The World After Two Wars

...If the latter be true, it is equally true that the defeat of Nazism and Fascism has made the United States, the British Commonwealth and other democratic countries "safe for democracy," with a great opportunity, if properly embraced, to make it safe for the world...

...The decisive phase of America's relations with Soviet Russia ia ahead of us...

...Our first task is that of discovering a method for bringing about adequate interchange of thought on the high level needed...

...And it would not be surprising if before long we should see his agenta in America again clamoring, as they did during the period of the Stalin-Hitler pact, fur < non-intervention by this country abroad, in line with the ultimate objectives of Soviet foreign policy and the logic of the new Communist line in this country...

...There are occasions when "realpolitik" becomes reactionary utopianism...

...Why, then, encourage a repetition of the* tragic mistake committed by thin country twenty-five years ago a imply because the totalitarian USSR, under Stalin's leadership, has moved or is moving into the power vacuums inevitably created by the defeat of Nazi Cermany and Japan...

...THIS reviewer has no sympathy with "realpolitiker" who ridicule "perfectionists'* in foreif ? policy and are all too ready to follow the line of appeasement for the sake of Allied "unity," always with a bow in the direction of Joseph Stalin...

...A war that began on the dizzy heights of a perhaps exaggerated idealism is ending in a morass of the crudest and most cynical power politics...

...Wa know that it will take many years of collaborative thinking to be able to suggest adequate remedial steps for the ills of our civilization...

...It* intellectual Iradert can help by overcoming temptation* to eet themielve* againtt each other, by learning to labor and think together for the common good ef the human race and itt civilization...

...There can be no quarrel with his "perfectionism" as a basic program, as a "program maximum," as an expression of ultimate needs and ideal % but the manner in which he states his conclusion is subject to grave misunderstanding...

...Had this been the case, Hitler might never have risen to power, despite the encouragement given his movement by Moscow through its instrument, the Cerraan Communist Party...

...This needs to be supplemented by more intensive atudiet and exchanges of thought worked out in broader collaboration by individuals from the various disciplines and varied backgrounds of experience...

...Facts are stubborn things, as the saying ? nes, and Chamberlin drives home well the point that this country, the greatest and most powerful factor in the world, cannot hope to formulate, let alone pursue, a fruitful foreign policy without a thorough understanding of the facts...

...intellectual Cooperation in tbe last analysis, to be well fed, while the rest of the world starves, ia both wicked and foolish...

...There it no culture in tha present world which is adequately adapted toward the establishment of world peace...

...it ha3 iiiaJe them more urgent Mankind is seeking the way to cooperation...

...Chamberlin's thinking which vitiates the value of his book...

...Or, having achieved power, he might well have hesitated to throw the world into another holocaust had he not made himself secure in the East through his pact with Stalin in August, 1939, and had he not been convinced that under no circumstances would the United States again become involved in a European conflict...

...Chamberlin presents a clear and incontrovertible picture of the world as it appears after two great wars and the revolutionary upheavals of our time...

...Bet the opposite may also be true: in our search for a better world we may, if we are not careful in stressing the line of principle, thwart our own best purposes...

...Chamberlin, in his chapters dealing with this question, shows us the nature and importance of the problem with the clarity and understanding of his writings on this subject...

...Chamberlin makes this amply clear in his book with a convincing array of evidence...

...It is on this point that one must challenge his thesis...

...Nor is he himself wholly pessimistic of 'a possible positive turn in the relations of the USSR with the democratic world, although, properly, he warns against illusions on this point, considering the nature of the Russian totalitarian regime and its failure, to date, to adapt itself honestly to the needs, the rights and aspirations of other nations, and to the true and vital interests of the Russian people themselves...

...Nothing would please Stalin more than the return of the United States to isolationism...

...The same will remain true in the future, even more so, after the demonstration of decisive power exhibited by this country in the determination of the present struggle...

...The release of atomic energy has not abolished our continuing moral problems...

...How tragic it would be to witness the democratic opponents of Stalinism in this country playing into his hands aimply because they are disappointed at our failure to leap overnight from l lie realm of necessity—the necessity of Kusso-American military collaboration in this war, with its largely inevitable measure of "appeasement" — into the realm of world freedom...

...The Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion has pioneered in thit collective thinking...

...We cannot bomb ourselves into physical security or moral unity...

...Above all, one welcomes his tocsin warnings against failure to recognize the true nature and aims of totalitarianism, his emphasis on the need for our rededication to the ideals of democracy, his call for a positive foreign policy as distinguished from superficial "realpolitik," his thrusts against misleading propaganda, and his demand fur a more frank relatu nihip between the government and the people on vital questions of foreign affairs...

...The problem of educating ourselves, so that we can help educate other nations, to such a love of peaceful pursuit's and goals as will make the possession of vast power by our generation an asset rather than a liability, can be solved only through the kind of collective thinking that helped produce the power-weapons themselves...

