Declaration of Freedom - Chapter 1

Declaration of Freedom

By Elton Trueblood, 1955

Chapter I: The Only Hope for Peace

This struggle between communism and freedom is a struggle of ideas.

To win in such a battle our ideas must be better.

 - Dwight D, Eisenhower

The crucial feature of our troubled world is its tragic division. More dangerous than the release of nuclear energy is the separation of the human population into two major centers of antagonistic power and conviction. Indeed, the chief reason why nuclear energy is dangerous is not because of the scientific situation, but because of the human situation.  Nuclear energy would not be a threat to our race if the human population were united and friendly; in that case the peaceful uses of atomic power would be the only uses, and the brilliant technological achievements of our generation might become unqualified blessings. But this condition is far from the one which we know so well.

We have often, in the long story of human development, had many worlds, and sometimes we have dreamed of one world, but the awful fact now is that we have two worlds.

This, which is the worst possible number, is a curiously tragic result of all of our strivings to produce a civilization. After all of our years of science and government and philosophy and religion we have emerged into the predicament marked by two enormous camps, glaring at each other over artificial barriers. These two camps do not include all of the inhabitants of earth, but they include so many, and they represent such power, that all others are forced to state their own positions in terms of these two.

This situation is dangerous now, but if it goes on to achieve relative permanence it will be practically intolerable. It is bad enough for contemporary adults to live in a world in which there is, between the two major ideological groupings, constant mistrust, recrimination and propaganda barrage. but it is far worse to think of this as the destiny of our children. Will those who are now babies face this same strain when they are the persons who bear the responsibilities of mature life? To think so is to experience a nightmare, but how is it to be avoided? Ilow can the tension possibly be brought to an end? This is the question which must haunt the minds of all who care.

Nearly everything we see today points to the continuation or even the intensification of the antagonism. This is because the major purposes of the two main groups are strictly and logically incompatible. Mutual tolerance is little more than meaningless sentimentality when there are clear conflicts in ultimate aims. This is why nearly all of the talk about the present “relaxation of tension” is either dishonest propaganda or self-delusion. So long as the Western world maintains its belief in the desirability of a free society and, at the same time, the Eastern world maintains its belief in the desirability of regimented society, relaxation is temporary at best.

The communist move in lndo-China followed the Korean effort so logically that it was predicted by thousands of astute observers. In the same way it takes no great wisdom to predict similar future efforts in the same general direction. We do not know which part of southeast Asia will next be subject for “liberation,” but only the naive think that the missionary zeal of dialectical materialism has spent its force. Because the dogma has not changed, and because the missionary zeal continues, the clash is inherent in the total human situation.

The necessity of the tension arises from the West as truly as from the East, because the Western faith in freedom is likewise inevitably committed to extension. Those who really believe in the free way of life are bound to seek to make it prevail and that for two reasons. The first is that we are bound to share what we truly prize; the second is that the full life of any free society cannot be experienced if it is constantly bombarded by either force or propaganda or both. Peaceful coexistence may be the least evil of contemporary possibilities and it may be the necessary present means to a better end, but as a permanent condition it is truly intolerable. If, in fifty years, our children and their children are still glaring across curtains, rejoicing in defections and watching for opportunities to discredit the opposing population, the good life for man on his little planet will be seriously imperiled. 

How, then, can the antagonism end? It is now easy for anyone to see that the possible solutions of the tension are very few. The first possibility is a communist victory. We do not know how many minds have been won to the essential Marxist ideology in the last thirty-seven years, but we do know that those who espouse this ideology now control the lives and destinies of at least eight hundred million human beings.  In all human history there is no record of missionary success comparable to this and there is no reason to suppose that the wave of advance has stopped. It is wholly conceivable that this wave will go right on, winning more and more of the peoples of the world, especially those who are less privileged or who have been the victims of colonial exploitation. The powerful nations of the West would be the last to fall, but they might be infiltrated with great effectiveness, particularly through the intellectuals. Once the main convictions of the opinion makers were changed, the ultimate Marxist victory would be easy.

