36
PARTISAN REVIEW
ganda preaches faith; that is its essence. Our people yearns for po–
litical life to have an inner meaning, it longs for a political con–
fession of faith and is ready greedily to accept it." And Goebbels
stated in his
Signale der neuen Zeit:
"Millions are ready to die for a
gospel, and our movement becomes more of a gospel every day. We
cannot be silenced with the argument that National-Socialism is a
political creed, a political confession of faith, for that is what it is."
No prophet has ever discussed his own mission.
If
a Fascist leader
started discussing, it would show he did not know what Fascism
was. Let me give you an example from the recent history of
this
little
country. A few years ago, as a repercussion of the Fascist triumphs in
Italy and Germany, an embryonic Fascist movement started in
Switzerland. After a noisy beginning, it rapidly faded out. Primarily
its failure was due to the absence in
this
country of the peculiar
po–
litical and social conditions which are the essential background of
any serious radical movement, whether of the Left or of the Right.
The failure of Swiss Fascism was accelerated, however, by the fact
that from the beginning its leaders were of the Professor Pickup
type, and believed it possible to spread Fascism on the basis of public
discussions with Socialist, democratic,\ and Liberal opponents. The
results were ·invariably disastrous, though I must add that probably
those unfortunates had no other choice. In view of
this
country's age–
long democratic education,
if
a political leader declines to engage
in public controversy with his opponents, he promptly discredits him–
self in the eyes of public opinion and most probably finds himself
with no supporters. Demagogy in this country is made still more
difficult by the people's scanty sympathy for eloquence and fine
phrases. But, fortunately for Fascism, not all the democratic countries
are like Switzerland, and in the majority of them,
if
eloquence and
fine phrases were suppressed, where would democracy be? Involved
in
this
attempt to smuggle Fascism into Switzerland were plenty of
studious youths who, like Professor Pickup, set themselves the task of
formulating a theory of Fascism from a study of the state institu–
tions created in recent times in Italy and Germany. But theirs was an
error typical of intellectuals, who, faithful to the saying that intellectu–
ality and intelligence are quite distinct, allow themselves to be readily
attracted by the formal and strictly juridical aspect of
politic? ~
phenomena. It is the fault of this kind of intellectual that democracy
h.as
become synonymous with parliamentarianism, and Bolshevism
with soviets, even where parliamentarianism has destroyed democracy
and Bolshevism the soviets. But let us leave these things aside, for
they do not concern us now.
As
for Fascism,
fix
this well
in
your
mind, Mr. W. There can be Fascism without national traditions,
