THE INTERNATIONAL OF INTELLECT

Maoriland Worker, Volume 10, Issue 448, 8 October 1919, Page 6

THE INTERNATIONAL OF INTELLECT

An Appeal

BY ROMAIN ROLLAND

('fly., i'ellowii,/,' appeal to th. worhl'-a intelleetuala by Kivwain Holland was I forwarded with on introductory article to Foreign Affair., thf, official organ of the Union of Democratic Control.) Amongst so many other disastrous effects of this war, one of the most dangerous for th c future is the severance which has made Usell felt, and wtucii is daily increasing, between the intellectuals and tho world of Labor. Much has been said in every country about the "Ui-ien Sucree" (the elimination of all party and sectional difl'ei,s,r.-„ durXg X, ( , war). Hut. this tXh'"t.U._;uii.d .md k-'t-L up by I. he «ov.i"linieuts for their own purpo.es, lias ever been accomplished at th© expense <if the great international Union and of thcise who, in all countries, sougiit to realise it. Now none have done more in every country to stitle these aspirations and to oppose the Union of humanity, than tho mass of i_'tellectuais. ft is unnecesasry to recall the manifestoes of hate and of uational arrogance poured out unceasingly by the Academies, tlie Universities, and the Assemblies of men oi letters. It is an obvious .'act thai nationalism -«as had no more violent champions than tk« intellectuals. We havo seen tow clten that m the countries which have made thleir Revolution, as in Germany for instance, tiie white guards have frequently been formed from corporation. of students, and been made use of by reaction to crush the new thought. How far away seems the tinio when tho | pupils of the Polytechnic and of the great schools of Paris put up barricades and organised the insurgent populace of 1830! To-day the intelligentsia appears desirous of identifying itself with the middle classes; it, has adopted their narrow prejudices, their interested conservatism; and it throws itself ! into the arms of reaction through fear ;of social changes which would undermine its privileges. This has produced among the ma.S3 of 'the people an immense disillusionment in regard to those who, thiemselves often springing from, the loins of tbe people, should have been the peoples' natural counsellors and guides; and this disillusionment has rapidly become transmuted into resentment. Thug there took place for a time in Russia a cruel persecution of intellectuals, and if am agreement would seem to have been reached since then, suspicion continues, nevertheless, to prevail. It is met with in like ue_.ee Germany, in France, and in -t a b>, and Uie depth of the evil can be guaged by tnfe acrid expressions which occasionally como to the surface. The cry "down with tho intellectuals" seems to have become a rallying point among some working class centres, iii-t-elligent, but embittered by past treachery. Nothing ooulid b e more calamitous for the world tUan this divorce between the higher thought a nd the workers. The former would stand to lose all contact with the sources of the new life; it would dry up; it would become even as a dusty relic of libraries or museums or it might even run the risk of beiiiig an instrument of oppression in the har.-ds c. the exploiters. The latter, deprived of guiding light, would fli_v_ themselves forward in disordered conflict, which would pile up ruins and prevent th© evolution of any durable construction. We must concentrate upon the dissipation of this fatal misunderstanding. We must do so both among the peoples and among the intellectuals. We havo the right to do co. We represent, in all countries, a few thinkers who havo ceaselessly maintained our ideals on international brotherhood during these years of hated tyrancy. To-day this is not enough. We must proclaim this truth, aud we must come tegcfhu-r to defend and expand our ideal. Our action forms part of th e great common impulse of the forces of progress iv their assault upon tho oppressive past. The enormous rampart of conservative powers which paralyses tho free development of humanity is composed alike of ideas and interests. Interests are not fit" subjects of which to boast. But ideas are e xtolled, and ideas aro often a thousand times more deadly: cupidity and violence cloth© themselves in the garments of idealism. Our part in the struggle, that which is peculiarly incumbent upon us, is the hand-to-hand fight with those deadly ideas. 'Our tusk is that of dispersing the mirage of these sanguinary nationalisms, of these religion, of the jealous patriotism, which may have been grandiose and, perhaps, whoJesomo in their time; but which to-day are only capable, of provoking vain sacriiiees, fruitless immolations, devastations, and hecatombs, n-oo only without sowing any new seed, but ruining the very soil itself whwnco tho harvest might havo sprung. The need is that of substituting for the gods of the past a new impulse of truth aud •life; humanity liberated from the network of frontiers, alike material and moral, of traditional prejudices and illwill, which fetters its limbs. While the workers are engaged in weaving from one *nd of the. world to the- other, au immense web, using their organisation of powerful " syndicates, co-operative societies, Unions, and Soviets in the effort to bring about for tho general betterment oi t-» community a maximum of production, of wellbciu" and of material expansion for tbe human race; wo thought-workers must; labor to irco the former from the oh,ackles of nationalism, of .races and of castes through whose superstitions they are strangled. Let us restore to that world of workers the amplitude ot its universal breath, thai, universal exhalation which alone is sail, nnd moral and which aione will permit it to iulnl its natural destines. There can be no question of wishing to uproot the individual from the soil which gave him birth Less easily than anyone can the writer or the artist repudiate his memories without eolf-mutilation, or detach himself from the period and from tho land in. which he lives. Even tho scientist and ratioualist owe t. their race those, methods ami those torins oi thought whoso contribution is useful in the sum of common labor But tho tree wnoso roots aro attached to tho earth does not dmv. its live from earth alone but from a.r and light. So should tho human tree be bathed in hat air and that tkat grea stream r.f thought which embraces all the earth,