This is a possible solution of the problem, but altogether a frightful one. A world wholly dominated, as Russia and the satellite countries are now dominated, is a logical possibility and it would, indeed, be “one world," but the very contemplation of such an outcome is enough to convince us that mere unity is not unconditionally good. Unity is possible on many conditions and several of them are radically evil. Hitler might have made “one world"—a world marked by Aryan supremacy—if he had succeeded in getting his system going. It was, indeed, his specific prediction that his system would last at least a thousand years. Fortunately, for the race, he did not succeed, but he was certainly correct in maintaining that a ruthlessly managed totalitarian society would have remarkable facilities for its own perpetuation.

The communist victory over men’s minds and consequently over their bodies would end the tragic division of the world, but at a price so great that it is bound to be unacceptable to any unbiased person. Order there would be, but the order of the hive, with the denial of civil liberties, with the reintroduction of slavery and with the ultimate decay of the life of the spirit. We know enough about what happens to men and women in such a regime to know that such a solution of the tension would be worse than the tension.

A second possible solution would be open war. This is fully possible and could come even without conscious intent. Every thoughtful person is bound to face it as a possibility every day, because so many of the reasons for its occurrence are obvious on all sides. Both power groups possess weapons of terrible power and both have the means of using them to produce almost inconceivable damage. The carefully reported explosions in the Pacific are enough to make us know that this solution would really be no solution, because the outcome would be almost as ruinous to the victors as to the vanquished. We have some idea of what would happen to Pittsburgh and Washington and Moscow and Shanghai, when we remember that there is now one less island in the world than there was. Open war might end the present tension, and it would certainly alter the present division of the race, but it would not bring either happiness or peace. It is not and cannot be an acceptable solution.

This leaves only one way open to thoughtful men. This third way is the penetration of all the world by the dream of a society that is both just and free. This is a logical possibility, as the growth of communism is, and must be envisaged as a live alternative. It would mean that in both of the contemporary divisions of the human race, as well as among those who now constitute a deliberately neutral force, there would be developed a passionate devotion to that order of life in which there is liberty and justice for all. On the Western side of the iron curtain this would involve a rediscovery of fundamental values and such rededication to them that the consequent demonstration would be inherently and irresistibly attractive. The very attractiveness of the society thus emerging would be a persuasive force of incalculable worth, strong enough to penetrate any kind of curtain. The news of a really just order would finally reach everywhere.

On the other side of the iron curtain this third way out of the tension would be marked by a revolutionary conviction that could, in time, shatter the established and now conventional communist order. It is wholly conceivable that the young people of Russia, like youth in other situations, may have in them the seeds of revolt against the established order. Some may find, as a novel discovery, the wonder of the world view which combines the rational vision of Greece and the moral vision of Palestine. What if the grandchildren of the men of the Kremlin should become excited about the great and moving idea of the inherent dignity of every individual man, each so precious that he cannot any longer be looked upon as an expendable cog in a political machine? That this is not fantastic is shown, in part, by the present acceleration of the Soviet effort to discredit religious belief. The drive is motivated by the fact that attendance at the churches is no longer limited to the old people; religion becomes dangerous to the regime when it begins to attract the vigorous, the thoughtful and the young.

The penetration of the whole earth by the ideal of a free society would bring to an end the tragic division of the world and it would bring it about in such a way as to be beneficent to all parts of mankind. It is, accordingly, the only solution which those who care about the human race, and care realistically, can accept. Therefore, it is the first order of business for really thoughtful minds. It is not an idle dream, but the only practicable alternative to a continuing nightmare. This solution may be slow and it may be costly and it is a task in which we may fail, but we must undertake it because there is no other way that is compatible with human dignity. It is a hard road, but it is really the only road.

If this thinking is correct. our program is essentially clear. The major hope for peace lies not in arguments, however important they are, but rather in ideas. Our task is both intellectual and practical. On the one hand, we must clarify our world view, going beyond easy clichés about equality or freedom, until we have a detailed and definite understanding of the nature of the life which we so inadequately demonstrate, but which is really the inspiration of whatever progress in the direction of ordered liberty we have already made. On the other hand, our practical task is a renewed effort to demonstrate in every phase of our practical existence the set of ideas to which we are committed. The two sides of this effort are of equal importance. If we do not have the ideas the demonstration is not likely to occur, but without the demonstration the words and ideas seem insincere. The combination, by millions of people and over a long period, is the world's only hope for peace.

