Illa ställt bland intellektuella i Europa redan 1949

    "There is no hope. Whether we intellectuals are traitors or whether we are victims, in any case we'd better recognize the utter hopelessness of our situation. Why fool ourselves ? We're done for ! We're licked !"

    These words were uttered by a young student of philosophy and literature l met in the ancient university town of Uppsala, Sweden. What he had to say was certainly characteristic, and l believe his words echo the beliefs of your intellectuals in all parts of Europe.

    He continued: "we're licked, we're through. Why not admit it at last ? The struggle between two great anti-spiritual powers - American money and Russian fanaticism - does not leave any room in the world for intellectual integrity or independence. We are compelled to take sides and, by doing so, to betray everything we should defend and cherish. Koestler is wrong when asserting that one side is a little better than the other - not quite black, just gray. In reality, neither side is good enough - which is to say that both are bad, both are black".

    He said a new movement should be launched by European intellectuals, "the movement of despair, the rebellion of the hopeless ones. Instead of trying to appease the powers that be, instead of vindicating the machinations of greedy bankers or the outrages of tyrannical bureaucrats, we ought to go on record with our protest, with an unequivocal expression of our bitterness, our horror. Things have reached a point where only the most dramatic, most radical gesture has a chance to be noticed, to awake the conscience of the blinded hypnotized masses. I'd like to see hundreds, thousands of intellectuals follow the examples of Virginia Woolf, Ernst Toller, Stefan Zweig, Jan Masaryk. A suicide wave among the world's most distinguished minds would shock the peoples out of the lethargy, would make them realize the extreme gravity of the ordeal man has bought upon himself by his folly and selfishness".

    In a trembling voice, he said to me, "Let's sign ourselves to absolute despondency. It's the only sincere attitude, and the only one that can be of any help".