Introductory Chapter to The Jews (1937) by Hilaire Belloc, part 3 of 6

Pg 35

Transformed thus during the last few months, this condition of affairs has, to use a metaphor taken from the Great War, “crystallized”. Reinforcements in men and material continue to reach both sides, but the revolutionary side is more constantly supplied than the other. On the other hand, that half of the Spanish navy which joined the revolutionaries became incompetent through the murder of its officers, and the other half which joined the nationalists or insurgent anti-revolutionaries could have some effect, though not a very great one, in checking the support of the Reds from outside.

We are now, after the first completed year of the war, in the following situation. The port of Bilbao and its iron supplies (which had been seized by the revolutionaries, aided by a minority of the Basques) has been captured after prolonged efforts by Franco and through it he can receive supplies. Malaga also has been restored to normal government and the revolutionaries who had seized the town have been driven out. For some months the Great Powers have played insincerely at confining the conflict to Spain and at preventing foreign intervention. But their motives are all at cross purposes and therefore no serious plan has been carried out. The obvious policy for England is to keep Spain as weak as possible and to prevent the highly centralized and disciplined new Italian Power from establishing itself further in the Western Mediterranean. England is therefore interested in two main points of policy — preventing the outbreak of a European war which would be fatal to her, and keeping Spain weak and divided as long as possible. For Spain to be reunited under a strong government such as Franco proposes, would be a grave menace to English power in the Mediterranean. For Italian influence to dominate in Spain, and particularly in the Balearics, would be even worse for this country.

Pg 36

The Government at Berlin is sincerely occupied with fighting a European revolution. It has no local purpose to serve but it sympathizes with the anti-revolutionary Italian Government in all its aims.

The Portuguese coast, which is of the highest value for supplies to Franco, is under the efficient administration of a strong, centralized government after the Italian model, presided over by a character worthy of his task, utterly indifferent to private gain or any personal advantage but dominatingly anti-revolutionary.

The French situation is divided, and the division is almost as comic in its irony as the results may be tragic in their effect. The major part of the professional politicians (who are the curse of modern France and have brought her to her present weakness) are on the revolutionary side, and it is they who, so far as they can and dare, supply the new aircraft which is the chief weapon of the Reds. The motive of these politicians in this, as in everything they do, is personal. The support of the small Communist minority in France (one-sixth of the voting is nominally Communist and perhaps one-twelfth sincerely so) is necessary to keep the politicians in the saddle. The intensely anti-Catholic organization of the Radical party and the less violent but better disciplined Socialist party are on the same side as the Communists. These between them constitute that “popular front” in France which was organized from Moscow some months ago.

Pg 37

This meaningless and silly phrase “popular front “ has caught on with the wire-pullers of political committees, but corresponds in no way to the nation. The French nation as a whole is determined above all things to prevent the war spreading. On the other hand, it is suspicious of any increase of German power and has an hereditary reaction against despotic government. It is to be remarked that the directing part of the French army is preoccupied with the importance of preventing any increase in German power. Thus there is in France a double confused current of opinion, of which the revolutionary side in Spain can take advantage. On the other hand the French politicians cannot go beyond a certain point.* in their secret support of the Spanish Reds, because they know that an outbreak of war in which France was involved would be an end not only of their lucrative careers but of their lives. (The French Government in its present deplorable phase has been well described as “Politicians on the make, restrained by their terror of the people.”)

A very important feature in any estimate of what the eventual fate of the Spanish conflict may be is the condition of propaganda on the two sides.

Pg 38

On Franco’s side there is virtually none. Franco’s side is national and the Spanish national temper does not lend itself to this form of commercialized falsehood. Such facts as have been put forth in foreign magazines, and occasionally in the foreign daily press, to support Franco’s cause and that of the traditionally Christian Spain which he is defending have been from non-Spaniards, of whom I think the most effective has been Mr. Douglas Jerrold. On the other side propaganda may be described as the main weapon. It is used with all the well-known tricks of that trade, and used, as the Americans say, “to capacity.” Franco had with him in his first efforts a considerable contingent of Moroccan troops — just as we attempted to use Indian troops during the Great War and the French actually did use African troops, Mahommedan and negro. The presence of these non-European elements on the insurgent side has been advertised by the Reds for all it is worth. Great bodies of opinion in England and America still think of the Spanish war as being a crushing of free men by an armed despot who uses black savages for his main instrument. In the same way the reinforcement of Franco’s side by a small number of foreigners was shouted all day long through a hundred organs, while the much larger reinforcements of the revolutionaries was left unmentioned. Now and then we get a test case, as in the murder of Miss Boland, a Catholic Irish lady, by the Reds just as they were leaving Bilbao. This lady was born a British subject and remained one by international law. She was possessed of a British passport. Yet the incident passed almost unnoticed — especially in England.

In so far as propaganda can win a war the Reds hold all the trumps.


Pg 39

This is only natural, considering the motive power behind the revolutionaries which works everywhere by the suppression of truth on the one side and propagation of falsehood on the other. During a long visit to the United States in this summer of 1937 I found the effects of the propaganda everywhere formidable and in many places supreme. The presence of Moses Rosenberg, the Russian Jew, as chief organizer of the Reds (he absurdly calls himself “Marcel” Rosenberg), I found had not been heard of in New York and none of the main newspapers would mention it. Happily propaganda pushed beyond a certain point defeats its own object, and the Moscow Communists here, as in every case public and private, underestimate the intelligence of what the Germans call “ Aryans “ and what you and I know as “you and me.” If you lie too prodigiously you arouse suspicion, and it looks as though that had already begun in the case of those who direct the exceedingly un-Spanish Red propaganda from Spain.

What the upshot of this critical struggle in the Spanish field may be certainly no one can tell at the moment in which these words are written (August 1937), but as certainly anyone may confidently affirm that on that upshot will depend, more than upon anything else, the future of Communism in Western Europe.
Next let me take the proscription of Jews in Germany.

The Nazi policy at Berlin in so far as it affects the Jewish question has one main interest apart from its merely dramatic interest of surprise or sensation. That interest is this: what effect will it have upon a solution of the Jewish question? Is it an advance towards a just solution of that question or not?