequent effect on its textbooks. I can understand, but consider extremely unreasonable, that thinking men should continue to believe in the same myths and dogmatic conventions that developed in the extremely superstitious mental atmosphere of the Levantine-Roman world two thousand years ago, in a creed that was defined as a result of the most appalling political “wire-pulling” and imposed by the despotic power of a couple of credulous and superstitious Roman emperors, who were mainly concerned with acquiring the best “magic” to help their ambitions for power.

I have found in dealing with men of fine character that if they are devout and orthodox Christians one cannot depend on their word as well as if they are not. The good man who is a good churchman is apt to subordinate truth to what he thinks will prove good. That is not surprising, for anyone who had a keen taste for truth would find it difficult to swallow as historical fact much that he does without difficulty. His fervent belief seems to make him insensitive to the point of being credulous.

Many Christian scholars will admit in one breath of the impossibility of bringing to light the historical Jesus, yet speak in their next breath of the incidents in the Gospel narrative just as if they were factually true. That capacity shows insensitivity to the flavor of different shades of truth.

The Church has created, and continues to create, needless and endless difficulties for itself by the excessive emphasis that it has given to the historical aspect of Christianity. If it were only willing to present the Christian story as spiritual truth, these difficulties could be overcome—while its progress would be all the better assured. For it could thus do more to bring out the sense of continuous revelation and evolution, teaching mankind to look forward rather than backward, as it has done to a perhaps excessive extent.

The Old Testament is interesting and valuable when treated as a study of the evolution of religious ideas. As an exposition of religion, for incorporation in our services, much of it is barbarous and debasing. Even the New Testament's presentation of God often falls below good standards.

The sands of history form an uncertain foundation on which to establish a creed composed of factual statements. We can rest broad conclusions on these sands, but if we pin our faith to details they are liable to be washed away by the incoming sea of knowledge, and faith may crumble. If we rest on the the broad truth of experience, we become more conscious of, and better able to breathe in, the spirit that moves above the ground level of consciousness. That is the breath of life.

I will state very simply how I came to find evidence of God that was convincing to reason. It was that an unworldly current of goodness has been maintained, and proved insuppressible, in a world where evil flourishes and selfishness has obvious advantages. By human standards there is no sense in self-sacrifice and helping others at one's own expense. Yet that unselfish motive has been manifested in innumerable cases. Can it be explained save by the presence of a higher source of inspiration?

The best of men have been conscious of being no more than windows through which comes a light that is not of their own making but like spiritual sunshine. Or to put it another way, they are merely receiving sets tuned in to the wave length of a spiritual “radio” transmission. They can dust their window panes. They can improve their receptivity. But they are aware that the Source is outside, far beyond their ken.

All this is only a modern way of expressing the “truth beyond human understanding” which the compilers of the gospels tried to convey by describing the incoming of the Holy Spirit in terms of his descent in the shape of a dove. Man's “pictures” of God vary; His inspiration is constant. Ideas of God, and forms of belief, naturally differ and change. For these develop in our minds—and our limited human minds are not capable of understanding His boundless mind. But we can feel God with less difficulty—because we do not formulate anything, as we are bound to do in thinking. His spirit can thus touch ours in a more direct way, and we get a purer breath of it.

I believe we were given minds to think—to search for the truth behind conventions and myths. I like to think that the gift came from a personal God, in the deepest sense of the term, and think that the investment of this creative force with a higher form of personality is more reasonable than to regard it as purely blind materialism.

We are given minds to use, and there can be no better use for them than religious thinking. But we should humbly recognize there may be different paths and feel in sympathy with all other travelers. The difficulties that arise in religious doctrine and history too often drive thoughtful people into a state of no belief. But for my own part I have found that the difficulties tend to disappear if one remembers that such doctrine and history was compiled by human interpreters, humanly liable to mistakes.

Once that is realized it does not matter if science and history show that many of their statements are not factually true. The vital quality is the spiritual truth, not the material facts. Doubts of these become unimportant if one regards the Bible not as historical record in the ordinary human sense but as divine parable on the grand scale. The Church feared that faith could not survive the shock if the book of Genesis was shown to be factually incorrect. By its reluctance to admit the possibility, it did more to shake faith in itself than in religion. Looking back now, its fears seem as excessive as its arguments seem ludicrous. Yet it now shows the same fear of admitting that much of the New Testament may be non-historical.