Europe at the crossroads

A Dark Outlook

 

 The subject of "Europe Today" is not one to be approached with equanimity. It does not attract one's soul nor does it fill one with inner joy. We contemplate the image of Europe, as it is today, weighed down by many apprehensions and sadness. As soon as we are about to tackle its problems, we feel invaded by a sense of anxiety attacking us from a thousand ambushes. What aspects of today's Europe could possibly generate in us a spark of approval, let alone enthusiasm? Even with a maximum of good will, it would be very difficult for us to discover in its actual structure anything sound and enduring.

 To speak of today's Europe in favourable or, at least, acceptable terms would be equal to seeking refuge in an illusion; closing our eyes to reality by deceiving ourselves. If our own destiny were not at stake, we might be less scrupulous in our appraisal of the situation. Since however, the question is not to recall a bygone era but to engage in the issue our own existence, which is threatened today by the gravest dangers, we are compelled to adopt an attitude of extreme vigilance when embarking on an examination of the actual state of affairs in Europe.

 The picture presented by today's Europe is not boding well in any respect. No gift of prophecy nor any great erudition is needed to arrive at such a conclusion. It suffices to possess a sound judgment and to look reality in the face. Behind the deceptive facade of a continuously increasing material prosperity, explosive substances - originating from a multitude of mistakes, lack of foresight, weakness and cowardice - are accumulating and will, one fine day, raze to the ground all the super- structures, erected, with so much pains taking effort in concrete and steel, in place of the ruins left behind by World War II. The free Europe- any, as though transported with some industrial ecstasy, are building factories and workshops, ports and airports, sky-scrapers, roads and railroads, in the firm conviction that with each yard of new construction they are approaching a better life. In actual truth, however, they are act- ing like the man in Jesus' parable who built his house on sand. This whole technical saga of the West is undermined in its foundations and condemned to imminent disintegration for it is lacking in the certainty of a tomorrow.

 The uneasiness which has invaded our era and the uncertainty in which we live is being sustained by the Communist menace. Until the Iron Curtain is removed, every free European engaging in the reconstruction of his own dwelling and country will be haunted by the question: will those houses and factories still be in their place tomorrow, and if they be there, having escaped destruction, will they still be- long to those who built them? This factor of uncertainty insidiously penetrates the atmosphere of our time, spoils the joy of living and frustrates the reward of all our labours. From the Russian steppes there are advancing the shadows of death to pursue the gigantic constructive effort put up by Western man.

 

Europe Mutilated

 

 The symptom of the European crisis deserving most concern is undoubtedly the fact that free Europeans should have become used to living with only one half of the body of their Continent, after having, with an astonishing lightheartedness, abandoned its other half to Soviet imperalism. They do not feel incommodated any longer by the amputation thus suffered; they do no longer perceive their infirmity. Today's Europe, cut in two as it were by the mine-fields and barbedwire fences of the Iron Curtain, is no longer the Europe left to our heritage by the centuries. The East and the West of Europe together form an organic whole, a creative entity. What is termed `free' Europe is nothing but Europe mutilated. European culture was born in the Orient, and it is from there that it spread to the West. Even the name of Europe denoted, in the clays of ancient Greece, that continental region which lies to the north of the Aegean Sea; only later did it acquire the connotation which now covers also the Western parts of our Continent. If we come to consider European achievements in the spheres of the arts, politics, philosophy, science or Christianity, we realize they all are due to reciprocal efforts at cross-fertilisation between East and West.

 The passing of Eastern Europe under the Soviet yoke is not destructive of the historic and cultural integrity of Europe alone; that subjection is not merely a blow to its past and traditions; the losses of territory and population endured by Europe have rendered questionable its future as well. Since times immemorial, beginning even with prehistoric invasions, Eastern Europe has constituted the protective dyke to Western Europe. There it was that the tidal waves of barbarian invasions clashed first with the forces of resistance, and by the time they launched a fresh attack against the West their destructive fury had lost much of its initial impetus. Because of this uninterrupted succession of invasions, the peoples that gradually came to coagulate in Eastern Europe have never been able to enjoy any prolonged period of peace and liberty. Their history could be likened to a panting respiration. The best part of the energies of these peoples has been spent on defending their very existence. A Rumanian chronicler described the bitter fate of our people by saying that "it has been placed on the road of all evils".

 The peoples of Eastern Europe have been able to establish their national States only in the 19 th century, and their political emancipation was not concluded until the end of the second world war. From the 15 th century, which saw the gradual exhaustion of the barbarian invasions, to the beginning of the 20 th, these peoples lived in the griphold of three imperialisms - that of the Ottoman Turks, the Russians and the Habsburgs.

 Being compelled to pay such a bloody tribute to history, the peoples of Eastern Europe have - quite naturally - fallen behind on the cultural plane. Their creative impulses could not find a way of asserting themselves in that state of turmoil in which they permanently lived. Every time the national genius of these peoples had begun to bear fruit it was stifled by invaders. All these peoples - whether they be Rumanians, Hungarians, Poles, Ukrainians, Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, Bulgarians, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Czechs, Slovaks or Albanians- are young as regards their cultural age. Their tormented history has never granted them respite in which to demonstrate to the world the excellence of their talents. And now history is repeating itself - abandoned to Soviet tyranny they once more see the chance destroyed to express their creative originality in the cultural field.

 The annihilation of the creative liberty of these Eastern peoples is not to be regarded as their exclusive liability. The shackling of their national genius by the Communists is a fact which impoverishes and disorganizes the cultural destiny of Europe as a whole. For the cultural trajectory of the Western peoples has already been established to a large extent. Without identifying ourselves with the theory of "The Decline of the Occident" (Untergang des Abendlandes) we dare affirm that these peoples have deployed in a very great measure their inner universe in the domain of the arts, philosophy and science.

 The peoples of Eastern Europe do not find themselves in the same situation. These peoples have begun to partake of a higher form of life only about a hundred years ago. They still represent an enigma, an unknown factor in the cultural sphere. Eastern Europe has stored up within herself the cultural reserves of an entire continent. This region is destined to nourish the European spirit with new stimuli, with new means of creation. By abandoning these peoples to the Soviet sphere of influence, Europe has harmed its very creative substance and deprived itself of its best- its germ-cell of reproduction. Instead of fertilizing the culture of Europe, the creative energies of these peoples have been harnessed by the Soviet Union, diverted from their natural line of unfolding, and forced to serve the making of a civilisation alien to Europe.

 That which the peoples dominated by Communism are creating today in the cultural sphere does not express their intrinsic equation and no longer bears the imprint of Europe. Nothing could be more alien to the very notion of culture than what is actually termed culture in today's Poland, Rumania, Hungary or Bulgaria. In these countries culture has become an industrial product. Culture is being manufactured in a fashion as ploughs, boots or tractors are turned out. Creative freedom is suppressed. The same pattern keeps repeating itself in all the countries concerned. There is no difference between the contents of novels or poems whether they be published in Rumania, China or the Kirghiz Republic. One can be substituted for the other without the slightest diffi- culty and without either losing any of its value whatever it may be. The author's personality, being curbed to the norm, disappears. Writers are being commissioned to write such and such novel in the same way a factory may receive an order to manufacture such and such a commodity.

 

What Does the Western Europe  of Today Represent?

