Mr. John Strachey’s book The Menace of Fascism (already reviewed by Blackfriars) is interesting perhaps as an objective phenomenon rather than for any very startling contents. The author thinks quite clearly: he sees in Fascism the triumph of the Capitalists over the inept op position of Labour; he is justly apprehensive of Fascist State-Absolutism; he is logical enough in suspecting that perfervid nationalism (in that it means a hatred of internationalism, and selfish market-hunting) will lead to War. Does the Means Test and the Trades Disputes Act justify the sniffing of Fascism or Nazism? It is early to say, and we have no business with prophecy. Catholics will be (as they have been elsewhere) the first and most obdurate opponents of encroachment upon Democracy—true democracy, that is to say, the only sort of democracy that matters. It is about the nature of democracy that we quarrel a little with Mr. Strachey. His book is prefaced with well-authenticated instances of the recent brutality in Germany, shootings and beatings, the stripping and whipping to death of a woman, and other (one fears) rather representative atrocities. These things Mr. Strachey very justly deplores; and Catholics have not been and will not be outdone in generous denunciation where it is necessary. For all that we have a difference with Mr. Strachey. Very simply it is this. We do not believe that he goes deep enough. Personally I am not moved very urgently to quarrel with Mr. Strachey in his dislike of Fascism. I could, I think, make my copy of the Menace of Fascism even more valuable by cramming its fly-leaves with data about Fascist prisons, for instance, and what goes on in them, what sort of people are sometimes put in them, and generally what sort of things happen to you if you fall out very badly with the Fascists.