28
PARTISAN REVIEW
through which the German people passed during the post-war years.
MR.
w.
Propaganda, however able it may be, cannot be successful unless
historical reality offers it some pretext. The primeval German forest
was effective propaganda in Germany and the Roman tradition was
similarly effective in Italy because both were backed by still-living
traditions that were far older than either democracy or Liberalism.
But in America we lack all tradition. Our history begins with the
Declaration of Independence in 1776. Before then the thirteen states
were British colonies. Hence our brief history is entirely Liberal.
If
you
consider that in 1776 the United States had barely two million in–
habitants (and the War of Independence caused a number of lead–
ing families to leave the country and return to England) and that the
population today is one hundred and thirty millions, it is clear that
so far as
~ts
population is concerned the United States is a creation of
the Libera)\ epoch, and a recent creation at that. A national tradition
is not created under such conditions.
THOMAS THE CYNIC
Do you really believe the Roman tradition exists in Italy, Mr.
W.? I assure you that exactly the
opposit~
is the case. A few years
ago there was a discussion among Italian historians concerning the
date of the origins of the present Italian nation. Some put it at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, others favored the eighteenth
century, others even went back to the Trecento and Dante. Fascism
was then in power, and naturally there
is
no lack of Fascist historians,
but not a single one of them, Fascist or oth<;_rwise, had the courage to
maintain that the history of Italy begins with classical antiquity. The
survival of the Roman tradition in Italy is the sheerest nonsense, but
that did not prevent Mussolini from making it the central myth of
Fascist ideology and drawing on it for titles, symbols, and rites for
the Fascist party organization and the Fasicst state. Young men have
volunteered for service in Africa and Spain and laid down their lives
for the sake of the Roman tradition. It was not a "call of the blood"
that made them do it, but the suggestive power of Fascist propaganda.
MR.
w.
But there must be some element of plausibility
if
a deception is
to take place. There is at least a geographical correspondence between
the Italy of today and the Rome of the Caesars. In America we have
nothing equivalent.
THOMAS THE CYNIC
If
a deception is to take place, the first condition, Mr. W., is that
its victim should be in the necessary state of receptivity. The contents
of the suggestion and the character of its practitioner obviously have
