[ p. 20 ]
The political thought that tried to put into reality in the social life the ideals of freedom was Liberalism. Liberal ideas have been the nucleus of programs which attracted the most influential forces at the end of the eighteenth century simultaneously in the United States, in England and in France. The Constitution of the United States, the French Revolution and the beginning of modern industrialism in England gave a tremendous impetus to these ideas and the progressive elements of all the democratic countries were gathered into political parties, the purpose of which was to organize the state and the economic life on the basis of individual liberty, to safeguard the independence of the nations and to create the widest possible freedom of international exchange. ==
Today the liberal parties are everywhere on the decline, their influence vanishing and their power waning.
‘The defeat of the liberal parties is a most extraordinary phenomenon. There are two reasons for this. The first one, rather paradoxical, is the acceptance of the liberal-democratic principles by almost all the other political parties in [ p. 21 ] the democracies. In England, both the Conservative Party and the Labor Party became “liberal.” By this development they have taken away the main arguments of the Liberal Party. The same evolution can be observed also in all the other democratic countries. Both the Democratic and the Republican Parties in the United States are “liberal.”
The second reason for the decline of the liberal parties is the equally paradoxical fact that they became automatically anti-liberal by developing into more and more doctrinaire parties with concrete and rigid programs which they defended with the most a-liberal fanaticism. This reactionary tendency of the liberal and radical bourgeois forces is in total contradiction to the original ideas of liberalism aiming at a political and social liberation of the individual in order to open to every man and every nation a free road to evolution.
If we examine the political thoughts and parties of the democratic countries, whether a country has only two or three parties, or twenty or thirty different parties, we can divide all these apparently divergent programs and parties into two groups in which we can include all the existing and conceivable political thoughts.
In the first group we can place all those parties, movements and groups which believe in a tangible, clearlyworked out program. From this point of view, the revolutionary and the reactionary parties belong in the very same group. There is no difference whatsoever between them from a political or theoretical standpoint, except the element of time. The program of our present-day conservative parties was revolutionary two hundred years ago, and the program of our present-day revolutionaries, if they achieve it, [ p. 22 ] will be reactionary one hundred years hence. Those principles and programs which are today fervently defended by the Republican Party in the United States, the Conservatives in England, and the right-wing bourgeois circles in France, were looked upon as revolutionary before the American and French Revolutions, and their defenders were regarded as dangerous elements in the state, many of them being executed as such.
On the other hand, the Communist Party and the Communist program, which we regard as the most revolutionary forces of our time, become conservative as soon as they are established. Whatever our opinion about Communism may be, the regime of the Bolshevik Party in Russia is the prototype of a conservative regime. They adhere most fanatically to a concrete and established system, defending it by every means. They do not tolerate any opposing view and whoever openly tries to change anything in the existing established order meets with the same fate as the liberals met under absolutism, and the fate which the Communists, themselves, meet in many democratic-capitalistic countries.
In the second category, we can group all such parties and political movements which do not believe in the perfection of any closed system and detailed program whether already existing or to be created, but which believe in constant progress, in the necessity of constant changes in the social, political and economic institutions in order to adapt them to the realities at each given time. Those adhering to this belief were the various liberal and radical parties at their inception.
History proves that this second political conception is nearer to reality, as we cannot trace back in the past any [ p. 23 ] political or social system which was realized in its pure and integral form, nor can we discover any period in which changes would not have taken place.
According to the principles of liberalism, there should be freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of voting, the right to elect representatives. These freedoms have been granted to all, and Voltaire’s famous words—“I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to say it”—were selfevident.
Such a state of affairs, granting every individual complete freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and granting every association and party complete freedom of activity and of representation in parliament, is the logical result of the triumph of the ideals of the French and American Revolutions and of British reforms.
Unfortunately, this conception left out only one element —the element of Man. Its theories and institutions were based on the abstraction of a “homo democraticus” just as the liberal school of economic thought was based on the abstraction of a “homo economicus.” These abstractions worked quite well in theory and in practice so long as the great masses of the new liberal democratic order felt only the advantages of the new era in contrast to the ancien régime, which was still vivid in their memories.