In strict honesty we must always distinguish between our coherent creed and our actual practice, which never equals the creed. But if we wait until our practice is perfect, we shall wait forever, because, for one thing, we are failing to take advantage of the potent effect of the carefully depicted ideal in disturbing our complacency. What we depict is not fundamental reason why we cannot do something of this for the idea of a free society? To say that we cannot, to say the task is intrinsically impossible, is to adopt a doctrinaire defeatism, the validity of which is not self-evident. In any case the task is worth trying and it is of sufficient importance that it may reasonably involve the combined effort of many minds. It is not enough that it be the work of a few appointed leaders. Countries do, indeed, make contact through their elite, but this contact is worth little unless there are convictions among the rank and file to back up the decisions that are made.

It is important to realize that the totalitarian systems of our troubled century win assent, in large measure, by their ideological appeal. We are making a great mistake when we say, as we do repeatedly, that the Russians have won domination over the lives of eight hundred million persons merely by means of actual and threatened violence. Such violence there undoubtedly is, and concentration camps are an acknowledged part of the system, until Utopia is achieved, but violence alone will never succeed. Unless there are believers, in sufficient numbers, a start on the system can never be made. The members of the party are indeed a minority, but unless this minority is convinced, the majority cannot be controlled. Moreover, there is a constant and sustained effort to win more and more of the unconvinced majority to the central ideological conviction.

There is no doubt that millions behind the iron curtain espouse Marx-Leninism because they are passionately devoted to it as the wave of the future. Most of us in the West do not realize adequately the seriousness with which this our total practice, but what we partly practice and what, moreover, is the inspiration of the best we do. A Negro educator, in trying to give a reasonable title to what we are discussing, said, “I'll tell you what we can call it: The Life We Claim to F allow Though We've Never Wholly Done So, and Which We Are About to Lose, Though We've Never Wholly Had It.’ This is the point precisely. What is most precious is the standard, because it is by reference to the standard that we can judge our failures.

The standards of a totalitarian society are nearly always definite in statement. Part of the success of Adolf Hitler, during his stormy years of ascendancy, arose from the sharpness of his convictions, diseased as they were. The ordinary citizen could read Mein Kampf and, as he read, he was able to comprehend the particular combination of Nationalism and Socialism and anti-Semitism to which his assent was asked. In similar vein, almost anyone can understand the Communist Manifesto or the late Russian variants on its theme. If the reader becomes convinced of the validity of this conception, with its astute but deceptive combination of idealism and realism, he will then have a blueprint for his own life, as well as for the society he serves. Is there any conviction is held, but we are helped a bit when we read sentences like the following from a young man in China:

Now I am no longer the former man you knew. Apart from my body. which is the same, my whole mind and thought have changed. I have become a new man in the classless revolution pioneer corps, a loyal believer of Marx-Leninism. I shall never live for myself alone, but for the masses. What satisfies my aspirations now is the progress of a happy socialism to a communist state. In this new teaching I have found unimagined blessing and happiness. I am very sorry, but I must inform you that I no longer believe in God nor worship Him. I can no longer address you as a religious brother, but I send you my revolutionary love.

In the Western world we are, to some extent, prisoners of our own vociferous propaganda. We are so outraged by the crimes against human dignity. as in the torture of prisoners and the murder of innocent kinsmen, that we fail to perceive why it is that the communist message is so well and so widely received. We almost convince ourselves that what we face, on the other side of the planet, is nothing but a crass and despotic imperialism. Whenever we do this we are terribly and dangerously deluded. A mere tyrannical system would not have been able to win domination over eight hundred million souls in thirty-seven short years. If all that we face is a particularly well-organized tyranny, the fanatical devotion to it is wholly incomprehensible.

What we face is a well—organized tyranny that becomes a conspiracy in other countries, but this is not all; it is also a religion. Many are shocked to hear of a religion that does not include the worship of Almighty God, but religion is more an attitude and a mood than a particular belief. In the Russian system the faith in God has been displaced by faith in dialectical materialism. No doubt the substitute faith will ultimately prove inadequate, but it still satisfies millions, particularly those who believe anything else is incompatible with science.

