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the hero in history

relatively unfavourable in comparison with earlier possibilities. The justification of the present war against Fascism is not to be found in resurrected echoes of a Wilsonian idealism which lost its chance at Versailles to redeem its promises. It is to be found in the fact that defeat at the hands of the Axis spells universal Fascism and its unspeakable barbarity and degradation, while victory over it means survival and one more chance. One more chance to solve the basic problem of our time—the fusion of the economic tendency toward a planned economy with the values and techniques of democracy. Fascism or democratic survival and another chance—this is the grim alternative of our time.