 

 In this dispute between Orient and Occident, joined on themes which have no immediate significance, for they are related either to the past or the future, it is not easy to realize bow unenviable our position is. The sacrifices made by the Eastern peoples, their tormented past, the future of European culture - these are all arguments a little too suave to be apt to shake the indifference of the West and to induce it to do something for the countries subjugated by the Soviet Union. That is why we must make a deeper incision below the surface into the very substance of the West, in order to reveal to it how vulnerable Europe has become ever since its Eastern half was severed from it.

      a) The Illusion of an Enduring Status Quo

 The fact that Eastern Europe has passed under Soviet domination does not represent a loss merely local in character, a diminution of territory and population for which compensation could be found by establishing a new balance of power, as that redressing phenomenon has so often emerged in the history of our Continent when powers alien to Europe (e.g. Arabs or Turks) carved chunks out of its body. The situation which the West will now have to bring under control is a fundamentally different one. The Soviet Union differs in structure from all other states hitherto known in history. Its very nature makes it impos- sible in the long run that it should coexist with the free world. There is an element inherent in the make-up of that State which eugenders a perpetual dynamism compelling- it to sustain a merciless struggle against all the peoples of our globe. What does this special characteristic peculiar to the Soviet State consits of? What is it that kindles its persistent aggressiveness? The empires which have so far shone in the world's history - the Persian, the Alexandrine, the Roman, the Spanish, the Ottoman, the Napoleonic, the British empires or even the Third Reich - had for their mainspring, their inner driving force, the nation:; which founded them: the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Turks, the Spaniards, the French, the British, the Germans. They had set for themselves the very limits to their own expansion. For all these empires had been national empires, and as soon as the reserves of the nations which had built them became exhausted, the empires themselves passed the zenith of their power. National empires can never become world empires - even though they may aspire to that title - because there is no nation so powerful as to be able to subjugate all others.

 This rule does not, however, apply to the Soviet Union because it has at its disposal an offensive potential much greater than the resources of any single nation. In the case of the Soviet Union it is not the Russian nation which, by pouring out its overflow of energies into the outer world, threatens the freedom of other peoples: it is a supra-national revolution that has acquired a griphold over that nation and turned it into its spring-board for world conquest.* Communism is a movement of global character. It recruits its adherents from among the masses of all peoples. The African Negro, the Chinese and the European are equally accessible to that ideology. Nowhere does the front-line of Communism's struggle coincide with the borderline of any one country. Using a number of guises, it splits all peoples from top to bottom. All Communist Parties of the world rally round the Soviet Union, thereby removing entire sections of peoples from under their own national supremacy and integrating them with the effectives of the Soviet State.

 To speak of an enduring status quo in relation to the Soviet Union would be to ignore the predatory character of Communism. The intrinsic nature of Communism, as well as of the State which incorporates its velleities to world dominion, is incompatible with the idea of peaceful coexistence that certain politicians of the West are anxious to achieve. If Communism were to cease conspiring against the free world, it would lose the very justification of its existence. By the incorporation of Eastern Europe in its sphere of influence, the Soviet Union has by no means reached the farthest limits of its expansion yet. That conquest has merely provided it with a new point of departure, closer to the final objectives pursued by world communism.

 *_____

 This statement of fact is not meant to acquit the Russian people of all guilt. Communism has exploited the messianic leanings of the Russian people who are beginning to feel complacent in this unnatural symbiosis, forgetful about the fact that they are only a raw-material in the service of Communism. Also, the Russians, while victimized by Communism, are a privileged victim. The day on which the Russians return to the community of the free peoples, they will have to repudiate not only Communism but also their imperialistic tendencies which gave support to that doctrine.

 

   b) The Loss of World Leadership

 

 Another consequence of the Soviet Union having penetrated to the centre of our Continent has been the loss for Western Europe of its position of world leadership. Up to the time of World War II, Europe had been the dominating influence in the world; in its chancelleries the politics of other continents were being fashioned. A completely absurd situation had to arise for the West to acquiesce in its own decapitation; to lose its dominions as well as its political credit in Asia, Africa and America. The loss of India, Burma, the Netherlands, East Indies and Indo- china was but a logical sequel of the concessions made at Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam. At the very moment the Western Powers offered up to Stalin the countries of Eastern Europe they signed the death-warrant of their colonial empires.

 There is a close connection between European dominions overseas and the political state of Europe itself. Only so long could the Western Powers effectively defend their extra-European possessions as they were not menaced themselves on the Continent. In order to have tranquillity in their colonies they had to take care first not to become unsettled in Europe. There has been no European Power strong enough to defend itself on two fronts at the same time - the metropolitan and the Asiatic or African front. One of them had to be kept out of trouble while activities were engaged in on the other.

 It was this imperative necessity which engendered the formula of the European balance of power. That principle became an axiom of the for- eign policies pursued by States which had interests to protect on other continents. The prime interest of the Western Powers, and particularly that of Great Britain possessing the most wide-spread Colonial Empire of all, had always been to prevent any single European Power becoming so strong as to be able to upset the established equilibrium. Whenever a situation arose in which one of the European Powers attempted to superimpose its will upon the Continent, Great Britain -for it was usually her- put herself at the head of a coalition and forced the recalcitrant to capitulate.

The Crimean war was launched because England and France could not agree to Russian expansion towards the Dardanelles. These same Powers supported the unification of the Danubian Principalities because they regarded the Rumanian State, founded on the lower reaches of the Danube, as an additional guarantee against Russian tendencies to dominate the Balkan Peninsula. After Bolshevism had installed itself in Russia, the Western Powers created a „cordon sanitaire" in Europe, consisting of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and also Rumania aggrandized by the return of Bessarabia.

The same considerations induced Great Britain to support Hitler dur- ing the first period of his rule while he was still conducting a reasonable foreign policy. A strong Germany was indispensable to the Europe- an balance of power so gravely threatened by the emergence of Soviet Russia. However, once Hitler exceeded the limits allowed by the principle of the European balance of power, Great Britain gave up her reserve. Hitler was striving to become the undisputed master of Europe to the detriment of France and Britain which he wanted to reduce to the status of secondary Powers.

Only once in their history did the Western Powers deviate from that principle -while in alliance with the SovietUnion- and mournful consequences ensued. By accepting the division of Europe into spheres of influence, the Western Powers have simultaneously bared both their flanks, the metropolitan as well as the colonial. The presence of the Red Army on the Elbe compels them to keep most of their effectives in Europe, thus drawing them away from the Asiatic and African fronts which are today imperilled on almost all sectors.

 The position the Western Powers find themselves in is all the more critical as they are enggaged in a struggle against the forces of a world revolution. The enemy immobilizing them on the European Continent is identical with the one who attacks them in their colonies. Moscow, the strategic center of world Communism, controls all sectors of the conspiracy. Whether it be the question of new pressure being brought to bear on Berlin or of a new victory being won by Leftwingers in Latin America; whether there be trouble brewing in Indochina or fresh acts of terrorism commuted by the Mau-Mau - it is always the Kremlin which supports all these types of Communist encroachment on the area of the free world.

Communist strategy has forged for itself two principal weapons with which to destroy the old order-class warfare and the nationalism of the coloured races. Either is used according to the circumstances peculiar to the ground on which the struggle happens to be taking place. In Europe class warfare is being applied while in Asia, Africa and America the nationalism of the coloured races is the means with which the hatred of the indigenous populations is being whipped up against the Europeans and white man in general.

 We do not propose to defend colonialism. All peoples have a right to live freely. Nor can the winding-up of colonial rule be brought to a halt any more. What must, however, be the preoccupation of all Europeans are the conditions under which the political emancipation of the peoples of Asia and Africa is being put into practice. The international climate in which this problem is to be solved and the time at which emancipation is being accomplished is liable to compromise good relations between the Western Powers and the peoples liberated from under alien rule. Even when the former are making concessions in Africa or Asia of their own accord, their withdrawal has the appearance of being accomplished under Communist pressure. All peoples attaining to their emancipation from under European tutelage turn towards Moscow with gratitude. It is logical that they should think that without the Soviet Union God only know how long they would still have had to endure European domination. While in Europe the Soviet Union is pursuing a policy of denationalisation, in Asia she poses as the champion of national liberty.