We have a constant temptation to underestimate our adversaries, partly because such underestimation temporarily allays our fears. This was tragically demonstrated in the years before 1932 when we often spoke of Adolf Hitler as an Austrian house painter and refused to take seriously the doctrine of Blood and Soil. In this we were manifestly wrong, because Hitler proved himself as clever as he was unscrupulous, and the religion of racial purity had a sinister charm for millions, especially the young. Part of this was because of the spiritual vacuum which was waiting to be filled.

We are in a much stronger position if we realize that what we face is not merely an economic system, but a perverted faith, which is fanatical in mood, missionary in intent and capable of eliciting unquestioning devotion from its convinced followers. That this is true is perhaps the most important service rendered by Whittaker Chambers, in the presentation of his tortured autobiography, Witness. The most practical conclusion to be drawn by us is that we cannot compete in the struggle of ideas if our grounding is anything less firm and if our dedication is any less complete. The only way to meet a perverted faith is by the clarification and exemplification of a better faith, which we find inherently convincing and to which we are consequently committed. A civilization without a sense of meaning will never, in the long run, be a match for a civilization which has a sense of meaning, even if the latter is based on false assumptions.

Those who are convinced Marx-Leninists are moved chiefly by a double claim. They believe, in the first place, that they have adopted the only world view which is compatible with a serious understanding of science. Science, they believe, is the great achievement of man, the one human enterprise that is definite and objective. They assume that whatever science can deal with is dependable, whereas whatever science cannot deal with is purely subjective and consequently unreal. All idealism is nonsense, because it is not scientific; it is unscientific because it cannot be dealt with in the laboratory. Thus no consistent Leninist can believe in mind, in purpose, in free will, in immortality, in moral values. All of these, the Leninist is bound to assume, are mere products of an unscientific age, when the difference between objective facts and subjective illusions was not yet clearly understood. Some protagonists of the system, including those who speak at the United Nations Assembly, use some of these words, but they could not use them if they were strict adherents of the materialism which they claim to espouse. These same men deal in moral values when they seek to discredit their enemies and opponents, but in doing this they are using the Greco-Judean vocabulary rather than the vocabulary of strict Marxism. When they attack us they do so in terms of our philosophy rather than their own.

The only reason crusading communism can inflame men's minds is that it includes, however inconsistently, some of the idealism it affects to despise and which it has supposedly outgrown. This necessary and powerful factor in the ideology is provided by the vision of a classless society toward which history is supposed to be moving. Here the main motive is akin to that expressed by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets and by the early Christians, the dream of setting the captives free.

It would be a serious mistake to underestimate the liberation motif in totalitarian schemes. Hitler was liberating the Aryans from the strangle hold of the commercially successful Jews. The leaders of the Kremlin tell the people of the satellite countries that they are being set free from the domination of the war-mongering capitalist nations. The leaders of the Peking regime have found that the most successful appeal they can make lies in the promise of land reform for the sake of the poor, by dispossessing the selfish landlords and dividing up big estates. The great appeal in southeast Asia is the appeal inherent in the process of liberation from colonialism, an appeal which works so long as the oppressed peoples are not able to recognize the rise of the new Red Colonialism that is taking the place of the old.

The astounding success of the ideology of Marx-Leninism in that it has been able, in only thirty-seven years, to start from nothing and to control the lives of one third of the human race, is not understandable except by the recognition of the remarkable way in which the preferred medicine matches the felt disease. The particular combination of tough-minded materialism and the championing of the oppressed in their plight is ideally suited to this age, an age in which millions are already seeking to emerge from superstition on the one hand and from the various forms of colonialism on the other. The materialism seems to millions to be the only alternative to superstition, while the communist system seems to be the only practical escape from colonialism and white supremacy. The materialism alone would not appeal sufficiently, while anti-colonialism alone would not be effective, but the combination works wonders.

