''ΠΑΤΡΙΩΤΙΣΜΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΚΥΒΕΡΝΗΣΗ'' - ΛΕΩΝ ΤΟΛΣΤΟΫ

Patriotism and Government - 10 ΜΑΪΟΥ 1900

"The time is fast approaching when to call a man
a patriot will be the deepest insult You can
offer him. Patriotism now means advocating
plunder in the interests of the privileged
classes of the particular State system into
which we have happened to be born." - E. BELFORT
BAX.
I.
I have already several times expressed the
thought that in our day the feeling of
patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and
harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of
the ills from which mankind is suffering, and
that, consequently, this feeling--should not be
cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on
the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by
all means available to rational men. Yet,
strange to say--though it is undeniable that the
universal armaments and destructive wars which
are ruining the peoples result from that one
feeling--all my arguments showing the
backwardness, anachronism, and harmfulness of
patriotism have been met, and are still met,
either by silence, by intentional
misinterpretation, or by a strange unvarying
reply to the effect that only bad patriotism
(Jingoism or Chauvinism) is evil, but that real
good patriotism is a very elevated moral
feeling, to condemn which is not only irrational
but wicked.
What this real, good patriotism consists in, we
are never told; or,if anything is said about it,
instead of explanation we get declamatory,
inflated phrases, or, finally, some other
conception is substituted for patriotism--
something which has nothing in common with the
patriotism we all know, and from the results of
which we all suffer so severely.
It is generally said that the real, good
patriotism consists in desiring for one's own
people or State such real benefits as do not
infringe the well-being of other nations
Talking recently to an Englishman about the
present war, I said to him that the real cause
of the war was not avarice, as people generally
say, but patriotism, as is evident from the
temper of the whole of English society. The
Englishman did not agree with me, and said that
even were the case so, it resulted from the fact
that the patriotism at present inspiring
Englishmen is a bad patriotism; but that good
patriotism, such as he was imbued with, would
cause Englishmen, his compatriots to act well.
'Then do you wish only Englishmen to act well?'
I asked.
'I wish all men to do so,' said he; in dictating
clearly by that reply the characteristic of true
benefits whether moral scientific, or even
material and practical -which is that they
spread out to all men. But, evidently, to wish
such benefits to everyone, not only is not
patriotic, but is the reverse of patriotic.
Neither do the peculiarities of each people
constitute patriotism, though these things are
purposely substituted for the conception of
patriotism by its defenders. They say that the
peculiarities of each people are an essential
condition of human progress, and that
patriotism, which seeks to maintain those
peculiarities, is, therefore, a good and useful
feeling. But is it not quite evident that if,
once upon a time, these peculiarities of each
people-these customs, creeds, languages were
conditions necessary for the life of humanity,
in our time these same peculiarities form the
chief obstacle to what is already recognised as
an ideal the brotherly union of the peoples ?
And therefore the maintenance and defence of any
nationality- Russian, German, French, or
Anglo-Saxon, provoking the corresponding
maintenance and defence not only of Hungarian,
Polish, and Irish nationalities, but also of
Basque, Provencal, Mordva, Tchouvash, and many
other nationalities-serves not to harmonize and
unite men, but to estrange and divide them more
and more from one another.
So that not the imaginary but the real
patriotism, which we all know, by which most
people to-day are swayed and from which humanity
suffers so severely, is not the wish for
spiritual benefits for one's own people (it is
impossible to desire spiritual benefits for
one's own people only), but is a very definite
feeling of preference for one's own people or
State above all other peoples and States, and a
consequent wish to get for that people or State
the greatest advantages and power that can be
got- things which are obtainable only at the
expense of the advantages and power of other
peoples or States.
It would, therefore, seem obvious that
patriotism as a feeling is bad and harmful, and
as a doctrine is stupid. For it is clear that if
each people and each State considers itself the
best of peoples and States, they all live in a
gross and harmful delusion.
II.
One would expect the harmfulness and
irrationality of patriotism to be evident to
everybody. But the surprising fact is that
cultured and learned men not only do not
themselves notice the harm and stupidity of
patriotism, but they resist every exposure of it
with the greatest obstinacy and ardour (though
without any rational grounds), and continue to
belaud it as beneficent and. elevating.
What does this mean?
Only one explanation of this amazing fact
presents itself to me.
