The Plague of Pessimism

After one of its more virulent outbursts of hate the other night, the Moscow Radio quoted a Canadian who was recently an honoured guest of Soviet Russia. The Rev. James Endicott, a former United Church Missionary, permitted his name to be used in support of the statement that most Canadians were sunk in gloom and despair. This is the way the radio commentator summedup: "More and more Canadians are recognising every day that the Capitalist system is in its death throes. And so the toiling masses of individual workers and farmers are turning to Communism as the only hope of rescue from complete catastrophe". On the same programme, a Soviet military expert discussed the role of Canada as the Belgium of World War III, hopefully emphasizing that we shall be ground to pieces between the two giant antagonists. This concentration on Canada has two purposes, the more important being to assist the isolationists of the United States diminish help for Western Europe, and the other purpose, of course, to spread apprehension in Canada.

Dr. Endicott has been in Soviet Russia getting fresh instructions. His chief, Mr. Tim Buck, head of the Labor-Progressive Party, the Communist front in Canada, has been behind the Iron Curtain, where he conferred with M. Thorez, who acts for the Cominform in matters affecting North America. Both are due back shortly and we can look forward to a fresh eruption of Soviet claptrap. The public line will try to push the spurious "Peace" and "Ban the Bomb" campaign; but the really important instructions concern further frantic efforts to induce economic depression. Then, of course, there are the preparations to be completed for sabotage on the outbreak of a shooting war.

If one follows the Olympian utterances of the mighty new hierarchy of celebrated commentators, and newsletter moguls, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are being infected by the plague of pessimism which the minions of Moscow are so diligently spreading. It is one thing to be aware of the seriousness of the situation; it is quite another thing to get scared stiff. Moreover it is high time we realised this spread of pessimism in North America is a major objective of Soviet policy in the conduct of the Cold War.

I propose now to try to get the elements of the problem into some kind of rational perspective. Let's start at the dark end. What is the worst conceivable fate that could befall us? the answer is not in doubt. The worst fate that could befall Canada would be absorption by the Soviet Empire. To avoid this fate we are preparing ourselves along with our allies against attack both internal and external. No one in his right mind wants war, least of all those who have had direct experience of it. Atom and Hydrogen bombs and germs certainly do not add to the attractiveness of war. But let's inject some common sense into considering what attitude will be best calculated to spare us the ordeal of another World War.

We know that the Soviet are now doing all they can to depress our morale. We should know also that if the Soviets cannot frighten us half-way to surrender or paralysis by shouting the horrors of a new war, they are much less likely to attack us with force. To get the windup and to try appeasement would be a direct invitation to aggression. For it should be more widely understood that there is only one thing the Soviets really respect, and that is formidable strength, economic as well as military. Our cue then is to disregard the propaganda drive, -as indeed it is largely discounted within Soviet Russia,-while we continue to make reasonable military preparations but putting the main emphasis on the consolidation and expansion of economic power.

If war comes, we shall take it in our stride, regarding it as just another incident on the road. If this is our attitude, there is the best chance of avoiding war. But to talk of placating the lads of the Kremlin is just the same as contemplating a contract with a jungle tiger. The pledged word of the Soviet gang is utterly worthless. Indeed they pride themselves on the way they violate treaties. Whether or not there is honour among thieves, there is certainly no ingredient of honour implied by the Soviets in any arrangement with the free world. Listen to this basic dictum of Soviet doctrine and practice "Communist ethics make it the highest duty to accept the necessity of acting wickedly. This is the greatest sacrifice the revolution asks from us. The conviction of the true Communist is that evil transforms itself into good through the dialectics of historical evolution."

It is important to distinguish between the Russian people and the Kremlin gang. We recall with admiration and gratitude the gallantry and endurance of the Russian armies in their titanic struggles against the invading Nazi-Germans. But we should also recall that those gallant Russians were fighting to defend the soil of Mother Russia; the Red Dictators of the Kremlin, when faced with supreme danger, abandoned their Communist mumbo-jumbo and rallied their forces by reviving the basic devotion to Mother Russia. Disorderly retreat was transformed into an avalanche of victory as though Peter the Great had returned.

The situation today is completely different. It is known as a fact that the Kremlin gang is not "getting away with" its hysterical nonsense about the threat of Western capitalism. The morale of the Russian millions is dismally low and continues to decline. To regard the Soviets as a military menace to the free world is ridiculous to the point of being fantastic.

