FROM THE ANATOMY OF PEACE
by Emery Reves

There is only one method that can create security against destruction by the atomic bomb. This is the same method that gives the states of New York and California (nonproducers of the atomic bomb) security against being erased from the surface of the earth by the states of Tennessee and New Mexico (producers of the atomic bomb). This security is real. It is the security given by a common sovereign order of law. Outside of that, any security is but an illusion.

Many of the scientists who released atomic energy, frightened by the consequences of this new force, warn us of the dangers that will result if several sovereign states possess atomic weapons, and urge control of it by the United Nations Security Council.

But what is the United Nations Security Council, except "several sovereign states"?

What is the reality of the Security Council beyond the reality of the sovereign nation-states that compose it?

What matters it if the American Secretary of State, the Soviet Foreigner Commissar and His Majesty's Foreign Secretary meet as members of the United Nations Security Council or outside that organization in a "Conference of Foreign Ministers"? In either case they are but the sworn representatives of three conflicting sovereign nation-states; in either case the final decisions rest with Washington, London and Moscow. These representatives can only arrive at agreements or treaties and are without power to create law applicable to the individuals of their respective nation-states.

Many of those who realize the inadequacy of the San Francisco organization [United Nations Organization, UNO] feel that the people must not be disillusioned, that their faith in the organization must not be destroyed.

If that faith is not justified, it must be destroyed. It is criminal to mislead the people and teach them to rely on a false hope.

The pathetic defenders argue that the UNO is all we have and we should be practical and start from what we have. A reasonable suggestion. It is scarcely possible to start from anywhere except from where we are. If a man has measles, no matter what he plans to do, he must start with the measles. But this does not mean that measles is an asset, a welcome condition, and that he could not do things better without measles. The mere fact of having something does not automatically make it valuable.

The San Francisco Charter is a multilateral treaty. That and nothing else. Each party to it can withdraw the moment it desires, and war alone can force the member states to fulfill their obligations under the treaty. For several thousand years man has given innumerable chances to treaty structures between sovereign power units to demonstrate that they can prevent war. With the possibility of atomic war facing us, we cannot risk reliance upon a method that has failed miserably hundreds of times and never succeeded once.

A realization that this method can never prevent war is the first condition of peace. Law and only law can bring peace among men; treaties never can.

We can never arrive at a legal order by amending a treaty structure. To realize the task before us, the heated debates of Hamilton, Madison and Jay in Philadelphia should be read and reread in every home and every school. They demonstrated that the Articles of Confederation (based on the same principles as the United Nations Organization) could not prevent war between the states, that amendment of these articles could not solve the problem, that the Articles of Confederation created and adopted, establishing an overall federal government with power to legislate, apply and execute law on individuals in the United States. That was the only remedy then and it is the only remedy now.

Such criticism of the United Nations Organization may shock people who have been persuaded that the UNO is an instrument for maintaining peace.

The San Francisco league is not a first step toward a universal legal order. To change from a treaty basis to law is one step, one operation, and it is impossible to break it into parts or fractions. This decision has to be made and the operation carried out at one time. There is no "first step" toward world government. World government is the first step.

Some remark patronizingly: "But this is idealism. Let us be realistic, let us make the San Francisco organization work."

What is idealism? And what is realism? Is it realistic to believe that treaties--which have been tried again and again and have always failed -- will now miraculously work? And is it idealistic to believe that law -- which has always succeeded wherever and whenever it was applied -- will continue to work?

Every time our Foreign Ministers or the heads of our governments meet and decide not to decide, hurry to postpone, and commit themselves to no commitments, the official heralds proclaim jubilantly to the universe: "This is a hopeful beginning." "This is a first step in the right direction."

We are always beginning. ... We never continue, never carry on, complete or conclude. We never take a second step or--God forbid--a third step. Our international life is composed of an unending sequence of beginnings that don't begin, of first steps that lead nowhere. When are we going to tire of this game?

It is of utmost importance to look at these things in their proper perspective. We must reject the exhortations or reactionaries who say: "Of course, world government is the ultimate goal. But we can't get it now. We must proceed slowly, step by step."

World government is not an "ultimate goal" but an immediate necessity. In fact, it has been overdue since 1914. The convulsions of the past decades are the clear symptoms of a dead and decaying political system.

Whether the change from treaty structure to a legal order takes place independently of the United Nations Organization or within it is irrelevant. To amend the San Francisco Charter--if that is the road we choose--we will have to rewrite it so drastically to get what we need that nothing of the document will remain except the two opening words: "Chapter One." The change has to come about in our minds, in our outlook. Once we know what we want, it makes no difference whether the reform is carried out on top of the Eiffel Tower, in the bleachers of the Yankee Stadium, or on the floor of the United Nations Assembly.

The stumbling block to transforming the San Francisco league into a governmental institution is the charter's basic conception expressed in the first phrase of the first chapter: "Members are the states."

