Chapter 5

The Mission of Switzerland.

"Switzerland can achieve greatness through principle alone. The only conquests permissible to Switzerland, are conquests in the realm of ideas" (Clottu).

We are not concerned here solely with the duty of a choice group of intellectuals. The questions at issue affect the people at large, those to whose service these young men have devoted themselves. A new spirit, an active faith, are requisite. The war has brought to light the weak spot in the Swiss character. Touching is the shame felt by these truehearted youths owing to the attitude of their country at the outset of the war. They are personally hurt by such surrenders of principle. In the strongest terms they censure the abdication of the Swiss soul at the time when Belgium was being invaded, noting with pain the absence of any national and public protest. But now there is a change of spirit. "We have a young and virile movement, the movement of those who are not satisfied with the mere existence of Switzerland, but who desire that Switzerland should prove herself worthy to exist, by her moral greatness and by helping to bring salvation to other peoples" (Schmidhauser). "The recognition of this duty will regenerate our national life" (Genevese section).

The practical difficulties are enormous, and must be frankly faced. Switzerland is in danger of being crushed in twofold fashion--military and economic. The fate of Belgium and the fate of Greece are plain warnings. She cannot forego her army, for this is a necessary safeguard of the ideal she represents. But this army, however large, does not and cannot suffice to avert economic pressure, which is an inevitable outcome of the existing system of society. We have, therefore, to draw the fatal conclusion that Switzerland is doomed should capitalist imperialism endure. For Switzerland neither can nor ought to come to terms with either group of allied powers. To take such a step would be to pass sentence of death upon herself. "Her existence is inseparably associated with the victory of the ideas of supra-national solidarity, of world-wide socialism, world-wide individualism, world-wide democracy." Grob boldly affirms: "To imperialist immoralism, with the device, 'Our interest is our right,' we counterpose, 'Right is our interest.'"

What are the leading tasks of Switzerland?

They are three: the universalisation of socialism; the universalisation of individualism; the universalisation of democracy.

1. World-wide Socialism.--The germ of this appears in the supra-national union which is the essential characteristic of Switzerland. But the young Zofingians are under no illusions, and they frankly denounce the faults of their own people. "We are far from being a nation of brothers....Our nation is divided: it is rent asunder by egoisms and imperialisms.... For every strong man who misuses his strength and his wealth, displays the spirit of imperialism" (A. de Mestral). This scourge must be vigorously combated. How? "By direct struggle with capitalism," says one (Alexander Jaques of Lausanne). "By organising solidarity," says another (Ernest Gloor of Lausanne). But the Swiss are fast bound, willy-nilly, to the social system of other nations, "to the international system of economic imperialism, the most abominable of all the internationalisms." It is therefore categorically incumbent upon the Swiss to devote themselves to furthering an active internationalism of social solidarity. They must enter into an understanding with anti-imperialists throughout the world. "It is necessary to promote the formation of an international group organised for the struggle against imperialist, absolutist, and materialist principles, simultaneously, in every land" (Châtenay).

2. World-wide Individualism.--We require a counterpoise to sociocracy. We must beware of any organisation, be it internationalist or pacifist, which claims to subjugate and atrophy the living forces of man. The political ideal is a genuine federalism which shall respect individualisms. As the old saying has it: Let everything be after its kind!

3. World-wide Democracy.--In this matter the students display perfect unanimity, for they have absolute faith in democracy. But with their customary scrupulousness, their dread of pharisaism, they admit that Switzerland is still far from being a true democracy. "To-day democracy is purely formal; in our own time the principle of true democracy is, in a sense, revolutionary."

They tell us some of their aspirations. They desire the democratic control of foreign policy. They want pacifism on a democratic basis. Almost universally in Europe, political power is in the control of a handful of men who embody imperialist egoism. The people must share this power. Each nation has the right to control its own destinies, in accordance with its own ideas and the dictates of its own will.

But once more, no illusions! With a clear-sightedness which is rare at this hour, these young men point out that "imperialism has become democratic," saying: "The western democracies, closely examined, are nothing more than the sovereignty of a capitalist and landowning caste."

The Russian revolution arouses new hopes. "The spectacle of the struggle between the two democratic revolutions in Russia, one capitalist and imperialist, the other anti-imperialist and socialist, illuminates the problem of democracy and imperialism. This spectacle shows the Swiss democracy its path and its mission." Above all, let Switzerland reject the new evangel, made in Germany, of a democracy supine before the will of a politico-economic power, a democracy which tends in home policy to class rule, and in foreign policy to imperialism! "We need a new orientation which shall deliver democratic thought from national restrictions, and from the sinister contemporary trend towards the reign of material force." True democracy, supra-national democracy, must take its stand against "imperialism masquerading as democracy."