Restoration of Democracy
EINAUDI, MARIO
Books in Review Restoration of Democracy Review by MARIO EINAUDI ITALY AND THE COMMING WORLD. It,, Luxgi Sim to. Intr [actio* by Sumner Welles. XIII - >3 pages. Roy Publishers, New...
...The tendency has been quite common in Europe during the last few months for public authorities, legitimate or otherwise, to issue decrees providing for the automatic division among the peasants of all land falling within certain purely arithmetical categories, and of the probable steps which the state will then take in the name of the so-called national interest...
...He is quite outspoken in his condemnation of the more ruthless manifestations of what he calls exploiting capitalism.' Monopolies have to be broken up...
...for- instance, as to .the re-education of the Germans by the Germans themselves, and an to the dangers of an alien rule for' the development of a nation...
...so Seydewitz simply guesses that the people felt precisely what he would have liked them to feel...
...In the summer of 1944 the Socialists, the Communists and the Christian democrats, Don Sturso's own party, agreed on a single general confederation of labor...
...I do not know whether Ferenc Mol-nar's book will be put on the best seller's list in this country...
...Cooperatives a'nd other efforts at self-government in economic life must be encouraged...
...In the field of agrarian reform, Don Sturzo tries to remove the issue from the field of political competition to the field of cold technical analysis of all the factors involved...
...Ferenc Molnar directs a powerful searchlight on the events he writes about and sometimes forces the reader to aee very sad things...
...The rights of organized labor must be protected...
...But the flight of his imagination does not stop at this point He maintains in all seriousness that in the closing stage of the war "a majority of the German people was openly participating in the fight against the Nazis...
...This book has to be read, and I do not want to deprive anybody of the pleasure of reading it...
...A Sad, Human and Great Novel Review by CHRISTINE GAULLE FAREWELL MY HEART, a novel by Ferme Molnaf...
...Apparently, some difficulties have already arisen, ber- use of the fact that this volume doe n't fall into the category of the either-or-books...
...He lays all responsibility for the collapse of the Welwar Republic on the Social Democratic leaders and makes the reader believe that the Communists favored a united anti-Nazi front, without once mentioning that the Communists actually had formed a united front with the Nazis which atep by step undermined the foundations of the Weimar Republic...
...The same diff cutties have been met by those who have tried to explain tho meaning of the New Deal...
...The Story .,I the Home Front...
...It is to be hoped th t the same reception will be aeeor1 the American edition of the book a- I that a serious effort will be made to understand the full implications of the thought of this veteran defender of freedom and democracy...
...Roy Publishers, New Tor «.3.50...
...The journalist falls in lovo with her at first sight Although aha offers him her love frsnkly and consistently, he tries to escape her, as he has a strange feeling of impending tragedy, a feeling of his certain death as a result of his love for her...
...There is no doubt that, in his discussion of economic problems, Don Sturzo bad to face the difficulty of all those who, while anxious to do away, or control for the public benefit, the practices of monopolistic capitalism, yet are fearful of calling into being another dragon, with features even more horrifying than the one which has just been slain...
...Where Don Stufxo's sympathies lie it is not difficult to understand...
...In such countries capital has not been abolished—as those infatuated by what they do not know, believe to be the case in Russia — hut capital has passed in moat eases from the hands of private interests into those of the state, that is, of a class holding all the powers of the state, . . . This cumulation abolishes first of all Ihe play of forces limiting wealth in regard to power, and power in regard to wealth, and facilitates the collapse of the moral barriers whkh in every society should render power and wealth less harmful in the hands of their possessors...
...I do not want, however, to tell the whole story...
...To big business, it has called forth the ghost of the totalitarian state...
...by unsettling agitation and improvised demogogy...
...This young girl, Edith Caal, is neither beautiful nor intelligent, yet she has an irresistible attraction which affects every man sha meets...
...But he cannot escape...
...And he deals with them with penetrating insight...
...It ia n sad, but also a very great, a very human book...
...It would be folly to impoverish the country...
...Don Sturzo wisely remarks that "it is one thing to promote a great long-term reform, and another to impair or upset the structure of landed property, at a moment when agricultural production must be brought to a maximum to meet the urgent needs of the country...
...In the first World War there were at least great strikes and other signs of a weakening of morale in the last wax year which were entirely absent in the second war...
...It is easy to damn a bad book, especially a bad novel...
...Price $2.00...
...What Don Sturzo wants to achieve above everything else is a restoration of the processes of freedom, of mutual tolerance, of a willingness to compromise and debate...
...He ia not strong enough...
...But he is also great novelist, perhaps one of the greatest of our time...
...If Socialists, liberal democrats, Christian democrats and Communists . . . come to an agreement on a plan of agrarian reforms which does not carry the label of any party but is the outcome of sound tech-, nical and social studies, Italy would be better served than by the untimely declamations of revolutionary idealists...
...Fercnc Molnar is mostly known in this country as the author of several Broadway hits: Liliom, The Guardsman, The Swan, and several others, seventeen in all...
...This was a h- ilthy indication of the hunger of Italian readers for a dispassionate analysis of their country's problems, a discussion which attempted to grasp the fundament•>' issues involved in the process of Italy's reconstruction, rather than be satisfied with the superficial approach common to so many present-day publicist...
...Seydewitz begins his historical analysis...
...Fascism is gone, but the danger of new forms of totalitarianism has not disappeared...
...Later, in the winter of 1949 to 1943, it turned out unfortunately that "the masses, who had seemed ready for action, once more bowed before the terror...
...Also with regard to the practice being cQrrently fostered in Europe, of various "united" fronts in different fields, Don Stutzo shows a reserved attitude...