This makes the charter a multilateral treaty. No amendment of the text can alter that fact until the very foundation is changed to the effect that the institution will have direct relationship, not with states but with individuals.

But--argue the defenders of the charter--the preamble says, "We, the people... "

Suppose someone publishes a proclamation opening, "I, the Emperor of China..." Would this make him the Emperor of China? Such an action would more probably land him in a lunatic asylum than on the throne of China. "We, the people... "--these symbolic words of democratic government--do not belong in the San Francisco Charter. Their use in the preamble is in total contradiction to everything else in it, and only historians will be able to decide whether they were used from lack of knowledge or lack of honesty. The simple truth requires that "We, the people... " in the preamble of the charter be accurately read: "We, the High Contracting Powers..."

The most vulgar of all objections, of course, is the meaningless assertion made by so many "public figures": "The people are not yet ready for world federation."

One can only wonder how they know. Have they themselves ever advocated world federation? Do they themselves believe in it? Have they ever tried to explain to the people what makes war and what is the mechanism of peace in human society? And, after having understood the problem, have the people rejected the solution and decided they did not want peace by law and government but preferred war by national sovereignty? Until this happens, no one has the right to pretend he knows what the people are ready for. Ideals always seem premature--until they become obsolete. Everybody has a perfect right to say that he does not believe in federal world government and does not want it. But without having faith in it and without having tried it, nobody has the right to preclude the decision of the people.

Certain statesmen say that it is criminal to talk about the possibility of a war between the Russian and Anglo-American spheres. This is a matter of opinion. I believe it is criminal not to talk about it. Nobody ever saved the life of a sick person by refusing to diagnose the disease or to attempt to cure it. The people of the world must understand the forces driving them toward the coming holocaust. It has nothing whatever to do with Communism or capitalism, with individualism or collectivism. It is the inevitable conflict between nonintegrated sovereignties in contact. We could put a Communist in the White House or establish the purest Jeffersonian democracy in Russia and the situation would be the same. Unless an overall world government organization can be established in time by persuasion and consent, no diplomatic magic will prevent the explosion.

Drifting toward a perfectly inevitable cataclysm is unworthy of reasonable men. Hundreds of millions of civilized human beings, good-humored, music- and dance-loving, industrious working people who could peacefully collaborate and enjoy life within one sovereignty, as the chained slaves of their respective sovereign nation-states, guided by fear and superstition, are being hoodwinked and bullied into senseless war. No amount of negotiation, of "good will" or wishful thinking will change this course. Only a clear realization by the people as to what is driving them into that conflict can bring about its eradication and cure.

If war, horrible war, between the two groups of sovereign nations dominated by the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. has to be fought, at least let it be civil war. Let us not go to battle for bases, territories, prestige, boundaries. Let us at least fight for an ideal. The end of such a struggle ought automatically to end international wars and bring victory for world federation.

The reality we most constantly keep in mind in striving for peace is clearly expressed by Alexander Hamilton in his Federalist No.6: "To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages."

History demonstrates how right Hamilton was and how wrong were those "first steppers" who thought that the American people could prosper and live in peace under a loose confederation of sovereign states.

We cannot achieve peace--a much more arduous and an even more heroic undertaking than war--if all of a sudden we become modest and satisfied with what is complacently accepted as a "first step" and if, disregarding all the past, we indulge in the hopeless hope that something can now work which Hamilton rightly said would be to "disregard the uniform course of human events." We shall never have peace if we do not have the courage to understand what it is, if we do not want to pay the price it costs and if, instead of working for its realization with the utmost determination, we are so cowardly as to resign ourselves smugly to an inherited, unworkable system enslaving us all.

We must clarify principles among ourselves and arrive at axiomatic definitions as to what causes war and what creates peace in human society. Once we agree on these principles, the absolutely indispensable condition of their spreading and materialization is our own unshakable faith in them. How things have actually happened on this earth no man has ever realized or experienced, just as no one can realize or experience the moment of birth or the moment of death, nor the moment even of awakening or falling asleep. Such transitions take place imperceptibly and we cannot foresee them or visualize them with exactness.

Pascal said that opinion is the real ruler of the world. And in starting our great fight for a better world, we must be guided by the wisdom of Sun-Yat-Sen: The difficulty is to know, to understand; with understanding, action is easy.

Therefore the problem is: How willing are we to fight for the dissemination in schools, churches, meetings, the press, the movies and on the radio, of a new faith, a new political outlook, which cannot take practical shape until enough people understand it, believe in it and want it?

Emery Reves, (1904-1981), a political economist, freelance writer and journalist, was born in Hungary, educated in Switzerland, fled Nazism from Berlin to Paris then to the United States. Reves organized the Corporation Press service to represent non-Fascist writers and developed a continuing friendship with Winston Churchill. His only book, The Anatomy of Peace, was on the best-seller list. After the war Reves returned to Europe and, with his wife, became a noted collector of art.

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