"In the years ahead it seems that satyagraha may take root in the West---not primarily as the result of any "change of heart," but simply because it provides the masses, especially in the conquered countries, with their only practicable form of political action. The Germans of the Ruhr and Palatinate resorted to satyagraha against the French in 1923. The movement was spontaneous; philosophically, ethically, and organizationally, it had not been prepared for. It was for this reason that it finally broke down. But it lasted long enough to prove that a Western people---and a people more thoroughly indoctrinated in militarism than any other---was perfectly capable of non-violent direct action, involving the cheerful acceptance of sacrificial suffering. Similar movements of satyagraha (more conscious of themselves this time, and better prepared for) may again be initiated among the masses of conquered Germany. The impracticability of any other kind of political action makes it very possible that this will happen sooner or later. It would be one of the happier ironies of history if the nation which produced Klausewitz and Bernhardi and Hitler were to be forced by history to be the first large-scale exponent in the West of that non-violent direct action which has become, in this age of scientific progress, humanity's only practical substitute for hopeless revolution and self-stultifying and suicidal war."
Aldous Huxley
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