The Chinese leader recently stated that we must chose between war or peace. In response USA renames its Department of Defense, now to be called Department of War. Warrior ethos apparently. I think it is time we learnt from our past errors.
So here is chapter 50 of Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate, recounting the horrors of the seige of Stalingrad. Confiscated and banned in USSR it describes two totalitarian states, one Fascist, the other Communist, ripping the world apart and sending millions to ignominious death. It is a terrible warning of what we are capable of, although it also offers a ray of hope.
Before slaughtering infected cattle, various preparatory
measures have to be carried out: pits and trenches must be dug; the
cattle must be transported to where they are to be slaughtered;
instructions must be issued to qualified workers.
If the local population helps the authorities to convey the
infected cattle to the slaughtering points and to catch beasts that
have run away, they do this not out of hatred of cows and calves, but
out of an instinct for self-preservation.
Similarly, when people are to be slaughtered en masse, the
local population is not immediately gripped by a bloodthirsty hatred
of the old men, women and children who are to be destroyed. It is
necessary to prepare the population by means of a special
campaign. And in this case it is not enough to rely merely on the
instinct for self-preservation; it is necessary to stir up feelings of real
hatred and revulsion.
It was in such an atmosphere that the Germans carried out the
extermination of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Jews. And at an
earlier date, in the same regions, Stalin himself had mobilized the
fury of the masses, whipping it up to the point of frenzy during the
campaigns to liquidate the kulaks as a class and during the
extermination of Trotskyist-Bukharinite degenerates and saboteurs.
Experience showed that such campaigns make the majority of
the population obey every order of the authorities as though
hypnotized. There is a particular minority which actively helps to
create the atmosphere of these campaigns: ideological fanatics;
people who take a bloodthirsty delight in the misfortunes of others;
and people who want to settle personal scores, to steal a man's
belongings or take over his flat or job. Most people, however, are
horrified at mass murder, but they hide this not only from their
families, but even from themselves. These are the people who filled
the meeting-halls during the campaigns of destruction; however vast
these halls or frequent these meetings, very few of them ever
disturbed the quiet unanimity of the voting. Still fewer, of course,
rather than turning away from the beseeching gaze of a dog suspected of rabies, dared to take the dog in and allow it to live in their houses. Nevertheless, this did happen.
The first half of the twentieth century may be seen as a time of
great scientific discoveries, revolutions, immense social
transformations and two World Wars. It will go down in history,
however, as the time when — in accordance with philosophies of race
and society — whole sections of the Jewish population were
exterminated. Understandably, the present day remains discreetly
silent about this.
One of the most astonishing human traits that came to light at
this time was obedience. There were cases of huge queues being
formed by people awaiting execution — and it was the victims
themselves who regulated the movement of these queues. There
were hot summer days when people had to wait from early morning
until late at night; some mothers prudently provided themselves with
bread and bottles of water for their children. Millions of innocent
people, knowing that they would soon be arrested, said goodbye to
their nearest and dearest in advance and prepared little bundles
containing spare underwear and a towel. Millions of people lived in
vast camps that had not only been built by prisoners but were even
guarded by them.
And it wasn't merely tens of thousands, or hundreds of
thousands, but hundreds of millions of people who were the obedient
witnesses of this slaughter of the innocent. Nor were they merely
obedient witnesses: when ordered to, they gave their support to this
slaughter, voting in favor of it amid a hubbub of voices. There was
something unexpected in the degree of their obedience.
There was, of course, resistance; there were acts of courage
and determination on the part of those who had been condemned;
there were uprisings; there were men who risked their own lives and
the lives of their families in order to save the life of a stranger. But
the obedience of the vast mass of people is undeniable.
What does this tell us? That a new trait has suddenly appeared
in human nature? No, this obedience bears witness to a new force
acting on human beings. The extreme violence of totalitarian social
systems proved able to paralyze the human spirit throughout whole
continents.A man who has placed his soul in the service of Fascism
declares an evil and dangerous slavery to be the only true good.
Rather than overtly renouncing human feelings, he declares the
crimes committed by Fascism to be the highest form of
humanitarianism; he agrees to divide people up into the pure and
worthy and the impure and unworthy.
The instinct for self-preservation is supported by the hypnotic
power of world ideologies. These call people to carry out any
sacrifice, to accept any means, in order to achieve the highest of
ends: the future greatness of the motherland, world progress, the
future happiness of mankind, of a nation, of a class.
One more force co-operated with the life-instinct and the power
of great ideologies: terror at the limitless violence of a powerful
State, terror at the way murder had become the basis of everyday
life.
The violence of a totalitarian State is so great as to be no longer
a means to an end; it becomes an object of mystical worship and
adoration. How else can one explain the way certain intelligent,
thinking Jews declared the slaughter of the Jews to be necessary for
the happiness of mankind? That in view of this they were ready to
take their own children to be executed — ready to carry out the
sacrifice once demanded of Abraham? How else can one explain the
case of a gifted, intelligent poet, himself a peasant by birth, who with
sincere conviction wrote a long poem celebrating the terrible years of
suffering undergone by the peasantry, years that had swallowed up
his own father, an honest and simple-hearted laborer?
Another fact that allowed Fascism to gain power over men was
their blindness. A man cannot believe that he is about to be
destroyed. The optimism of people standing on the edge of the grave
is astounding. The soil of hope — a hope that was senseless and
sometimes dishonest and despicable — gave birth to a pathetic
obedience that was often equally despicable.
The Warsaw Rising, the uprisings at Treblinka and Sobibor, the
various mutinies of Brenners, were all born of hopelessness. But
then utter hopelessness engenders not only resistance and uprisings
but also a yearning to be executed as quickly as possible.People argued over their place in the queue beside the bloodfilled ditch while a mad, almost exultant voice shouted out: 'Don't be
afraid, Jews. It's nothing terrible. Five minutes and it will all be over.'
Everything gave rise to obedience - both hope and
hopelessness.
It is important to consider what a man must have suffered and
endured in order to feel glad at the thought of his impending
execution. It is especially important to consider this if one is inclined
to moralize, to reproach the victims for their lack of resistance in
conditions of which one has little conception.
Having established man's readiness to obey when confronted
with limitless violence, we must go on to draw one further conclusion
that is of importance for an understanding of man and his future.
Does human nature undergo a true change in the cauldron of
totalitarian violence? Does man lose his innate yearning for
freedom? The fate of both man and the totalitarian State depends on
the answer to this question. If human nature does change, then the
eternal and world-wide triumph of the dictatorial State is assured; if
his yearning for freedom remains constant, then the totalitarian State
is doomed.
The great Rising in the Warsaw ghetto, the uprisings in
Treblinka and Sobibor; the vast partisan movement that flared up in
dozens of countries enslaved by Hitler; the uprisings in Berlin in
1953, in Hungary in 1956, and in the labor-camps of Siberia and the
Far East after Stalin's death; the riots at this time in Poland, the
number of factories that went on strike and the student protests that
broke out in many cities against the suppression of freedom of
thought; all these bear witness to the indestructibility of man's
yearning for freedom. This yearning was suppressed but it continued
to exist. Man's fate may make him a slave, but his nature remains
unchanged.
Man's innate yearning for freedom can be suppressed but never
destroyed. Totalitarianism cannot renounce violence. If it does, it
perishes. Eternal, ceaseless violence, overt or covert, is the basis of
totalitarianism. Man does not renounce freedom voluntarily. This
conclusion holds out hope for our time, hope for the future.
