ABSTRACT
Mahatma Gandhi was still present throughout India, in his achievements, his example, his image. For Europe, he was simply a liberator with clean hands; a symbol of saintliness, with the quaintness that goes with many saints. Romain Rolland's critique of imperialism emphasized that Europe's destructive tendencies, so visible during the Great War, were active in the colonized regions of Asia and Africa. Gandhi's democratic and conciliatory methods were preferable to the Soviet model as a way out of the "iron net" of imperialist domination and privilege. Romain Rolland's anti-imperialism was fundamentally Gandhian. His intention was to circumvent the massive dislocations and random violence of struggles of national liberation and the efforts to repress them. Anti-imperialism included a defense of civil liberties. If Romain Rolland was enchanted with Gandhi's blend of individualism, activism, and morality, he was equally troubled by Gandhi's distrust of science, his nationalism, and his nostalgia for preindustrial times.
