MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
EVEN those who earn their living by answering questions, such as the Pythia, Socrates or the men and women employed in Citizen Advice Bureaux, must feel what I believe is called "
frustrated" when often asked a question to which they are unable to respond. Of the many sad or irritating things that happen to us in this angry age, one of the most depressing is to be asked three times a day whether, "honestly," one believes that war is inevitable. This question is not flung at one boldly across the table ; it is not thrown into the conversation as a theme for argument ; it is whispered in an undertone—clandestine, surreptitious, almost conspiratorial. Now even if I had spent the last six years in Moscow, even if I had lived half my life in China or Saigon, I should not, I hope, feel competent to furnish to such a question any firm reply. But since I have never been in the Far East, since I have not visited Russia for the last thirty years, my opinion on the subject is as vague and valueless as that of any waitress in an A.B.C. I have come to the conclusion that those who ask this question do so without any real desire either for information or opinion ; what they want, poor tattered souls, is comfort. Thus when I tell them that " honestly " I have no idea at all, a cloud falls across their features, and they walk off silently, leaving me with a sense that I have proved inadequate, unsympathetic and harsh. I rialise that they have put the question, not because they really believe that I have any secret knowledge of the inner working of the Kremlin mind, but because they suppose that a man who has devoted much of his life to the study and practice of diplomacy, ought to be able to say something to solace their apprehension. In just such a mood do nervous passengers on the Channel packet solicit com- fort from the purser or the man in charge of deck chairs. "A bit blustery today ? " they will enquire, concealing their terror by a tone of marine adventure. "Dirty weather," the sailor will answer, "very dirty indeed." It is the same sort of disappointment that I give to my questioners when I tell them that " honestly " I have no idea at all.
The sense of impotence is not, I admit, an agreeable feeling. Nobody enjoys being borne like a twig towards the waterfall, twist- ing and twirling in the rush of waters, coming to rest for a moment against a projecting boulder, and then twirled off again into the quicker eddies towards the horrible abyss. Twigs on such occasions seek to persuade themselves that somehow, somewhere, there exrst beneficent protectors, called "statesmen," who with potent calcu- lation are watching from the hank, ready to rescue and redeem the twig before it goes too far. It is unpleasant to reflect that the protectors are also splashing in the cataract ; are also, for all their exhortations, being borne along; and that even if at moments they touch bottom, the stones are very slippery beneath their feet. Yet although it is impossible to assure the nervous enquirer that whereas the weather may seem boisterous in Dover harbour it will be calm and clear outside, it is possible, without saying dishonest things, to afford him some grains of encouragement. It is true that both the initiative and the final decision rest, not with us and our associates, but with the twelve or thirteen men who, in the guarded recesses of the Kremlin, constitute the Politburo. Yet it is unlikely that these men, even when this year's harvest has been gathered, will really wish to provoke a general war. Acquired strength and constant conciliation may succeed in postponing catastrophe ; and a catastrophe postponed is often one averted. Nor can any system, however powerfully organised, withstand eternally the terrific strains to which the Russian system is increasingly exposed.
It is an idle pastime to speculate about the intentions of people whom one does not understand. It is not only that the rulers of Russia have acquired habits of thinking that. are different from ‘)tir own habits: it is that they possess totally dissimilar minds. It ,ould have been of little avail to Constantine Palaeologus had he
been instructed by a psychologist regarding the fixations of Mohammed the Conqueror ; it would have been far better for him to fill his granaries and cisterns and to man his walls. We can read the works of the founding fathers of Communism and derive therefrom the same sort of warnings as we ought to have derived from a careful study of Mein Kampf. But it is still more relevant to reflect that even the most fanatical conquerors have hesitated to provoke a war that they were certain to lose ; and to realise that the resources of the Western World, if properly developed and fused, can render us invincible. It seems to me a wasteful expenditure of mental energy to stek to probe what is at the back of the Russians' mind ; their minds are impenetrable ; it would be better to leave them in no doubt as to what is at the back of our own minds. Meanwhile we can at least avoid arousing in ourselves unnecessary states of inferiority. I am enraged, for instance, when people remark to me that when it comes to diplomacy or propaganda the Russians have us beat all the time. "The worst of these Russians," I have heard it said, "is that they are so devilish clever." Are they ? Resolute doubtless, intensely convinced, well versed in dialectics, ingenious in a way, indefatigable in the pursuit of their own projects —but assuredly not clever diplomatists according to any correct definition of those terms.
The aim of sound diplomacy, as I have so often insisted, is the maintenance of amicable relations between sovereign States. Once diplomacy is employed to provoke international animosity, it ceases to be diplomacy and becomes its opposite, namely war by another name. The methods of sound diplomacy are similar to those of sound banking, that is the creation of confidence and the establish- ment of credit. Once these methods are used to destroy confidence and to shatter credit they cease to be diplomatic methods and become something else. If you play billiards with a man and he slips the red ball into his trousers-pocket, he undoubtedly succeeds in stultify- ing your own skill and bringing the game to an end: but it is not correct to say that he is better at billiards than you are. Even those who admit these facts are apt to complain that we are being worsted at the diplomatic game, and to suggest that it is high time that we imitated the methods of the Russians and started a little cunning on our own. This seems to me a deleterious suggestion for two reasons. In the first place, we and our associates do not possess an equally unlimited capacity for the distortion of truth ; there would always come a moment when we hesitated to tell the whop.- ping lie. In the second place, we should thereby be sacrificing our greatest asset, our essential doctrine, namely the belief that man- kind is in the end guided by reason. Credit is a most precious possession, and not one that should be jettisoned to gain a trick. The time may come when the Russians actually want to be believed, even as a time came when Hitler actually wanted to be believed. It will be then that they will search desperately for some fund of credit, only to find that it has been dissipated by an orgy of untruthfulness in the past. No, I do not believe that we should emulate the Russian methods. Our imitation would be most amateurish and in the end it would not pay.
The same principle applies to propaganda. I am prepared to admit that Russian propaganda, especially in Asia, succeeds in fooling most of the people most of the time. But if we consider for one moment why our foreign propaganda in the two last wars was so successful, we must recognise that it was because it was a contrast to, and not an imitation of, the emotional indoctrination of our opponents. I hope, therefore, that we shall not add to our many necessary preoccupations by worrying unduly about our diplomatic or propaganda methods. We have good cause to feel weak from other aspects, but not from this. Certainly there is dirty weather outside the harbour-mouth ; we cannot change the weather ; but we can see that the ship is strong and sound.
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