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PARTISAN REVIEW
mere reactionaries will be driven into combining in a sort of Popular
Front. The Church is the likeliest bridge between them. In any case
the Church will make every effort to capture and sterilize any move–
ment aiming at European unity. The dangerous thing about the
Church is that it is
not
reactionary in the ordinary sense. It is not
tied to laissez-faire capitalism or to the existing class system, and will
not necessarily perish with them. It is perfectly capable of coming to
terms with socialism, or appearing to do so, provided that its own
position is safeguarded. But if it is allowed to survive as a powerful
organization, it will make the establishment of true socialism impos–
sible, because its influence is and always must be against freedom
of thought and speech, against human equality, and against any
form of society tending to promote earthly happiness.
When I think of these and other difficulties, when I think of
the enormous mental readjustment that would have to be made, the
appearance of a socialist United States of Europe seems to me a very
unlikely event. I don't mean that the bulk of the people are not pre–
pared for it, in a passive way. I mean that I see no person or group
of persons with the slightest chance of attaining power and at the
same time with the imaginative grasp to see what is needed and to
demand the necessary sacrifices from their followers. But I also can't
at present see any other hopeful objective. At one time I believed
that it might be possible to form the British Empire into a federation
of socialist republics, but if that chance ever existed, we lost it by
. failing to liberate India, and by our attitude toward the colored
peoples generally. It may be that Europe is finished and that in the
long run some better form of society will arise in India or China.
But I believe that it is only in Europe, if anywhere, that democratic
socialism could be made a reality in short enough time to prevent
the dropping of the atom bombs.
Of course, there are reasons, if not for optimism, at least for
suspending judgment on certain points. One thing in our favor is
that a major war is not likely to happen immediately. We could,
I suppose, have the kind of war that consists in shooting rockets,
but not a war involving the mobilization of tens of millions of men.
At present any large army would simply melt away, and that may
remain true for ten or even twenty years. Within that time some
unexpected things might happen. For example, a powerful socialist
movement might for the first time arise in the United States. In
England it
is
now the fashion to talk of the United States as "capi-
