The Evening Star (April 15, 1946)
ON THE RECORD —
The real menace to peace
By Dorothy Thompson
You see, we don’t know what to do about Franco, because the issue is not Franco any more than the previous issue was Iran, or before that Indonesia, or Greece, or Bulgaria, or Romania.
At every U.N. session it is charged that a situation here or there is a “menace to peace.” And U.N. is presented as laboring valiantly to settle all these menaces to peace, for, as we are attempting to prove at Nuernberg, to menace the peace is a crime.
But no one thinks that Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, or Franco-Spain are going to wage war. No, not even if German scientists in Spain are working on the atom – as German scientists in Russia, and in the United States, also are. For with or without atomic bombs, Spain could never win a war without allies in Europe or America, and the power on the European continent against which, or without which, no Spanish government could wage war is the Soviet Union.
There is, behind all the debate, no consideration for the people of Spain, as there never has been, on the part of any of the great powers, consideration for the history, interests or predilections of the people of any part of the world. The Soviets want Franco out of Spain, lest an anti-Communist government might one day be used by Britain and America against the Soviets; the British, especially, fear that if Franco is overthrown, the heir might be the Spanish Communists, which would put a Russian satellite at Gibraltar and in North Africa with inevitable repercussions on France.
The menace to peace has thus only one source, the struggle of the great powers who alone can wage war, and whose every policy is being made from a power viewpoint, except for the United States, whose policies appear to have no viewpoint, but to be determined by rule of thumb on the spur of every moment.
The problem of Franco, like the problem of Germany, France, Italy, or Yugoslavia, is inseparable from the problem of Europe. Had we entered the war, with a concept of the future of Europe from a view of European culture, history, political and economic necessities and possibilities, we might, in triumph, have raised a banner to which the wise and the just would repair. We could, conceivably, also, have reached an understanding with the Soviet Union, for instance, for a European socialism strengthened by federalism and westernized by liberty.
But the American mind, for a full generation, has been repudiating abstract thought in favor of a cheap pragmatism and relativity. Only in the physical sciences, and the technology which derives from them, have we been creating bodies of principle and exact thought. Thus, we can disintegrate the atom but have no notion of principles necessary to integrate societies in an atomic world. We have demonstrated utter incapacity to sense or implement historical trends, or foresee the results of policies. Our European approach has been negative – anti-Fascist, but pro-nothing.
The Russians, on the other hand, approach every problem in terms of almost mathematical equations, formulated through abstract political syllogisms. One such syllogism is:
A dynamic and goal-conscious minority can always override a disoriented majority.
Disorientation (chaos) serves the dynamic minority.
Therefore, disorientation (chaos) should be promoted.
The antithesis between the Anglo-American, or Western world, and the Soviet Union, might have produced a synthesis, but only on the presumption that the West had a thesis and that all three wished to recreate Europe as a civilization and “Politis.”
But the West has had no thesis except a vague hope that somehow victory would restore the prewar status quo – without Germany – a hope which could not sustain 10 minutes of rigorous thought. The Soviet Union, moving against purely rhetorical obstacles, has no thesis except to drive Anglo-American influences out of Europe, and create an international feudalism of vassal states paying tribute to the Communist Rome and Mecca.
Europe is thus polarized between the Soviets and the Anglo-American powers, with the Soviets winning through clarity of aim, while the magnetic European attractions to the West bounce back from a political, intellectual, and moral vacuum, a state of affairs which is creating a total loss of European political consciousness.
Every country is fearful of its peace from one side or the other of the great powers. Their dichotomy alone menaces peace, order, and evolution toward democratic freedom and humane civilization.
How utterly unprincipled – in the exact sense of the word – the great power struggle has become is demonstrated by the fact that while Poland (Russia) presses for a break with Franco, a Soviet trade mission to Bueno Aires opens negotiations with Peron, incidentally, with a view to re-establishing diplomatic relations severed for 15 years.