My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleycomplicated by the split in the Soviet camp. It is primarily the Soviet's business, but abroker so experienced as Britain should never refuse his good offices if required in theinterests of world peace and his own well-being. Whether this unexpecteddevelopment really offers the prospect of a return in some form of the Russianpeoples to Europe, where they belong, cannot yet be seen with certainty, but it is mostardently to be desired; the attempt to promote it is one of the merits of French policy.Will the pull of relationship in the end be stronger than the pull of creed?—Is asynthesis of European policies attainable to the extent of making European unionpossible throughout our continent? These will rank among the vital questions ofhistory which challenge future statesmanship.Nothing in real life, of course, is quite so simple as logical, geographical and politicaldivisions. There must be many natural and inevitable overlaps in such clear-cutarrangement, many complications. For instance, most of South America would muchrather be connected with Europe than with North America, and this has so far onlybeen prevented by the relative poverty and division of Europe. A desirabledevelopment is that the two civilisations should meet in South America; initially acombination of American money and European culture, if American friends willforgive such a practical view. We should seek together to perform in that region thedisinterested service which American intervention in Europe has always declared tobe its objective: the ultimate creation in South America of a new great power unitedwith us by ties of kinship, culture and traditional friendship.Similarly in any sane order of the world the spheres of European and Soviet influencecould meet in the Arab countries for what should be a constructive task. There is noreason why this desirable relationship should not be reached once a basis of live andlet live in our respective spheres is firmly established as the only alternative to anentirely destructive world war. I have always advocated in dealing with the Soviets adual method of private negotiation, as long as it worked in any particular problem,and of public debate if and when the point of frustration is reached. Public debate hasits uses even in diplomacy, particularly in dealing with the Soviets. They are sensitiveto being shown in a bad light before world opinion, because they rely on theircommunist parties in all countries for the advance of their cause now force iseliminated by the arrival of nuclear weapons. When they are unreasonable— forinstance, in such matters as disarmament—they should be shown in public to beobstructive of the cause of peace; then communist parties will lose the debate in everypub, cafe, bistro of the political world and the communist cause will suffer theuniversal set-back which the Soviet leaders most dislike. The method is to get as faras you can with them in private, but to put the pressure on in public when you are heldup. The reason that this technique is not more often employed is either that Westernstatesmanship feels itself inadequate to public debate, or that Western diplomacy stillfears the public failure of any private negotiation will be disastrous. Thisapprehension dates from the days when the breakdown of negotiations usuallyprecluded war, but is obsolete in a period when war is inhibited by the fear of nuclearweapons.The Soviets have shown themselves again and again particularly susceptible to worldopinion and far more skilful in its exploitation by adroit propaganda. They have evenlearned in recent years to choose their moment carefully before committing anyparticularly bestial atrocities. It was not until a diversion was caused in 1956 by the394 of 424