Isaacs Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main Page
From Socialist Appeal, Vol. 4 No. 51, 21 December 1940, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Prince Radziwill, aristocrat and landowner, is one of the few refugees from “democratic” Poland who have been able to make their way into this country.
Now safe in this country and secure with the bank balances his class doubtless had maintained here for just such eventualities, Radziwill has assumed the pose of adviser on American war policy. His first essay into this field is in a lengthy letter published in the New York Times on December 11.
Radziwill sees Mussolini’s Italy in a precarious position as a result of its military reverses. He says “the heavy threat of interior revolution hangs constantly over Italy.” That threat could be averted for the present by “a complete surrender to a German military and diplomatic protectorate.” “Mussolini, he goes on “standing before the choice of complete submission to Germany or of a revolution, might eventually consider a third solution, that of peace, which would certainly be welcome to the whole nation. I have the feeling that maybe the moment is near when American diplomacy could develop a very cautious activity for a daring, no doubt, but in my opinion not necessarily hopeless, attempt in this direction.”
The speculations of this Polish prince are very illuminating. He poses Mussolini’s two choices – surrender to Hitler or overthrow by an anti-Fascist revolution – and turns away from both of them with a shudder. And we may be quite sure that for him the prospect of an anti-Fascist revolution is by far the worst of the two alternatives.
Isaacs Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 16 November 2020