104
PARTISAN REVIEW
strategical security of frontiers was sacrificed because the main aggres–
sor-Germany-stood as the embodiment of the struggle against
Bolshevism. It is- plain that the system of collective security can be
restored only on the pre-supposition that the obstructive ideological
factors no longer exist. Such pre-suppositions are illusory, however.
In order to avert clashes between the ideological forces which
are to be found in all nations, the second policy was introduced–
that of clearly demarcated spheres of interest. This is a policy that
derives from colonial imperialist methods, methods that now recoil
upon Europe. It
is
not likely, however, that anyone will succeed in
treating Europeans like colonials at a time when even the colonial
countries are manifestly on their way to independence. Still more
unrealistic is the hope that on so small and so thickly populated a
territory as Europe it will prove possible to erect walls that shut off
nation from nation and prevent the interaction of ideological forces.
At this moment we are witnessing the resurrection of the good
old bi-lateral alliance which seems to have become the favored political
instrument of the Kremlin. This last piece borrowed from the vast
arsenal of power-politics has only one meaning, and that is the re–
employment of nineteenth century political instruments whose ineffec–
tiveness was discovered and denounced after the last war. Actually,
what such bi-lateral agreements come to in the end
is
that the stronger
partner of any !'O-called Alliance dominates the weaker, politically
and ideologically.
The Governments-in-exile, being interested only in restoration
as such, waver pitifully between these alternatives and are ready to
accept almost anything offered by one of the Big Three-collective
security, sphere of interest or Alliance. Among them de Gaulle must
be conceded a special position. Unlike the others, he represents not
the forces of yesterday but is rather a solitary reminder of the forces
berore yesterday-a time which, whatever its faults, was considerably
more propitious to human purposes than the recent past. In other
words, he alone truly represents patriotism and nationalism in the old
sense. When his former comrades in the French Army and the
Action
Francaise
turned traitors and pacifism seized France like a fever and
the ruling classes rushed to collaborate, he did not even understand
what was happening. In a sense, he had the good fortune to be unable
to believe his eyes- to believe, that is, that Frenchmen did not want
a national war against Germany. All that he has done since he has
done for the sake of the nation, and his patriotism
is
so deeply rooted
in the popular will that the Resistance,
i.e.
the people, was able to
support and influence his policies. De Gaulle, who is the only national