All human history, from the earliest times to
our own day, may be considered as a movement of
the consciousness, both of individuals and of
homogeneous groups, from lower ideas to higher
ones.
The whole path traveled both by individuals and
by homogeneous groups may be represented as a
consecutive flight of steps from the lowest, on
the level of animal life, to the highest
attained by the consciousness of man at a, given
moment of history,
Each man, like each separate homogeneous group,
nation, or State, always moved and moves up this
ladder of ideas. Some portions of humanity are
in front, others lag far behind, others, again -
the majority- move somewhere between the most
advanced and the most backward. But all,
whatever stage they may have reached, are
inevitably and irresistibly moving from lower to
higher ideas. And always, at any given moment,
both the individuals and the separate groups of
people-advanced, middle, or backward- stand in
three different relations to the three stages of
ideas amid which they move.
Always, both for the individual and for the
separate groups of people, there are the ideas
of the past, which are worn out and have become
strange to them, and to which they cannot
revert: as, for instance, in our Christian
world, the ideas of cannibalism, universal
plunder, the rape of wives, and other customs of
which only a record remains.
And there are the ideas of the present,
instilled into men's minds by education, by
example and by the general activity of all
around them; ideas under the power of which they
live at a given time: for instance, in our own
day, the ideas of property, State organization,
trade, utilization of domestic animal, etc.
And there are the ideas of the future, of which
some are already approaching realization and are
obliging people to change their way of life and
to struggle against the former ways: such ideas
in our world as those of freeing the labourers,
of giving equality to women, of disusing flesh
food, etc.; while others, though already
recognised, have not yet come into practical
conflict with the old forms of life: such in our
times are the ideas (which we call ideals) of
the extermination of violence, the arrangement
of a communal system of property, of a universal
religion, and of a general brotherhood of men.
And, therefore, every man and every homogeneous
group of men, on whatever level they may stand ,
having behind them the worn-out remembrances of
the past, and before them the ideals of the
future, are always in a state of struggle
between the moribund ideas of the present and
the ideas of the future that are coming to life.
It usually happens that when an idea which has
been useful and even necessary in the past
becomes superfluous, that idea, after a more or
less prolonged struggle, yields its place to a
new idea which was till then an ideal, but which
thus becomes a present idea.
But it does occur that an antiquated idea,
already replaced in people's consciousness by a
higher one, is of such a kind that its
maintenance is profitable to those people who
have the greatest influence in their society.
And then it happens that this antiquated idea,
though it is in sharp contradiction to the whole
surrounding form of life, which has been
altering in other respects, continues to
influence people and to sway their actions. Such
retention of antiquated ideas always has
occurred, and still does occur, in the region of
religion. The cause is, that the priests, whose
profitable positions are bound up with the
antiquated religious idea, purposely use their
power to hold people to this antiquated idea.
The same thing occurs, and for similar reasons,
in the political sphere, with reference to the
patriotic idea, on which all arbitrary power is
based. People to whom it is profitable to do so,
maintain that idea by artificial means, though
it now lacks both sense and utility. And as
these people possess the most powerful means of
influencing others, they are able to achieve
their object.
In this it seems to me, lies the explanation of
the strange contrast 'between the antiquated
patriotic idea, and that whole drift of ideas
making in a contrary direction, which have
already entered into the consciousness of the
Christian world.
III.
Patriotism , as a feeling of exclusive love for
one's own people, and as a doctrine of tile
virtue of sacrificing one's tranquillity, one's
property, and ever, one's life, in defence of
one's own people from slaughter and outrage by
their enemies, was the highest idea of the
period when each nation considered it feasible
and just, for its own advantage, to subject to
slaughter and outrage the people of other
nations.
But, already some 2,000 years ago
representatives of its in the person of the
highest wisdom, began to recognise the higher
idea of a brotherhood of man; and that idea,
penetrating man's consciousness more and more,
has in our time attained most varied forms of
realization. Thanks to improved means of
communication, and to the unity of industry, of
trade, of the arts, and of science, men are
to-day so bound one to another that the danger
of conquest, massacre, or outrage by a
neighbouring people, has quite disappeared, and
all peoples (the peoples, but not the
Governments) live together in peaceful 1,
mutually advantageous, and friendly commercial,
industrial, artistic, and scientific relations,
which they have no need and no desire to
disturb. One would think, therefore that the
antiquated feeling of patriotism being
superfluous and incompatible with the
consciousness we have reached of the existence
of brotherhood among men of different
nationalities-should dwindle more and more until
it completely disappears. Yet the very opposite
of this occurs: this harmful and antiquated
feeling not only continues to exist, but burns
more and more fiercely.
