362 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
of other nations to the strategic needs of the Soviet State
puts all the problems and actions involved in a wrong
light, even when the slogans that go round and the solutions
advocated are irreproachable. This subjection of all tactics
and principles to the Russian scale has caused a great
number of people, who joined the communist movement
because they saw it as a perfect combination of theory and
practice, to break with it rather than betray the motives
which first impelled them to join it. Their experience of
fascism has had a great deal to do with this * return to
principle '. Those who have fought against fascism have
come to the conclusion that they cannot take up the fight
starting from the standpoint of bolshevik communism or treat
principles as mere matters of expediency which may be
modified or abandoned at will.
The struggle against fascism is primarily a struggle for
the liberty and rights of the human being. One can only
carry it on if one really believes in these principles and is
prepared to demand and fight for them under any regime.
The communists have adopted the doctrine attributed
(wrongly) to Louis Veuillot : £ When we are the weaker
party we demand liberty in the name of your principles ;
when we are the stronger we refuse it to you in the name
of our own.5 This attitude offers certain advantages which
attract the average combatant who finds things very easy
the moment truth becomes c one way only' and is found to
be on * this side of the Pyrenees'. Some intellectuals, who
had never been able to stand much of the heady wine of
principle, were delighted to find that their weakness was a
virtue and grateful to bolshevism for having rid them of
their inferiority complex. But such advantages are false
and dangerous, and people must have the courage to give
them up if they want to go on fighting against fascism. It
is a hard fight involving real values and calling for more
than a merely temporary conviction. The absence of such
faith is bad for the fighting power of the combatants, for their
moral sense cannot be so crushed as to deprive them of all
consciousness of wrong-doing when the fascist victory takes
away all their landmarks, e facts *, and leaves them adrift.
Besides, other members of the community who are asked