The Crisis of Civilisation

The outbreak of two major wars in one generation has naturally caused serious misgivings in the minds of all thinking persons as to the future of our civilisation. Whatever justification there was for wars in the early stages of man’s evolution, when the spread of civilising influences necessitated the use of force, there is none whatsoever today. The growth of scientific knowledge and of the rapid means of transport has reduced the whole world to manageable dimensions and has welded mankind into a single indivisible unit. It is this fact of the essential oneness and the indivisibility of human society that makes modern wars most dreadful. They cannot any longer be confined to the countries that actually wage them, but inevitably draw the whole world into their vortex, as the last war showed and as the present war is showing on a much more intensified scale. All these are obvious facts and yet we conduct our affairs as if wars were an integral part of our being. Wars, like slavery, have outlived their historic utility and the fact that they still break out is a grim reminder to us that, notwithstanding our painful struggle for over ten thousand years to extricate ourselves from the mire of animalism, we have not yet wholly succeeded in doing so.

Studied in this light, it is obvious that the present war is not being fought in defence of an achieved civilisation. It is all very well for the belligerent Powers each to proclaim its own innocence and to attribute the war guilt to its enemy, but no serious student of international politics can accept these protestations without examining them carefully. What are the ideologies involved in this war? It is difficult to name them, for there exist none. We need not pause even for a moment to consider the point of view of the Axis Powers, for wars are as indispensable to their rulers as the crutch is to a lame man. Time and again, they have proclaimed the virtues of violence, and a deliberate provocation to war is one of the cardinal principles of their political philosophy.

"The Fascist State is a will to power and to Imperium" wrote Signor Mussolini in an article on ‘The Doctrine of Fascism,’ published in 1932. "The Roman tradition is here an idea of force……For Fascism the tendency to empire,–that is to say, to the expansion of nations, –is a manifestation of vitality: its contrary is a sign of decadence: peoples that rise or re-arise are imperialist, peoples that die are peoples that resign….Empire demands discipline, co-ordination of forces, duty and sacrifice." (Quoted in the book Ideas and Ideals of the British Empire by Ernest Barker, p.3.)

Hitler’s views on the indispensability of German world-dominion are too well-known to need reproduction here.

Let us now consider the war aims of the Allies, in whose victory we are all interested. The Allied statesmen have been repeatedly declaring that they are fighting this war in defence of human heritage, whose disappearance from the world, they affirm, would make life not worth living. The triumph of Nazism and its allied doctrines will certainly be a great calamity, but the record of events of the past ten years does not testify to any conscious efforts having been made by the Allies to prevent the weakening of our civilisation. When Japan set out on her adventure in China, flouting for the first time the authority of the League of Nations, it was perfectly possible for the now Allied powers to take collective action against her. This was not only not done, but, by a strange fatality, one of their front-rank leaders actually spoke in defence of Japanese aggression. I refer to Mr. L. S. Amery, the present Secretary of State for India, who in a speech in the House of Commons in February 1933, observed thus:

"I confess that I see no reason whatever why, either in act, or in word or in sympathy, we should go individually or internationally against Japan in this matter. Japan has got a powerful case based upon fundamental realities…..When you look at the fact that Japan needs markets and that it is imperative for her, in the world in which she lives, that there should be some sort of peace and order, then who is there among us to cast the first stone and to say that Japan ought not to have acted with the object of creating peace and order in Manchuria and defending herse1f against the continual aggression of vigorous Chinese nationalism? Our whole policy in India, our whole policy in Egypt, stand condemned if we condemn Japan." (Quoted in the book The paths that Led to War by John Mackintosh, p. 206.)

Similarly, Sir John Simon deliberately turned a blind eye to Italian aggression in Abyssinia and declared, "I would not risk a single ship even in a successful action to restore the independence of Abyssinia." Lastly, the magnificent liberality which the British and French Premiers showed in gifting away large portions of Czechoslovakia, an independent sovereign State, to the German Chancellor, has seriously undermined public confidence in the claims of the Allied statesmen that they are the defenders of democracy and freedom. Self interest and anxiety to preserve the status quo have played a conspicuous part in the conduct of international affairs and, notwithstanding all that is said to the contrary, it is not easy to disprove this fact.

"It is really stretching international credulity a little bit too far," says Sir Richard Acland, "to expect people to believe that we are now fighting merely to restrain aggression and to restore violated countries, when we have been rather self-satisfied in the past because we would not do anything which seems to contain even the smallest risk of our having to fight to restrain aggression or to restore Manchuria, Abyssinia, Spain, China, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and Albania. Nor does it profit us much to say that we tolerated these aggressions because we thought the price was a small one to pay, if aggressors could there-by be satisfied without the necessity of a world war; but that we learned our lesson in March of this year when the Germans went to Prague." (After the War, edited by William Teeling, p. 21.)

