Sidney Hook
SOCIALISM AND LIBERATION
We have traveled a long way since 1950. At that time it
seemed that despite the policy of containment pursued by the West,
the Kremlin would seize the offensive in Western Europe and launch
a war while the United States was pinned down in Asia countering
the Communist North Korean, and later the Chinese, invasion of
South Korea. Partly to prevent such a war, and partly in the hope
that if such a war were forced on the West the people of the satellite
world would rise against their oppressors, the slogan of "liberation"
received gradual but equivocal support, equivocal because no gov–
ernment or leading statesman thought through what a policy of
liberation-as distinct from a hope- really entailed.
The development of nuclear weapons by the Soviet Union made
it apparent that liberation by means of war might very well mean
liberation from existence. Although there is considerable evidence
that the Soviet regime cannot be provoked into war, and, further,
that whenever its leaders feel they can win by a sudden move that
will at the same time forestall any devastating retaliation, they will
discard their slogans of "peaceful coexistence"-nonetheless, the dan–
ger of war is sufficiently great, and the reaction to that danger so
fearful, that it
is
the prime cause of the widespread moods of ap–
peasement and neutralism periodically generated in recent years in
Western Europe. Anyone frank enough to admit it knows that despite
the evidence of Budapest and its aftermath, this mood is as strong
as ever in Europe today.
No leading statesman of the West has ever preached or advo–
cated a preventive war; and even the leaders of the Assembly of the
Captive European Nations believe that a firm and consistent policy
of liberation can be pursued by the free world
without
war. But
