WORLD REVOLUTION

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21218, 14 September 1940, Page 11 (Supplement)

WORLD REVOLUTION

Democracy’s Role :: A Creative Peace

(George Soull in New Republic)

T BELIEVE the peoples of the democracies have been tricked into a false attitude by the more vehement enemies of totalitarianism—those who hated the adversary more than they loved and understood what he was attacking. . . In the interest of shaking ourselves free from the delusions that can lead only to disaster, a few rough theses may be presented, for further discussion. This war cannot restore the kind of Western woild, or the kind of societies within it, which existed at its beginning. No matter who wins, there will be revolutionary consequences everywhere. . . The result need not be Hitlerism if democracies will accept the necessary economic means and use it for their own ends. The job does not require political dictatorship, or mystic racism., or hostility to science, or concentration camps, or espionage among citizens, or terror against minority groups. The Churchill Government in Britain has placed all industry and property at the service of the State, while retaining the rule of Parliament, substantial freedom of speech and civil rights of citizens. Labour organisation is not destroyed but, on the contrary, its leaders have been placed in positions of real command. Britain is advancing social measures even under the pressure of defeat in war and the threat of invasion—she is forced to do so as a measure of defence. Thus she has called to the support of the State the Enthusiasm of Essential Democracy. When peace comes, if it is not a peace of defeat, there cannot be demobilisation to the old basis. Democracy will be compelled to use a mobilised industry for social ends within each nation. But the turning of this instrument to creativeness rather than destruction will depend absolutely on the building of international order, which will not consist merely of agreements between small and weak States which do not comprise efficient economic units. There must be organic political and economic unity in Europe, and economic order throughout the world. The democratic world must recapture from Hitle| and Mussolini the revolutionary slogans which—largely for propaganda purposes —they have stolen. The very mark of democracy is that it is not fixed.

but leaves the way open for continual and repeated revolution, by constitutional means. Its highest value is not its past achievement but its promise. It was born with energy and with devotion to the community. Its true essence is not the diffuse, the lax and careless and self-seeking sort of thing about which those who say we shall have to surrender it are now wringing their hands. In crisis it has always demanded, and henceforth it will demand more regularly, the disciplined cooperation of free men in the use of all material and human resources in the service of the common good. The chief present duty of democrats is to end the power of those internal parasites who have kept it weak and static and have nearly betrayed it to its enemies. At peril of extinction, democracy must resume the historical initiative which belongs to it. This initiative, for mere military purposes, will have to be expressed first of all in the economic front. It can and must be used, not merely to create a stronger military power than any which it may have to face, but a firmer social structure, a better and more wholesome life for all its citizens. The purpose of mobilisation must be not merely to prevent defeat, but to win. And it must be not merely to win the war, but to establish a sound and creative peace, more genuinely revolutionary in its answer to the demands of life and the aspirations of the common man than anything its enemies can offer. It is time to stop bewailing what has Happened and to stop trying to see how little of what we have we need to surrender. It is time to stop wondering how much of our enemy’s method we shall have weakly to imitate. It is time to stop speculating which foreign creed we shall have to accept. This country possesses a more fertile soil and deeper roots for revolutionary aspirations in the democratic direction. We shall find within our own history and tradition the inspiration for a progressive world leadership which can be incomparably more vital than that of the Third Reich. . . At the heart of democracy is the seed of abundant life. Its apparently suicidal behaviour in recent years is the work, not of its true sons, but of those who have repressed it, because they were terrified by its genius and its power.