 If we take the trouble to examine the political transformations wrought in Asia, we cannot fail to be struck by an even stranger fact; the politic- al emancipation of the coloured races renders no service to those indigenous populations either, who are supposed to benefit from it.

 The peoples having freed themselves of the yoke of colonialism are losing their national liberty once more for the benefit of world Communism. At an astonishing rate of speed, the nationalism of the coloured ra- ces is being converted into Communism. While these peoples had still been under European domination, the Communists incited them to rise against white man, invoking the natural right of any people to take its destinies into its own hands. No sooner, howewer, have they obtained their political independence than the agents of Communism begin to change the tune of their propaganda. In lieu of nationalism, which does no longer serve their purposes, their agitation introduces a new ferment into the lives of these peoples - class warfare. The social order in the countries concerned facilitates the Communists' task. The feudal struc- ture of society, on the one hand, and capitalist exploitation introduced by the West, on the other, provide a fertile breeding ground for Marxism in its purest form.

 The Asiatic nations do not as yet know what to use their newly gain- ed Liberty for. Their primitive nationalism - not nearly sublimated or purged of the residue of hatred as yet and animated exclusively by en- mity towards white man - cannot provide an effective barrier to CCommunism. The struggle for political emancipation waged by the African and Asiatic nations is being complicated by social convulsions which tend to annihilate all the institutions of the past. After a transitory period of freedom, these nations are sliding irrevocably into the orbit of Communism.

 The Western nations, for their part, have not taken any precautions to forestall this danger. They have as yet not worked out any plan aiming at the internal consolidation of the emancipated countries. After having bared their European flank- thus giving proof of their complete lack of foresight - they have committed grave mistakes in Asia, too. They have purely and simply, launched these masses towards an unknown goal without assuming the slightest responsibility for their future. Having es- caped from colonial rule, the Asiatic masses, famished and at a loss as to where to turn, find no other way to save themselves except in giving themselves over to Communism. In a few years' time the immense hu- man reservoirs of India, Burma and Indonesia will have inflated the ranks of world Communism. We are about to offer to the rulers of the Kremlin the most propitious opportunity to carry out Lenin's scheme envisag- ing the mobilisation of Asia against Europe. When that happens Europe's fate will be sealed.

 

    c) In the Tow of Extranean Forces

 

 Finally what part does that fringe of Europe, having so far escaped Communist conquest -the so-called free Europe- play in the world contest of Powers? What weight does its voice still carry in the world's council chambers? Having stepped down from the top-rung of the ladder, does Europe at least hold a position which enables her to parley on an honourable footing with the new world Powers of America and Soviet Russia? True, the Western European democracies are not left out of meetings of the Big Three or Four, but do not let us be mislead by external appearances. Chiang Kai-shek's China, too, used to be included among "the Big" up to 1948 although she had then already been on the verge of disintegration.

 Western Europe has ceased to be a subject of world politics from the moment on she separated herself from her Eastern half. She no longer takes part in the forging of the world's destinies, not even in the company of other Powers. Her own fate is now being decided elsewhere. A new balance of power has been created in the world in which free Europe only plays the role of an object -of the raw material as it were- of political action. The free world's center of gravity has been shifted to America while Western Europe must content herself with being a kind of marginal territory of the new world. She maintains her independence owing to the fact alone that she finds herself in a field of full tension between the two principal forces, Soviet Russia and America. If, by an absurd turn of events, America and Soviet Russia came to an understanding, and the price of their alignment were the partitioning of free Europe between these two powers, the West European States could put up against such a decision but symbolical resistance.

 If, on the other hand, America returned to isolationism an withdrew her troops from Europe, a political and military vacuum would result in the West which the Soviet Union would immediately fill with her own substance. So-called free Europe is not a viable unit because the forces at her disposal do not suffice to ensure her independence. Without the presence on the Continent of the U. S. armed forces, the Western States would share the fate of the East European countries - Rumania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria etc.

 There are certain Europeans who, when confronted with the disastrous balance-sheet of the second world war, react with a haughty attitude. They absolutely refuse to admit that the Europe of today is nothing but a glorious memory of the past. These incorrigible "Europeans" are struggling to achieve for the free fringe of their Continent the position of a "third force" which would enable it to hold the balance between the two rival giants.

 In order to really establish such a position for herself, Western Europe ought to be strong enough to retrieve by her own means and without having recourse to America aid the Eastern territories. Only a Europe united within her frontiers of 1939 could aspire to a "third force" position. A manifestation of strength of this kind would furnish the crucial proof of the existence of a truly free Europe owing allegiance to no other power. So long, however, as Western Europe has not the strength enabling it to generate sufficient energy to roll back the Iron Curtain to the Dniester river without foreign aid, she will not be capable of resisting the Soviet threat on her own and will thus remain dependent on American generosity.

 

The Spiritual Disintegration of Western Europe

 

 Having been smitten by defeat after defeat on a large scale over the last ten years or so, one would expect the Western peoples to react healthily and generate within themselves an almost superhuman tension with which to overcome the Communist peril. Any nation may well be taken by surprise and, therefore, make mistakes, but it would be the sign of total decrepitude if it failed even to make a gesture of mobilizing its means of defence. Only an organism deprived of the normal functioning of its nervous system or shaken by fever can be insensitive to pain and refuse to fight disease.

 Yet in what sort of state do we find the West European Powers? The symptoms of convalescence do not appear, nor is the expected reaction being produced. Against the danger of Communist invasion no resist- ance is being organised. Steeped in complacency, Western Europe ignores the terrible warnings of fate. She is not conscious of her own tragedy. The populations of her countries are living in a carefree state of mind - in a sort of delirious unconsciousness - as though future were smiling at them. The climate of catastrophe has become a familiar one. Though danger might be impending, Europe glances distractedly at other preoccupations. Already Western civilisation is preparing to die, anticipating her passing away without convulsions, narcotized by the Soviet monster.

 This blindness in the face of danger is equivalent to a paralysis of the western nations' vital resources and bodes ill for the future of Europe. There cannot even be hope in a world whose instinct of self-preservation is dead. Europe has become a no man's land which the Europeans themselves no longer claim or defend.

The disintegration of the European mind reveals itself clearly frorr the examination of the following groups of fact:

   

I. The Western countries are tolerating the legal existence of the Communist Party even though they know the danger it represents to their internal tranquillity. Nothing prevents the Communists, either in law or in fact, from taking over legally, should the majority of the people vote them into power. The coexistence of democracy an communism has in the West Eu. ropean countries become an acknowledged fact which no longer troubles the conscience or arouses doubt as to the principles of Parliamentary government. Moreover, since the heads of the political parties are at pains even to affirm that the Communist's presence in public life constitutes an evil which, however, cannot be eliminated so long as the electorate insist on sending them to Parliament, the only thing that remains to be done is to challenge them at the polls. No justification is found for infringing democratic liberties in order only to chase the Communists out of the political arena.

 

    This kind of reasoning is faulty from a number of viewpoints.

 1. The State has the right of proceeding against those, in the event of their taking power, would destroy its existing foundations.

 2. Every form of government aims at establishing the public weal. If, however, a certain way of using democratic liberties should result in the opposite, jeopardizing the vital interests of a nation, would political leaders still be justified in invoking those liberties? Could such democratic principles politically prevent a stop being put to activities which clearly undermine the foundations of a nation ?

