November 30th 1939

Thursday November 30th

This has been a hateful year, and it seems as though the ushering in of the last month of it is symbolic.

Today, using the tactics that the Nazis have made so nauseatingly familiar, Russia has attacked Finland*, on the plea that the tiny state “menaced” Leningrad. 

1939 has seen the fall of four independent nations one after another, Czechoslovakia  in March, Albania on Good Friday, Poland and now Finland - and the Anarchists still pretend that we are not justified in taking up arms to defend what is left! Not justified, ye gods!

I wonder, has humanity always been so hateful, so utterly ruthless, so sickeningly hypocritical, or are we just unlucky?

Helsinki has been bombed and 200 civilians killed and wounded. A bomb also fell on a hospital. But, of course, by the rules of this new morality, which the Apostles of Peace and Progress in Moscow and Berlin are teaching us, such things are of no account whatsoever, simply not worth recording.

And the deep and righteous anger of all the ordinary simple people, who see in the dead the prototypes of themselves, mere pawns in the dirty game played by demagogues and careerists, never achieves its object. Because those who are really guilty, those who plan and order these massacres, are never caught and punished – at least not in this world.

*This marked the start of the 105 day Winter War.