There is one point on which both sides in the present world conflict are agreed. Each may denounce the leadership of the other side, but neither supposes that a change in leadership would make any difference, because both believe that it is a conflict not of persons or governments, but of principles, or of systems of society. The commonly accepted explanation of the conflict, in short, is that the world is now divided between Communism and Capitalism. At the risk of seeming paradoxical it must be asked what this explanation explains, and whether, in fact, it does anything but provide convenient labels for the opposing forces. The implied assumption that states with differing economic systems must necessarily be hostile to one another is at least unproved, and goes against historical experience. It would be easier to explain the conflict as a religious war, and Communism certainly exhibits many of the features of a militant religion, but can we be quite content to dismiss Communists and capitalists as the Protestants and Catholics of the twentieth century? And if we are, can we find many religious wars in which secular and political interests did not provide as strong or stronger a motive than religion?

The name of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), to the public at large, still lies in the shadow of moralistic condemnation. The anti-Machiavellian propaganda of the Counter-Reformation concentrated on the principles of political craftsmanship, developed in the Prince, as its target; and, apart from a narrower circle of historians, Machiavelli has ever since remained the author of the famous work, while the morality of his advice to rulers has remained the great issue of evaluation. It is hardly necessary to say that such preoccupations with moralistic propaganda cannot form the basis for a critical analysis of Machiavelli's ideas. All we can retain from the caricature is the consciousness that something extraordinary has occurred, a severe break with the traditions of treating political questions, the consciousness that with the author of the Prince we are on the threshold of a new, “modern” era. Even this element of the caricature, however, needs qualification. The furious concentration on the evil book has created the illusion that its author was a solitary figure, something like a moral freak. That, of course, is not so. There is nothing solitary or enigmatic about Machiavelli. His ideas, like everybody's, have a solid pre-history stretching over generations; and they were shared in his time by others. Historically unique, however, is the genius of Machiavelli as well as the strange disposition of circumstances directing his genius toward the crystallization of die ideas of die age in the symbol of die Prince who, through fortuna and virtù, will be the savior and restorer of Italy.

Established societies as well as revolutionary organizations and movements have always developed, though often only obscurely, a vision of an ideal society, generally located in the future although often also in the romantic past. For established communities, the goal sought by the society has had tremendous significance because faith in the desirability of the end envisioned has been one of the chief binding forces. Perhaps of even greater importance has been the dynamic stimulus the belief in an ideal society has given to rising revolutionary movements, such as those which have led to the great upheavals of history. The ultimate and ideal goal is particularly significant during times of crisis, when the loyalties of men are shaken and when frequently the factors most decisive in determining a citizen's position are his acceptance of and confidence in the final aims of the group to which he belongs. As an eminent English dramatist once said, a map of the world which does not include the ideal society has little interest for man, for it is upon the shores of such societies that man is always landing.

A study of a conception of the good society is not only an analysis of a source of cohesion and power; it can also shed great illumination upon an entire system of thought. The examination of a philosophy from this angle, that of the ultimate, ideal aims to be achieved, is particularly revealing in the case of Konstantine Petrovich Pobedonostsev, who was lay administrator of the Russian Orthodox Church from 1880 until October, 1905, and was one of the most prominent statesmen in Russia during the last third of the nineteenth century. During the 1880's in particular, he was as powerful in determining the direction of Russian domestic policy as Bismarck was for three decades in guiding the German state.

National Bolshevism represents a chapter in German-Russian relations since the First World War. As a policy advocating an Eastern orientation for Germany it is a most puzzling and at this day a very acute phenomenon. To those educated to observe the spectrum of political opinions in terms of Right and Left, with the extreme Right at the opposite end from the extreme Left, National Bolshevism seems a paradox. It suggests the meeting of extremes. More concretely the term stands for a rapprochement between German nationalism and Russian Communism. The story of National Bolshevism is the story of two “strange bedfellows.”

In the effort to comprehend this upsetting pattern it might be recalled that modern psychology has in many ways succeeded in breaking down our traditional thinking about human relations. Love, for example, has lost its meaning apart from hate, which has become its alter ego. We might be tempted to translate this finding into political terms, and National Bolshevism would appear as an example of a political love-hate relationship. It might also be suggested that the further we get from the origins and die more insight we gain into die workings of die two twentieth century extremes — Fascism and Communism — the more we are struck by dieir affinities. We grant diat Fascism is nodiing more dian “doctrineless dynamism,” whereas Communism goes back to die solid doctrinaire structure of Marxism. And even through European history since 1917 often threatened to lead up to an ultimate conflict between Fascism and Communism, die “transmutation” through which Marxism has gone in modern Russia has brought it ironically close to Fascism. It has become increasingly evident that die fight between die two was a mere sham battle.

In December 1950, at its annual meeting, the American Historical Association entitled one of its major topics of discussion: “New Views on Metternich.” Its choice of the word “new” certainly recalls, and possibly vindicates, a statement Metternich made well over a century ago: “In 100 years the historian will understand me better.”

New, views either on Metternich, or else on the entire Hapsburg empire, occur in such serious works of research, all published after World War II, as the following (to name just a few): Hannah Straus, Attitude of the Congress of Vienna Toward Nationalism (N. Y., 1949); Robert Kann, The Multinational Empire (N. Y., 1950); Walter Langsam, Francis the Good (N. Y., 1949); Jerome Blum, Noble Landowners and Agriculture in Austria, 1815–1848 (Baltimore, 1948); Golo Mann, Secretary of Europe (New Haven, 1946); Arnold Whitridge, Men in Crisis: The Revolutions of 1848 (N. Y., 1949); several monographs on Austria by R. John Rath in Journal of Modern History and Journal of Central European Affairs; Veit Valentin, The German People (N. Y., 1946).

The “rule of reason” remains after almost forty years the most curious obiter dictum ever indulged in by the Supreme Court of the United States. Mistaken though it was in its basic assumptions, the rule nevertheless persists as the Court's standard for construing the Sherman Act. This is not to say, as some critics have said, that the rule has seriously hampered the Department of Justice in enforcing the antitrust laws. We have it on the authority of Thurman Arnold that without the rule die Sherman Act would be “unworkable … because every combination between two men in business is in some measure a restraint of trade.” The rule, he has said, “has the effect of preventing the antitrust laws from destroying the efficiency of diose combinations that are actually serving, instead of exploiting, the consumer.” The fact remains, however, that in adopting the rule the Court erred in at least two respects: first, in applying a test of reasonableness where in the early cases at least none was called for and, second, in basing that rule on a misunderstanding of the common law. For the first of its sins the Court has been scolded many times; for the second, it has received surprisingly litde criticism.