But as soon as the economic and political evolutions created one crisis after another, one major war after another; as soon as it was realized that the liberal democratic systems as established could not solve the problem of distribution and could solve only partially the problem of production; [ p. 24 ] as soon as it became evident that the rise in living standards following the establishment of the liberal democratic regime was not constant; as soon as the political and nationalistic forces intervened in the free exchange of goods and migration, entire classes and nations saw no further chances of amelioration within the existing system. As soon as the masses became conscious of these problems, the elements “homo economicus” and “homo democraticus” did not react in the same way as their creators intended them to.
Dogmatic liberalism, which has permeated all the major political parties, all the governments, the entire civil service and the entire diplomatic corps of the democratic powers, was totally unable to cope with the new situation. Dissatisfied elements began to attack publicly the democratic order. Nothing was done against them because the existing democratic order guaranteed to every citizen “freedom of speech.”
More and more people, dissatisfied with the existing order, gathered together and began to organize and to hold meetings against the established principles of democracy. No steps were taken to curb them, because the laws in force guaranteed “freedom of assembly.”
Embittered and disillusioned intellectuals, soldiers, bankers and industrialists who never liked the form of popular government, joined the oppositional groups, supported them financially and socially, and soon we saw books, pamphlets, magazines and newspapers published and distributed with the sole purpose of fighting the existing democratic order. No measures were taken against them because they were working on a strictly legal basis which guaranteed them “freedom of the press.”
[ p. 25 ]
The movement grew more and more powerful, taking the form of political parties which achieved election into parliaments. In every legislative assembly representatives appeared in ever-growing numbers with the sole purpose of fighting in the parliaments against the institution of parliamentarism. Nothing was done against them because their actions were guaranteed by constitutional rights.
Thus the liberal democratic states were undermined, their public life poisoned, and their institutions finally destroyed, by entirely “legal” methods, first in Italy, then in Germany, then in one country after another—spreading like wildfire.
A passionate controversy arose between the real believers in the democratic principles and those ruling circles who were constantly retreating and who had given up one democratic position after another before the ruthlessly attacking enemy. The argument was always the same: We are a democracy; our citizens have constitutionally guaranteed rights, and we cannot act against them in an anti-democratic way.
So they withdrew. And when they found themselves faced with the alternative, to capitulate or change their methods, their dogmatism was so deeply rooted, that they preferred to capitulate.
The disastrous consequences of liberal democratic dogmatism lie open before everybody’s eyes. The tragedy is that the liberal leaders were so blinded by their theoretical dogmatism that they refused to understand the present-day problems, even after they lost most of the major battles, and they defended the last ditch of their abstract conceptions with a conviction worthy of a better cause.
[ p. 26 ]
Innumerable are the public utterances of the defeated liberal leaders trying to justify their positions in the battle. Their unchangeable views were best expressed in a single phrase written by the leader of the English liberals, Lord Samuel, in an essay published in The Nineteenth Century and After, as late as June, 1938. Lord Samuel argued against those who urged a change of methods in our relationship with dictatorial powers, saying: “To be liberal only towards liberal states is not liberalism at all.”
This one phrase expresses the unreality of dogmatic liberalism which is mostly responsible for the paralyzing of our governments, our diplomats and our civil servants.
If we try to analyze these democratic principles, it appears to be the most simple logic that in organized society liberty of speech cannot signify liberty of speech for those who want to abolish liberty of speech.
Freedom of the press cannot mean freedom of the press for such publications which seek to suppress freedom of the press.
Freedom of vote cannot mean freedom of vote for those who want to abolish freedom of vote.
The tribunal of parliaments has not been created for those who want to destroy parliamentarism.
The democratic institutions have not been created for and cannot be at the disposal of those who want to abolish democracy.
These simple deductions appear to be self-evident and almost axiomatic in debating the principles of democracy.
But if there are certain people who do not want to accept the results of logical thinking, they should read and re-read [ p. 27 ] the history of the past twenty years of all the democratic countries. They will have to realize that democracy was destroyed everywhere by means granted to their conquerors by the democracies themselves. In this world of reality, every system, every nation has to perish if it has nothing but pious sermons of non-violence with which to oppose cruel forces.
