A Record of Meetings held by P.D. Ouspensky - HolyBooks.com

understand the situation. You can do nothing about it, but you willunderstand I speak only from the point of view of understanding.If you go further back, as I said, from the Vienna Congress to theCrimean War you can take in general; things that happened then affectus in general. But the first big sin was the Crimean War. Then thesecond was the Franco-Prussian War; after that at the beginning of thiscentury, and again in 1914. This is what we have to think about. Allthat brought this situation. So we cannot regard it as simply the wholefault of Hitler. It is childish.And for us, if we study psychology from the historical point ofview, and history from the psychological point of view, we mustunderstand It is part of the work It will help us, I suppose, in somecases to find our way.I don't want you to limit questions to that, but I know I had manyletters and you all had similar questions, so I spoke about it. But youcan speak about anything you like.MR. R Why does this war seem so very unemotional?MR. O I don't know. That is your own subjective view. Also, it isinteresting to know in details the history of the last war, because thenyou will understand what may happen. I remember at the beginning ofthe war I came to Russia and every conversation began with thephrase: 'When war ends . .' and when war ended we found ourselvesin quite a different world. And there was a kind of sense of falsesecurity after the war, but now it shows it was quite false. The warnever ended reallyMRS. C. Are we to regard a man like Hitler as an inevitable result ofthe causes of the war? You say it is impossible to blame Hitler foreverything, but what should our attitude be to a man who on thesurface does appear to have brought things to a climax?MR. O. Yes, it only looks like that. It was brought about by Englishand French politicians, who recognized bolshevism and didn't keep theVersailles Treaty and let Germany arm. If the clauses about Germanyhaving no right to arm were kept, there would be no war. So who areour enemies? Just where they are fighting now, in the Saar, only threeyears ago they took the last troops out of there—because Hitlerdemanded it and they obeyed him.MR A Is there any change in the nature of bolshevism in the Stalinregime now?