The peoples, without any reasonable ground, and
contrary alike to their conception of right and
to their own advantage, not only sympathize with
Governments and their attacks on other nations,
in their seizures of foreign possessions, and in
defending by force what they have already
stolen, but even themselves demand such attacks,
seizures and defences: are glad of them, and
take pride in them. The small oppressed
nationalities which have fallen under the power
of great States--the Poles, Irish, Bohemians,
Finns, or Armenians-- resenting the patriotism
of their conquerors, which is the cause of their
oppression, catch from them the infection of
this feeling of patriotism--which has ceased to
be necessary, and is now obsolete, unmeaningful,
and harmful--and to catch it to such a degree
that all their activity is concentrated upon it,
and they, themselves suffering from the
patriotism of the stronger nations, are ready,
for the sake of patriotism, to perpetrate on
other peoples the very same deeds that their
oppressors have perpetrated and are perpetrating
on them.
This occurs because the ruling classes
(including not only the actual rulers with their
officials, but all the classes who enjoy an
exceptionally advantageous position: the
capitalists, journalists, and most of the
artists and scientists) can retain their
position--exceptionally advantageous in
comparison with that of the labouring
masses--thanks only to Government organization,
which rests on patriotism. They have in their
hands all the most powerful means of influencing
the people, and always sedulously support
patriotic feelings in themselves and others,
more especially as those feelings which uphold
the Government's power are those that are always
best rewarded by that power.
Every official prospers the more in his career,
the more patriotic he is; so also the army man
gets promotion in time of war--the war id
produced by patriotism.
Patriotism and its results--wars--give an
enormous revenue to the newspaper trade, and
profits to many other trades. Every writer,
teacher, and professor is more secure in his
place the more he preaches patriotism. Every
Emperor and King obtains the more fame the more
he is addicted to patriotism.
The ruling classes have in their hands the army,
money, the schools, the churches, and the press.
In the schools, they kindle patriotism in the
children by means of histories describing their
own people as the best of all peoples and always
in the right. Among adults they kindle it by
spectacles, jubilees, monuments, and by a lying
patriotic press. Above all, they inflame
patriotism in this way: perpetrating every kind
of harshness and injustice against other
nations, they provoke in them enmity towards
their own people, and then in turn exploit that
enmity to embitter their people against the
foreigner.
The intensification of this terrible feeling of
patriotism has gone on among the European people
in a rapidly increasing progression, and in our
time has reached the utmost limits, beyond which
there is no room for it to extend.
IV.
Within the memory of the people not yet old, an
occurrence took place showing most obviously the
amazing intoxication caused by patriotism among
the people of Christendom.
The ruling classes of Germany excited the
patriotism of the masses of their people to such
a degree that, in the second half of the
nineteenth century, a law was proposed in
accordance with which all the men had to become
soldiers: all the sons, husbands, fathers,
learned men, and godly men, had to learn to
murder, to become submissive slaves of those
above them in military rank, and be absolutely
ready to kill whomsoever they were ordered to
kill: to kill men of oppressed nationalities,
and their own working-men standing up for their
rights, and even their own fathers and
brothers--as was publicly proclaimed by that
most impudent of potentates, William II.
That horrible measure, outraging all man's best
feelings in the grossest manner, was, under tire
influence of patriotism, acquiesced in without
murmur by the people of Germany. It resulted in
their victory over the French. That victory yet
further excited the patriotism of Germany, and,
by reaction, that of France, Russia, and the
other Powers; and the men of the European
countries unresistingly submitted to the
introduction of general military service--i.e.,
to a state of slavery involving a degree of
humiliation and submission incomparably worse
than any slavery of the ancient world. After
this servile submission of the masses to the
calls of patriotism, the audacity, cruelty, and
insanity of the Governments knew no bounds. A
competition in the usurpation of other peoples'
lands in Asia, Africa, and America began-evoked
partly by whim, partly by vanity, and partly by
covetousness and was accompanied by ever greater
and greater distrust and enmity between the
Governments.
