August 10, 1936
We must regard the civil war in Spain as a sinister and, perhaps, a fatal milestone on the downward path of Europe. The worst quarrels only arise when both sides are equally in the right and in the wrong. Here on the one hand the passions of a poverty-stricken and backward proletariat demand the overthrow of Church, State and property, and the inauguration of a Communist regime. On the other hand the patriotic, religious and bourgeois forces, under the leadership of the army, and sustained by the countryside in many provinces, are marching to reestablish order by setting up a military dictatorship. The cruelties and ruthless executions extorted by the desperation of both sides, the appalling hatreds unloosed, the clash of creed and interest, make it only too probable that victory will be followed by the merciless extermination of the active elements of the vanquished and by a prolonged period of iron rule.
How did it happen? It happened 'according to plan.' Lenin laid it down that Communists should aid all movements towards the Left and help into office weak constitutional, Radical or Socialist, governments. These they should undermine, and from their failing hands snatch absolute power, and found the Marxist State. This procedure is well known and well proved. It is part of the Communist doctrine; it is part of the Communist drill book. It has been followed almost literally by the Communists of Spain. The constitutional and would-be Liberal and democratic Republic found itself sliding steadily towards the Left. Its ministers soothed the middle classes by the appearances of a Parliamentary system. They weakened or paralysed the resisting power of Conservatives and Monarchists; but they found themselves falling into the grip of dark, violent forces coming ever more plainly into the open, and operating by murder, pillage and industrial disturbance. They continued to play the Parliamentary game long after it had ceased to have any contact with reality. Since the election in the early part of this year, we have witnessed in Spain an almost perfect reproduction, mutatis mutandis, of the Kerensky period in Russia.
However, the strength of Spain had not been shattered by a foreign war. The army still retained a measure of cohesion. Side by side with the Communist conspiracy, there was elaborated in secret a deep military counterplot. It is idle to claim that a constitutional and Parliamentary regime is legally or morally entitled to the obedience of all classes, when it is actually being subverted and devoured from day to day by Communism. A constitutional government, to be worthy of the name, must prove itself capable of preserving law and order, and protecting life, freedom and property. If it fails to enforce these fundamental guarantees, no parliamentary system can endure. The murders and outrages which culminated in the assassination of Se?or Sotelo produced a situation in which neither side could justly claim the title-deeds of legality, and in which citizens of all classes were bound to consider the life of Spain.
As far as one can judge from the news, which has reached the outside world at this stage, the two sides seem equally balanced and in possession of equal parts of Spain. If it were a question of the Old Spain against a New Spain, between the faith, traditions and culture of the past and the appetites and hopes of the future, it would probably go hard with the so-called 'rebels.' But this is not the issue. Two new Spains are struggling for mastery. Two antagonistic modern systems are in mortal grapple. Fascism confronts Communism. The spirit and prowess of Mussolini and of Hitler strive with those of Trotsky and of Bela Kun. Here is no class conflict, no ordinary division of the poor and the rich, of the have-nots against the haves. All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world? Here is a living appeal to the youth and manhood of a proud people. The Old Spain fell with the monarchy. The Parliamentary constitution has led to a chaos of blood and fire. Who will make the New Spain, and in what form? There is the issue which it seems must be fought to an indubitable decision.
The reverberations of the Spanish upheaval extend far beyond the boundaries of the Peninsula. Causes are at stake which in varying degrees disturb the people of every land, and sharply divide the governments of Europe. The wars of Religion, we were told, have ended. Perhaps the wars of rival Irreligions have begun. Fascism and Communism each vaunt their themes, and neither will lack champions or martyrs. Can we wonder that Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany hail or aid Spanish insurgents, or that Bolshevist Russia backs the Communist effort? How, then, do the two liberal and Parliamentary nations of the West stand? What is to be the course of France and Britain? Whoever wins in Spain, freedom and free democracy must be the losers. A revivified Fascist Spain in closest sympathy with Italy and Germany is one kind of disaster. A Communist Spain spreading its snaky tentacles through Portugal and France is another, and many will think the worse. The obvious interest of France and Britain is a liberal Spain restoring under a stable and tolerant Government freedom and prosperity to all its people. That we can scarcely hope will come in our time.
Meanwhile it is of the utmost consequence that France and Britain should act together in observing the strictest neutrality themselves and endeavouring to induce it in others. Even if Russian money is thrown in on the one side, or Italian and German encouragement is given to the other, the safety of France and England requires absolute neutrality and non-intervention by them. French partisanship for the Spanish Communists, or British partisanship for the Spanish rebels, might injure profoundly the bonds which unite the British Empire and the French Republic. This Spanish welter is not the business of either of us. Neither of these Spanish factions expresses our conception of civilisation. We cannot afford in our perilous position to indulge a sentimental or a sporting view. All that is happening increases the power of those evil forces which from both extremes menace the existence of Parliamentary democracy and individual liberty in Great Britain and France. Let us stand aloof with redoubled vigilance and ever-increasing defences.