 3. The communist parties are not national parties. Their centre of gravity is to be found in Moscow. They constitute the vanguard of a foreign Power placed in the very heart of the nation, the latter being certainly under no obligation to afford protection to its own enemies.

 4. Wherever she exercises her influence, Soviet Russia suppresses the democratic regimes by the most brutal means. While in the West the communist parties are enjoying every kind of political liberty, in the countries occupied by the Soviet Union the democratic parties have all been destroyed, their leaders having been killed or imprisoned. Soviet Russia could raise no valid protest against communist parties being prohibited in the Western countries. For by so doing the West would only follow the Communists' example.

5. In the event of war, the communist organisations will become battle formations. Communist partisan units will begin to operate behind the front-lines of national armies, thus rendering precarious their position in the rear. By according the Communists full liberty of propaganda and action, the Western Governments are but facilitating enormously communist preparations for the advent of the decisive moment.

 6. The great American democracy has adopted certain measures of defence against communist infiltration into the State and in so doing has not bothered excessively about certain formal elements of the democratic creed. Why, then, should not the Western Powers, directly menaced by the Soviet Union, impose at least certain restrictions?

 7. Finally one more objection. Why had not the Western countries displayed similar zeal in the safeguarding of democratic principles when they were proceeding against nationalist forces? Why the rigid strictness of yesterday against the nationalists and the exces- sive tolerance today of the communists?

    II. In contrast with the urbane manner in which the communists are treated - as though they were the most perfect gentlemen in the world- Westerners are displaying a scorn only thinly veiled toward the political refugees from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Normally, a spontane- ous relationship of solidarity should have established itself between the victims of Communism and the forces of the West who pretend to be anti-Communist. For a common destiny ties them together. After all, the picture which these Eastern refugees present is by no means far remote from the fate that might befall the Western peoples tomorrow; the tidal wave of terror which beats against the Eastern countries at the present time may well descend upon the West one fine day, compelling its inhabitants to take the road of exile. Being threatened by the Communists from the rear, the Western peoples have no earthly reason to consider themselves more fortunate than those refugees.

 On the other hand, those refugees could prove valuable auxiliaries to the West in its struggle against Communism, for the former have gathered experiences in which the latter are utterly lacking. A multitude of reasons - humanitarian as well as political and military - would thus seem to warrant the West's receiving the emissaries of the peoples subjugated by the Bolsheviks with the greatest solicitude and the liveliest interest.

 The Eastern refugees note with bitterness that yet another invisible Iron Curtain separates them from the Western peoples. The poliþical and psychological climate which reveals itself to the refugees is alien to their grief. While they had still been in their homelands their imagination, whipped up by suffering, promised them to find a Western world turned into one huge armed camp drawn up in line of battle. But instead of a heavily charged atmosphere, capable of generating great decisions, they find a flippant and carefree world which is not preoccupied even with its own existence.

 Anti-Communism as practised in the West is a farce. Discouraged and humiliated, the refugees must ask themselves why they had removed themselves from the fight actually going on in their respective homelands. They are the carriers of a message. They have left behind a world where heroism and martyrdom ennobles life at every step - a world which, ignoring the disillusionments suffered through long years of waiting, has not yet lost its trust in the West and refused to bargain with the enemy. What clay, what spiritual substance are these Western peoples made of that they should be able to contemplate unmoved the sufferings of millions of other human beings, and not even draw from the tragedy of the Eastern countries the inferences forcibly relating to their own fate?

 In the lack of understanding for the problems of the Eastern refugees there is reflected a deficiency of the Western soul. Animated, as they actually are, by this miserly, petty bourgeois spirit, they could hardly win the battle against Communism. Those who today refuse to face the Communist danger in a virile fashion shall tomorrow cringe in front of the Soviet hosts, begging for a mere piece of bread or an hour of liberty.

 

   III. The Western world has been contaminated by Marxism. The doctrine which has engendered Communism and which continues in- vigorating its revolutionary impulses incessantly, is being publicly professed by individuals and political groups alike who pretend to be its adversaries. This is a fact of exceptional gravity for it spreads confusion, and it is confusion on the ideological front that prevents the political and military front of the free world from consolidating.

Communism is pursuing the fight to submit to its rule all peoples in the name of an ideology. Whith its final victory a new conception of life will have triumphed in to world. Communism is but Marxism inaction - Marxism in quest of its historical realization. Therefore, the first defen- sive measure to be adopted by the free world should be its complete ideological separation from Communism. The doctrine of the West must necessarily be given a keen edge. There should be no more dealings with Marxism. All ideas of a Marxist origin are ferments ultimately destructive to the free world. What anti-Communism represents as a positive reality, what its actual contents are, is comparatively difficult to define. It is easier, however, to give a clear indication of what it must not be under any circumstances lest it bring upon itself utter destruction: anti-Communism is a repudiation of Marxism in all its aspects. Where the one begins the other ceases. They are two irreconcilable conceptions of life.

 How could you combat an ideological adversary by borrowing his outlook on life? How can you hope to detect the ambushes laid by Communism when your mental equipment is functioning defectively? Communism cannot but benefit by ideological breaches opened in the Western frontline. The Communist revolution is advancing in a massive, vigorous manner, making many moves of encirclement and displaying much adroit adaptability but also extreme vigilance as regards the contacts it is compelled to maintain with the spirit of the free peoples.

 

    IV. Another sign of the confusion rampant in the camp of free Europeans is the great ease with which they fall a prey to Communist propaganda. In this field the Communists have lately scored sensational results; they have succeeded in creating among free, non-Communist Europeans a feeling of animosity against those very Americans who guarantee their liberty. Overwhelmed with praise and protestations of gratitude by the Europeans only a few years ago, the Americans are beginning to figure on the list of Europe's potential adversaries.

 Twice the United States their armies across the Ocean in order to save the Western democracies; after the termination of World War II they made enormous material sacrifices to help reconstruct European economy. Even now it is due exclusively to the counterpoise represented by American military and industrial potential that Europe has not been engufled entirely by the Soviet Union. All these should indeed called forth, and justifiedly so, out of a sense of gratitude, an enduring current of sympathy going out to the Americans. Yet, after thirteen years of the closest collaboration, relations between the 'United States and Europe are beginning to suffer because of the agitation spread by the Communist parties. It is disloyal, this mute hostility to America, raising its head among free Europeans. Nor is it reasonable or politic. For what else are the Americans if not a people that has come into being by virtue of contributions from all the nations of Europe? The very body and soul of Europe has been transplantated into the soil of another Continent. The peculiarities of life which European immigrants have unfolded on that new Continent have not betrayed their fundamental character. Americans and Europeans alike belong to the same civilisation. This Euro-American civilisation now hinds itself confronted with Asiatic Communist barbarity.

 

    V. The Western Powers continue to be seated on the benches of UNO side by side with Soviet Russia without feeling embarrassed in this sinister company. The presence of the Soviet Union in that Organisation represents a permanent offence against the principles solemnly declared by its founders. On the frontispiece of U NO there are engraved "the rights of man" and "the rights of nations". Soviet Russia, however, is the very doctrinal embodiment of those principles. Communism recognizes neither the rights of human beings nor those of ethnic communities. The ideal held by Communism is a monolithic bloc of humanity in which there shall be no frontier-lines between individuals or nations for that matter. How could a State, making use of genocide as one of its customary methods of government, be expected to respect the obligations devolving upon it from its membership of that institution?

