Page:The War and the Future.djvu/17

 is the collaboration of the rich, of the business-as-usual people all over Europe. These prosper; they make profits; buy in the black market; carouse at Monte Carlo, while the people are starving and become the sacrifice of Germany's planned conspiracy to weaken and to ruin them morally and physically.

I repeat: in the eyes of Western conservative capitalism, fascism was simply the bulwark against Bolshevism and against everything which was understood by the word. Every abomination which fascism perpetrated internally was accepted without the realization that its external correlate was war. Perhaps there was no objection even to that. In France, for example, war and defeat were the means of overthrowing the Republic and of bringing about the "national," or fascist revolution. The fascist regimes were braced by the foreign powers, for in the wildest chaos, in disregard of justice and destruction of culture, they professed to see order, beauty and security—security not for the people but from the people, security against all social progress. With a semblance of justice the dictators could shout: "What do these people mean? Why are they suddenly making war on us? Were they not openly or secretly our protectors and abettors? They placed us in the saddle and secured us in it, by financing us, praising us, flattering us: they offered us on a platter the external successes with which we annihilated our internal opposition. Surely they don't mean it. They have no intention of destroying fascism. Secretly, they wish to preserve it. They are fighting half-heartedly with indistinct aims, the indecision of their wills is our protection. To be sure, they are slowly getting the upper hand on the battlefield but, if only we continue the war as long as possible, the inner differences between the Allies will come to an open break and we shall profit by it. We shall play the East against the West and avoid an unconditional surrender."

They are mistaken and their hopes will be crushed.. Certainly there are differences of ideology and world policy between Russia and its allies, but this war is amongst other things a means of conciliating these differences—a conciliation between socialism and democracy upon which rests the hope 17