BY ‘DHRUVA’

II

It was in Germany, as was to be expected, that the crisis was at its acutest. Internally the Liberal Government had done little to appease the economic situation; it was at the mercy of the industrial interests. In external affairs, it had failed to secure equality in armaments. And now the depression filled up the cup of distress. The question was: Who would succeed the Liberals? The Conservatives under Bruning tried their hand but not with success. They proposed a Customs Union with Austria and alienated France. They ruled by decree and alienated the workers. They outlawed the Nazis and roused their anger. They announced agrarian reform, and the Junkers took up the challenge. So Bruning and the Conservatives had to leave, giving place to the landlords and the militarists. They made a great show; they got reparations wiped out and established resolute government. But the Nazis threatened a military coup and climbed into power in January 1933.

Europe was now in the grip of dictatorship. Let us take note of the situation. The weaknesses of the Left had immobilised the progressive forces. The Centre and the Liberals had never been able to formulate economic policies because of reparations and then of the world crisis. The capitalists and the landowners had held the key positions all along. In fact it was becoming increasingly clear that democracy at no time had been really efficient or satisfactory. It existed on sufferance and expired in the crisis. It survived as long as the industrial and financial interests were able to make concessions; once the depression deprived them of their privileged position, the glove was off. In varying forms all over Europe they captured power and jettisoned democracy.

Thus the triumph of Hitlerism in Germany was the reflection of a general tendency, and the most significant fact, in post-war Europe. For it meant not only the death of an epoch–of Liberalism–but also the triumph of the mailed fist. For Nazism in essence was a passionate revolt against the Liberal ideology; against the Versailles system and the German governments which had accepted and worked it. It rallied to its ranks all the anti-democratic ideas of pre-war and post-war times; it wove several strands of anti-Liberalism into a single rope of reaction. The Liberals had talked of peace, democracy and internationalism; the Nazis stood for war, dictatorship and Germanism. The Liberals had believed in free trade; the Nazis started a drive for autarchy. The Liberals had aimed at pluralism; the Nazis at totalitarianism. Thus in the early stages Nazism ruthlessly liquidated all its opponents, it made its ideal of one race, one nation, one State, one ruler, a brutal reality; it revived the Germanic way of life, the Germanic religion, the idea of the Germanic folk. On the other hand, Nazism in its war with the Socialists had adopted some of their anti-capitalist ideas and so it appealed to large sections of the lower middle class; in its war with the Communists it had adopted their electoral methods and their creed of violent revolution, and so it appeared to be the most forceful party in the Republic. Finally, it came to terms with the leading industrial and landed interests, who saw in its triumph the only alternative to a red revolution. Thus, National Socialism began as a middle class movement and rapidly developed into a government by Big Business twisted and confused only by party radicalism.

Hitler, therefore, became the most explosive factor in Europe and scored a series of dramatic victories. He walked out of the League; he introduced conscription; he got back the Saar; and he concluded a naval agreement with Great Britain.

All these things had immediate repercussions in the other States. The first reactions were violently anti-Nazi. England was horrified at the Jewish persecutions; France opposed the rearmament; and Italy the pan-Germanism. All the three met at Stresa in 1934 and formed an anti-German diplomatic front. Russia, till then outside the pale of Europe, now came into the League in quest of security and formed an alliance with France. All over Europe the Liberals, the Socialists and even the Communists co-operated with the Conservatives and the right-wing in isolating Germany.

But after the first reactions, the situation became clearer. As the depression deepened and as the dangers of social conflict increased, certain sections of the right-wing in England began to view Nazism with less horror and as the only protection against Bolshevism. Mussolini, whose position was similar to that of Hitler, was an unreliable ally. It also became evident that collective security could not be made a reality so long as the League was identified with the status quo and there was no unifying political principle. Italy and Hungary were revisionist; the new States were fanatically anti-revisionist. England was suspicious of Russia; Poland wobbled between Germany and France. It was yet to be seen whether the newfangled concern for the League was genuine or not. Was the League a guardian of international law or an alliance in another form?

The Abyssinian crisis put the Powers to the test. Mussolini had long been plotting a colonial war. He lived on prestige and he could not let Hitler overshadow him. He had to make his dreams of a new Roman Empire a reality. And above all, he had to dazzle his people and obscure the worsening economic conditions at home. He sounded France and England and then went to war with Abyssinia. The Powers were in a fix. France was opposed to the imposition of sanctions by the League because she wanted Italian help against Germany. But in England, the Peace Ballot compelled the Government to take the lead. And the Little States were all eager to test the effectiveness of collective security. Hence sanctions were imposed. But soon the reactionary elements in England and France saw that the sanctions policy if rigorously pursued might mean the end of Mussolini and chaos in Italy, which would have unpleasant reactions elsewhere. The threat to imperial interests was less dangerous than the recrudescence of revolution. So Italy was allowed to conquer Abyssinia and kill collective security in Europe.