...But the author has succeeded in convincing at least himself of the correctness of bis theory by a curious device...
...It shall not be denied that there are also a few commendable suggestions in Seydewitz' book...
...VIII end 444 pages...
...Throughout the entire Nasi period the same mysterious "masses" appear hi Seydewitz' book, whose views and feelings he describes in colorful detail, without even once betraying the source of his stupendous knowledge of Hie unknowable...
...13.50...
...there were even joint Nazi-Communist actions, such as the referendum against the democratic government of Prussia and the Berlin transport workers' strike in the fall of 1932...
...What a pity that SeydewHx cannot make the bad Social Democratic leaders again responsible for the failure of the masses to rise in rebellion...
...He strikingly betrays hia lack of reliability by intentionally distorting the history of the eventa which immediately preceded the advent of the Nazis to power...
...Thia is quite appropriate, for the new confederation has tended to copy the general pattern of compulsory fascist syndicalism...
...Rather it increases every day with the slowness of economic recovery, the impatience for direct action of powerful groups and the Ha belie confusion of tongues which seems to make so difficult -any reasoned and well-ordered discussion of issues...
...The man in the* street, on the other hand, while feeling bewildered a good deal of the time, his felt that it was moving in the right direction and in accordance with the needs of our age...
...It is a story about two Hungarian emigrants, a middle-aged journalist and a young girl...
...The slogan of "United Action," quite necessary in war, becomes exceedingly dangerous in peace, revealing itself as a powerful instrument...
...Some critics, pointing out that Don Sturzo dislikes the slavery of monopoly capitalism and the tyranny of Socialism, have added that somewhere in the middle he approves of a democratic balance, but just what he is advocating is not quite clear...
...It is not to be wondered, then, that Seydewitz glorifies the officers' clique around General von Seydlitz with its potorious "German National Committee'* snd dreams of the day when, after Hi tiler's downfall, the Moscow-sponsored National Committee will become "the decisive factor for influencing further developments in Germany" and will, in fact, supplant the parties of the Weimar period...
...Whkn the Italian Hi n of this book, published last year, rea ed Roane a few months ago, it ber i . an immediste best-seller...
...Bet we must guard againat the dangers inherent in state capitalism...
...But It ia not an easy book, there is no happy ending in it, no escapism of any kind...
...Simon and Schuster, 1945...
...How Not to Writ* a Book on Nazi Germany Review by ALFRED 9MAUHTMAL CIVIL LIFE IN WARTIME GERMANY...
...By Max Seydewitz...
...Labor itself must be given a certain voice in industrial affairs...
...After these few examples for the reliability of Seydewitz as a historian, little need be said about his trustworthiness as a political thinker...
...Since under a dictatorial system no one csn tell for sure how the people really feel, one guess is as good as another...
...One of the most typical examples of the prevailing vogue is that of "united" action in the syndicalist field...
...The reality of life is not twisted to please the public...
...It certainly deserves it...
...One year later, Seydewitz assures us, "In spirit Jhe German masses were ready to participate in a popular rebellion...
...It is hard to understand why this keek wss published at all, at a moment, moreover, when the study, which bad been written in its chief parts prior to July, IH44, has lost any hut a very meager historical interest The author, a former leader ef the left wine of the German Social Democrats sad member of the Reichstag who in 1931 split away from the party and formed a splinter group of hia own, baa spoiled in this book a richly detailed and interesting description of wartime life in Nazi Germany by a vast conglomerate of unproved and entirely arbitrary conjectures about the anti-Nazi feeling which grew in the "masses...
...1" As far back as 1942, Seydewitz claims, "the passive attitude of the masses to the war changed to active and Nazi feeling...
...Few books can match this one in the strength of its appeal for a sane approach to the solution of Italy's and the world's postwar problems, and of its recognition of the fact that individual human beings still form the core around which our society must be built...
...And the story moves on to its inevitable end...
...And Farewell My Heart is an excellent novel...
...New Fork: The Viking Prtsa, 1945...
...Farewell My Heart is a love story...
...To the planners, it has too often meant the surrender of public rights' to tested interests...
...Ho elaiaas that when Hitler waa appointed chancellor, "millions of ajiU-Nssis were ready te risk their lives for a free Germany" and were prevented from making this sacrifice by the bad, bad wolf, the Social Democratic leadership...
...But these brave thoughts are buried In a maze of historical and political nonsense, and even the laudable purpose of the book to reveal the cleavage between the Nazis and the rest of the German people has been done a disservice by his mystic cult of "the masses," who always feel the right wsy but always act the wrong way...
...Besides, it is not the plot which matters in this book...
...in the hands of any well-organized minority group, for the suppression of open and democratic discussion...
...It is more difficult to appraise a good one...
...oddly enough, by applying thia convenient method to the first few weeks of the Nasi regime at the beginning •( 19SS, a period ia which it was still possible o give vent te one's own feeling...
...Even though hia party has approved the step, Don Sturzo calls it merely "an experiment...
...Throughout the book, Don Sturzo strongly condemns the tendency, so obvious in so many of the liberated European countries, to accept solutions of economic and social problems which, while claiming in appearance to be the exact opposite of Fascist snd Nasi practices, are in reality essentially totalitarian...
...Ferenc Molnar poses a series of problems of deep significance...
...Seydewitz' main thesis is that Germany lost the first World War not only because of the material superiority of her enemies, but because the German people were unwilling to stake their own on a war of conquest, and that Germany was bound to lose the second war for the same reasons...
...211 pages...
...This thesis has proved to be even more erroneous in the second than in the first World War...
Vol. 28 • November 1945 • No. 44
