RHETORIC AND PEACE
867
not enough to be merely "against arms," whether these arms are knives,
pistols, or nuclear weapons. Whose arms? we must ask. Used how, and
for what? Are they the arms of tyrants seeking to enslave men? Or
arms defending, in one or another measure, the freedom and dignity
of men? Is it not appropriate to meditate on the fact that no petitions
are circulated within the Soviet Union to demand that the Soviet
government destroy its own atomic bombs and factories? No congresses
held in Moscow or Stalingrad condemn the Kremlin for "imperialism"
and "warmongering." In general, I will take pacifism seriously when
I observe the rise of pacifist, disarmament, and anti-war agitation within
the Soviet sphere and directed toward the Soviet government. Until that
day I will continue to believe that pacifism in our time is an illusion or
a counterfeit. I will remain convinced that the duty of intellectuals
is to say so and to act accordingly.
The line connecting the Kremlin with the Partisans of Peace, and
the Partisans of Peace with such actions as the Stockholm Petition, is
direct. The link with that point of view which has lately been called
"neutralism" is less obvious. The "neutralist" position, a development of
what came in late 1947 to be called the Third Force, has an origin and
many spokesmen independent of and opposed to Communism.
It
is plain,
however, that the Communists find neutralism much to their taste. For
them it
is
an admirable auxiliary weapon, and in recent months they
have been fostering its development.
It
is odd to observe that this new European manifestation, neutral–
ism, is an analogue of American isolationism. The sophisticated defend–
ers of neutralism include some Europeans to whom American mid–
Western isolationism has always seemed one of the most primitive of
American cultural traits. However, though analogous in historical morph–
ology to isolationism, European neutralism is in content more directly
similar to an American attitude which is expressed in the United States
by the same type of person that speaks in Europe for neutralism. This
attitude is common in the circles that refer to themselves as the "non–
Communist Left," and it is more sporadically found among conservative
eccentrics.
The neutralist argument, in its European form, seems to be capable
of reduction to the following basic propositions: (1) The present power
conflict is a struggle between the United States and Soviet Russia.
(2) American materialism and Russian totalitarianism are equally alien
to true European culture and equally a threat. (3) Europe must therefore
remain neutral in the power conflict, refuse to line up with either of
