Difficulties.

And if the pacifist is a socialist, his intellectual difficulties are increased. He cannot be content with the present state of society; as no great reform has ever come about except by the use of force, he cannot expect to change society by purely pacifist means; if he succeeds in changing the society, he may provoke a world war. The awful example of Spain is before him.

So the message of "All Quiet" is not as effective as it was. When the picture was first released. It was sufficient to salve a person's intellectual conscience if he merely professed unqualified pacifism. Displaying the horrors of war was enough. Surely people would realise that Paul Baumer must [unclear: pt] be killed again.

But mankind has gone on buying cheap and selling dear, with the natural result that its desire for peace has had no effect at all on the forces making for war. How often must it be reiterated that "the individual may be a moral individual, the mechanism is entirely amoral and concretely materialistic"? The world will go on Joining the Oxford Group till the bombs begin to fall.