The lesson was not lost upon the Nazis and the Fascists. They could count on powerful groups in the democracies to support them, though half-heartedly, provided they did not seriously jeopardise imperial interests, and provided their coups were carefully and diplomatically planned. Hitler and Mussolini met and formed the Rome-Berlin axis. German advance into the East was to be backed by Italy; Italian adventures in the Mediterranean were to have German support. There were many rifts in the lute, but the two Dictators managed to play together or alternately on the same instrument.

On the other hand, the left-wing parties in the democracies were convinced that peace could never be obtained so long as the National Government was in power in England and the Banque controlled the governments in France. If peace abroad and democracy at home were to be secured, the progressive parties had to form a United Front and concentrate on the immediate issues. In France such a front was built up; in England, however, the lack of understanding of the Labour party prevented such an alignment. In Central Europe, democratic States like Czechoslovakia were firmly on the side of collective security and peace; but Yugoslavia and Rumania flirted with the Fascists and the Nazis. Broadly, it was being realised that social justice at home would alone lead to peace abroad and that the fight for both had to be on the national as well as on the international front.

These issues were thrown into sharp relief by the civil war which started in Spain in 1936. In that medieval country a Liberal Government had begun a programme of mild reform and found itself at war with the military, royalist and Fascist elements, strongly backed by Italy and Germany. The civil war in effect was a war of invasion. ‘Volunteers’ from Italy and technicians from Germany helped the rebels to victory; on the other hand the Spanish Government was denied by England and France even its legal right to buy arms, while Russia was able to send only meagre supplies of fighting material. ‘Non-intervention’ in Spain which all the Powers agreed upon became one-sided and tragic, the Dictators intervening and the democrats non-intervening. In fact the Spanish Government was dubbed Bolshevik, and powerful sections of the ruling class in England and France preferred its defeat even to the triumph of the rebels who threatened French imperial interests and British communications in the Mediterranean. But equally powerful conservative groups who saw in collective security the only guarantee of the Empire, and all Democrats and Socialists, realised that the defeat of the Spanish Republic meant the defeat of peace and freedom in Europe.

Thus, conflicting views and opposite interests are confusing the policies of the Powers in Europe. Collective security is gone; alliances and understandings, the methods of power politics, are the only methods left in its place; and they have increased uncertainty and war fever. In March this year when Hitler absorbed Austria, the Powers were divided and could not take united action. And now, over Czechoslovakia the democratic Powers have displayed their real attitude. The Sudeten German problem is one of the many minority problems that distract Central Europe, and till recently not one of the most alarming: the Germans in the Czech Republic were the best treated racial minority in Europe. But when Germany saw that irredentism was the quickest and easiest way of emasculating Czechoslovakia, she fomented the separatist feeling among the Sudeten Germans by ceaseless propaganda and terrorism, and created first class crises in December 1935 and May 1938. The Powers were thus well aware of German intentions. France and Russia entered into an alliance and promised ‘automatic’ support to Czechoslovakia against unprovoked aggression. The Czech State was recognized to be the only bulwark in Central Europe against the Nazi tide. But when it came to the test, the democracies betrayed their ally and preferred compromise with Hitler to co-operation with Russia. Czechoslovakia was dismembered and Germany was given practically all she demanded. It cannot be argued that fear of war was the only thing that weighed with the democratic statesmen. The Little Entente was standing firm; Rumania was building a military Corridor for the passage of Russian troops; and Mussolini was clearly unwilling to undertake new commitments in Europe. The combined armaments of Russia, France and Britain would have cooled the ardour of the Nazis. And it should not be forgotten that it was only the mobilization of the British fleet that actually brought Hitler to reason. But the democracies were in no mood to work with Russia. They joined hands with the Dictatorships in isolating and laying the foundations for a cordon sanitaire around her. They ‘saved’ Europe but bought the peace with dishonour, shame and cowardice–the only currency that the governing classes have begun to use in their dealings with the Fascists and Nazis. And so, parodoxically enough, the Pact of Munich has increased the fear and uncertainty it was designed to allay and has brought Europe to the very edge of the precipice.

Thus the shadow of war hangs over Europe today far more menacingly than in the years before 1914. It is increasing the tempo of rearmament; it is corrupting the minds of the old and poisoning the lives of the young; and everywhere it is leading to a steady deterioration of all standards, which is only another name for the collapse of a civilisation. Peace has become but the suspension of war; crises are now the normal features of European life. No one knows when another world war will come, but every Power is preparing for it. And when that day comes, the war, as Stalin said, will not be declared; it will just begin.

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