Commonwealth and Foreign .
EX-PRESIDENT MASARYK
By DR. R. W. SETON-WATSON
THOMAS MASARYK was an altogether unique figure in the history of our times—the living proof that there still are nations which consciously choose a leader, not for his belief in brute force or his propagandist gifts, but on a basis of sheer character, and of the persuasiveness that springs not merely from conviction, but from clear thinking and planning—in other words, not a fanatic who must be obeyed, but a calm realist, shaping his action according to what is humanly attainable, and thus kindling his willing followers to a supreme act of national faith.
In the apt phrase of Mr. Nowell Smith, Masaryk came nearer than any contemporary ruler to the old Greek ideal of the Philosopher-King. He had that rarest of all gifts, the capacity to translate into practice the moral and political theories which he had taught all his life. If at the age of 64 he became the mouthpiece of a whole people in what still seemed to most outsiders an utterly forlorn hope, and then at 68 entered as it were upon an entirely new career of 17 years as their almost unchallenged chief, this was only possible because he had known how to identify himself with an old national tradition and was the true spiritual successor of Huss and Comenius and of the men who made the Czech national renaissance of last century.
Masaryk was emphatically true to type, and this must always be the point of departure for any understanding of the man and his work. And surely it is a matter of high significance, worthy of emphasis in these days of crisis, that there should be in the very centre of Europe—that " fortress created by God Himself " of which no other than Bismarck once spoke— a people which has through the centuries as a rule chosen as its special heroes, not successful soldiers or statesmen, but thinkers and scholars, sometimes doomed to martyrdom or exile, often not living to see the ripe fruit on the vine of their planting, but standing firm in the cause of spiritual and political liberty.
Thomas Masaryk owed nothing to birth and little to external fortune. The son of a Slovak coachman on one of the Imperial estates, he made his way by sheer merit, and after a teaching apprenticeship in Vienna, was appointed in the early 'eighties to the Chair of Philosophy at the revived Czech University of Prague. This early formative period of his career is vividly described in a literary masterpiece of Karel tapek—President Masaryk Tells his Story—the fruit of many intimate conversations.
For 3o years he was one of the dominant influences upon successive generations of students, not only among the Czechs, but from almost all the Slav nations—an austere figure, devoted to plain living and high thinking, eschewing alcohol and tobacco, almost courting unpopularity and misunder- standing by his gallant espousal of desperate causes. Three classic examples of this attitude may be quoted. His exposure of certain much vaunted early Czech ballads as impudent though skilful modern forgeries earned him wild abuse from the super-patriots, but was proof against every challenge. His championship of an unfortunate Jew, on trial for the infamous myth of " ritual murder," was fiercely resented in that extreme clerical and anti-semite milieu which was to give birth to Adolf Hitler and Julius Streicher. Mean- while his abandonment of Catholicism for somewhat " broad " Protestant views rendered him still further suspect in clerical circles, where his striking book on Suicide as a Social Phenomenon was stupidly denounced as subversive of religion, though long ere now its essentially constructive character has come to be recognised.
Experiences such as these drove him, reluctantly enough, in the direction of politics. He founded a progressive weekly, then a daily paper which never attained a mass circulation, but soon won the attention of the now rapidly growing Czech intellectual class : and at last he was elected to the Austrian Parliament, as the leader of a small group of " Realists " who represented a reaction against high-flying nationalism and affirmation of " Bohemian State rights and were ready for practical constructive national and social work within the framework of the Austrian constitution. It is the measure of the feebleness of Austrian pre-War statesmanship that no real effort was ever made to conciliate or win over men like Masaryk or his great rival Krarnaf, neither of whom ever dreamt of secession from Austria, until the supreme crisis of world-War prompted desperate measures.
On Masaryk's role in the War it is less necessary to dwell : his own record in The Making of a State, and the no less remarkable War Memoirs of President Benesh, are known to many English readers. It once more shows his " realism," that he spent the first few months informing himself at first hand of the true situation in belligerent and neutral countries and seeking " inside " answers to the vital question of the duration of the War, since upon that must depend the tactics to be adopted by the Czech national movement. He was not prepared to risk the whole future of his people without being reasonably sure that the War could not end without the downfall of the Habsburg Monarchy : but the mistakes of her statesmen and the intransigeance of her High Command soon united all Czechs in at least passive resistance to Vienna and thus provided the motive force for Masaryk's agitation abroad.
Meanwhile his long studies of Russian psychology and history had convinced him that it would be a fatal blunder to rely blindly on Russian help. He not merely doubted Russia's ability to solve such questions as that of Czechoslovak independence, but realised that the first requisite was to convince the Western Allies, and not least of all America, of the soundness of his programme, and of the contribution which the Czechoslovaks could make to the common cause. Hence he and his able lieutenants Benesh and Stefan* (astronomer, airman and patriot) took up strategic positions in Paris, London and Rome, kept their fingers constantly on the Allied pulse and after the Russian Revolution were actually able to create a new volunteer army of legionaries out of the Czech and Slovak prisoners on the Eastern front. He himself went to Russia in the summer of 1917 and shared the memorable Czech Anabasis across Siberia. Finally he reached Washington at a critical period in 1918 and helped materially to shape Wilson's views of the future peace settle- ment. This needs special emphasis : for it was the successive notes addressed by Wilson to Vienna during October, 1918 which above all precipitated the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy and cleared the way for almost bloodless transfers of power to the new national States of the Danubian area.
In 1918 Masaryk, though still in America, overshadowed all other candidates for the Presidency of the new State, and the honorary title of " President-Liberator," conferred on him at his final retirement in 1935, is the true equivalent of " Pater Patriae." In these 17 years his influence has been immense in every sphere of life—in guiding the deliberations of the first Assembly, in drafting the new constitution and creating a new bureaucracy, in assuring due respect for minority rights, in steering through the rapids of land reform and finding a new basis for the relations of church and State, above all, perhaps, in maintaining continuity of foreign policy under his worthy pupil, colleague and successor Benesh. But all these varied activities may be summed up in a single tendency—the constant promotion of a constructive and disciplined democracy, of a nation peace-loving, God- fearing, capable of living on honourable terms. with all its neighbours, free M _speech and thought, but always alert for the defence of its liberties.
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