The Puzzling Background Of This
pp. 5-7 · Read in the full issue
World War
“I have been reading Shiver’s ‘Berlin Diary’. And I want to ask you : If the causes of this foul war were seen so clearly years before it broke out, why did we do nothing to prevent it? If we had warnings of what Italy and Germany and Japan intended to do, why did we not prepare for them?” —In a letter from a young reader of the “PIM”.
IT is impossible to discuss this World War piece-meal. The thing that is happening in the Pacific to-day is closely linked with what happened in Russia yesterday.
The events of to-day in Libya will bear directly on what happens in Western Germany or China to morrow. It is a vast checker-board, on which every piece is placed and moved in close relationship with every other piece. And the causes of this war go far back into past de cades.
We cannot hope to make a reason ably correct estimate of what is happening, and is likely to happen, unless we appreciate the vast and complicated socio-economic back ground of these events, the tremend ous canvas upon which this section of human history is being recorded, and the intricate pattern of the picture that is being made. Demo cracy, we believe, will win the war; but unless democracy can get that background into focus, democracy will make a terrible mess of the peace.
And how can the masses which constitute democracy get the grip of understanding upon the real issues, when those issues are so vast and so elusive that they defeated the states men of two decades, and brought European civilisation within a hair’s breadth of destruction in 1940?
THE roots of this World War lie deep in the failure of the demo cratic system to control money power. The development of machines, incredible improvements in trans portation, the appearance of radio and aviation, changed the face of civilisation. Those things should have been used to give more comfort, more security, more culture to humanity as a whole. That was achieved, to an extent—but only as a secondary consideration.
A world that even yet has not escaped from the ideas of feudalism accepted as a principle the practice that developed in the last hundred years, that every advance and dis covery in production and distribution should be used primarily to give ever greater riches and privileges to a com parative few.
The evil was accentuated by, and became manifest in the establish ment and growth of international combines. The latter organised mono polies in most of humanity’s funda mental needs (especially foodstuffs, entertainment, transport and com
munications) and a fuddled demo cratic system allowed them to handle those monopolies with profit and privilege as a primary consideration, while their obligations to humanity were allowed to be a secondary matter, or were ignored altogether.
It may not be easy to see: but every known fact of history and logic insists that therein lie the roots of this hellish war.
THE Victory and Peace of 1918 were to make the world safe for democracy. Actually, they only gave greater strength and power to the already entrenched interests of privi lege and money. The masses, un comprehending, but dimly conscious that somehow they had been tricked, blindly resentful of the increasing activities of international money power and combines preying upon the democratic system, began to seethe. Discontent was translated into extreme political action in nearly every country—almost revolutionary, but still contained within and con trolled by the Parliamentary system.
But the Parliamentary system was under a severe strain, and in danger of breaking. “Why should our move ments be controlled by the Parlia mentary (democratic) system, while international money-power dodges and evades all Parliamentary con trol?” cried the Leftist leaders. They turned for inspiration to Communist Russia, then in the throes of “extremism”.
WEALTH and privilege were terri fied—of that there can be no
doubt—and an anti-revolutionary movement developed in every country in Western Europe. It took many forms and many names—Fascism, in Italy; Nazi-ism, or Hitlerism, in Ger many; the Croix de la Feu, in France; the Falangists, in Spain; and so on— and of course, we had the Fascists and the Cliveden Set, in Britain.
Generally speaking, established wealth and privilege—those who wanted no changes—were for Fascism; those with “nothing to lose but their chains” were for change.
Established interests had every reason to be terrified. Their in dustrial-economic system was col lapsing before their eyes. The post war years of the ’twenties were a busy period of adjustment, in which war wastage was made good, and stocks restored.
Then the world tried to settle down to regular, normal work; and there wasn’t enough work to go round.
Two-thirds of the world’s workers produced an over-abundance of food and goods, while one-third starved, because they had no jobs, and there fore no money with which to buy food and goods.
The problem could have been solved —by true co-operation between the world’s ablest men, of all nations.
But they would not co-operate—they would not even recognise their own national social obligations—the obli gation to serve faithfully in their Parliaments. They were too busy making money.
The Great Depression disappeared between 1934 and 1939, and the com mon people thought the problem had been solved. Nothing was further from the truth. The world was re arming, and the world’s one-third unemployed were switched over to armaments and arms, so that jobs were found for all. When—and if— peace is fully restored, another Great Depression is inevitable, unless demo cracy can free itself of the evil parasites which have fastened them selves upon the system. rpHIS socio-economic situation—the A most vital and significant thing m the two-decades period between the two Great Wars—was complicated by the dismal and disgraceful failure of
our so-called “statesmen”—surely the
most incompetent gang of muddled fools who ever handled international could only fumble with both the industrial and international situations.
