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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 2, No. 13 July 5, 1939
[introduction]
The principle we have now decided to adopt in regard to political articles, etc. in this and the next issue is that they will not in general be accepted unless they are definitely of more interest to students than to other sections of the community, even the educated ones. However, we received quite a large number of such contributions, and we publish the following as more adequately (in our opinion) expressing a point of view put forward in at least two other articles, and as being especially of interest to V.U.C. in view of the motion recently carried by the Debating Society, "That Russia is the Spearhead of Modern Civilization."—Ed.
The stock-in-trade of many modern writers on the world situation contains one assumption larger than any other item in their mental outlook. It is the assumption that the world is divided into two camps. In one entrenchment lie the powers of liberty, as summed up for us in the title "Democracy Under Canvas"; in the opposing faction are the totalitarian states of Italy, Germany, Portugal—the bad wolves that menace our cherished traditions of democratic freedom. Fascism and Nazism, in greater proximity to the democracies of the West, are ogres that scare the children of liberty, and lend Victor Gollancz and his "private enterprise," the Left Book Club, valuable assistance in his laudable endeavour of making money out of the world danger of Fascism. "Fascism" has been selected as the shibboleth. If you are not persuaded that the world needs a strong dose of Communism for its cure, you are a Fascist. If you breathe a suspicion even, of some sneaking idea that in some respects Democracy does not function well, you are without the pale—you are a Fascist. So there are two camps—Fascism and Democracy (note that Russia gets in here).