Let us then, workers and thinkers, unite —all those of us who believe in | the possibility of a freer, worthier, and happier world, iv which th e force, of production and of creation would associate in harmony-—instead of mutually annihilating and destroying or.c another as we do j.o-day by our absurd and criminal opposition. The growth ol" the world depends upon us. I-et: us not, slacken in hope and action. Our part, for us. intellectual:, is to understand, and to make others understand; to lighten the path. It ia for the world of th© workers to construct the path. But whatever bo the task, the object is the same. Alike also is the stake: our life, ourselves wholly.

THE APPEAL

Worker., 0 f the mind, comrades dispersed throughout the world, separated for five long years by armies, censorships, and the hatred of nations at war, vi o address yen at this hour when barrier.-, alv li'iling ;n;il fr-siitii'i .., aiv reopening, ;iu appeal to revivo our broiherly union, which shall be a. now unifcu more .stable '-'Ibna. that which existed before. War has sown disunion in cur ranks. The majority of intellectuals have placed their science, their art, their-reason-ing powers, at the disposal of governments. We accuse ito one; w e convey no reproach. "We know thie weakness of the individual soul, and the elemental force of the great collective impulses; the latter swept the former aside in an instant, for no measures of resistance had been thought out in advance. Let th;s experience, at leasi., nelp us for the future. And let us first of all take note of the disasters which havo been brought by tho almost total abdication of tho iratelligenco of t_ e world, and its voluntary subjection to unbridled forces. Thinkers and artists have added an incalculable measure of poisonous hate to the scourgo which is gnawing into the body and soul of Europo. They have hunted in tho arsenal of their knowledge, of their memory, of their imagination, for causes old and new, for reasons historical, scientific, logical, even poetical—to hate. They have labored to destroy understanding and love among men. And, in so doing, they have disfigured, degraded, lowered and debased Thought, which they represented. They have made Thought the instrument of passion and (perhaps unconsciously) of the selfish interests of some political car social caste, of a Stale, a nationalism, a class. _nd now from this savage conflict, whence all th e nations involved emerge mangled, impoverished, and, in their souls (although they do not admit it), shamed and humiliated by their excess of madness, Thought, compromised with them in their struggles, also emerges with them—fallen from its high estate. Let us arise! Let us set free the Mind from tnese compromises, from these humiliating alliances, from this hidden bondage! The Mind knows no master. It is wo who ai*o the .servants of the Mind. W© have no other master. W© are created to carry, to defend its light, to rally round it all misguided men. Our role, our duty, is to uphold a positive ideal, to show the pola r star shiruing amid the whirlwind of passions, in th© night. We take no sides in these passions of arrogance and of mutual destruction; we reject them all. We honour Truth alone; free, without frontiers, without limit, without'bias of race or caste. Assuredly we do not disinterest o-urselves from Humanity. It is for Humanity that we work, but for the whole of Humanity. We do not know peoples. We know the People— one, universal —the People which, suffers, struggles, falls to rise again, and which ever marches onward on tho rough toad drenchied with its sweat and blood—the People of all men, all equally our brothers. And it is that .they become conscious with us of this brotherhood, that we raise above ti-eir blind battles tho Ark of tho Convenant—the unshackled Alind, one and manifold, oternal. The numerous signatories to th o Appeal include:—-Jane Addams (U.S.A.); Benedetto Croce, Robert Bracco (Italy); Frederick van Eedcn, J. C. Kapteyn (Holland); Ellen Key, Sclniar Lagerlof (Sweden); Andreas Latzko (Hungaity); _ophu3 Michaclis (Denmark); Edmond I .card, Henry van de Yeldo (Belgium); Stefan Zweig,'' Alfred H. Fried (Austria); Paul Birukoff, Nicholas Roubakine (Russia); Henri Barbusse, ' Rene Acres, Albert Pc.yen (France); Max Lekmanm, George Fr. Nicolai, Hermann Hesse (Germany); Bertrand Russell, Israel Zangwill (England); L. Ragaz, Ernest tfloch (Switzerland), etc., etc