The Versailles Treaty contained ex plosive elements. Its fathers—Wood row Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George—knew it. But they solaced themseives with the thought that the body created to implement the Treaty, an 6 Nations, would iron out come h dimculties the years to But money-power sabotaged the League of Nations. Money-power put lt?fpq Übl i Can f ma;sority into the United A Woodrow Wilson, and re- Leaffup Am6riCan membei *ship of the .League . . . one of the ereatp<?t political crimes in the histmv 1 of humanity. From that moment? th
League became the plaything of political gangsters in Europe.
Control of Britain drifted into the hands of futile Socialistic dreamers like Ramsay MacDonald; French Chauvinists dominated the Geneva scene; the Teutonic world writhed under injustices which should have been dealt with by strong men in the League of Nations; and, of course, revolutionary Communism and anti- Communistic Fascism made gigantic strides.
AND so, between 1925 and 1935, Europe was rent by two bit terly antagonistic ideologies—Fascism and Communism. Germany and Italy led for Fascism, Russia for Com munism. Britain and France were nominally with Russia against Ger many; but—and here lies the genesis of most of the many puzzles of this war—the established interests in Britain and France (especially money power and caste privileges) were in stinctively with Fascism, and against Communism.
There definitely was a period when the ruling classes of Britain and France were moving towards close general collaboration with Hitlerism, and especially against Russia. Hitler knew this.
Even after the outbreak of war, Hitler hoped that Britain would come to his side. After France fell (not because France was militarily de feated, but because France was be trayed into Hitler’s hands by the arch-Fascists, Retain, Weygand and Laval) Hitler was sure of it. That probably was why he did not launch his invasion against England, in the autumn of 1940, until it was too late, and why he sent Hess in May, 1941, to make contact with the Cliveden Set. Some day, we British will know the “inside” of all that—and it will rock us.
IF it is possible to point to one factor, more than another, as be ing responsible for drawing Britain away from Fascism (the protection of established interests and the re cognition of the totalitarian State), and for setting her ultimately fight ing beside Russia and the United
States (and so frankly acknowledging that our socio-economic system must be reformed, but in accordance with the desires of free men, and not by dictators) that factor is the Nazi torture of the Jews. Hitler might have carried Britain with him, if he had not put his pogrom in the fore front of his European campaign.
The torture of the Jews sickened and revolted the British people, and turned them against Hitlerism. How soundly the British reasoned is proved by the tortures since inflicted by the Nazis upon other helpless peoples. It aroused also against the Nazis the hostility and endless hatred of Jewry throughout the world; and this be came, in the later ’thirties, an inter national force of incredible power.
Had there been no pogrom in Ger many, Jewish influence, having its roots deep in money-power, probably would have gone with British and American and French money-power in favour of Fascism.
The proof of this argument was seen in world propaganda, in the ’twenties and ’thirties. Until the rise of Hitlerism, the tendency of most American newspapers and cinema films (and the latter had a tremend ous world influence) was anti-British.
From the middle ’thirties, the tend ency of the films was increasingly pro-British, and in favour of Anglo- American co-operation in world af fairs. The change in the tone of American newspapers came later.
Jews are dominant in American films, and strongly placed among American newspapers.
WITH Trans - Atlantic backing, wherein Jewish influence is dominant, Britain might possibly have allied herself with Hitler, and the world would have entered another Dark Age. Mankind could not have regained democratic freedom without generations of suffering and fighting.
Trans-Atlantic influence went the other way. Britain, now completely isolated, stood absolutely alone through the dark days of 1940-41, and, although apparently certain of defeat, defied the Nazi monster—surely the most glorious chapter in Britain’s glorious history.
A year later (June, 1941), Russia was at war with Germany; and, six months after that, the militaristic madmen of Japan brought into the war, beside Britain and Russia, a United States more completely united and war-like than ever before in her history; and thus the doom of the Axis in general, and of Hitlerism in particular, was irrevocably sealed.
The end of the war is only a matter of time, patience and hard work.
BUT what of the peace that will follow? Will the world return to a democracy that was but the play thing of the parasites which had battened upon it? It will not. The background of the war, sketched roughly in this article, shows that if an attempt is made to restore what is so blandly called the status quo ante helium, the peace will be far worse than the war. That danger of a plunge into another Dark Age will not disappear with the Axis.
We must retain our democracy, while ruthlessly destroying the rub bish that has encumbered it. In dividualism, freedom of competition in rendering service, stimulation and encouragement of private enterprise —these are the keystones of our democratic system, evolved in two thousand years of human effort; and they must not be destroyed. What must go is the parasitism which has been developed, with genius incred ible, by the highwaymen of our modern world, and fastened cun ningly by them, for their own en richment, upon the healthy body of our democracy.
If the effect of World War II is to line up the nations of the world for the planning of a New Order, cal culated to preserve and extend the dearly-won liberties of mankind (in contrast with the Hitler and Tojd New Order, which would finally des troy individual liberty), then the horrors of Hitlerism will not have been suffered in vain.—R.