It should, however, be noted that the declaration of policy, embodied in the Atlantic Charter, that Great Britain and America

"Wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them" will, if implemented, atone in a large measure for the tragic failure of the Great Powers to preserve the integrity of small countries.

But the Atlantic Charter is not a charter of world freedom. One of its authors, Mr. Churchill, has made it clear that it is applicable only to the European countries. To the millions of non-European subject peoples, upon whose willing co-operation the success of the war will ultimately depend, no such instrument of deliverance is offered so that they might fight with the animated zeal of a people struggling to win the freedom of their country. It is, therefore, perfectly natural that in the eyes of all thinking Africans the present war is a clash between rival imperialisms. Mr. George Padmore, the able African leader, makes out an unanswerable case that this is an imperialist war and affirms that it is, in essence,

"the long-standing conflict between bandit nations for colonies as markets, sources of raw material and cheap labour, spheres for the investment of finance, and naval, military and air bases. It is for the possession of these things that the war is being fought." (Quoted in the book: We fight for the Future by Basil Mathews.)

Mr. Joyce Cary, whose knowledge of African conditions is first hand and whose approach to its problems is full of sympathy and discernment, says that today the African suffers from three fold wrong.

Firstly, the indigenous people are not treated as human beings by their white masters; secondly, they are not associated in any scheme for the exploitation of the resources of their own land except as menials and labourers, with the result that

"Africa, already a vast slum among the nations, is growing poorer every day and cannot save herself. She is sinking deeper into wretchedness, disease and famine, while the world’s demands upon responsible governments, the world’s conscience, become every day more impatient of excuse." (The Case for African Freedom, p. 119.)

Lastly, the Africans are treated as intruders and interlopers with no locus standi even in their own homelands. To quote Mr. Cary again:

"Even at the outbreak of this war, men could still say in public that the Negroes had no right in Africa. That they had no sovereign rights in their own country was so much a matter of course to Europeans, that no one threw any doubt upon it."

The fact is that Africa still continues to be the focus of unbridled racial animosity.

Although the problems facing Africa do not exist in India, our plight is hardly better than that of the African. India was caught unawares in the terrible conflict, and when the nationalist demanded an immediate declaration of his country’s freedom as a sine qua non to his promise of an "all out" war effort, he was answered with the Declaration of August 1940, which, instead of solving our problems, has only accentuated them. It is not relevant to my present purpose to analyse the causes for the failure of the Cripps Mission, but the manner in which even the original proposals of His Majesty’s Government, unsatisfactory as they were, were steadily watered down in the course of the negotiations, is a clear proof of the unwillingness of the men in authority to concede India’s right to self-determination.

With these obvious facts before us, it is idle for anyone to claim that this war is being fought to prevent the outrage of cherished principles. But in these days of cataclysmic changes, the predilections of individuals and groups can hardly prevail. New and powerful forces have been unleashed by the war, and upon the manner in which they are handled will depend the future of man. Let us then consider what should be the bases upon which a just and enduring peace can be built.

When peace comes; the first problem to confront the international statesmen will be how to deal with the defeated Axis Powers. There are some who suggest that Germany, being the original offender, should be so severely punished that she should never again be able to repeat the horrors of war. Everyone will agree that Germany and her allies must be prevented from breaking the peace of the world at the bidding of their capricious rulers, but any proposals for singling out the peoples of these countries for punishment when every other country is responsible for our misfortunes, cannot commend themselves to any fair-minded person. The lessons learnt from the last war are too recent and too costly to be forgotten. They taught us that it was criminal to make impossible demands and to impose humiliating conditions upon a proud and sensitive nation. The authors of the Versailles Treaties missed their objective of world peace by fixing the war guilt solely upon Germany and by treating her as an outlaw. This mistake should not be repeated. Moreover, it is not the peoples of the Axis Powers that have started this war. The French view that "Hitler made the war, but the Germans made Hitler", sounds brilliantly epigrammatic without being correct. The various ‘isms’ with which the air became thick in post-war Europe were so many attempts made to stem the rot that had set in the affairs of men, and if the much harassed German people accepted Nazism and its sponsor to control and guide their destinies, there were many extenuating circumstances. It is wrong to accuse them as war-mongers, for, the late Mr. Chamberlain personally bore testimony to the fact that the Germans desired peace as sincerely as any other people. It is on the basis of this valuable testimony that the would-be framers of the peace treaties should proceed to deal with the defeated countries. It is impossible to build a new order with hatred and vengeance as its foundations. So, the path of wisdom lies in welcoming the integration of Germany, Italy and Japan into the new order, which all thinkers expect will emerge from the war.