 If the Western Powers really respected their signatures affixed to the United Nations' Charter, they could not tolerate one minute longer the presence of Soviet Russia on that forum. x_'y refusing to take note of the transgressions perpetrated by the Soviet Union, the Western Powers are in fact annulling the legal and moral. validity of the United Nations Organisation. The debates in UNC are living enacted within a frame-work of tacitly tolerated fraud and conventional lies. It is a most terrible sin against humanity that innumerable crimes to the detriment of mankind should be allowed to be perpetrated under the aegis and the shelter of the very institution which has been brought into being to combat those crimes.

 

   VI. The free Europeans, being spiritually deficient, are seeking satis- fication compensating themselves in the material sphere; they seem to imagine that economic efficiency will rid them of the inconvenience of Communism. The economic progress of Europe, however, is no indication of health and vigour - as its inhabitants are inclined to believe - for the same nations which have displayed such unheard-of perseverance in rebuilding their towns and cities devastated by the war are shunning to face reality and avoiding to take the decisive step in order to clarify their destinies. The economic progress made by the free nations reveals a lop-sided evolution; it is an excrescence because it is entirely divorced from political reality. While the political barometer is predict- ing storm the free Europeans are pursuing their "business as usual" as though the sky were clear. They have created for themselves an artificial international climate of "detente" as though peace were guaranteed for some generations to come.

 In Soviet Russia, as well as in the countries subjected to Communist rule, economy is subordinated to the strategic interests of world Communism. Soviet economy in its entirety has been organised to serve the campaign conducted far the subversion of the free world and, eventually, war. At the same time, economy in Europe has become divorced from politics and is living the anarchical life of a wild growth. The political element has entered upon a crisis and is no longer able to discipline the economic domain.

 This nefarious Western cult of economic materialism we find illustrated in a perfect manner by the European Coal and Steel Community and East-West trade.

 It has been attempted to unify Europe by taking as point of departure a materialistic concept borrowed from the Marxist doctrine - namely, economic organisation. Let us only pull down the customs barriers, it has been said, and the unification of Europe will follow immediately. The political superstructure should be built on economic foundations. This method has proved to be a faulty one. Its results have fallen far short of what had been expected. The Coal and Steel Community has become a reality but Europe has not yet emerged from the stage of talks and projects. Homo oeconomicus has not been able to eliminate the rivalries dividing the peoples from one another.

 The various movements calling themselves European have become entangled in their own ideas because neither of them did take into account a factor which plays a more important part in the lives of peoples than food, clothing or shelter - the state of the soul. Rivalries between peoples have their roots deep down in their souls. They will not simply disappear in return for material benefits. No nation will renounce its soul for economic advantages. In order to induce the peoples of Europe to sacrifice part of their national sovereignty in favour of a United Europe, one ought to convince them first that the new formula would not hamper the development of their specific national qualities. This project, however, has been compromised by the economically tainted mentality of the West. The psychological realities should have been chosen for a point of departure, and a climate of confidence created between the peoples, from which to approach the political and economic problems.

 Commercial exchanges between East and West have been intensified recently thanks to the same mercantile mentality which has corrupted the soul of Europe. Free Europeans have by now progressed so far on the course of their uninhibited race after gain that they would sacrifice to the latter even their own security. The products imported by Soviet Russia - even if they do not bear the hall-mark of strategic goods - are destined exclusively for the purposes of military preparedness. It is not the population which benefits by those commodities but only the war economy of the Soviet Union.

 Moreover, Soviet Russia is also drawing political benefits from the increased volume of its commercial exchanges with the West. Western public opinion tends to believe that the Communists are not as evil after all as the anti-Communists describe them. It is thought that the Communists could be lured into mutually fruitful exchanges; that trade pacts would in due course be followed by political agreements and that, in the end, it would be possible to readjust world politics altogether by discontinuing the cold war and the armaments race. Needless to mention the depressing effect which all this intensification of East-West trade would have on the populations of the countries subjugated by Soviet power.

 

    VII. Any national community may be beset by a wide range of dangers arranged in a hierarchy of varying grades of gravity. This order of gravity cooresponds to a given situation, and any arbitrary modification of that order can entail serious consequences to the nations concerned. The leaders of a nation are worthy of the position they hold only if they perceive correctly the order of gravity of the dangers likely to interfere with the life of the community entrusted to their care and if they stagger the external policies of their country in conformity with that more remote perspective.

 In present-day circumstances the principal danger to all free countries is represented by one and the same Power, Soviet Russia. All other dangers which may affect the interests of one or other Western country are secondary only in relation to that threat. It is only logical, therefore, so long as no satifactory solution has been found to the Communist problem, that the external policies of these countries should be revolving round that unknown factor. All other policies are running counter to reality.

 It must be stated that the natural order of dangers menacing the free nations is not being correctly assessed by the West European community. France, for instance, continues viewing the question of a rapprochement to Germany through the prism of the past, even though their mutual situation has undergone a radical change over the last fifteen years. Anxieties that might be provoked by the possibility of Germany being able yet to spring a surprise on her neighbours are obliterated by that danger of the first magnitude which the Soviet Union represents. Thus the principal threat has, since 1945, shifted from Germany to Soviet Russia. France and Germany have now a common enemy whose presence no longer admits their becoming involved in secondary conflicts caused by ancient rivalries.

 

   VIII. The neutralist tendencies, which seem to be gaining ground in the politics of the Western countries, must also be charged against the spiritual disintegration of Europe.

 Formally, the West European Powers are integrated within the Atlantic community; nevertheless, they are separated from America by grave divergencies of interpretation. Thus, the Western Powers con- ceive of the Atlantic Pact as an instrument whose task it is to delineate a front-line destined to perpetual stagnation. According to this conception the Pact is meant exclusively to serve the indefinite extension of the reciprocal altercations between East and West. Free Europeans are inclined to make every concession - including the one which would involve sacrificing themselves - in order to avoid a new war.

 The threat of war does not, in the view of the Europeans desirous to avoid that war, emanate from Soviet Russia alone: they are fearful in an equal measure lest America provoke that war. The Western Powers are permanently on their toes along both front-lines, always ready to intervene wherever an outbreak of fire might threaten. In times of international crisis, the European members of the Atlantic community behave in a paradoxical fashion: every time the Communists deal a blow to the free world, they will, instead of declaring their solidarity with the Americans, separate themselves from the latter, taking up an intermediate position so as to be able better to soften the blow. In most cases the Communists will, of course, keep their spoils while the Americans remain suspended, with their fists raised, as though poised for the attack, and yet paralyzed by some malignant influence.

 The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, inasmuch as it has so far manifested itself, rather seems to have assumed the function of making the Americans the prisoners of other Powers' decisions. The clauses of the Pact put the United States under the obligation of consulting with their allies whenever a new act of Soviet aggression threatens the regions safeguarded by NATO. Those allies will invariably respond with counsels of moderation. Soviet Russia is thus utilizing the fear of war to keep the U. S. in check with the help of her allies, intimidated by the prospect of anew world conflagration.

The Atlantic Pact is functioning today to the advantage of the Soviet Union. American foreign policy is unable to find its bearings in the maze of the Atlantic community. The objective pursued by the Soviet Union is to push America into isolationism by speculating on the Europeans' defeatist spirit. Western neutralism is but a Soviet political manoeuvre aimed at isolating the United States and thus making Europe fall an easier prey to her lust of conquest.

