A WAR OF DOCTRINES IN EUROPE?
By PROFESSOR GUGLIELMO FERRERO "
In the countries governed on the representative system, the doctrines which provided the foundations for this regime have been completely forgotten. There are free countries in Europe not because there exist• peoples believing in the doctrine of liberalism but because in all the States with representative government respect for law and order is still strong enough to be proof against revolutionary attempts from right or left. As for Fascism and Nazism, it is an insult to the intelligence to call them doctrines. They are simply mystifications created to cloak and justify grossly arbitrary and tyrannical regimes. Europe is too completely bankrupt, morally and intel- lectually, to be still capable of a war of doctrines. It is indisputable, none the less, that the relations between most of the great States of Europe are bad. Under apparently correct diplomatic relations lurk suspicion and mistrust, sombre hostility, vague alarms. Why ? Because Europe is today divided into three groups of -States, differing in organisation, each of which con- stitutes by its mere existence a threat to the others. The existence of a Communist Government at Moscow is a menace to every State where the capitalist regime pre- vails. The existence of free democracies is a: menace both to Russian Communism and to totalitarian dictatorships like Fascism and Nazism. These totali- tarian dictatorships are a menace to Communism and free democracies.
The violent orations which leading figures in the German and Russian Governments have hurled at each other recently have caused general astonishment. Nothing in fact is easier to explain. The Moscow Government knows that the White Russians gave considerable help to the National Socialist Party in its struggle for power, and that they still exercise an effective influence over it. It knows that industrial and banking circles are powerful at Berlin, and that there is a desire in these circles not for the conquest of part of Russia but for the re-estab- lishment in Russia of the capitalist regime, whieh would reopen to the industry, the commerce and the capital of Germany, the immense outlet of the Russian market. How could they fail to consider the Government of Berlin as a permanent danger ? The Moscow Government on its side is a permanent danger to Nazism. Marxism has made a deep impression in Germany for almost a century. It would be childish to suppose that it has disappeared completely after four years of National Socialism. A considerable part of Germany remains, and will remain, Marxist, and for this part of Germany the existence of a collectivist regime in Russia is a hope to cling to, a powerful incentive to persistence, in its silent, untiring opposition.. As long as this silent opposition continues, the Nazi regime inevitably remains vulnerable.
By an . analogous psychological phenomenon, the exis- tence of free democracies, like Switzerland, France, Britain and Belgium, is a perpetual danger to Fascism and Nazism. The two totalitarian Governments may repeat daily that Italy and Germany are better off today than they have ever been. The truth is that Italy and Germany are miserably badly off. and that, they know perfectly well that in Switzerland and France, in England, in all free countries, life is far better worth living. They know that in these countries there exists not merely liberty but much more wealth, more justice, a higher standard of private and public morality, in short, far more happiness than under the totalitarian regime. 'Almost every week I come across sonic Italian, who, after a short stay in Switzerland or France, has to go back to Italy. All of them go back in a state verging on despair, like people condemned to prison.
As long as there exist free democracies in Europe, Fascism and Nazism will be exposed to the disintegrating influences emanating from the example of the relative prosperity which the free regimes enjoy. But the totali- larian regime.c are beginning to become themselves a danger to the free democracies. Since Fascism established itself in Germany, Fascist movements have developed in all the free countries. They owe their development partly to the encouragement and support they receive from the Fascist countries, for which the weakening and downfall of the democracies is a vital necessity. These movements and the support they receive are not as yet • an actual danger anywhere under any democracy, but they already create difficulties and complications. They may become an actual danger if the economic crisis grows more acute and if France and Britain continue to display vacillation and weakness in their international policy.
That is why the whole of Europe today is in a state of potential conflict. It is a grave situation, which is capable of resulting in devastating wars, even though every State in Europe is anxious to preserve peace. The history of the nineteenth century offers us in this respect a precedent little known but highly disturbing -7- the situation created in Italy between France and Austria by the Treaty of Campoformio, signed in October, 1797. By this treaty Austria and France divided northern Italy between them. France had founded the Cisalpinc Repub- lic, and Austria had taken almost all of the territory of the Venetian Republic. The two States believed they had made peace, and desired only to live in peace, each of them keeping possession of what it had acquired.
What in fact happened ? Under the protectorate of France, a revolutionary government formed itself in Cisalpina, which proceeded to laicise society and the State, to suppress the religious Congregations and to abolish the privileges of the nobility. In Venetia, on the other. hand, Austria maintained the institutions of the aneien regime, but the revolutionary regime in Cisalpina and the ancien regime in Venetia soon became a menace to each other. In Cisalpina, the conservative elements which' hated the Revolution turned to Austria as their salvation, and began to plot and intrigue in her favour. In Venetia, all the revolutionary elements, which would have liked a government like that of Cisalpina, turned towards France and began to intrigue in her favour, with a view to establish a revolutionary government with French support. Out of all that grew a situation so dis- turbing for the two States that a few years after the con- clusion of the treaty of peace F.canec and Austria began fighting again in spite of the ardent desire for peace animating both governments, and went on fighting, till Waterloo. The Peace of Campoformio gave birth to a war of eighteen years.'
Is that tragedy to be repeated in Europe on a far more tremendous scale ?
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