If Moscow is rash enough to risk armed conflict, and if the West rejects the Red propaganda at least as well as the Russian people themselves are doing, the enemy will be defeated not only completely but also quickly. His vast ramshackle Empire will fall to pieces. It will fall to pieces anyway because the world both East and West has outgrown the age of Empires maintained by force and fraud to exploit and to enslave. Only it will fall to pieces sooner if the Soviets start a shooting war. The defection of Tito of YugoSlavia is more significant than is generally realised. Tito was a mainstay of the Soviet Empire; whether he wanted to revolt or not, his people simply would not stand for the Moscow tyranny. The Tito affair is the symptom of a disease that is spreading. There are ominous rumblings from other Satellite countries. Moreover I believe that what looks today like a major reverse for the West in China may turn out quite differently. Those best qualified to judge are convinced that Chinese nationalism, which is the product of reaction against all foreign intervention, cannot be integrated with Soviet Imperialism whatever a puppet regime may attempt.

The problem of Soviet Imperialism disguised as Communism is an unpleasant obstacle but we must try to keep it in perspective. Actually it is the dying kick of outmoded history, the sole serious impediment to the application of common sense to world affairs. Whatever happens, we must take this challenge in our stride. And when the thing is done with, we shall wonder why we were so worried. But we shall be profoundly grateful we did not try to dodge it.

When the Soviet structure collapses, there will be another mess to clean up, whether the collapse results from cold or shooting war. No human power can save the Communist gangs from the vengeance of the millions of released slaves. Something approaching anarchy will prevail for a time over a large part of the globe. Effective international organisation on a world scale will be no longer just a favorite subject for debate and argument; it will be indispensable to the survival of the human race. Fortunately we shall still have the British Commonwealth, then as now the only enduring link between all the Continents and all the races of mankind. I believe Canada will give decisive leadership in transforming the United Nations by injecting the spirit of the British Commonwealth, thus providing the first real hope of achieving the One World ideal.

Let's consider the Soviet prospects of subduing us by internal sabotage in a prolonged Cold War. The Soviet hope relies on industrial collapse, mass unemployment, and Trade Union revolt. The best authorities, notably Professor Sumner H. Slichter of Harvard, are convinced there will be no serious industrial dislocation in the foreseeable future; the wavelike movement of industry is likely to be moderated; a rhythm of manageable dips but no depressions; and so there will be no mass unemployment. And even if this forecast is wrong: even if there is a steep depression it does not follow at all that the Communists will benefit on that account. They are more likely to be blamed. For in the Trade Unions, the situation is wholly unfavourable to the Soviets. Not enough credit has been given to the Trade Unions of Canada, the United States, the rest of the British Commonwealth, yes, and to most of the Trade Unions of the other free countries-for their determined and courageous rejection of Communism. Not only is a thorough housecleaning in progress but also a new international Trade Union organisation has been created, free of all Communist influence. And another constructive factor is the emergence of a new conception of business statesmanship. Gone are the days when Management regarded its job as finished when a reasonable profit seemed assured. Social responsibility is now accepted by the bulk of Management on this Continent and throughout the British Commonwealth. Communise, is not now a direct internal danger. The Welfare State has arrived and, as long as it really is an instrument of public welfare, and not perverted into camouflaged totalitarian Big Government, the Communists and their fellow-traveller allies will burrow in vain.

In recent times there has been a curious reluctance to dwell upon the future possibilities of Canada. I still recall, as a youngster in British Columbia at the turn of the century, being thrilled by the orators who rhapsodized about the future of Canada. The fashion receded. Wars and their consequences helped to breed a cynicism and uncertainty that made it almost "bad form" to be confident about the future. There is need now to revive the glowing inspiration of the pioneering period. There is, however, one consideration that should be kept in mind always. Some element of risk is indispensable to progress. And this applies especially to Canada.

Without risk-taking, sometimes against tremendous odds, our fathers would have got nowhere. And we are still only at the beginning. Given a persistence of the spirit of the pioneers, Canada's future is dazzling; nowhere else in the world is there anything to compare with it. With 300,000,000 acres of arable land, barely half of which has been broken; with a million and a half square miles of forest; with an industrial production of five billions a year and just beginning, with mineral and other resources unexampled anywhere else; with a population of thirteen and a half millions (too small it is true but made up of the descendants of the best stock in the world) Canada looks forward to an era of development vastly greater than anything in the past. But always and everywhere we must be ready and willing to take risks, yes, to live dangerously. If we become timid and accept the safety-first doctrine of the Collectivists, we shall not only fail to win the total security promised to us, we also shall fail as a part of free civilisation and will have to yield to others of more vigour, determination and courage.