...The task before as it admittedly complicated and difficult...

...Chamberlin himself admits this, although he contends, quite erroneously, that American isolationism had no part in the picture, that all the causes of World War ? «ara concentrated elsewhere...

...But we believe that the persistent pursuit of these studies, together with the continual emphasis on the goals to be sought, will in the end prove valuable...

...With the one serious exception to what Chamberlin haa to say on the threat of a .revival of American isolationism after ' the war,' this reviewer finds his book a most timely and authoratative contribution to an understanding of the international situation and its perspectives...

...The American people must l>e told the farts as they are, but they must also learn that the road to a better world, in the light of the bitter realities, is not likely to be smooth, that the "program maximum," which we must always keep before our eyes, will not be achieved hy a maximalist approach to the problem...

...The chapters dealing with the consequences of the war, the shift in world power forces, the relative positions of England, Russia and the United States, the problems of the Far East and the tasks confronting this country in that theatre are masterpieces of clear and factual presentation and analysis, done in the best Chamberlin manner...

...Only ao can wa hope to solve our present-day problema of collective thinking and cultural reorientation...

...rightly disturbed by the fact that a war that is "supposedly being fought against totalitarianism'' haa "made the first of the totalitarian states, the Soviet Union, the strongest land power in Europe and in Asia...

...Tha errors which we committed after the First World War, and which led to tha Second, were not mere mistakes of judgment...

...Then, indeed, would the main obstacle to his world triumph, the influenca and power of the United 8tatea and Angla...

...But intellectual persuasion alone will not chanjre the attitude of our people on such issues...

...The problem with which we are dealing Is, by ita very nature, endless...

...The effort ef religious teachers to transform culture into such a force hat been only partially successful...

...Apart from Hitlerism as the immediate cause of this war, it should be made clear to all that Russian Bolshevism and American isolationism contributed most to the catastrophe: Bolshevism by deliberately deepening the social and political crisis after 1918 on the principle of "the worse the better," and American isolationism by'making impossible the complete, affirmative, consistent and timely intervention on the side of the anti-war forces before the forces of evil had gained the upper hand...

...It is this dualism in Mr...

...If generally accepted, it may serve to encourage the very forces which would welcome a recrudescence of violent isolationism in this country as quite suitable to their achemes...

...Our educators are in the moat violent disagreement among themselves on basic issues regarding education...

...But is It not rather early to pronounce this as a final judgment, a judgment recalling the fatal ridicule heaped upon the Wileonian conception of the first World War as a war to make the world safe for democracy ? Contrary to the propaganda of pacifists and misguided liberals, the first World War did broaden the vistas and opportunities for democracy in many lands, including Russia and Germany...

...The very presence of the United States in the League of Nations, determined to throw its weight against an aggressor, would alone, in all probability, have sufficed to maintain the peace...

...They were developed as a result of deep-seated passions, rooted in our training, just at the patsiont of the Germans and the Japanese, which have led to their undoing, are rooted in their training...

...There is no use telling the American people that isolationism as a national policy ia no longer tenable, as does Chamberlin, while at the same time giving encouragement, albeit indirectly, to a return to the old ways...

...It was the cynicism and disillusionment propagated with respect to these vistas and opportunities, the failure to take advantage of them, which contributed so materially to World War II...

...And he does it, in the main, with the usual lucidity and respect for facts which has won him such deserved recognition from honest and well-informed students of world affairs...

...One cannot accept this contention without absolving this country of the terrible responsibility it will incur should it again turn ita back upon the world in the situation in which it now finds itself, regardless of the provocations...

...It has extended the realm of totalitarianism to include large areas of Eastern and probably Central Europe, and, in all likelihood, much of East Asia...

...A former "isolationist" (with a bit of noataglia for the isolationist position), he accepts the need and inevitability of America's participation in the task of rescuing this bleeding world from its present tragic estate and of averting another catastrophe, but at the same time he points out, with apparent approval, that unless the world accepts and implements the program and principles of a truly democratic reconstruction as conceived by this country, the American people may again retreat to their old isolationist policy...

...Stalin haa always considered "Anglo-American imperialism" the principal stumbling block to the victory of world Communism...

...From the point of view of these faiths, much of western life remains "pagan" to this day, in the aensa that it is still directed toward power over other men and placet its trutt in power, rather than in justice, faith and charity...

...Chamberlin is...

...Had the perversity of human beings not interfered, had the democracies— and the democrats of the leading countries—taken a more positive view of events and pursued constructive policies, the world would have been made safe for democracy and World War II might well have been averted...

...No ona now living knows how to deal with the problems of educating a whole people to the type of responsibility which Is falling upon, us...

...American cooperation, be removed...