Description:

In the midst of World War II Shaw writes about the future of democracy mentioning Churchill Roosevelt Stalin and Hitler commenting Democracy is indestructible; but the world is strewn with the ruins of empires. Over 30 words in his hand!

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1956-1950) Typed Manuscript Signed "Exclusive to Miss Dorothy Royal / G. Bernard Shaw / 10/3/1942" and additionally annotated, 6 pages, 8" x 10", separate sheets, pages numbered by Shaw. No place, March 10, 1942. Upper margins (with original questions) clipped and reattached, chips at margins, penciled editor's marks throughout, light soiling. Fine condition.

In this questionnaire, Shaw provides answers to six questions submitted to the playwright by journalist Dorothy Royal of London Sunday Express in early 1942. Titled, most probably by Royal: "Democracy is indestructable says George Bernard Shaw in a Questionnaire submitted by Dorothy Royal."

Excerpts

(1) Do you think that, in the event of the complete victory of Great Britain, the U.S.A., Russia and China, the form of National Socialism called Nazism or Fascism would be entirely destroyed in Germany and Italy? "… Russia is up to the neck in National Socialism and all the rest are up to the knees in it. None of them could exist for a week without a good deal of National Communism…"

(2) Assuming that the war lasts some years longer than Winston Churchill anticipates, do you think it possible that, all the belligerents becoming war weary, a negotiated peace will result? "Any peace must be a negotiated peace, unless it is the peace of extermination of the vanquished … Even Versailles, where the vanquished were pitilessly steam-rollered, had to be negotiated."

(3) Assuming the almost impossible happening; would to defeat of the Allies result in the disintegration and downfall of the British Empire? Would this mean the enslavement of Europe and the destruction of democracy? In war nothing is impossible; and its results are never expected by the belligerents. If the Allies are defeated we shall have to do what the German Führer orders: that is all … But at this time the old British Empire is already disintegrated in the Far East and badly cracked in the Nearest West, now called Eire … If China recaptures Hong Kong, Singapore, and Burma, she can hardly she expected to make us a present of them … We may have to drop India as we have had to drop Eire, and leave her to become an independent federation like the U.S.A. or the U.S.S.R. These are all possibilities … If they are realized, the fat will be in the fire again, with Roosevelt and Churchill contra mundum … Democracy is indestructible; but the world is strewn with the ruins of empires."

(4) Do you regard Hitler, judged by the atrocities committed in Poland, Holland and Belgrade, to be the enemy of the human race and would you suggest that he and his associates in guilt should, if defeated and captured, be tried by an international jury and dealt with as common felons? "This is only the old Hang the Kaiser rubbish over again. Adolf Hitler may be in some danger in Germany if he provokes a revolution there; but if he escapes this all he will have to do is to step across the frontier into neutral Switzerland to be as safe as the Kaiser was at Doorn." Shaw has handwritten: "If we start recriminating about atrocities he has only to say 'He that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone.'"

(5) If Russia wins a complete victory over Germany and thereby ends the war as far as Europe is concerned, do you think that the various countries will adopt communism and federate with the Soviets, or will they continue as Kingdoms and republics under capitalistic conditions? "Each country will have its own problem, its own readiness for more or less communism. Without a good real of communism no State, no tribe even, can exist at all … The U.S.S.R. cannot take on the whole world…"

(6) Whom do you think is the greatest man this war has yet produced? "Stalin, of course; but then he is not a product of this war. No other living statesman has been through such a terrific apprenticeship. Others who went through it have been killed by it or had their heads turned. Stalin alone has taken it easily without losing his sense of humor."

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