Fariha’s Reviews > Essays > Status Update
Fariha
is on page 249 of 1369
The truth is that ours is not an age for mysterious romances about lunatics in ruined chateaux, because it is not an age in which one can be unaware of contemporary reality. You can't ignore Hitler, Mussolini, unemployment, aeroplanes and the radio ; you can only pretend to do so, which means lopping off a large chunk of your consciousness.
— Dec 30, 2025 08:51AM
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Fariha
is on page 307 of 1369
Nevertheless, owing to the exceptionally high traditions of the Indian Civil Service, the law in India is administered far more fairly than might be expected and incidentally, far too fairly to please the business community. Mr Collis grasps the essential situation clearly enough; he recognises that the Burman has profited very little from the huge wealth that has been extracted from his country,
— 15 hours, 37 min ago
Fariha
is on page 307 of 1369
The account of the trial makes curious reading—an Indian crowd roaring outside, Mr Collis wondering whether he would be knocked on the head the next moment, and the prisoner sitting in the dock reading a newspaper to make it clear that he did not recognise the jurisdiction of an English court. Mr Collis's sentence was ten days' imprisonment—a wise sentence, for it deprived Sen Gupta of a chance of martyrdom.
— 15 hours, 47 min ago
Fariha
is on page 287 of 1369
Definitely revolutionary events had taken place—land had been seized by the peasants, industries collectivised, big capitalists killed or driven out, the Church practically abolished—but there had been no fundamental change in the structure of government. It was a situation capable of developing either towards Socialism or back to capitalism ;
— 19 hours, 8 min ago
Fariha
is on page 284 of 1369
After what I have seen in Spain I have come to the conclusion that it is futile to be "anti-Fascist" while attempting to preserve capitalism. Fascism after all is only a development of capitalism, and the mildest democracy, so-called, is liable to tum into Fascism when the pinch comes.
— 19 hours, 15 min ago
Fariha
is on page 283 of 1369
The other is the fact that all known methods of defence against the aeroplane are more or less useless and that the German bombers could probably reduce England to chaos and starvation in a few weeks. It is doubtful whether this has much value as an argument against war ; though true, it amounts to scaremongering and, coupled with the consciousness of German rearmament,
— Jan 03, 2026 07:47AM
Fariha
is on page 278 of 1369
It is evident that people can be deceived by the anti-Fascist stuff exactly as they were deceived by the gallant little Belgium stuff, and when war comes they will walk straight into it. I don't, however, agree with the pacifist attitude, as I believe you do. I still think one must fight for Socialism and against Fascism, I mean fight physically with weapons, only it is as well to discover which is which.
— Jan 03, 2026 07:41AM
Fariha
is on page 277 of 1369
In the difference between those two periods, especially the difference in the social atmosphere, the essential history of the Spanish revolution is contained. In August the Government was almost powerless, local soviets were functioning everywhere and the Anarchists were the main revolutionary force ; as a result everything was in terrible chaos,
— Jan 03, 2026 07:39AM
Fariha
is on page 273 of 1369
Broadly speaking, Communist propaganda depends upon terrifying people with the (quite real) horrors of Fascism. It also involves pretending—not in so many words, but by implication—that Fascism has nothing to do with capitalism. Fascism is just a kind of meaningless wickedness, an aberration, "mass sadism", the sort of thing that would happen if you suddenly let loose an asylumful of homicidal maniacs.
— Jan 02, 2026 10:23AM
Fariha
is on page 273 of 1369
In the first half of this article I suggested that the real struggle in.Spain, on the Government side, has been between revolution and counter-revolution; that the Government, though anxious enough to avoid being beaten by Franco, has been even more anxious to undo the revolutionary changes with which the outbreak of war was accompanied.
— Jan 02, 2026 10:22AM
Fariha
is on page 272 of 1369
The peasant and the worker hate feudalism and clericalism ; but so does the "liberal" bourgeois, who is not in the least opposed to a more modem version of Fascism, at least so long as it isn't called Fascism. The "liberal" bourgeois is genuinely liberal up to the point where his own interests stop. He stands for the degree of progress implied in the phrase "la carriere ouverte aux talents".
— Jan 02, 2026 06:17AM
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Dec 30, 2025 08:52AM
To turn away from everyday life and manipulate black paper silhouettes with the pretence that you are really interested in them, is a sort of game of make-believe, and therefore faintly futile, like telling ghost stories in the dark. On the other hand they do an extremely useful work by presenting contemporary history in a readable form, and they can hardly have too much publicity, because anything that brings it home to the Englishman that foreigners really exist and are alive and kicking, especially kicking, is to be welcomed.
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