Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of MankindKnickerbocker, H. R. (Hubert Renfro)
History
Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind
Knickerbocker, H. R. (Hubert Renfro)
Europe -- Politics and government -- 1918-1945; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945 -- United States
The morality of the Nazis and the Bolsheviks is abhorrent. That has
nothing to do with the fact that their faith was strong enough to
make them great warriors. The best fighters in the Spanish Civil War,
Ernest Hemingway testifies, were the Moors. Those skinny brown men,
who looked so insignificant and whose behavior was so abominable, were
always chosen, if available, to be the shock troops, as when they
relieved the Alcazar. They fought with the bravery traditional of the
Mohammedan warrior from the Ottoman Turks to the Afghans. Their morals
were criminal. They butchered, looted, raped with neither compunction
nor discrimination.
I have seen them walking down a village street laden with sewing
machines, women’s clothing, surgical instruments, and chicken feed to
set up shop in a Cathedral underneath the image of the Saviour whose
head they had hacked off. Decent folk on Franco’s side were appalled,
but Franco could not do without them. They had a faith that only the
Catholic Requetés on the one hand and the Communists on the other could
equal, and when they went into battle the Moors sang. I have heard them
and reflected that good and evil have nothing to do with faith which
moves mountains and wins wars. Are we today in the United States going
into battle singing? We are not even going into battle, although we
admit it is ours.
Q. _Do you mean to say the Moors fought for the Mohammedan faith in
Spain?_
A. I do not. I mean to say that they fought because they believe the
profession of a man is to fight, and in fighting they are upheld in
spirit by their belief in Allah, and their faith in his promises.
Q. _What do the Russians fight for? They have no Allah and believe in
no hereafter._
A. I am not sure that either of those statements is correct. The images
of Lenin, Stalin, and Marx blend in the primitive Soviet Russian mind
together with dim memories of Orthodox ritual to make up a kind of ikon
of Communism. In some minds it may be only the figure of Father Lenin,
now mummified, deified, or at least sanctified, in his glass coffin
on the Red Square, but in all save the minds of the intellectualized
leaders there is some personification of the faith. As for belief in a
hereafter, I have sometimes wondered if even the highest leaders of the
Party are always as sure as their Bezbozhnik Society, the Society of
the Godless, professes to be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account