The second problem is that of disarmament. Difficult as the problem is in a world of absolute national sovereignties, it must be firmly grappled with if we are to lay secure foundations for future peace. At the end of the war, when the instruments of destruction and the demoniac urge to mutual slaughter will have been fully played out, men will be in a much more reasonable mood to listen to the plea for universal disarmament. Desolation and bereavement are infinitely more effective arguments for preventing an unrestrained piling up of arms than any amount of theoretical debates and discussions. It is for these reasons that I consider the post-war period as the most suitable occasion for using public opinion against unscrupulous profiteering in arms. But it is not enough if private armament factories are disbanded and the right to manufacture arms is vested in the governments of States. What with their militarist traditions and their notions of prestige, even the States cannot be trusted to undertake this grave responsibility. A complete disarmament of all the countries in the world and the vesting of irresistible military power in an international organization are the only effective checks to the recurrence of wars. The critic will no doubt say that these proposals smack of Utopianism his may be true, but how can he answer the rejoinder that not with standing all his ‘realism’, the world has been plunged into two major wars in one generation? The fact is that it is all futile to try and build up a new and stable world system without bringing some spiritual forces to bear upon our problems. We must realise that our civilisation is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of war, and that the arbitrament of the sword for settling differences between men and nations is neither necessary nor compatible with the dignity of man. For decades Mahatma Gandhi has been carrying on an unceasing crusade against the cult of violence, and the stricken post-war world will most assuredly need his ministrations. Disarmament achieved in the spirit of non-violence, will greatly strengthen the forces of international peace.

The proposals for working out the disarmament scheme and for integrating the vanquished powers into the new order, naturally presuppose the existence of an international machinery to deaf with these and allied matters. Although there is no difference of opinion on the necessity for such an organization, there is much controversy as to the form it should take and the functions it should perform. Eminent persons are participating in the debates and discussions on the subject, and already an impressive mass of valuable literature has been produced, which the framers of the peace treaties will certainly find most useful

These discussions reveal two schools of thought which may be described as the progressive and the cautious.

The writers of the progressive school advocate a federal union of all States and, without minimising the difficulties in the way of such a consummation, they affirm that it is the only method by which a just and lasting peace can be established. They argue that mankind being one and indivisible, the governance of affairs common to it must be the concern of a central world organization. Commenting on Mr. Clarence Streit’s widely discussed book Union Now, Mr. H. G. Wells remarks that it would be.

"far easier to create the United States of the world, which is Mr. Streit’s ultimate objective, than to get together the so-called continent of Europe into any sort of unity." (The New Order, p. 104.)

Mr. Bertrand Russell advocated this view long before the outbreak of this war and in his book Which Way to Peace? written some years ago, he emphasised the necessity for organizing a "single supreme world government". In India the plea for a liberal conception of the world order has found a vigorous champion in Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who has been most insistently demanding the inclusion of our own country and China in the new order. He warns that no arrangement will survive the iniquity of leaving these two countries out of account.

The cautious advocates of reform are unable to subscribe to these views. They hold that it is no use making proposals for which the governing forces of contemporary life are not yet ready. They argue that a world union is not possible either today or in the near future, for, so diverse are the interests of men and so different their habits of thought that any attempt to bring them all together under one organization will only end in its dismal failure. They hold that a promiscuous grouping of a medley of States cannot become a union, but will result in something for which no name has yet been found. But they do not entirely rule out the possibility or a federal union, but such union should be strictly confined to ‘like-minded’ States. Advocating this view, Sir William Beveridge writes thus:

"Federation has been proposed above for a limited area. Limitation of area is essential; federalism is a strong remedy to a virulent disorder; it is not a healing lotion that can be sprayed over the world. World federation is for the millennium. The federation projected here is for the next peace treaty: it is a federation of nations which, from fresh experience of war will be determined to make as certain as they can that war will never be repeated." (World Order papers, First Series.)

This plea for limiting federation to ‘like-minded’ States finds favour with men like Sir John Fischer Williams and Professor Gilbert Murray. As regards those numerous other States that cannot come within the pale of the federal union, these writers suggest that opportunities should be provided for them to come together at a common conference table where they could discuss the problems common to them all. In other words, they suggest the revival of the League of Nations, of whose value they are so profoundly convinced that they consider its disappearance as nothing short of an international disaster. Thus, the proposals made by this school envisage two distinct organizations, the one a close union of ‘like-minded’ States, and the other a system built on a looser plan, such as the League of Nations, "for the better and progressive integration of the world as a whole."

