Six,—May I add a few comments to your admirable article
last week? The Fifth Column is definitely a new phase of politico- military strategy and its development is due to Hitler's peculiar nature. He is a politician and revolutionary par excellence who evaluates all plans and results in terms of politics and applies to war the theory of revolutions. Unlike the ordinary revolutionary, however, who utilises the explosive forces of the moment, Hitler has developed the doctrine of the long-term revolution which thus has the atmosphere of the inevitability of gradualness. His basic principle is that his revolution must succeed because the regimes opposed to it have no real will to survive, and step by step abdicate their authority by temporising, compromising, Ste., and never coming to grips with the fundamental ideological issue until too late. Thus to him "total war" is the utilisation of all forces within and without a given State to encompass the above end, and the last stage is Blitzkrieg—the sudden complete paralysis of any force of opposition which may be left. Thus the main danger of " Quislings " springs first from those who feel themselves frustrated or misunderstood in a given system and consider that the new ideas stirring abroad will give them greater scope—because they feel that the old regime is abdicating. Some of these may become conscious—even if misguided—helpers
of Hitler; most however, are unconscious—i.e., in pursuit of their egotistic or warped ideas and aims they become the tools of highly skilled agents who are expert in the technique of the modern revolution. They may not even be directly in touch with these agents, but are merely encouraged through intermediaries to indulge their particular foibles, which create obstruction or undermine co-operative effort just in the way most suitable for total war. This may be termed the first phase : the second is that of more active treachery due to increasing fear built up by the continued success and growing might of the Nazi revolution—is the apparent vindication of the " inevitability of gradualness "- this effect is undoubtedly cumulative. A conclusion seems to be that the majority of potential " Quislings " are to be sought. rather among those who had little contact with Nazis than the reverse.
—Yours faithfully, M. ZVEGINTZOV. 16 Hammersmith Terrace, London, W. 6.
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