The victory of the totalitarian dictatorships and the defeat of the democratic institutions do not mean at all the defeat of democratic principles, but they do mean the total defeat of that peculiar interpretation of democratic principles on which we have based our existence during the past decades.
We thought it was sufficient to proclaim certain rules among liberally and democratically minded people in order to live in a democracy, something like an exclusive club where we may live among gentlemen, respecting the rules and regulations of the club.
But our exclusive social order was overthrown by a great number of newcomers whose only purpose in joining the club was to loot the kitchen and to cheat at the poker tables.
If we want to establish a democratic order, not in a vacuum and not based on the abstraction of a “homo democraticus,” then we cannot proceed by presupposing that the most important element in our construction—the element, Man—will react in any manner other than it has to according to its qualities and natural conditions.
Democracy, like every high form of culture and civilization, is toa certain degree a luxury which can only be understood and appreciated by men of a certain education, and which can only be established after the satisfaction of certain [ p. 28 ] more primitive needs. As it is inconceivable that in our time all human beings will have the understanding, the knowledge, the vision, the character and the moral capacity to act and react as democratic men have to act and react, we can only make democracy work if we are prepared to create the necessary defenses for a democratic regime, enacting and promulgating in an unmistakable form what we understand under each one of the freedoms granted by the regime, and if we establish simultaneously with the granting of these freedoms, the required institutions for their defense and for the prevention of their destruction.
The basic principle of a correct interpretation of liberal democratic institutions is that democratic institutions are created for all those who are democratically minded, and the only possible interpretation of liberal policy is that each individual, each party and each nation must be treated according to their own principles.
This is the only possible interpretation which would allow us to reorganize a democratic world order so that democratic peoples attached to democratic institutions would be free from attack and destruction from within their own nations or from outside forces.
Freedom of speech means that every individual has the right to express his thoughts and to have complete freedom to say whatever he wants to say, with one single exception: He shall have no right to say that he is against freedom of speech.
Freedom of the press means that every individual has the right to print books, periodicals or newspapers and to publish in such printed media any idea he wishes, with one [ p. 29 ] exception: He shall have no right to print or publish that freedom of the press is an institution which is bad and which must be abolished.
All individuals must have freedom of assembly and in such assemblies every individual must have the liberty to express whatever views he may hold, with one single excep tion: He shall have no right to attack or to criticize the right of free assembly.
Every political party must have the right to be admitted to legislative assemblies, and every duly elected representative must have the right to express freely his views on public affairs, with one single exception: No speaker shall have the right to attack the institution of parliamentarism and representative government, and no parties advocating such views shall be permitted to participate in parliamentary debates.
The last aim of democracy is naturally the democratic man, but in view of the fact that the human race, even the most highly civilized nations, are not comprised entirely of democratic men, we must secure democracy for those who are democratically minded and it is our primary democratic duty to oppose anti-democratic thoughts, movements and forces with anti-democratic methods.
We realized a long time ago that the only way to guarantee the safety of the lives of peaceful citizens is to have an organization which segregates those individuals who interfere with the peaceful lives of others. And we know equally well that the only way to guarantee the safety of the personal property of citizens is to have an organization to deprive those individuals of their personal properties, who interfere with the personal properties of others.
[ p. 30 ]
There is no possibility of a workable democracy either on a national or on an international scope without safeguarding the political rights of the democratic people by such coercive institutions which would prevent and restrict the activities of those elements which for any reason are working against the democratic privileges of democratic citizens or nations.
Only if we define quite clearly what we understand under each one of the democratic freedoms which our states can grant to the individuals, and only if we establish the necessary organism for the prevention and the suppression of all such forces which are working against those democratic privileges, and only if we accept the doctrines that liberal policy means to be liberal towards those who are liberally minded and to treat all individuals, parties or nations according to their own principles, can we hope that in future we shall be able to stop at any time such movements as are represented in our generation by Nazism and Fascism. Only then can we hope that we shall have a democratic order that will work according to the present realities of our world.