8
January, 1939
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
Views and Reviews of Current News Reviews of 1938 and Previews of 1939 By DAN GILBERT San Diego, California, and Washington, D.C.
The idea of their actually engaging in serious combat becomes increasingly pre posterous. The New Republic, noted for its far sightedness on foreign affairs, maintains (in an October 19, 1938, editorial) that Hitler is now in a position where “he can make friends with Soviet Russia, and participate in a new and probably bloodless partition ing of Poland.” The editorial continues: "You may argue that after Hitler has built his whole philosophy on hatred of Bolshevism, he could not now make friends with Moscow; but if you argue thus, you do not understand the utter lack of logic in German thought today, or the complete regimentation of the public mind by the state. Such an ar rangement could be sold to the people as a mere economic compact, buttressed by mutual promises to refrain from hostile propaganda. Germany and Russia were friends for a long time, after the Versailles system had been set up. They form a logical economic unit, with Germany’s heavy industry and Russia’s vast agrarian resources.” Another well-known foreign correspon dent has said that, paradoxical as it may seem, the "show-down” struggle leading up to Munich actually brought Hitler and Stalin close together. It revealed to both of them the incongruity of their carrying on their "conflict” on any field of battle more dangerous than the printed page and the radio forum. According to this writer, even the common people of both Germany and Russia are coming to realize that they have nothing to fight about, that Com munism and Naziism have everything in common in their joint advance against dem ocratic government and Christian civiliza tion throughout the world. Public opinion would not long sustain a war in either na tion, according to this authority. A NAZI-SOVIET ACCORD NOT IN OFFING, HOWEVER: This development does not mean, though, that a Nazi-Soviet accord is in prospect, or even in sight. It is not—not by a long shot. Neither Hitler nor Stalin could afford to admit that it has been just a sham struggle they have been staging. Hitler needs the bogey of Bol shevism to dangle over the heads of “cap italist” nations from which he seeks to wrest concessions, and he still must feature it in his propaganda appeals to his own citizens and subjects, if he is to keep them hysterical and fanatical in their blind loy alty. The Soviets would not extinguish Fasc ism if they could. It is their chief talking point. It is by stressing and playing up the menace and fear of Fascism that the Reds seek to gain control of the United States, the richest prize among the nations. After conducting an extended investigation
doesn’t want war with Soviet Russia; and the Reds don’t want war with Nazi Germany. If Lindbergh really did keep Great Britain from defying Hitler and bringing on war, the Soviets are thanking him in their hearts, regardless of what they are saying for propa ganda purposes. Hitler's rhetorical on slaughts of high-powered invective directed against Bolshevism are com ing more and more to resemble an ap plication of the psychological device whereby one whistles to keep up his courage. Hitler inveighs against Bol shevism to keep up the ‘front’ of mili tant anti-Communism. He’s built his whole movement, he’s won all the friends that Naziism has, by parading as a savior of civilization from the Reds, and he can’t afford to drop the disguise now, even though it is wear ing embarrassingly thin.” The fact of the matter is that Hitlerism and Stalinism are "sisters under the skin.” They are the same in essence and the same in organization. They are the same form of tyranny, the same form of regimenta tion, the same system of dictatorship. They are expressions of the same basically ma terialistic, pagan, and anti-Christ ideology.
THE MEANING OF THE PEACE OF MUNICH: The enactment of the so-called "peace" of Munich was the outstanding event of 1938. The shadow which it casts over the future cannot fail to color, if not control, the march of the major events of 1939. Students of the international situation are just beginning to grasp the fuller and deeper meaning of world developments dramatized by the Munich agreement to postpone war. A well-known international correspondent of a widely circulating “lib eral" magazine recently stated it this way: “On the surface, it would seem that recent events have sharpened and em bittered the conflict between Nazi Ger many and Communist Russia. To be sure. Hitler ‘sounded off' both before and after the ‘peace’ accord with more bitter attacks on Bolshevism: and the Soviet press attempted to ‘smear’ Col onel Lindbergh with the fantastic charge that his belittlement of the Soviet air fleet is all that persuaded Chamberlain to refrain from teaming up with the U. S. S. R. in a ‘stop Hitler’ war. “But it’s all a bluff to screen the hol lowness of the sham battle. Hitler
International News Photo
W A R OF POLITICAL IDEAS Strange mixtures of political theory were represented in this anti-Nazi demonstration outside the Deutsches Haus of Los Angeles, Calif., in August of 1938. Inside the building the Western States Convention of the Anti-Communist League was meeting. Outside were such banners as "Young People's Socialist League— 4th International," "Inside— A Nazi Convention: Outside— An American Protest," and "Democracy Is Progress." The event, typical of happenings in many American cities, bears out Dr. Gilbert's contention in the accompanying article that, in their attacks upon each other, Communism and Naziism seek to gain adherents from non-Com- munist and non-Nazi groups.
Made with FlippingBook Online document