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zations it has created, have led in many cases to the very opposite being achieved; and that for the following reasons:
When sheer force is used to combat the spread of a doctrine, then that force must be employed systematically and persistently. This means that the chances of success in the suppression of a doctrine lie only in the persistent and uniform application of the methods chosen. The moment hesitation is shown, and periods of tolerance alternate with the application of force, the doctrine against which these measures are directed will not only recover strength but every successive persecution will bring to its support new adherents who have been shocked by the oppressive methods employed. The old adherents will become more embittered and their allegiance will thereby be strengthened. Therefore when force is employed success is dependent on the consistent manner in which it is used. This persistence, however, is nothing less than the product of definite spiritual convictions. Every form of force that is not supported by a spiritual backing will be always indecisive and uncertain. Such a force lacks the stability that can be found only in a Weltanschauung which has devoted champions. Such a force is the expression of the individual energies; therefore it is from time to time dependent on the change of persons in whose hands it is employed and also on their characters and capacities.
But there is something else to be said: Every Weltanschauung, whether religious or political--and it is sometimes difficult to say where the one ends and the other begins--fights not so much for the negative destruction of the opposing world of ideas as for the positive realization of its own ideas. Thus its struggle lies in attack rather than in defence. It has the advantage of knowing where its objective lies, as this objective represents the realization of its own ideas. Inversely, it is difficult to say when the negative aim for the destruction of a hostile doctrine is reached and secured. For this reason alone a Weltanschauung which is of an aggressive character is more definite in plan and more powerful and decisive in action than a Weltanschauung which takes up a merely defensive attitude. If force be used to combat a spiritual power, that force remains a defensive measure only so long as the wielders of it are not the standard-bearers and apostles of a new spiritual doctrine.
To sum up, the following must be borne in mind: That every attempt to combat a Weltanschauung by means of force will turn out futile in the end if the struggle fails to take the form of an offensive for the establishment of an entirely new spiritual order of' things. It is only in the struggle between two Weltanschauung that physical force, consistently and ruthlessly applied, will eventually turn the scales in its own favour. It was here that the fight against Marxism had hitherto failed.
This was also the reason why Bismarck's anti-socialist legislation failed and was bound to fail in the long run, despite everything. It lacked the basis of a new Weltanschauung for whose development and extension the struggle might have been taken up. To say that the serving up of drivel about a so-called 'State-Authority' or 'Law-and-Order' was an adequate foundation for the spiritual driving force in a life-or-death struggle is only what one would expect to hear from the wiseacres in high official positions.
It was because there were no adequate spiritual motives back of this offensive that Bismarck was compelled to hand over the administration of his socialist legislative measures to the judgment and approval of those circles which were themselves the product of the Marxist teaching. Thus a very ludicrous state of affairs prevailed when the Iron Chancellor surrendered the fate of his struggle against Marxism to the goodwill of the bourgeois democracy. He left the goat to take care of the garden. But this was only the necessary result of the failure to find a fundamentally new Weltanschauung which would attract devoted champions to its cause and could be established on the ground from which Marxism had been driven out. And thus the result of the Bismarckian campaign was deplorable.
During the World War, or at the beginning of it, were the conditions any different? Unfortunately, they were not.