It is, of course, impossible to expect unanimity of opinion on such a vital and complex issue, but the necessity for some sort of international machinery is recognized by all. At the end of the war, when desolation and ruin will meet the eye everywhere, men will realize the horrors of modern wars much more vividly than they can do today. It is this realization that will help the setting up of an international system, not only to prevent the outbreak of fresh wars but to control and direct such affairs as are common to all States. The more important among these ‘common affairs’ are (1) disarmament including centralized control over the air arm; 2) the administration of the politically ward and economically undeveloped areas; and (3) the introduction of a more equitable economic system.

Having already dealt with the disarmament problem let us now consider the colonial question. The colonies have been responsible for some of the bloodiest wars between rival European Powers. That is because they are treated as mere property to be exclusively owned by the whites. It is this refusal to recognise the integrity of the weaker and less advanced countries and the denial of a just and equal treatment to the non European peoples, which the dignity of man demands, that has very much complicated the colonial problem. The callousness shown by some of the European Powers to the sanctity of life and property when dividing Africa among themselves, is described by Mr. Joyce Cary in these terms:

"They marked their boundary lines, often in unexplored territory, as tailors mark cloth with chalk; and divided tribes in half, cut off native farmers from their farms, villages from their water, capital towns from their markets, as if rivers, farms and towns had been no more than ink on paper."

Germany and Italy, being late in attaining their national unity, were unable to participate in the great scramble of the other European Powers for overseas possessions, and their present cry for a, "place in the sun" is, therefore, nothing short of a demand for a share in the colonies. As none of the imperialist countries have shown any disposition to divest themselves of their possessions to accommodate the so-called ‘have-not’ Powers, resort to violence has become inevitable.

But it is wrong to suppose that this problem will be finally solved if the colonies are redistributed amongst the European Powers according to their requirements. Apart from the fact that this proposal does a grave injustice to the colonial peoples in that it presupposes an indefinite continuation of foreign rule, the colonial empires will never consent to part with their possessions in favour of others. Even the modest suggestion for vesting the control of all the colonies in an international body has found vigorous opposition in countries like England and France, where the belief is widespread that their own rule is in the best interests of the colonial peoples. Read, for example, what Major Victor Cazalet, M.P., writes on the subject:

"To imagine, however, that we can hand over a large portion of our colonial empire to the management and control of any international body would not, I believe, command the support of the majority of people in this country, or, in itself, be of real value or help to the colonies or the world outside. The truth is that although the inhabitants, white, black, or coloured, may grumble at times about British rule, they still prefer it to that of any other country." (After the War, p. 46.)

It is curious that writers of this type speak of the new order in terms of its inevitability and yet cannot contemplate with equanimity any prospect of Great Britain giving up her colonies. Obviously, they do not see the deep contradiction between the desire for a new order and the insistence upon the preservation of the status quo in so far as it concerns their own interests. Moreover, what Major Cazalet says about British rule is a platitude, for other nations too can make precisely the same pretensions to their own pre-eminent virtues. In these circumstances, the only right course to adopt is to end the existing system and place the colonies under the control of a truly international body. It should be the concern of this body to administer the ward colonies in the best interests of the local populations and to hand over to them the management of their own affairs as soon as they acquire the ability to do so. The right of self-determination should be conceded to those subject countries that have already shown some degree of political ability to govern themselves. Only by thus extending the principles of freedom to all parts of the world, will it be possible to ensure a brighter future for man.

The next problem is that of establishing a juster and a more sensible economic system. No political machinery, however perfectly contrived, will work satisfactorily without a corresponding revision of the existing social and economic foundations. The fact is that, despite the unlimited control gained by man over nature’s resources, no effective action on a world-wide scale has yet been taken to end the paradox of poverty amidst plenty. The new order will indeed be a poor thing if it does not aim at solving mass unemployment, want and misery. But, say the Socialist thinkers, these reforms cannot be carried out under the existing capitalist system with its monopolies and profit-making motives. How the selfishness of vested interests arrests all progress to a better way of life is described by Mr. G. D. H. Cole in these terms:

"Secondly, we find our world dominated by an extremely rapid tempo of technical and scientific advance, which masters more and more the arts of production and increases enormously the necessary scale of economic organization. But in the mastery of the arts of production two very different things happen. When these arts are directed to the raising of the standard of life–to making more abundant the goods that are required for decent living–almost every advance in technical efficiency comes hard up against the fear of the profit-maker that plenty may destroy his profit, so that far and wide the satisfaction of human wants is inhibited by one form after another of restrictive monopoly." (Essay entitled A Socialist Civilisation, published in the book Programme for Victory, p.148.)

