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about Mussolini or Stalin. My American friends and I spent pleasur–
able weeks in Italy during the Abyssinian War, which we thought was
a bad thing, but not much concern of ours. We were reading Berenson
and wondering whether all good painting had ended with Duccio and
Cimabue.
About 1936, back in Oxford there came a sudden change, but I
cannot now remember exactly how it happened. As a historian , I am a
little puzzl ed at how difficult it is to recapture one's own past and a
little sceptical at the ease with which others seem to think they can do
it. Perhaps one of my troubles is that since I am a compulsive destroyer
of personal papers, I have no letters or notes or diaries. This is what I
remember.
Somehow, about 1936, at Oxford, I became acutely aware of the
world of politics. I had always been some sort of socialist, and in
reading history as an undergraduate I had absorbed some notions
about capitalism, imperialism, war and class struggle. Then in 1936
some new Rhodes Scholars arrived who had been in radical student
movements at home. Mostly it was a result of the rising concern in
England and at Oxford with Mussolini, Hitler, the Japanese in
Manchuria, and the prospect of another war. But it was especially the
impact of the Spanish Civi l War which tquched us all so passionately.
It was the era of the Popular Front, the Left Book Club, the Interna–
tional Brigade. At least one Rhodes Scholar became a courier to Spain
for the Republican government.
In all this, the Russians, and the Communists, seemed to be on the
right side. Not on ly had the Webbs and Harold Lasky blessed the Soviet
\
regime and Lincoln Steffens said, "I have seen the future and it works,"
but also at the League of Nations Litvinow was trying to persuade the
British and French to join the Russians in stopping fascism in Spain
and in preventing a new world war. I do not remember ever discussing
Trotsky or the Russian purges. Our primary goal was to prevent World
War II, and we paid scant attention to Russian domestic policies. I can
remember being a little troubled when the communists attacked the
anarchists in Spain. But since I did not know much about anarchists, I
accepted the notion that they were a Spanish aberration and that
anarchists were impractical idealists who refused to accept the military
discipline necessary to defeat Franco. The Popular Front was strong in
France and seemed to be gathering strength in England. Communists
seemed to be the most active members of the Front. There seemed to be
hope that Hitler and Mussolini might be stopped in Spain and another
World War averted.
