Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  The coal-owners decided to lock out the miners because they would not agree to a wage-cut. This precipitated a general strike in England called by the Trade Union Congress. There was a remarkable response to this call, and almost all organized workers throughout the country stopped working. The life of the country was brought almost to a standstill, railways did not run, newspapers could not be printed and most other activities stopped. Government managed to carry on some essential services with the help of volunteers. The General Strike began at midnight May 3-4, 1926. After ten days the moderate leaders of the Trade Union Congress, who had no love for this kind of revolutionary strike, suddenly called it off on the pretext of some vague promise made to them. The miners were left in the lurch, but they carried on for many long and weary months. They were starved out and beaten down in the end. This was a signal defeat not only for the miners, but for British workers generally. Wages were lowered in many cases, hours of work were increased in some industries, and the living standards of the working class went down. The government took advantage of its victory to pass new laws to weaken labour, and especially to prevent any general strike in the future. This General Strike of 1926 failed because of the irresolution and weakness of the labour leaders and their want of preparation for it. Indeed, their whole object was to avoid it, and when they could not do so they ended it at the first opportunity. On the other hand, the government was fully prepared and it received the support of the middle classes.

  The General Strike in England and the long coal lock-out created great interest in Soviet Russia, and the Russian trade unions sent very large sums of money, especially subscribed by the Russian workers to help the English miners.

  Labour had been crushed in England for the moment. But this was no solution of the problem of a declining industry and growth of unemployment. Unemployment meant widespread suffering among the workers; it also meant a great burden on the State, for a system of unemployment insurance had grown up in many countries. It was recognized that it was the duty of the State to support a worker who was unemployed for no fault of his own. So some relief or doles were given to the registered unemployed, and this meant the expenditure of huge sums of money by the government and by local bodies.

  Why was all this happening? Why was industry deteriorating, trade languishing, unemployment increasing, and conditions worsening not only in England, but in almost all countries? Conference after conference was held, the statesmen and the rulers were obviously keen on improving conditions, but no success came to them. It was not as if some natural calamity had occurred, like an earthquake, or floods, or want of rains, causing famine and suffering. The world was getting on in much the same way as before. There was actually more food and more factories and more of everything required, and yet there was more human misery. Something was obviously very radically wrong, to bring about this contrary result. There was gross mismanagement somewhere. Socialists and communists said that it was all the fault of capitalism, which was on its last legs. They pointed to Russia where, though many troubles and difficulties existed, there was no unemployment, at least.

  These questions are rather intricate, and doctors and pandits differ greatly as to the remedies for human ailments. But let us nevertheless look at them and examine some of their outstanding features.

  The world today is becoming, and has largely become, a single unit— that is to say, that life, activities, production, distribution, consumption, etc., all tend to be international and world-wide, and this tendency is increasing. Trade, industry, the money system, are also largely international. There is the closest connection and interdependence between different countries, and an event in any one of them has reactions in others. In spite of all this internationalism, governments and their policies continue to be narrowly nationalistic. Indeed, this narrow nationalism has become worse and more aggressive during the post-war years, and is today a dominating factor in the world. The result is a continuous conflict between the actual international events of the world and the nationalistic policy of governments. You may look upon the international activities of the world as a river flowing down to the sea, and the national policies as attempts to stop it and dam it and divert it, and even to make it flow backwards. It is obvious that the river is not going to flow backwards, nor is it going to be stopped. But it may occasionally be diverted a little, or a dam may result in floods. So these nationalisms of today are interfering with the even flow of the river and creating floods and backwaters and stagnant pools, but they cannot stop the ultimate progress of the river.

  In trade and the economic sphere we thus have what is called “economic nationalism”. This means that a country is to sell more than it buys, and to produce more than it consumes. Every nation wants to sell its goods, but, then, who is to buy? For every sale there must be a seller as well as a buyer. It is obviously absurd to have a world of sellers only. And yet this is the basis of economic nationalism. Every country puts up tariff walls, economic barriers to keep out foreign goods, and at the same time it wants to develop its own foreign trade. These tariff walls interfere with and kill international trade, on which the modern world is built up. As trade languishes, industry suffers and unemployment increases. This again results in a fiercer attempt to keep out foreign goods, which are supposed to interfere with home industries, and tariff walls are raised higher. International trade suffers still more and the vicious circle goes on.

  The modern industrial world has really advanced beyond the stage of nationalism. The whole machinery of production of goods and distribution does not fit into the nationalist structure of governments and countries. The shell is too small for the growing body inside, and it cracks.