The destruction of the inhabitants on the lands
seized was accepted as a quite natural
proceeding. The only question was, who should be
first in seizing other peoples' land and
destroying the inhabitants? All the Governments
not only most evidently infringed, and are
infringing, the elementary demands of justice in
relation to the conquered peoples, and in
relation to one another, but they were guilty,
and continue to be guilty, of every kind of
cheating, swindling, bribing, fraud, spying,
robbery, and murder; and the peoples not only
sympathized, and still sympathize, with them in
all this, but they rejoice when it is their own
Government and not another Government that
commits such crimes.
The mutual enmity between the different peoples
and States has reached latterly such amazing
dimensions that, notwithstanding the fact that
there is no reason why one State should attack
another, everyone knows that all the Governments
stand with their claws out and showing their
teeth, and only waiting for someone to be in
trouble, or become weak, in order to tear him to
pieces with as little risk as possible.
All the peoples of the so-called Christian world
have been reduced by patriotism to such a state
of brutality, that not only those who are
obliged to kill or be killed desire slaughter
and rejoice in murder, but all the people of
Europe and America, living peaceably in their
homes exposed to no danger, are, at each war
thanks to easy means of communication and to the
press--in the position of the spectators in a
Roman circus, and, like them, delight in the
slaughter, and raise the bloodthirsty cry,
'Pollice verso.'
Not adults only, but also children, pure, wise
children, rejoice, according to their
nationality, when they hear that the number
killed and lacerated by lyddite or other shells
on some particular day was not 700 but 1,000
Englishmen or Boers.
And parents (I know such cases) encourage their
children in such brutality.
But that is not all. Every increase in the army
of one nation (and each nation, being in danger,
seeks to increase its army for patriotic
reasons) obliges its neighbours to increase
their armies, also from patriotism, and this
evokes a fresh increase by the first nation.
And the same thing occurs with fortifications
and navies: one State has built ten ironclads, a
neighbour builds eleven ; then the first builds
twelve, and so on to infinity.
'I'll pinch you.' 'And I'll punch your head.'
'And I'll stab you with a dagger.' And I'll
bludgeon you.' 'And I'll shoot you.' . . . Only
bad children, drunken men, or animals, quarrel
or fight so, but yet it is just what is going on
among the highest representatives of the most
enlightened Governments, the very men who
undertake to direct the education and the
morality of their subjects.
V.
The position is becoming worse and worse, and
there is no stopping this descent towards
evident perdition.
The one way of escape believed in by credulous
people has now been closed by recent events. I
refer to the Hague Conference, and to the war
between England and the Transvaal which
immediately followed it.
If people who think too little, or but
superficially, were able to comfort themselves
with the idea that international courts of
arbitration would supersede wars and
ever-increasing armaments , the Hague Conference
and the war that followed it demonstrated in the
most palpable mariner the impossibility of
finding a solution of the difficulty in that
way. After the Hague Conference, it became
obvious that as long as Governments with armies
exist, the termination of armaments and of wars
is impossible. That ail agreement should become
possible, it is necessary that the parties to it
should trust each other. And in order that the
Powers should trust each other, they must lay
down their arms, as is done by the bearers of a
flag of truce when they meet for a conference.
So long as Governments, distrusting one another,
not only do not disband or decrease their
armies, but always increase them in
correspondence with augmentations made by their
neighbours, and by means of spies watch every
Movement of troops, knowing that each of the
Powers will attack its neighbour as soon as it
sees its way to do so, no agreement is possible,
and every conference is either a stupidity, or a
pastime, or a fraud, or an impertinence, or all
of these together.
It was particularly becoming for the Russian
rather than any other Government to be the
enfant terrible of the Hague Conference. No one
at home being allowed to reply to all its
evidently mendacious manifestations and
rescripts, the Russian Government is so spoilt,
that--having without the least scruple ruined
its own people with armaments, strangled Poland,
plundered Turkestan and China, and being
specially engaged in suffocating Finland--it
proposed disarmament to the Governments, in full
assurance that it would be trusted!
