Review
Author(s): William C. Atkinson
Review by: William C. Atkinson
Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1931-1939), Vol. 18,
No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 1939), pp. 576-577
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs
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1939)
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576 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS [JULY
larly Hitler would have to take his line from the Army and the Junkers :
that Italy in Abyssinia would find (as others had found) too much
summer rain, and would therefore call off the imperial ambition :
that Germany would not want to get embroiled with the Papacy and
so would leave Austria : that Germany and Italy could never, after
all their past history, join together or get over their differences over
Austria. The authors of Fascism?Who Benefits ? and specially Max
Ascoli, in his brilliant enquiry into the Italian totalitarianism, sweep
these complacencies aside. When Mussolini finds that his sort of
pugilistic politics in Italy are incompatible with all that is presumed
to be stable, it is the presumed stability, and not the pugilistic politics,
which goes by the board. Very likely Mussolini was really as unskilled
as the critics supposed, and failed to foresee a climax in which rule by
fists and clubs would directly clash with the continued functioning of
elections and parliaments. Only when the parliamentarians Matte-
otti and Amendola risked and lost their lives in resisting violence did
Mussolini see that liberal institutions, if allowed to exist, would bring
him down. He proceeded to abolish the institutions.
Similarly in 1935 when his Abyssinian policy proved incompatible
with the system of international relations he did not drop the policy
but smashed (as far as in him lay) the system. Thenceforth he pro-
ceeds, unable, maybe, to foresee or determine whither he goes, but
untrammelled by any tradition. To try and foresee Mussolini's ex?
ternal policy from the supposed traditions of Italian history is thus
waste of time, and likely to lead to dangerous disappointments.
Arthur Feiler contributes a careful and detailed analysis of German
National Socialist rule : his 150 pages are a small encyclopedia of the
policies and the makeshifts of the German regime in these five years.
These are more complex and crowded and closer to us than the Italian
affairs of almost two decades. Mr. Feiler lets us perceive through his
descriptions of the corporative organisation of agriculture and of the
relations between totalitarianised employers and still more totalitari-
anised labour a process of power accumulated always for the sake of
more power and thus (as in Italy) in the last resort never any certainty
about the purposes for which power is wanted. C. J. S. S.
ioi*. I Helped to Build an Army. By Jose Martin Blazquez.
Introduction by F. Borkenau. 1939. (London: Secker and
Warburg. 8vo. 361 pp. 15s.)
One of the few officers who remained loyal to the Republic, Major
Martin Blazquez played a leading part at the Ministry of War in Madrid
in converting its militia into an army. His narrative, unpretentious
but intensely interesting, reaches to March 1938, when, completely
disillusioned, he left for France not to return. It is a contribution of
the first importance to the appreciation both of a herculean task and
of the human factors that stultified it at every turn. The Anarchists
demanded a revolutionary army, the Communists a totalitarian army,
and the centre Socialists and Liberals an orthodox non-political fighting
machine. All were tried in turn, and failed in turn. Mr. Borkenau
stresses, in a long and valuable introduction, the failure of the political
parties to realise until it was too late that the rising was more than
another pronunciamiento. This has its bearing on the old thesis,
revived by Major Martin, of the constant superiority of the Spanish
people to their rulers. The men who guided Republican destinies
were all thrown up out of the people, and out of the shortcomings of
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1939] europe 577
the Spaniard as homo politicus, more than from any other single cause,
the war was lost. William C. Atkinson.
102*. Franco in Barcelona. 1939. (London : United Editorial,
Ltd. 27 pp. 3d.)
This pamphlet, written by a British resident in Barcelona, deals with
the period January 19 to March 1939.
103*. Marshal Pilsudski. By W. F. Reddaway. 1939. (London:
George Routledge & Sons, Ltd. 8vo. xiv + 321 pp. 15s.)
The first thirty-one years of Pilsudski's adult life were spent in
conspiratorial work to free his country from foreign domination. At
the end of 1918 he had achieved that aim, and the last sixteen years
were devoted to guiding the destinies of the State which he, by his own
genius and strength, had created.
Can there be any doubt which of these two periods was richest in
events, in triumphs and disasters, dangers and romance ? Yet this book
disposes of the first period in one-third of its content, filling two-thirds
with an account of his efforts to keep his country on the right path
against the machinations of a host of lesser men, moved by either
ignorance or malevolence.
The difficulty, of course, is that there are practically no documents
of the early period. Conspirators must keep their meetings, decisions
and plans secret. Consequently the would-be historian has to rely on
the recollections of the actors, and after a lapse of time, through the
magnitude of the subsequent happenings, recollections get clouded,
connections are forgotten and accounts become coloured by partisan-
ship.
One feels, however, that much of interest in the early period is
omitted from this book?for instance the early history of the Z.W.C.,
and the romantic episode of the first and only course of instruction for
future officers of the Polish irregulars, which ended just in time to
appoint them as officers in the Legions at the outbreak of war.
It is sometimes difficult to follow the author's meaning?for in?
stance in the account of Pilsudski's pamphlet on Narutowicz it is hard
to discern to which of those two men each successive " he " or " him "
refers. Events are often named, e.g. page 142, " The Suwalki Pact,"
without letting us know what the pact was. Again, men are often
mentioned by their office, or even more vaguely, when their name would
be helpful.
In a country where the spelling of proper names is generally con?
sidered difficult, the only error is in the name of the Commander of the
Russian invaders of 1920, where Tutachevski should be Tukhachevski.
E. Clayton.
104. The New Sweden. (Discussion Books No. 18.) By Bjarne
Braatoy. 1939. (London: Nelson. 8vo. 172 pp. 2s.)
In eight balanced chapters Mr. Braatoy explains Sweden's " New
Deal " of " equalisation "; this does not consist of measures of social
reform in a traditional sense, but rather of measures of social rational-
isation. The author tells us how the Social Democratic Party, co-
operating first with the Liberals and then with the Farmers, always
following the rules of the democratic conception of public life, has been
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