Ideas are what really matter. Ideas imply some sense of values. From each man's sense of values flows his conception of life. Organisation itself, of the most elementary kind, implies the prior existence of values. Organise society on police-state values of terrorism and privileged bureaucracy and you get the ultimate misery of the masses of Soviet Russia. Organise society on Socialist values that ignore incentive and personal responsibility and you get the sharpening austerity and regimentation which the British people are now trying to discard.

Experience has abundantly proved that, if you base society solely on the idea of economic gains, scrapping freedom and justice for the sake of the tyranny needed to organise total planning, then you will lose not only the freedom but also the economic gains. Moreover it has been as abundantly proved that if your idea is to seek economic gains by placing the profit motive in unregulated control, the result will be equally disastrous. Karl Marx, the great prophet of Communism, and Adam Smith, the great prophet of free enterprise, both wrote a lot about what they called the "economic man". They were writing about a myth; there is no such thing in a free society as the economic man, -a sort of automaton capable of drawing total satisfaction from material environment.

The truth is that the goals of materialism can be achieved only by an idealistic interpretation of life. Real economic gains can be secured only by a faith that subordinates economic gains to individual freedom. The so-called philosophy of pragmatism is unpragmatic; it just doesn't work.

In the world struggle now going on ideas are far more potent than Hydrogen Bombs, Atom Bombs, or conventional armaments. True, we must not neglect our military defences but the first line is ideas. It was the Communists who first placed the weapons in this order. And until there was actual experience of how communist promises are fulfilled they had some advantage in the war of ideas. If you promise to redress everyone's grievances, and no one knows for sure that you either cannot or do not intend to carry out your promises, it is not easy to oppose. Today, however, the situation is changed. The cynical hypocrisy of Communist promises is a by-word over half the world. And another factor works to our advantage. The desperate measures taken to close off the Communist controlled countries from all contact with the Democracies cannot succeed. There are limits to the effectiveness of secret police and thought control. Communism does intimidate, terrorize, and subjugate its victims for a time but the human spirit cannot be imprisoned for long by physical restraint. No oppression has permanence. The necessity for iron curtains, and slave labour camps, and secret police is in itself an admission of failure. Double talk is nourishing its own nemesis-for example, the hollow pretension that Communism and Socialism are revolutionary in the sense of liberating. The idea of the prudently regulated market economy is the dominating revolutionary force of the modern age. The creed of Collectivism is the ultimate in reaction, aimed at reimposing the miserable servitude of primitive society.

I have pleaded that the Soviet problem be regarded as just an incident on the road. The disappearance of this conspiracy will help to clear the road but of itself will not guarantee attainment of the glittering destiny that the future should unfold. Marxism has no monopoly of materialism; indeed it was from the shortcomings and injustices of the first stage of the industrial era that Marxism took its idea of dialectical materialism. The soul-corroding worship of Mammon has intruded deeply into Western thought and action; fortunately it is not impregnably entrenched nor is it the base of our philosophy of life. But if we yield to a consuming spirit of materialism we shall fail just as lamentably as if we had been submerged by the Communist flood. If our sole aim is material well-being, then we had better not try at all.

In the new age that is opening up--the age of atomic energy revolutionising every process from medicine to agriculture--the age of exploration of the solar system in which space-ships will be as familiar as the aeroplanes of today--we must be anchored firmly to the solid rock of spiritual values. This will be the supreme test of the citizenship of Canadians.

The yearning for spiritual fulfilment is universal in human nature, although it is expressed in many forms and embodied in many creeds. The "Achilles heel", the chief weakness of Communism, is its defiant denial of even the possibility of spiritual power and Divine guidance. Nor has the spectacular material progress of the free world been attended by permeating spiritual perception. Now, however, the stage has been reached in the release and utilisation of the powers of nature when we can no longer afford to ignore the malignant disease of materialism. Nothing short of widespread spiritual awakening can qualify us for citizenship in the era ahead. This transcends everything else. And the awakening should not be delayed. This is no matter of creed or cult. Spiritual power flows automatically from the practice by the individual of the elementary Christian virtues,--the Golden Rule, humility, kindness, charity, tolerance, and submission in prayer. And, as awareness spreads, spiritual radiation transforms the family, the group, the community, and the nation. Without spiritual orientation Democracy itself is drab and futile. The urge is latent in all free citizens; that it should become universally active will provide the only valid guarantee that ours will be the first civilisation in the whole of history to avoid decay in maturity.

If the instinct of Canadians does not teach this compellingly, everything else it has taught will have been in vain. But I do not admit even the possibility of failure. To resist the pessimists in the region that impinges on eternity is much easier than to deflate the calamity-howlers that have swallowed the puerile gibberish of Moscow. For the decisions that govern the fate of civilisations and of nations do not rest entirely or even mainly with frail humanity if it but grope towards eternal truth.