But strange, unexpected, and indecent as such a
proposal was--especially at the very time when
orders were being given to increase its
army--the words publicly uttered in the hearing
of the people were such, that for the sake of
appearances the Governments of the other Powers
could not decline the comical and evidently
insincere consultation ; and so the delegates
met--knowing in advance that nothing would come
of it--and for several weeks (during which they
drew good salaries) though they were laughing in
their sleeves, they all conscientiously
pretended to be much occupied in arranging peace
among the nations.
The Hague Conference, followed up as it was by
the terrible bloodshed of the Transvaal War,
which no one attempted, or is now attempting, to
stop, was, nevertheless, of some use, though not
at all in the way expected of it--it was useful
because it showed in the most obvious mariner
that the evils from which the peoples are
suffering cannot be cured by Governments. That
Governments, even if they wished to, can
terminate neither armaments nor wars.
Governments, to have a reason for existing, must
defend their people from other people's attack.
But not one people wishes to attack, or does
attack, another. And therefore Governments, far
from wishing for peace, carefully excite the
anger of other nations against themselves. And
having excited other people's anger against
themselves, and stirred up the patriotism of
their own people, each Government then assures
its people that it is in danger and must be
defended.
And having the power in their hands, the
Governments can both irritate other nations and
excite patriotism at home, and they carefully do
both the one and the other; nor can they act
otherwise, for their existence depends on thus
acting.
If, in former times, Governments were necessary
to defend their people from other people's
attacks, now, on the contrary, Governments
artificially disturb the peace that exists
between the nations, and provoke enmity among
them.
When it was necessary to plough in order to sow
ploughing was wise; but evidently it is absurd
and' armful to go on ploughing after the seed
has been sown. But this is just what the
Governments are obliging their people to do: to
infringe the unit which exists, and which
nothing would infringe if it were not for the
Governments.
VI.
In reality what are these Governments, without
which people think they could not exist ?
There may have been a time when such Governments
were necessary, and when the evil of supporting
a Government was less than that of being
defenceless against organized neighbours; but
now such Governments have become unnecessary,
and are a far greater evil than all the dangers
with which they frighten their subjects.
Not only military Governments, but Governments
in general, could be, I will not say useful, but
at least harmless, only if they consisted of
immaculate, holy people, as is theoretically the
case among the Chinese. But then Governments, by
the nature of their activity, which consists in
committing acts of violence are always composed
of elements the most contrary to holiness-of the
most audacious, unscrupulous, and perverted
people.
A Government, therefore, and especially a
Government entrusted with military power, is the
most dangerous organization possible.
The Government, in the widest sense, including
capitalists and the Press, is nothing else than
an organization which places the greater part of
the people in the power of a smaller part, who
dominate them; that smaller part is subject to a
yet smaller part I and that again to a yet
smaller, and so oil, reaching at last a few
people, or one single man, who by means of
military force has power over all the rest. So
that all this organization resembles a cone, of
which all the parts are completely in the power
of those people, or of that one person, who
happen to be at the apex.
The apex of the cone is seized by those who are
more cunning, audacious, and unscrupulous than
the rest, or by someone who happens to be the
heir of those who were audacious and
unscrupulous.
Today it may be Boris Godunof, and tomorrow
Gregory Otrepyef. Today the licentious
Catherine, who with her paramours has murdered
her husband; tomorrow Pougatchof ; then Paul the
madman, Nicholas L, or Alexander.
Today it may be Napoleon, tomorrow a Bourbon or
an Orleans, a Boulanger or a Panama Company; to.
day it may be Gladstone, tomorrow Salisbury,
Chamberlain, or Rhodes.
And, to such Governments is allowed fall power,
not only over property and lives, but even over
the spiritual and moral development, the
education, and the religious guidance of
everybody.
People construct such a terrible machine of
power, they allow any one to seize it who can
(and the chances always are that it will be
seized by the most morally worthless)--they
slavishly submit to him, and are then bed that
evil comes of it. They are afraid of Anarchists'
bombs, and are riot afraid of this terrible
organization which is always threatening them
with the greatest calamities.
People found it useful to tie themselves
together in order to resist their enemies, as
the Cireassians did when resisting attacks. But
the danger is quite past, and yet people go oil
tying themselves together.
They carefully tie themselves up so that one
mail can have them all at his mercy; then they
throw away the end of the rope that ties them,
and leave it trailing for some rascal or fool to
seize and to do them whatever harm he likes.
