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Temper!, v. 1, issue 2 July 1945

Page 2

TEMPER: A Journal of Critical Review
Page 2

   Step by step, carefully documenting, combining, and dramatizing his material, MacDonald exposes the underlying fallacy in any conception of the 'collective war guilt' of the peoples of the so-called aggressor nations.
   He draws a reasoned series of parallels between Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, and the Britain and United States of Churchill and Roosevelt. If one of these is an 'organic state," a state which has combined all its people in such a way as to render them all guilty for the crimes committed in their name by their government, then, says Macdonald, all such states are similar organic unities.
   He digresses briefly from the line of argument to prove that the alleged, the perhaps desired, organic cohesiveness actually exists nowhere.. that anti-semitism in Germany, for instance, was no more a 'people's action' than Negro-lynching in the United States, or British intimidation of native Indians.
   But, he continues, even if it were so, if Germany (and consequently Great Britain, the United States) were an 'organic state,' in which the large mass of citizens at once 'possesses and is possessed by' the One Great Leader (and here he goes into some small detail to point out the basic similarity between German faith in Adolph Hitler and the American idealizing of Franklin Roosevelt), then the guilt, the guilt for this war, for all the inequalities and wrongs and mistakes of government, rests as much with 'us' .. with you and me .. as with 'them.'
   However, he concludes, 'if everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty,' and finishes up the essay with a section dealing with the political implications, in action, of this theory of organic unity of nations, and considerable information on the refusal of soldiers, on both sides, to obey the strict non-fraternization rulings imposed on them by their generals. 
   The essay, so far as I know, is the first significant publication in this country by a member of the left-wing who could speak without the necessity for rationalizing Stain's behavior into his scheme of things.
   Any thinking person is constrained to agree with the man. For those who have not yet started to think, and for those who have buried their intelligences in the mire of hypocrisy and unreasoned belief, it is required reading.
Macdonald and Vanguard
   When the pamphlet was first published, both Blish and I wracked our brains for some legal way to get it out to Vanguard members in a mailing. I, at least, have since been convinced that it has no place in an APA mailing. You can get, it, however, from POLITICS, 45 Astor Place, New York City 3; 10 for $1.00, 15 cents each.

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TEMPER: A Journal of Critical Review Page 2 Step by step, carefully documenting, combining, and dramatizing his material, MacDonald exposes the underlying fallacy in any conception of the 'collective war guilt' of the peoples of the so-called aggressor nations. He draws a reasoned series of parallels between Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, and the Britain and United States of Churchill and Roosevelt. If one of these is an 'organic state," a state which has combined all its people in such a way as to render them all guilty for the crimes committed in their name by their government, then, says Macdonald, all such states are similar organic unities. He digresses briefly from the line of argument to prove that the alleged, the perhaps desired, organic cohesiveness actually exists nowhere.. that anti-semitism in Germany, for instance, was no more a 'people's action' than Negro-lynching in the United States, or British intimidation of native Indians. But, he continues, even if it were so, if Germany (and consequently Great Britain, the United States) were an 'organic state,' in which the large mass of citizens at once 'possesses and is possessed by' the One Great Leader (and here he goes into some small detail to point out the basic similarity between German faith in Adolph Hitler and the American idealizing of Franklin Roosevelt), then the guilt, the guilt for this war, for all the inequalities and wrongs and mistakes of government, rests as much with 'us' .. with you and me .. as with 'them.' However, he concludes, 'if everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty,' and finishes up the essay with a section dealing with the political implications, in action, of this theory of organic unity of nations, and considerable information on the refusal of soldiers, on both sides, to obey the strict non-fraternization rulings imposed on them by their generals. The essay, so far as I know, is the first significant publication in this country by a member of the left-wing who could speak without the necessity for rationalizing Stain's behavior into his scheme of things. Any thinking person is constrained to agree with the man. For those who have not yet started to think, and for those who have buried their intelligences in the mire of hypocrisy and unreasoned belief, it is required reading. Macdonald and Vanguard When the pamphlet was first published, both Blish and I wracked our brains for some legal way to get it out to Vanguard members in a mailing. I, at least, have since been convinced that it has no place in an APA mailing. You can get, it, however, from POLITICS, 45 Astor Place, New York City 3; 10 for $1.00, 15 cents each.