Workers could not be frightened away from learning Esperanto; in fact they tended to regard it as all the more attractive the more 'reactionaries' condemned it. Such enthusiasm, irrepressible through harassment and even stimulated by it, little by little caused the authorities to lessen their readiness or ability to make a clear distinction between the movement as a whole and the radical elements within it. As the 1920s drew to a close, the guardians of public order increasingly gave at least the impression that the Esperanto movement as a whole merited closer observation. In parallel with this view, the public tended more and more to impute ideo- logical goals to the language itself. The French minister Berard's circular, already mentioned, served as an occasion to warn against the widespread use of Esperanto to advance Bolshevism.[241] The German Romanist Karl Vossler even went so far as to suspect that through such use the character of the language itself had begun to change:
international Bolshevism, socialism, and communism have of late taken up residence in the grammar and vocabulary of Esperanto, with the intention not only of filling it with their ethos and ideas, their phonetic feelings and their semantic accents, their proletarian voices, but also having it make political propaganda for them.
[...] a language that is conscious of the fact that it was formed out of international word borrowing and that relies on international communica- tion has to present itself as goal-directed, sympathetic, and linguistically related to the beliefs and actions, the ideas and dissemination, of communism.[242]
The leaders of the neutral movement could hardly overlook such inten- tional or unintentional identification of Esperanto with particular political agendas (generally of the left). With increasing frequency these leaders felt the need to defend themselves against accusations that the Esperanto movement was serving as a training ground for revolutionar- ies. Such efforts at self-protection were not unsuccessful. Even Berard himself explicitly distinguished between 'suspicious groups' for whom Esperanto had become 'a device for systematic internationalism' and 'the sincerity of many French people, often eminent people', who con- sidered Esperanto merely a practical instrument for correspondence.[243](It may be useful here to quote the Japanese Nitobe Inazo, who, having just experienced the strong opposition of the French government to Esperanto, noted in 1924: 'However it may encounter prejudice and unfriendliness in Europe, Esperanto is accepted in the Far East with an open spirit.' Nitobe expressed one reservation—and immediately qualified it: 'People accuse it of serving as a channel for radical thought: but it is well known that more propaganda material expressing "dan- gerous ideas" exists in other languages.'[244]) Yet Berard's words remind us of the dilemma faced by the 'bourgeois' Esperantists, for they too were accustomed to talking not only about Esperanto's practical advan- tages but also, to varying degrees, about the significance of the language as an idea. However imprecisely defined it might be, they felt them- selves enduringly linked to Esperanto's 'internal idea', remembering Zamenhof's moving declaration in Geneva in 1906.
In consequence, to dispel the suspicions of governments about the political 'misuse' of Esperanto, the leaders of the neutral movement could no longer simply emphasize, as the French pioneers were still doing, the idea that Esperanto was just a language having nothing to do with an idea. An emphatic denial of its ideological content on the part of the leaders would have undoubtedly encountered incompre- hension among the many enthusiasts for Esperanto who made up the neutral organizations, given that the 'internal idea' was their emo- tional link to the movement. It was impossible to reject the idea of Esperanto as a cause, even if every Esperantist was entirely free to interpret the 'internal idea' as he or she chose. So there was no avoid- ing the vulnerability of Esperanto to attacks by opponents—all the less as Esperantist idealism evolved in directions that collided with rulers' ideology.
Under these circumstances, the leaders of the neutral movement could only keep repeating that the language was suitable for all purposes, that they should not be held responsible if socialists or communists made use of it, and that the focused activities of working people should encourage other social groups to avail themselves of Esperanto.
But no other social group knew how to use Esperanto as effectively as the workers—and this awareness was a constant source of embarrassment to the neutral movement. Steche's expectations—that, in the postwar period, increased commercial exchange would dictate to the upper levels of society the need to use Esperanto as a means of international commu- nication—went unrealized. Closer to reality, it seemed, was the prophecy of the French revolutionary writer Henri Barbusse, who early in 1921 wrote that there would soon come a time when Esperanto, which at first 'was mostly developed in bourgeois circles', would frighten this same bourgeoisie, who—because the revolutionaries had taken 'this amazing little key' into their hands—'will reject it because of the evident sense of fraternity that it has brought with it'.[245]
Furthermore, conservative Esperantists had to ask themselves whether it was wise to continue their interest in Esperanto if working people were suggesting that the 'neutralists' were themselves unconsciously hastening the move to world revolution, as was asserted in the 1928 action plan of SAT, the international organization of worker Esperantists:
Esperanto itself is a double-edged sword in the hands of the oppressors because, in the end, its use even by the bourgeoisie will strengthen the international anti-capitalist tendencies of the masses.[246]
By this time such a declaration could find support in the popularity of Esperanto in the Soviet Union. This new development merely reinforced the need for those active in the neutral associations to increase their emphasis on their distance from the labor movement. This inclination was expressed differently, depending on the degree of political freedom prevailing in the country in which the dissemination of Esperanto was taking place. The less democratic the regime, the more the neutral orga- nizations' efforts to distance themselves took on the character of direct opposition to the use of Esperanto in politically undesirable ways— which, ultimately, meant contestation of the right to use the language for any and every purpose. In 1923, Pola Esperantisto, for example, called on 'true Esperantists' to protest against the intrusion of non-nationalism (sennaciismo), communism or pacifism into the movement:
we, true lovers of Esperanto, will not allow anything to be smuggled [into the movement] in the folds of our flag; we will not allow anyone to under- mine the temple built with the toil and sweat of the First Pioneers.[247]
Consequently, attacks on worker Esperantists received in Pola Esperantisto the cold-blooded comment that 'they are themselves often responsible' for what happens to them.[248] Similarly, in Hungary the neutral societ- ies did not, as the workers complained, offer help when 'people offend Esperanto', even when, during the World Congress in Budapest in 1929, the police refused permission to recite the poems of Sandor Petofi.[249]
The effort to put limits on the use of Esperanto was certainly under- standable, even defensible, in the sense that a language movement should not create unnecessary obstacles for itself under a dictatorial regime by publicly allying itself with opposition movements or revolutionary forces. On the other hand, such a tactic also contained a fair degree of self- delusion on the part of the 'neutral' Esperantists. First, it ignored the fact that the enthusiasm with which workers acted for Esperanto had its beginning in an idealistic inheritance that they shared with non-workers and therefore could not be claimed as a simple outcome of the revolu- tionaries' strategy. Secondly, the non-workers' efforts to create distance could not hide the fact that by the end of the 1920s attacks on Esperanto could no longer be regarded as directed only against so-called political misuse. It would be more accurate to say that in many cases the rulers were inspired by other motives than simple efforts to prevent the use of the language for class war—as the following examples will illustrate.