The Socialists argue that capitalism has not only outlived its historic utility, but that by its interference with the mechanism of production and distribution, it is primarily responsible for wars. They, therefore, suggest its replacement by a socialist civilisation.

The supporters of the status quo cannot, of course, agree with these views. They refute the contention that capitalism has now become an anachronism and point out that private enterprise and individual initiative have been throughout history the source of all progress. They do not believe that the capitalist civilisation is responsible for wars, and attribute their occurrence to the deliberate accumulation of arms by ambitious militarist States with the will to world domination. I cannot examine in this article the various points of view put forward in defence of capitalism, but whatever may be their validity, it is obvious that capitalism cannot wholly absolve itself of its responsibility for the deep contradictions that exist in our society. This is a revolutionary war and immense sacrifices are being exacted from the common people by arousing in them great expectations of social justice. These promises must be fulfilled. It is impossible to expect men to go to war and get themselves killed and mutilated so that, when victory is won and their sacrifices no longer required, the survivors might quietly be restored to the bosom of poverty, want and misery. The consequences of a breach of promise to the people will be, in the words of Professor Harold Laski, that

"we shall move rapidly to a position where the differences between men on matters of social constitutions cannot be accommodated in terms of reason."

All discussions on the new order, whose advent is wholly dependent upon international co-operation, will indeed be most futile if the sovereign States are not willing to impose limitations upon their sovereignty in all such matters where collaboration between States is indispensable. By making nationalism one of the key-notes of the Treaty of Versailles, its framers little anticipated that they were adding to the problems of Europe and the world. They did not smoothen the path of international co-operation by increasing the number of sovereign States in Europe from twenty to twenty-seven. The result was that even a tiny State like Albania began to develop ideas of its own independent existence, unmindful of the fact that the world we live in is essentially interdependent. It is this spirit of exclusive and self-regarding nationalism that makes the growth of all habits of tolerant intercourse between nations impossible. Militant nationalism is intolerant; it is a source of perpetual danger to the existence of small States and it is the worst instigator of wars. The League of Nations failed, not because of any dearth of ideologies, but because its constitution did not confer on it irresistible powers of coercion to be employed against recalcitrant Member-States. The only effective checks to unrestrained nationalism are, therefore, to be found, firstly, in the disarmament of all States, and, secondly, in the setting up of an international organization with compulsory powers.¹

These are some of the problems that will confront the post-war world. What new situations will arise at the end of the war, no one can foresee, and it is the fact of this uncertainty that makes it impossible to claim finality for any proposals. But it is wrong to assume that the value of these proposals is limited to meeting a merely hypothetical situation which may not arise at all. The world that will emerge from the war will not be a very different one from what is envisaged in these discussions. Those who say that the post-war world will be a mere shadow of its former self, are perhaps ignorant of the immense reserves of recuperative strength which are inherent in nature. Similarly, those who under-estimate the significance of the war, will find a remarkable change in the attitude of men to life and in their own mutual relations. But these changes cannot detract from the value of the discussions on the problems of future peace. The fact that the best brains in the world are participating in the great debate ought to silence the critic. The importance of these discussions cannot, therefore, be over emphasised. They are necessary to prepare the peoples of the world to play their rightful part in post-war settlement. They should be warned against the reactionaries getting to the positions of vantage which they have definitely forfeited in this war. There will indeed be no world order if the common people cannot be interested in their great responsibility.

These discussions are assailed on yet another ground, namely that they are useless in view of the inevitability of wars. Mr. F. A. Voigt gives expression to this view in his book Unto Caesar. He says:

"There is no universal remedy for war…no system that man can devise will remove the causes of war, because those causes are inscrutable. They lie deep in the nature of man, and not in any specific economic or political system."

This is a melancholy picture of man’s future. I believe Mr. Voigt’s, pessimism is based more upon a consciousness of past failures than upon a real appraisal of the opportunities which this war offers for preventing its recurrence. What is needed is the establishment of a better system of social justice, the removal of all artificial barriers, political and economic, to a freer association between the peoples of the world, and a stricter enforcement of obedience to international laws. Human wisdom can and must triumph in preventing wars so that civilisation might be saved.

1 India’s right to freedom is not affected by these arguments. The criticism is really against unrestrained national egoism, and not against the natural right of a people to be free. There can be no lasting peace in the world so long as India remains politically unfree.