Really, what are people doing but just
that--when they set up, submit to, and maintain
an organized and military Government?
VII.
To deliver men from the terrible and
ever-increasing evils of armaments and wars, we
want neither congresses nor conferences, nor
treaties, nor courts of arbitration, but the
destruction of those instruments of violence
which are called Governments, and from which
humanity's greatest evils flow.
To destroy Governmental violence, only one thing
is needed: it is that people should understand
that the feeling of patriotism, which alone
supports that instrument of violence, is a rude,
harmful, disgraceful, and bad feeling, and,
above all, is immoral. It is a rude feeling,
because it is one natural only to people
standing on the lowest level of morality, and
expecting from other nations such outrages as
they themselves are ready to inflict; it is a
harmful feeling, because it disturbs
advantageous and joyous, peaceful relations with
other peoples, and above all produces that
Governmental organization under which power may
fall, and does fall, into the, hands of the
worst men; it is a disgraceful feeling, because
it turns mail not merely into a slave, but into
a fighting cock, a bull, or a gladiator, who
wastes his strength and his life for objects
which are not his own but his Governments'; and
it is an immoral feeling, because, instead of
confessing one's self a son of God (as
Christianity teaches us) or even a free mail
guided by his own reason, each man under the
influence of patriotism confesses himself the
soil of his fatherland and the slave of his
Government, and commits actions contrary to his
reason and his conscience.
It is only necessary that people should
understand this, and the terrible bond, called
Government, by which we are chained together,
will fall to pieces of itself without struggle
and with it will cease the terrible and useless
evils it produces.
And people are already beginning to understand
this. This, for instance , is what a citizen of
the United States writes:
'We are farmers, mechanics , merchants,
manufacturers, teachers, and all we ask is the
privilege of attending to our own business. 'We
own our homes.. love our friends , are devoted
to our families, and do not interfere with our
neighbours- we have work to do and wish to work.
'Leave us alone !
'But they will not-these politicians. They
insist on governing us and living off our
labour. They tax us, eat our substance,
conscript us, draft our boys into their wars.
All the myriads of men who live off the
Government depend upon the Government to tax us,
and, in order to tax us successfully, standing
armies are maintained. The plea that the army is
needed for the protection of the country is pare
fraud and pretence. The French Government
affrights the people by telling them that the
Germans are ready and anxious to fall upon them;
the Russians fear the British; the British fear
everybody; and now in America we are told we
must increase our navy and add to our army
because Europe may at any moment combine against
us.
'This is fraud and untruth. No plain people in
France, Germany, England, and America are
opposed to war. We only wish to be let alone.
Men with wives, children, sweethearts, homes,
aged parents, do not want to go off and fight
someone. We are peaceable and we fear war; we
bate it.
'We would like to obey the Golden Rule.
'War is the sure result of the existence of
armed men. That country which maintains a large
standing army will sooner or later have a war on
hand. 'The man who prides himself on fisticuffs
is going some day to meet a man who considers
himself the better man, and they will fight.
Germany and France have no issue save a desire
to see which is the better mail. They have
fought many times--and they will fight again.
Not that the people want to fight; but the
Superior Class fan fright into fury, and make
men think they must fight to protect their
homes.
So the people who wish to follow the teachings
of Christ are not allowed to do so, but are
taxed, outraged, deceived by Governments.
'Christ taught humility, meekness, the
forgiveness of one's enemies, and that to kill
was wrong. The Bible teaches men not to swear;
but the Superior Class swear us on the Bible in
which they do not believe.
'The question is, flow are we to relieve
ourselves of these cormorants who toil not, but
who are clothed in broadcloth and blue, with
brass buttons and many costly accoutrements; who
feed upon our substance, and for whom we delve
and dig?
'Shall we fight them?
'No, we do not believe in bloodshed; and besides
that, they have the guns and the money, and they
can hold out longer than we.
'But who composes this army that they would
order to fire upon us?
'Why, our neighbours and brothers-deceived into
the idea that they are doing God's service by
protecting their country from its enemies. When
the fact is, our country has no enemies save the
Superior Class, that pretends to look out for
our interests if we will only obey and consent
to be taxed.