If we are wise we shall appreciate the enormous strength of this double appeal and realize that no alternative system has even the beginnings of a chance unless it is even more tough-minded, and unless it likewise is more revolutionary. If the millions of the oppressed believe, for any reason, that what we call the free society is really the society of the conservative rich, which is seeking to consolidate its grip on the backward peoples, and thus frustrate the development of the revolutionary movement, the upholders of the free society are bound to lose in the struggle for men's minds. It is not sufficient that we are not, in fact, antirevolutionary; it is necessary, in addition, that we do not seem to be antirevolutionary. If our ideological opponents can succeed in casting us in the role of those who try to maintain the status quo, we are bound to lose the struggle.

The revolutionary drive is world wide and cannot be stopped. It has already been very powerful in Asia and is bound, eventually, to be equally powerful, or even more so, in Africa. The success of the Leninist system up to this point arises, more than anything else, from the degree to which it has made the latent idealism of peoples everywhere its constant propaganda target. By tireless repetition, the belief is established that the leaders of the Kremlin are somehow identified with the poor peoples. the colored peoples, the landless peoples, the peoples without self-determination.

The matching between what the submerged peoples are demanding and what the ideological fabrication of Soviet communism offers concerning humanitarian objectives is almost perfect. All over the world the hitherto exploited populations are demanding at least three things:

1. They demand a share in the fruits of the industrial revolution. Noting, by means of pictures and by hearsay, the marvelous results of the machine age, almost all men want some of these for themselves. The Nigerian wife desires a sewing machine and will get one if she can. The awakening member of a simple society learns of the marvels of antibiotics and desires, for himself and for his children, the same protection from disease that those of industrial societies already enjoy. We may expect this general demand to grow, rather than to diminish, in the coming years. Great sections of the human race are still bound down by burdensome labor of the kind that destroys rather than develops the human spirit, and those who are aroused know that this could come to an end. The citizen of India who knows that there is an incalculably great source of hydroelectric power in the northern mountains will not be satisfied until this power is harnessed by modem technology and used to relieve some of the bitterness of man’s estate. The valid desire of the submerged peoples is not merely for leisure, but for fullness of life.

2. The submerged peoples desire a share in the fruits of the democratic process. The democratic revolution is, as de Tocqueville said, “the most uniform, the most ancient and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history,’ but for many peoples it is relatively novel. Western nations that have established colonies in Asia and Africa and taken ideas with them have thus prepared the ground for the destruction of their own systems. Old fashioned colonialism cannot survive. There is little likelihood of the success of any system, in its appeal for popular support, unless it at least appears to be democratic, though the forms of democracy may vary. What we see now is a universalizing of the tendency which we associate with the Renaissance, but is by no means limited to it. There is what is called economic democracy as well as political democracy and some desire the former more than the latter. The revolutionary movement has such momentum that we could not stop it, even if we desired to do so. That this is the major factor in the recent development in lndo-China is now clear to all. France seemed to so many, including Frenchmen, to be holding to an outdated system that her position could not be maintained, even by military power.

3. The submerged peoples demand something which will give dignity and meaning to their lives. They require, not merely something to live on, but something to live for. In short, they demand the sort of thing which hitherto has come chiefly through the great religions. Man, small and inconsequential as he appears to be in the vast confused movement of human history, requires a belief in terms of which his own life is not trivial. Whatever the meaning of the whole may be, he cannot live adequately or happily unless he feels he has some participation in it. He cannot live without bread, but he cannot live by bread alone.

It is important to realize that the Leninist system makes a deliberate attempt to meet all three of these requirements. The backward peoples are told, in the first place, that the way of life which stems from Karl Marx can provide them with more of the fruits of the industrial revolution than can free enterprise. The propagandists are forced to admit the present high standard of technical living in the Western democracies, but the difference, they say, is only temporary. They point to the rapid industrialization of Russia, which has included the production of atomic weapons, and they promise a similar achievement to others. To the very poor the promise seems to he almost as effective as if it were an achieved result.