 

The Cold War

 

 Free Europe has fixed her hopes on the cold war. Tossed betwee; Scylla and Charybdis she imagines to be able to escape both the horror of a new war and the Communist nightmare if only she proceeds alon the middle of the road. According to the opinion held by free European there should be ways to make the Communist regime capitulate othe than yet another world war which would be equally destructive to th whole world. It might just happen that some internal cause-an accident an unkown factor-would arise in Soviet Russia in the course of the cola war to weaken the Government of that country and put it in a positio of inferiority in relation to the West. Speculations of this kind may b, placed into a number of categories:

 

 -the Communist movement, bowing to the law of all revolutions will lose its initial harshness in order to enter upon a more benevolen phase. Its internal climate will be modified so as to draw closer to tha of the Western democracies. The answer: prognostications have been made so often about a pos sible "evolution" of Russian Communism; so often have radical trans formationE been taken for certain only because of the misleading effec of minor relaxations or tactical changes on the part of the Communis regime that we can no longer afford to preserve these illusions; historic al experience forbids us to do so.

 

-the subjugated peoples will rise against the Communist regime and overthrow it.

 

 The answer: absolute terror such as rules supreme in Soviet Russi; annihilates all environments that might serve as a shelter for potentia centers of revolt. Discontent existing in the occupied countries canno coalesce into mass risings unless intervention from outside throws the machine of terrorism into confusion.

We should wait until a crisis occurs within the Russian Communist Party. The regime is threatened by rivalries inside the Party which set one group against the other. The answer: the Russian Communist Party demonstrated its solidity at the time of Stalin's death, The opening of the "succession" has not confirmed the hopes of those who believed that the disappearance of "the man of steel" would prove fatal to the regime. The new High Command is just as firmly embedded in the mechanism of the Soviet State than was its predecessor.

 

- Economic difficulties will increase in number in Soviet Russia and bring the regime down in the end.

 

 The answer: economic upheavals can iatally affect the stability of government only in countries with a free or semi-free economy. In Russia the free play of economic forces has been suppressed. Soviet economy is only a service branch of the State, and the Soviet State will in any circumstances sacrifice the well-being of its citizens to the interests of the revolutionary and military sectors. The fruit of the labour of Soviet citizens is being confiscated in its entirety to sustain the fight. All crises within the Soviet economic system are resolved in a very simple manner - to the detriment of the people. That is so because the Soviet State is not answerable for its deeds to any kind of public opinion.

 Many more of the speculations of this sort could be proffered, yet the result would always remain the same: what experience we have gathered so far in relation to Communist affairs forbids us to hope that the regime will be brought to a fall from within. This is not to say that there is no grain of truth contained in all these prophecies and calculations. The element of surprise cannot be excluded from history. Conscientious political leadership, however, cannot abandon itself to hazard with its hands tied. It is aware of its duty to intervene at all junctures with a maximum of effectiveness thus reducing the scope of fortune's play to a minimum.

 Conjectures made as regards the Soviet Government's chances to maintain itself in power can at the best be employed only within the framework of awider plan, the planning of the cold war. When considered on the scale of such a plan, the probability of a failure of Communism for internal reasons may become interesting and even likely. But it is only in this context that it comes alive and is filled with reality. The political leadership engages in the cold war while keeping account of a multitude of hypotheses - such as the ones enumerated above - wihtout either of those depriving it of its initiative or condemning it to marking time. Thus the problem is shifted from one or other of these several conjectures justified by political logic on to the plane of their strategic utilization.

But, does such a master-plan exist?

 It is a curious feature of Western politics that those responsible fo its conduct should not to this day have elaborated a plan of action relat ing to the cold war although that war has been on for over nine yers Provisional arrangements may work a year or two, but it is inexcusable that at the end of its ninth year no profile should yet have been giver to the cold war. A similar deficiency in general staff work does not exis within the Communist camp. The Communists are combining their moves in the field in conformity with the objectives they pursue. The Communists are conducting their cold war according to a masterplan. All actions taken by them are fitted into a vast perspective.

 By contemplating what is happening in one camp and the other one arrives at a sensational statement of facts: the cold war is in reality waged by only one party, the Communist camp, while the other party the West, is merely enduring it. The latter is possessed of no strategic vision as regards the cold war. To every event it reacts separately Whenever the Communists encroach once more on the free world, the Western Powers improvise some means of defence, with the natural result that nearly always the engagement finishes to the advantage o1 the Soviet Union.

 The Western Powers are acting on the consideration that too great risks are involved in retorting to Communist provocations with the force of arms. Therefore they have accepted the type of contest forced upon them by the adversary, i. e. the cold war. Quite apart from this not being the best solution, it would at least have been logical that, having allowed themselves to be engaged in it, they should have taken up the conduct of the cold war with all the consequences it implies. Firmness should have been displayed io this dangerous venture by moblizing all the means compatible with the nature and the limitations of that kind of warfare. It so happens that the cold war, like any other type of war, is being fought in order to be won and not merely to defer final decision "sine die".

 The disappointment felt by Eastern refugees is due to the fact that the West does not cut an honourable figure even in this cold war; it is not prepared to discharge the obligations it has contracted. While reluctant to let it come to a shooting war, the West is showing itself reti- cent in the cold war as well. Nobody understands anything any longer. Or could it be that Western strategy is so subtle and impalpable as to resist all attempts at discerning its intentions?

 The cold war is of a much more involved nature than war properly speaking. It is fantastically rich in widely differing aspects. Nothing could be more dangerors than trying to reduce it to a few simple lines. The theory of "containment" conceived by that illustrious American diplomatist, Mr. G. F. Kennan, is sinning by oversimplification. This theory takes into consideration but one single eventuality - the occurrence of a qualified act of aggression against the free world. Around the globe there are scattered a number of points, says Mr. Kennan, which, if taken in conjunction, constitute the vital frontier of the free world. Everyþime the Communists are trying to push beyond that limit, the forces of the free world must be set in motion in order to restore the previous situation. To every Communist pressure a counter-pressure of equal strength must be applied. The example to illustrate Kerman's thesis more clearly than anything else was the Corean war.

 This American diplomat's vision of the cold war is defective. First of all, he makes the mistake of suggesting to the West a defensive strategy. By "staying put" the West offers an enormous advantage to world Communism. The area on which its launching sites are situated - viz. the Soviet Union - is exempt from hostile incusions and thus the combative energies of that State remain completely at the disposal of offensive designs. But not even the defensive aspect of the cold war is viewed correctly by Mr. Kennan. Of all means that may serve the safe- guarding of the free world he takes into consideration only one, the rebuttal of direct aggression. How could Mr. Kerman's doctrine be applied to Italy which may go Communist at the next general election?

 Discriminations and limitations of this kind invalidate the strategy of the cold war. Its two principal aspects - the offensive and the defensive one - cannot be separated one from the other and must be treated with equal solicitude. To single out one sector is therefore arbitrary and harmful to him who does so. The West ought to identify all the vulnerable points of the Soviet system, and by turning them to good account should try to shake it internally. On the defensive plane it is necessary to discontinue once and for all the policy of the "open door". Communism should be treated in the Western countries with all the rigour imposed by the laws of war. The cold war is a venture much more serious than war in the proper sense of the word; it has already assumed proportions unparalleled in history. Its purview encompasses the whole globe. Everything, from what happens in the intimate circle of our acquaintances to the secrets of Soviet atomic industry; from the rising of an insignificant African tribe to the cotton crop in the United States - all this is subject to speculation on the stock-exchange of the cold war. The diversity of this war does know no degrees of latitude or longitude nor is any field of activity secluded from it. He who is intent to win the cold war must be prepared to spend on it prodigious quantities of talent, energy, courage and material resources.

 

War or Capitulation

 

 Let us suppose for the sake of argument that in a few months hence the Western Powers will recover a great buoyancy of spirit and decide to engage in a coordinated effort relating on the cold war all their moral and material resources.

