Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

104 LIFE AND IDEAS OF MITRINOVIC

which called upon women from its headquarters at “International House,” 55 Gower Street, to join together to “rediscover the meaning and function of womanhood and express it in the modern world.” Competition between the sexes was condemned, “woman as complement to man must relearn to cooperate.” Woman was essentially the “preserver of life’ who must supply purpose to the cold reasoning and inventiveness of man. As with the Eleventh Hour Clubs, women were urged to join together with friends and neighbours and to work at the level of day-to-day life to create a better world:

Any woman can begin today in her own sphere by making an inspiring background for the men she meets, enabling them to act positively and optimistically in the world; she can and must realise how necessary is her right attitude and support to his right action.

It is extremely doubtful whether any of these groups ever consisted of much more than a set of letter headings and nominal office-bearers. At the same time they were of significance insofar as they provide some indication of the type of analysis that was being elaborated by Mitrinovi¢ and his co-workers during this period, and also provided pointers to the forms of organisation and action that were to be developed further as the 1930s progressed.

An early expression of these ideas as they pertained to the British political and social scene was contained in a 1929 publication of the Chandos Group entitled Politics: A Discussion of Realities.®

The contributors to Politics started from the initial recognition that the co-existence in society of unfulfilled needs and unemployment was enough to show that society was wrongly organised. These unmet needs embraced not only material want but also those of the mind and the spirit. “There is,” it was argued, “a deep and instinctive need in every one of us to feel himself of value to his fellow men; and to find a function which he can usefully fill in our common life.”? There was, therefore, a fundamental need to consciously reorganise society. In an age characterised by diversity and the division of labour, one could no longer rely on the social good developing automatically from the innate nature of individuals. Similarly, one could not rely on the established politicians and political parties, each of which only represented partial and sectional interests.

To achieve this reorganisation it was necessary to recognise that politics was only one function of society, one dimension of human activity, and that there were others—the economic and the cultural in particular. “The ultimate aim of politics is such organisation as will free men to fulfil their