In the second place, the Russian-inspired ideologists meet the desire for self-determination partly by constant maligning of imperialists and partly by the use of the language of democracy. In time, no doubt, the dispossessed peoples will learn that Red Colonialism is far more oppressive than the old colonialism of the West, but millions have not yet found this out, partly because they are subjected to a barrage of words. The new regimes as they are set up are known officially as "People's Republics” and the very words seem to be effective, even though there is not actually freedom of thought, expression or decision. The power of the system in this regard lies not in the democracy which it provides, but in that which it claims to provide against the background of cultivated resentment toward the West. The strongest card yet played by the communist strategists is the effort to convince the millions who live in areas which are consciously or unconsciously neutralist that it abolishes the distinction between ‘natives’ and those of European descent. “For the millions who are still being treated as ‘natives’ today," says Arnold Toynbee, ‘communism is an obvious remedy, because they have come to know that, if they go Communist, they will never be treated as ‘natives’ any longer." This is made particularly effective when it is combined with constant reference to racial discrimination in America and other "capitalist" countries, such as the Union of South Africa.

In the third place, the Marxian ideology has been successful in the way in which it has provided the ordinary man with a sense of his own significance. This is done chiefly by reference to the dialectic. History, all are told, is moving relentlessly, objectively and irresistibly in the direction of the achievement of the classless society. It moves like the planets which we can observe, but cannot change. According to historical determinism. all of the actions of men are on a par with the actions of molecules or atoms, equally determined according to existent and partially discoverable laws. Such determinism is applied to human actions, the great Pavlov's conception of the conditioned reflex being used as a support.

We might suppose that such conclusions would make the individual feel like a helpless pawn in a fatalistic scheme, but the curious result is that so many fail to draw this highly logical conclusion. In practice the individual often feels a heightened sense of importance when he thinks of his own life as a link in the endless chain of hard cause and effect. Above all, he is part of a system that he believes to be winning. He is, he thinks, part of the dawning day as superstition is eliminated; he is part of an irresistible movement according to which his kind of society is bound to grow at the same time that the decadent capitalist societies inevitably decline, by virtue of their inherent weaknesses.

However unsuccessful the Leninist system of life and thought may eventually be in providing adequate responses to these three human desires, it may be confidently asserted that no other system can prevail or endure if it is less successful in this regard. Our alternative to secular communism is not worth developing unless it meets the prevailing needs adequately and more adequately than does any rival. If we are merely anticommunist we automatically concede the initiative to the other side and this is to be outmaneuvered in the war of ideas. The way of life which stems from Greece and Palestine cannot survive or prevail unless it provides the best opportunity of sharing in the fruits of the industrial development, unless it provides for self-determination that is genuinely able to make men free from outside domination, and unless it gives a sense of meaning to ordinary lives that is ultimately more convincing and thrilling than can be offered by any other system.

The exciting news is that all of the understandable and legitimate human demands may be magnificently met by a free society, providing those in it understand their own creed and can make it understandable to those whose search for answers is so insistent.

a) To the first of the three demands, that for a share in the fruits of the industrial revolution, we answer that the free way of life will provide this faster and better than any other. The productive capacity of unregimented men is one of the wonders of all time. It is the scientist who, in his laboratory, is free to follow the evidence wherever it leads who makes the creative discoveries. It is more than a coincidence that insulin was developed in Canada and penicillin in Great Britain. It is no accident that, during World War II, the free societies succeeded in releasing the power of the atom while the totalitarian societies failed to do so. The industrial society which combines the incentives of free enterprise with the right of men to bargain freely, in the disposal of their labor, is the most successful that the world has yet known, measured by its capacity to provide the needs of people who have bodies as well as minds. Men work fewer hours to buy a pair of shoes in a free economy than they do in a regimented one. Thus the poor are helped, even more than the rich, by the general raising of the standard of living.

