If only they could meet openly and say: Let us see what things we do
want in common ... aber [but], what meeting could get down to funda
mentals? Our Govt. published last week story of Chinese atrocities in
N. Korea. Every C.P. member in the country sneers that it is all a bundle
of lies. If the Chinese gave out a report that S. Koreans had tortured N.
Koreans and Chinese with the aid of U.S.A. men, every communist in
the world would believe the story. And, alas, such emotional determina
tion is on both sides, on all sides. Everywhere. In other words the main
and dangerous plague is the political one. But you said that years ago.
You write: We cannot be, must not be liberal to evil. Aber, Freund
[but, friend], what is evil? Ritter, for instance, isn't evil so far as I can
see; he is just suffering from the emotions and egocentricity of youth.
How to see evil? To me the Chinese who want to take Formosa by force
are evil, and for the same reason the Pentagon which thinks that force
can settle anything important is evil. And what do you mean by the word
liberal anyway? Latin: liber, free. To me the word means taking the
unhateful way if possible, not killing the Rosenbergs, not shooting
Beria, * not hanging criminals, not caning children, not exploiting
workers. To me liberal means knowing at once what side you are on,
Malant or the Natives. Dislike of all tough guys. But what is the use
going on. You seem nowadays to mix up liberalism with weakness.
Maybe you are right. I don't know what you think these days. Do you
think that the men who can decide Peter and Zoe's fate, the Molotovs,
Edens, Dulleses are wiser than you and I are? Do you approve of this
idea that fear of war will restrain anyone? Damn it all, how we could
talk over a bottle of the best. We never will. It is a most depressing
thought.
•••- Lavrenti Beria, for many years head of the Russian secret police; shot in
December 19 53.
t Then Prime Minister of South Africa.