  These tariffs and obstacles in the way of trade really profit some classes only in each country, but as these classes are dominant in their respective countries, they shape the country’s policy. So each country tries to overreach the other, and in the result all of them suffer together, and national rivalries and hatreds increase. Repeated attempts are made to settle mutual differences by conferences, and the best of intentions are expressed by the statesmen of different countries, but success eludes them. Does this not remind you of the repeated attempts to settle the communal problem, the Hindu-Muslim-Sikh problems, in India? Perhaps in both the cases failure is due to wrong assumptions and to wrong premises, as well as to wrong objectives.

  These classes that profit by tariffs and other methods of encouraging economic nationalism, such as bounties and subsidies and special railway freights, etc., are the owning and manufacturing classes, who profit by these protected home markets. Vested interests are thus built up under protection and tariffs, and, like all vested interests, they object very strongly to any change which might injure them. This is one of the reasons why tariffs, once introduced, stay on, and why economic nationalism goes on in the world although most people are convinced that it is bad for everybody. It is not easy to put an end to vested interests once created, and it is still less easy for any nation to take a solitary lead in such a matter. If all the countries would agree to act together and put an end to, or greatly reduce, the tariffs, perhaps it might be done. Even then there would be difficulties, as industrially backward countries would suffer, as they would not be able to compete on equal terms with advanced countries. New industries are often built up under the shelter of a protective duty.

  Economic nationalism discourages and prevents trade between nations. Thus the world market suffers. Each nation becomes a monopoly area with a protected market; the free market goes. Within each nation also, monopolies increase and the free and open market tends to disappear. Big trusts, big factories, big shops swallow up the smaller producers and the petty shopkeepers, and thus put an end to competition. In America, Britain, Germany, Japan, and other industrial countries these national monopolies developed at a tremendous pace, and power was thus concentrated in a few hands. Petrol, soap, chemical goods, armaments, steel, banking, and ever so many other things were monopolized. All this
has a curious result. It is the inevitable consequence of the growth of science and the development of capitalism, and yet it cuts at the root of this very capitalism. For capitalism began with the world market and the free market. Competition was the breath of life of capitalism. If the world market goes, and so also the free market and competition within national boundaries, the bottom is knocked out of this old capitalist structure of society. What will take its place is another matter, but it seems that the old order cannot continue for long with these mutually contradictory tendencies.

  Science and industrial progress have gone far ahead of the existing system of society. They produce enormous quantities of food and the good things of life, and capitalism does not know what to do with them. Indeed, it sits down often to destroy them or to limit production. And so we have the extraordinary spectacle of abundance and poverty existing side by side. If capitalism is not advanced enough for modern science and technology, some other system must be evolved more in keeping with science. The only other alternative is to strangle science and keep it from going ahead. But that would be rather silly, and in any event it is hardly conceivable.

  It is not surprising that with economic nationalism, and the growth of monopolies and national rivalries, and the other products of a decaying capitalism, there should be trouble all over the world. Modern imperialism itself is a form of this capitalism, for each imperialist Power tries to solve its national problems by exploiting other people. This again leads to rivalries and conflicts between the imperialist Powers. Everything seems to lead to conflict in the topsy-turvy world of today!

  I began this letter by telling you that money had behaved strangely during the post-war period. Can we blame money when everything else is behaving in a most extraordinary way?

  174

  Move and Counter-move

  June 18, 1933

  My last two letters have dealt with economic and currency questions. These subjects are supposed to be very mysterious and difficult to understand. It is true that they are not easy and they require hard thinking, but they are not so terrible, after all; and economists and experts are partly responsible for the air of mystery that surrounds these subjects. In the old days priests used to have a monopoly of mystery, and they imposed their will on the ignorant populace by all manner of rites and ceremonials, often in archaic language which few understood, and by pretending to be in communication with unseen powers. The power of priestcraft is very much less today, and in industrial countries it has almost gone. In place of the priests have arisen the expert economists and bankers and the like, who talk in a mysterious language, consisting chiefly of technical terms, which a layman finds difficult to understand. And so the average man has to leave the decision of these questions to the experts. But the experts often attach themselves, consciously or unconsciously, to the ruling classes and serve their interests. And experts differ.

  It is as well, therefore, that we should all try to understand something about these economic questions which seem to dominate politics and everything else today. There are many ways of dividing human beings into groups and classes. One possible way would be to have two classes: the drifters, who have little will of their own and allow themselves to be carried hither and thither like straw on the surface of the waters, and those who try to play an effective role in life and to influence their surroundings. For the latter class, knowledge and understanding are essential, for effective action can only be based on these. Mere goodwill or pious hopes are not enough. When there is a natural calamity, or an epidemic, or a failure of the rains, or almost any other misfortune, we often see, not only in India, but in Europe also, people praying for relief. If the prayer soothes them and gives them confidence and courage, it is a good thing, and no one need object to it. But the idea that prayer will stop an epidemic of disease is giving place to the scientific notion that the root causes of disease should be wiped out by sanitation and other means. When there is a breakdown in the machinery of a factory or there is a puncture in the tyre of a car, whoever heard of people sitting down and just hoping or piously wishing, or even praying, that the break might right itself or the puncture mend itself? They set to work and mend the machinery or the tyre, and soon the machinery is functioning again or the car running smoothly along the road.