The hope of the submerged peoples of the world in sharing the fruits of the industrial revolution lies principally in the fact that the skills developed in a free economy are transferable to other areas. Our best hint of how this is to be done is the inadequate yet wonderfully exciting project known everywhere as Point Four. By this device it is possible, providing we really care about producing peace, to share industrial skill and capital with any who are willing to share. It is essential to the idea that those who initiate the work approach their less privileged neighbors, not as condescending philanthropists, but as teammates in a human enterprise in which all have vital stakes. The changes which have already come in this project are phenomenal and of its expansion there is no known limit. Men need better agriculture, better medicine, better sources of power, and this is a practical means by which these can come. Other developments, equally exciting, are possible daily because in a genuinely free society the flexibility of the system is part of its nature.

b) To the second of the three revolutionary demands the answer is equally strong. In those areas in which the Hellenic Palestinian ideal has been seriously at work, the experience of self-determination has been most marked. Not only do the Western democracies provide the right to vote, with a genuine choice between candidates and parties, so that, without fear of personal reprisal, they can turn out those of whom they disapprove; they also encourage industrial democracy in the increasing practice of giving workers a voice in the policy of the industry they serve. This is seen in many ways, such as the successful drive for health benefits, for holidays with pay and for secure arrangements concerning retirement. The right to criticize is widely cherished and civil liberties are jealously guarded. We cannot deny that such liberties are sometimes in jeopardy, but a free society provides a setting in which they can be defended and restored.

Not only are the Western governments able to encourage such genuine self-determination on the part of their own people; they help to spread such practices to other parts of the human race. Britain did grant India and Pakistan full independence without being forced to such action by a war. The United States did grant independence to the Philippines, and on the date promised. In short, the system which is the only live alternative to communism involves inconsistencies in practice, but it also involves healing forces which are antidotes to such failures. Much of its merit lies in the degree to which it carries within itself the seeds of its own change and rectification.

In no area of human experience is this fact of rectification more obvious than in that of race relations. The failure of the West in this regard is the Achilles’ heel of the free societies, and it is the Achilles’ heel because there is a measure of truth in the criticism that is constantly leveled. If the free societies cannot stop discrimination on the basis of race, the communist propagandists have a powerful advantage in the appeal for admiration and assent, even though their own hands are not clean in this regard. The important point to make, in the light of this situation, is that the free society has a means of self-criticism and consequent change, in this or any other matter.

What is not sufficiently known is that, while we are far from satisfied with the present situation, the change in race relations during the past few years has been almost unbelievably great. It is not an overstatement to say that the development of opportunities for Negroes in the life of the West, during the last decade, has been the most revolutionary social development ever known in human history. The cultural attaché of the United States in Rome is a Negro, chosen on the basis of competence; this is only one instance, out of thousands, of advance in cultural and economic opportunities. What is of primary significance is not the point already reached, but rather the direction in which the movement is going.

c) It is in regard to the third of the basic human demands that the answer of the free society is the most appealing and potentially the most effective. If men, whether privileged or underprivileged, seek a meaning for their little lives, the creed inherent in the world view which arose first in the eastern Mediterranean can give what is required. According to this world view, every man, whether dark or light, whether rich or poor, is of transcendent importance. The state exists for the sake of the individuals, not the individuals for the sake of the state. Since each individual man is a locus of value, the test of any system is what it does to him. He has rights which cannot be abrogated and he is encouraged to work for a society which guards these rights, not only for himself, but for all men everywhere.

This man, for whom the state exists, is not a pawn in a dialectical game of history, because there is an area of conduct in which each is really free to choose. Decision is a fact and not a delusion of those who obey their conditioned reflexes. Because decision is genuine, each person is truly responsible. He cannot absolve himself of total responsibility by referring to his genes or to the complexities of the economic order which determine his action. Because responsibility is real and men are not automatons, praise and blame are meaningful.

Life is dignified for each person, if all this is true, because each can play some part in helping, as a responsible agent, in the effort to produce a relatively better world, more free, more fair and more just. We are not the helpless instruments of an impersonal historical dialectic, but creatures who can share, by conscious choice and consequent responsibility, in the alteration of history. We are persons in a world in which personality is infinitely precious and in which each, by his own intelligent planning and good will, in partnership with his fellows, can make a difference. The answer to the desire for meaning is the accent on human dignity.

Peace, if it ever comes, will not be merely a matter of balance of arms or of governmental arrangements. It will come, instead, by a meeting of minds which transcends the divisions and antagonisms which imperil the welfare of all men everywhere. We have seen some hints of the nature of the conception on which such a meeting of minds is possible. To the development of its details we may now fruitfully turn.