 That fact could not alter much with regard to the passive balance of forces as it exists today. It is too late forthat formula to be applied. It will no longer be possible to make up for the advantage gained by the Soviet Union in those nine years of cold war. There is, so to say, a difference of civilisations between the human apparatus forged by the Soviet State during its thirty years of conspiring against the free world, on the one hand, and lamentable Western improvisations, on the other. In order to better realize how much the West is lagging behind as regards its preparedness for the cold war, we ought to imagine ourselves as still living in the bronze or iron age while the Soviet Union was already operating atomic energy.

 The phase of the cold war is no longer a paying propostion to the Western Powers while it is leading the Communists to certain victory. The cold-war race has already been lost by the West. This kind of warfare could have no other conclusion but the capitulation of Europe. This is not to say that it should be given up. The cold war could serve as a preliminary operation to war pure and simple.

 Apart from the time element, the West is handicapped in the cold war by another factor, too, the lack of an ideology. Even if the West did make a superhuman effort to catch up with the Soviet forces, the results would be just as precarious for the lack of that ferment which lends unity and coherence to isolated actions. The only ideology capable of organizing the anti-Communist front -nationalism- is detested by the West. By the term "nationalism" we do not necessarily understand extreme Right-wing parties but rather all political manifestations which are born out of the very depth of a nation, no matter what label they may be bearing. Therefore, from the viewpoint of both the time element and ideology there is only one conclusion to be derived forcibly: war alone can save the free world.

 The U. S. Secretary of State, Mr. John Foster Dulles, has invested American foreign policy with a "new look". In the event of a new Communist aggression the conflict would no longer remain limited to the actual danger zone; the United States will apply its repressive measures in the first place against the country which is behind all acts of aggression, the Soviet Union. In other words, the war will expand into a general conflict. The State Department has come to the conclusion that the Soviet Union is trying to drag America into a series of local conflicts in order to make it disperse its forces, while Russia, herself, takes no part in either of those clashes, preserving its armed forces intact for the final intervention.

 The "new look", however, does not modify the defensive position of the West. It is but a warning given to the Soviet Union not to venture beyond certain limits; the initiative continues to remain with the Communists. For American intervention to materialize, in the sense advocated by Mr. Foster Dulles, it would be no necessary that it should be preceded by an act of aggression of the Korean type. Nothing is more simple for the Communists than to adapt their strategy of the cold war to the terms of that declaration. Henceforward the Communists will avoid offering the Americans one single chance of putting into effect their policy of the "new look". TheJwill continue with their fight against the free world, using the entire range of devices compatible with the cold war, short of direct aggression. Why should the Communists risk calling the card of war if by proceeding with the methods of the cold war -at which they are past masters- they cannot fail to bag victory? Whey should they swap the certainty of the cold war against the unknown which war in the proper sense of the term represents?To them it is all s question of wait and see. Within the next 20-30 years the Communist flood will drown the whole world. What will the Americans be able to do when the Communist Party emerges victorious from civil war in one country or wins the elections in another? Obviously, in such cases the "new look" could not be operative.

 The cold war is the most lucrative business for the Soviet camp. The Communists wish for nothing better than to be left undisturbed in ibis profitable pursuit of theirs which brings them closer every day to the goal of world domination. A Soviet invasion of Europe is very unlikely to occur. Even though the Soviet Union maintains a formidable Army it doe not enter its immediate plans to provoke war. Moscow is utilizing thi threat as a psychological pressure on the masses. The Soviet Army is one of the important arms of the cold war. There is only one thing that disturbs the peace of mind of the Kremlin's rulers -the danger of the West precipitating itself into a new war They know full well that the day on which the guns begin to rumble would inevitably spell the beginning of the end of their domination. At that very hour an explosion, far more terrible than that of all atomic and thermo nuclear bombs, will shake Soviet Russia and the countries controlled by her: the revolt of the subjugated nations. From China to Poland, those nine-hundred-odd million humans, now suffering under Communist ty. ranny, will get moving to sweep away with one united effort the Communist states. The system of Communist terror is so perfect that it would be impossible for the masses to rise against it without receiving an impulse from the external world. On the day, however, the Soviet Union finds herself engaged in a war with the West, no one will take notice of the terror any longer: the oppressed peoples will know that the last chance to regain their liberty has arrived and they will fight with the de- speration of prisoners in chains. The Soviet Union herself will be caught between the jaws of a mighty pincer, represented, on the one hand, by the armies of the West and, on the other hand, by the army of the interior -the famished and the humiliated, the tortured and the exploited. The disintegration of the Soviet Union from within will facilitate the task of the Western armies to a point enabling them to dispense with atomic warfare.*

 

*_____

Soviet Russia's far of a War with the West explains also its bitter opposition to German rearmament. Whal worries the rulers of the Kremlin far in excess of the military value of the German divisions, is tire psychological shock which a new German army will produce among the peoples beyond the Iron Curtain. The psychosis of war will throw the subjugated masses into a state of ferncent and thus upset the immense terrorist machinery of the Soviet Union. When viewed in this perspective, Soviet Russia's blackmail, threatening atomic reprisals, loses its effectiveness. The West is under no absolute compulsion to have recourse to atomic weapons in order to will the wãr. Concentional armaments ill conjunction with file revolutionary potential of the enslaved peoples will lead to the same result. The United States and, indeed, the entire free world must reserve the function of the atomic arms at their disposal by converting their role of offensive weapons into an instrument of reprisals, to be employed if the Soviet Union should attempt to force a final decision in that way.

 

War is the fatal danger to Soviet Russia as is the cold war to the Western Powers. The cold war leads to the capitulation of the West, the war to the catastrophe of world Communism. The free Europeans who find themselves quite close to the Iron Curtain and who are, therefore, in danger of being swallowed up by the Communist tide under the very eyes of the Americans, must now make their choice between war or capitulation. War or peace, war or peaceful coexistence are false alternatives. Peace and coexistence are but facets of the cold war which, in turn, is equivalent to the "suicide by stages" of the West.

 When the Soviet Union is inundating the world with appeals and pacifist slogans, she knows what she is doing. It is in her interest to sustain that kind of pacifist agitation. Peace, in the sense conceived of by the Communists, that is, "war pursued by means other than classical" - to paraphrase a commonplace of military thought - represents the ideal international climate for the realization of their plans aiming at world conquest. However, that the West should allow itself to be enmeshed in the involved game of the cold war - which it does not understand and is unable to play - and that, on top of it all, the West should imagine that war has come to an end in 1945, and that it is now living in an era of peace - that is a little too thick. It just does not tally with the most elementary requirements of political thinking.

 As Burnham rightly observed, the war between the West and the Soviet Union began in April, 1944, with the mutiny, instigated by the Communists, on board of the naval vessels moored in Alexandria harbour. Ever since, the war has been going on without interruption. The actual partisans of peace are thus speaking in terms remote from reality and are militating for a non-existent cause. True, the war waged by the Soviet Union against the free world is of a nature different from that of normal warfare, but this does not alter its intrinsic character. It still bears the name of war for it has the effect of a war; imense territories, numerous populations, priceless riches, are being grabbed from the free world to be added tho the potential of world Communism. Apparently, the Soviet Union is striving for peace but its vanguards are fully active everywhere; here it is an empire of some 600 million inhabitants that falls into its hands, there a Communist regime establishes itself after a victorious revolution, yet in another country strikes are breaking out engineered by the same Power. The fact that China or Indochina were conquered from within does not alter in the least degree the reality of the West having lost one more battle. It is difficult to redress the posi- tion of the West because it originates from an act of capitulation. The Allies had demanded Germany's unconditional surrender, but in actual fact Germany never surrendered either on or without any terms. To renounce the continuation of the fight and sign a document to that effect, at a moment when almost one's entire national territory has been absorbed by the adversary, and when the front-line has advanced to a few yards' distance from the Chancellery of the Reich, cannot be called capitulation. Capitulation means cessation of the struggle and surrender to the enemy before having used up all the forces at one's disposal. Those who really capitulated are the Western Powers and the true victors of the second world war are the Bolsheviks. At Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam, the Western Powers endorsed all Soviet demands at a time when they still found themselves on the very summit of their power and glory. All they had out of the war was a series of mortgages of which to his day they have not been able to rid themselves. Never has history recorded a more striking defeat, so grave in consequences and so little justified. The road to Moscow stood open to the Allies.

