A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization.
A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization.
A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization.
The opening lines of the text waste no time in getting right to the point. If this were a speech, these three lines would be a textbook example of the advice of “opening with a grabber.” This opening grabs you by the throat and glares at you with a penetrating stare that all but threatens with the assertion that you pay attention you will learn something and, oh, by the way you will pay attention. As for writing advice, the opening also displays a type of parallel construction specifically known anaphora which is a technique that dependent for its effect on the repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of a cluster of sentences. The point being made with use of anaphora is arrived at through the power of repetition which perhaps the single most useful tool in the world propaganda. The reader has the word civilization drilled into them right from the start which subconsciously kickstarts the processing of information to follow.
What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization—and therefore force—is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.
What is this text driving at? Colonialism, imperialism, world domination…these are all the same thing. It is all an attempt at imposition of control and authority upon another nation that neither asked nor wanted it. Dressing things up in benevolent clothing does not make it any better. Whether disguised as Kipling’s infamous “white man burden” or explicitly presented as Hitler’s maniacal desire for control the planet, it all amounts to the same malevolence.
I have talked a good deal about Hitler. Because he deserves it: he makes it possible to see things on a large scale and to grasp the fact that capitalist society, at its present stage, is incapable of establishing a concept of the rights of all men, just as it has proved incapable of establishing a system of individual ethics. Whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe, I mean the Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bidault, and a few others, there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler.
Without realizing it and without intent, the founders of the Nazi Party in Germany achieved an unsettling goal. By officially naming their themselves the National Socialist Party, they are still managing to confuse millions of uninformed people too lazy to become uninformed. These people see the world “Socialist” in that name and assume that fascism and socialism are interchangeable. Then, while clinging to those aspects of fascism which suit their needs, they use that word improperly to denigrate an ideology which stands in complete and total opposition to Nazi interests.