  So also in the human and the social machine, we require besides goodwill, good knowledge of its working and its possibilities. This knowledge is seldom exact, as it deals with indefinite things, such as human wishes and desires and prejudices and wants, and these become still more indefinite when we deal with people in the mass, with society as a whole, or with different classes of people. But study and experience and observation gradually bring order even into this rather indefinite mass, and knowledge grows, and with it grows our capacity to deal with our surroundings.

  Now I should like to say something about the political aspect of Europe during these post-war years. The first thing that strikes one is the division of the Continent into three parts: the victors of the war, the vanquished, and Soviet Russia. There were some small countries, like Norway and Sweden and Holland and Switzerland, which did not fall into any of these three divisions, but they were not important from the larger political point of view. Soviet Russia, of course, stood by herself, with her workers’ government, a source of continuous irritation and annoyance to the victorious Powers. This irritation was caused not only by her system of government, which was an invitation to revolution to workers in other countries, but also by her coming in the way of many of the designs of the victorious Powers in the East. I have already told you of the wars of intervention during which, in 1919 and 1920, most of these victorious Powers tried to crush the Soviets. Soviet Russia, however, survived, and the imperialist Powers of Europe had to put up with her existence, but they did so with as little goodwill or grace as possible. In particular, the old rivalry between England and Russia, dating from the Tsarist period, continued, and occasionally burst forth into alarms and incidents which threatened war. The Soviets were convinced that England was continually intriguing against them and trying to build up an anti-Soviet bloc of Powers in Europe, and there were several war scares.

  France Over Europe

  In western and Central Europe the distinction between the victor Powers and the defeated ones was very marked, and France especially represented the spirit of victory. The defeated countries were naturally dissatisfied with many of the provisions of the peace treaties, and, though they were powerless to do anything, they dreamed of future changes. Austria and Hungary were very sick countries, and their condition seemed to worsen. Yugoslavia, on the other hand, was a Serbia bloated up, and had become a collection of incongruous elements and nationalities. It did not take many years for the different parts to get tired of each other, and to develop a tendency to split up. In Croatia (which is now a province of Yugoslavia), there is a strong movement for independence, and this has been vigorously repressed by the Serbian government. Poland is big enough on the map now, but its imperialists cherish extraordinary dreams of stretching out to the Black Sea in the south, and thus restoring the ancient Polish frontier of 1772. Meanwhile Poland includes a part of the Russian Ukraine and this has been and is still being, “pacified” or “polonized” by a reign of terror, with torture, death penalties, and many other barbarous punishments. These are some of the little fires that go on smouldering in eastern Europe. Their importance lies in the danger of the fire spreading.

  Politically, and in a military sense also, France was the dominant Power in Europe in the after-war years. She had gained much of what she had wanted in the shape of territory and the promise at least of reparations, but she was far from happy. A great fear haunted her, the fear of Germany becoming strong enough to fight her again and perhaps defeat her. The principal reason for this fear was the much bigger population of Germany. France is actually bigger in size than Germany and is perhaps even more fertile. Yet the population of France is under 41,000,000, and it is almost steady. The popu
lation of Germany is over 62,000,000, and it is growing. The Germans have also the reputation of being an aggressive and warlike nation, and they have twice invaded France within living memory.

  So the fear of a German revenge obsessed France and the foundation and governing idea of her whole policy was “security”, the security for France to hold and keep what she had got. It was French military supremacy that kept in check all the countries disappointed by the Versailles peace, for a maintenance of this peace was considered necessary for French security. Further to strengthen her position, France built up a bloc of nations, who were also interested in maintaining the Treaty of Versailles. These countries were Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Yugoslavia.

  In this way France established her hegemony or leadership of Europe. This was not to the liking of England, for England does not like any Power, except herself, to be predominant in Europe. There was a great cooling off in the love and friendship which England had for her ally France; France was criticized in the English Press as being selfish and hard-hearted, and friendly references were made to the old enemy Germany. We must forget and forgive, said the English people, and not allow ourselves to be governed in peace-time by memories of war days. Admirable sentiments these were, and doubly admirable from the English point of view because they happened to fit in with English policy. It has been said by an Italian statesman, Count Sforza, that this is “a precious gift bestowed by divine grace upon the British people”, for all classes to justify with the highest moral reasons any political advantage that may come to England or any diplomatic action that the British Government might take.