 It was within their grasp to eliminate the danger, once and for all, by launching a new campaign and afterwards to dictate world peace, thus turning into reality the spirit and the letter of the Atlantic Charter. Why have not the Allies done so? It must be admitted that public opinion in their countries had not been prepared for such a turn-about of the battle fronts; but from there to the crowning of Stalin with undeserved laurels, by satisfying his exorbitant demands, was a far cry that cannot be justified by any valid explanation nor by any analogy in recorded history. The Allies' generosity has cost hundreds of millions of humans their freedom.

 This act of capitulation underlying Western policies has become a school of thought latterly; it has been turned into a spirit of capitulation. Every time the West found itself in a state of tension in relation to the Soviet Union it displayed the spirit of Yalta, that is, it bowed to Soviet demands. From 1945 to our days, the political, diplomatic and military trajectory of the Western Powers has been marked by defeats. Even the Korean war, if we analyze it judiciously, must be relegated to the chapter of defeats. While circumventing the major difficulty, the Allies replied only with palliative measures to Soviet attacks, offences and perfidy.

 Western statesmen usually justify tbeir forthcoming attitude towards the Soviet Union with their great love of peace. A third world war, they maintain, would be so destructive as not to benefit even the victors. It would beset all mankind with death and sufferings. It would be foolish, indeed, not to be awe-stricken by such prospects, if mankind were actually eojoying peace. But what sort of peace is it that leaves behind it rivers of blood and, like a famished monster, demands new sacrifices year after year. How far is this love of peace to go? To the point where all the nations of the world are handed over, one by one, to the hangmen of the Kremlin? And what is peace after all? An abstract notion ? Is it not supposed to mean the same thing to the Rumanians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Poles and Koreans as to the others? Should not all peoples benefit from the blessings of peace? Terrorism, concentration camps, forced labour, the systematic pillaging of nations, the rape of their independence, their denationalisation - are these to be taken for instruments off peace?

 The West's adventure in pacifism cannot end but in a holocaust of all peoples. In the beginning, the West had fed the flesh of the East European nations to the Soviet monster; later it diverted the Kremlin's appetite to the Asiatic masses. If this period of  "peace" were to last another ten to fifteen years, there would be just enough time for the Western peoples to be entirely engulfed. He who still falls into extases at the sight of the peace dove, either belongs to the category of suspects or has lost the last shreds of dignity. For it is impossible to believe that any Western politicians could live so far remote from reality as not to be aware that co-existence spells the funeral of nations and states alike. Does it suit the book of the French, the British, the Germans or the Spanish that the price of a few decades of peace should be the Mongols' definitively establishing themselves in London and Paris? Can the Communist danger be warded off by avoiding to face it manfully and by pursuing an ostrich policy?

 Crisu Axente, a friend of mine who has been dead for some time, had been preoccupied with the idea of writing a book on "Peace Crimes", in which he intended to analyze the problem of the concessions arbitrarily made by the West to the Soviet Union. He regarded these concessions as liable to rank with the "crimes committed against humanity". Are we not led to think by the tragic situation in which all peoples find themselves to-day that there exists also a category of  "peace criminals"? That is to say a kind of people who are busy prolonging the present state of affairs to a point where the Soviet Union will be enabled to engulf the entire world. War criminals are those who try to suppress the liberty of the peoples by means of war. Those, on the other hand, who, by abusing the sublime image of peace and the profoundly felt desire of the peoples to avoid the horrors of a new conflict, fail to warn mankind of what is hiding behind the peace offered by the Soviet Union, should be labelled peace criminals. These peoples are using the image of peace for a bait in order to haul nation after nation into slavery.

 The defeatist activities of these "peace criminals" are all the more fraught with grave consequences as the free world has now only a very slender safety margin at its disposal. This very fact has recently been stated also by a Prince of the Church. Cardinal Spellman has said: "We are compelled to admit that the time at our disposal is fast running out. The realm of liberty has but receded for the last few decisive years; it runs the risk of receding even further if we do not put an end to our indifference and indecision as regards the Communist menace." (Speech on Dien Bien Phu, made in Paris, on May 20th, 1954). That safety margin, however, relates only to the war potential of the two adversaries. As to the cold war, the free world has already consumed its security margin a long time ago. If war broke out today, the West would still have every chance of winnig it. But if it continues hesitating, its safety margin will diminish until it disappears completely. Armaments will become evenly balanced. The Soviet stock of atom bombs will grow substantial enough to prevent the West from thinking of a war of salvation. At that stage, the Western world will have no option but resign itself to the slow agony of the cold war.

 There is yet another question bothering the West. Supposing they were convinced of the necessity of waging war, how should they begin it if the Soviet Union is not willing to be the first to attack? Preventive wars are not in the line of tradition nurtured by the Western demo- cracies. Let us revert to what has been said before: we have been in a state of war for a long time already, even though that war is not conforming to the classical pattern. Soviet acts of aggression are following one another in a wild rythm. By deciding to have recourse to the force of arms the West would not but adapt itself to a state of war already existing. The presence of Soviet armies, nine years after the termination of the second world war, in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Rumania and Bulgaria, constitutes in itself an act of aggression entirely justifying Western intervention. There is no longer any question of a tem- porary occupation imposed by the necessities of war; what we are confronted with is an act of taking possession, as of right, and with no intention ever to relax the grip. The Allies have shouldered a number of obligations towards Eastern Europe; they are, therefore, entitled to put the Soviet Union before the choice of either withdrawing or facing a new war.*

 

*_____

 If there is a means to save the world from a new war without capitulation, it is precisely the decision to wage it. Confronted with the West's determination to shoulder the ultimate consequences, the Soviet Unions will be compelled to yield. Should Russia be prepared to do so, the West will have to push its demands so far that in the new situation thereby created Communism can no longer constitute a danger. If, however, the Soviet Union remains unyielding, that will be an additional indication of war having become imperative and inevitable. Soviet Russia's preparations for war are already so far advanced that any further delay could prove fatal to the Western World.

 

 During the night of August 23rd, 1944, when the Soviet troops invaded Rumania's territory without a shot being fired, the rulers of that country, who had been a willing party to that act of treason, popped the corks of innumerable bottles of champaigne in order to drink the health of the "liberators". How many of these dupes are still alive today? Most of them have died of famine or some disease in a Communist concentration camp or prison or have become mentally deranged or have put an end to their own lives. But at the same time they have dragged along with them into misery an entire nation.

It would be plainly too much to ask the Western Powers to come to the aid of millions of slaves behind the Iron Curtain out of sheer generosity or humanitarian sentiment. However, by meditating on the sinister imbecillity displayed by the Rumanian ruling class and the tragic fate which has subsequently befallen the Rumanian people, could not the free Europeans at least persuade themselves to rise from their apathy? Frightened of what is in store for them, could they not at least make vibrate the strings of their most sacred egoism?

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