'Thus do they siphon our resources and turn our
true brothers upon us to subdue and humiliate
us. You cannot send a telegram to your wife, nor
an express package to your friend, nor draw a
cheque for your grocer, until you first pay the
tax to maintain armed men, who can quickly be
used to kill you; and who surely will imprison
you if you do not pay.
'The only relief lies in education. Educate men
that it is wrong to kill. Teach them the Golden
Rule, and yet again teach them the Golden Rule.
Silently defy this Superior Class by refusing to
bow down to supporting the preachers their
fetich of bullets. Cease supporting the
preachers who cry for war and spout patriotism
for a consideration. Let them go to work as we
do. We believe in Christ--they do not. Christ
spoke what lie thought; they speak what they
think will please the men in power--the Superior
Class.
'We will not enlist. We will not shoot on their
order. We will not "charge bayonet" upon a mild
and gentle people. We will not fire upon
shepherds and farmers, fighting for their
firesides, upon a suggestion of Cecil Rhodes.
Your false cry of " Wolf! wolf!" shall not alarm
us. We pay your taxes only because we have to,
and we will pay no longer than we have to. We
will pay no pew-rents, no tithes to your sham.
charities, and we will speak our minds upon
occasion.
'We will educate men.
And all the time our silent influence will be
going out, and even the men who are conscripted
will be halfhearted and refuse to fight. We will
educate men into the thought that the Christ
Life of Peace and Goodwill is better than the
Life of Strife, Bloodshed, and War.
' "Peace on earth !"--it can only come when men
do away with armies, and are willing to do unto
other men as they would be done by.'
So writes a citizen of the United States; and
from various sides, in various forms, such
voices are sounding.
This is what a German soldier writes:
'I went through two campaigns with the Prussian
Guards (in 1866 and 1870), and I hate war from
the bottom of my soul, for it has made me
inexpressibly unfortunate. We wounded soldiers
generally receive such a miserable recompense
that we have indeed to be ashamed of having once
been patriots. I, for instance, get ninepence a
day for my right arm, which was shot through at
the attack on St. Privat, August 18, 1870. Some
bunting dogs have more allowed for their keep,
And I have suffered for years from my twice
wounded arm. Already in 1866 I took part in the
war against Austria, and fought at Trautenau and
Koniggratz, and saw horrors enough. In 1870,
being in the reserve I was called out again;
and, it's like I have already said, I was
wounded in the attack at St. Privat: my right
arm was twice shot through lengthwise. I had to
leave a good place in a brewery, and was unable
afterwards to regain it. Since their I have
never been able to get on my feet again. The
intoxication soon passed, and there was nothing
left for the wounded invalid but to keep himself
alive on a beggarly pittance eked out by
charity. . . .
'In a world in which people run round like
trained animals, and are trot capable of any
other idea than that of overreaching one another
for the sake of mammon--such a world let people
think me a crank; but, for all that, I feel in
myself the divine idea of peace, which is so
beautifully expressed in the Sermon on the
Mount. My deepest conviction is that war is only
trade on a larger scale-- the ambitious and
powerful trade with the happiness of the
peoples.
'And what horrors do we not suffer from it!
Never shall I forget the pitiful groans that
pierced one to the marrow!
'People who never did each other any harm begin
to slaughter one another like wild animals, and
petty, slavish souls--implicate the good God,
making Him their confederate in such deeds.
'My neighbour in the ranks bad his jaw broken by
a bullet. The poor wretch went wild with pain.
He ran like a madman, and in the scorching
summer heat could not even get water to cool his
horrible wound. Our commander, the Crown Prince
(who was afterwards the noble Emperor
Frederick), wrote in his diary War--is an irony
oil the Gospels." . . .'
People are beginning to understand the fraud of
patriotism, in which all the Governments take
such pains to keep them involved.
VIII.
'But,' it is usually asked, 'what will there be
instead of Governments?'
There will be nothing. Something that has long
been useless, and therefore superfluous and bad,
will be abolished. An organ that, being
unnecessary, has become harmful, will be
abolished.
'But,' people generally say, 'if there is no
Government, people will violate and kill each
other.'
Why? Why should the abolition of the
organization which arose in consequence of
violence, and which has been handed down from
generation to generation to do violence--why
should the abolition of such all organization,
now devoid of use, cause people to outrage and
kill one another? On the contrary, the
presumption is that the abolition of the organ
of violence would result in people ceasing to
violate and kill one another.
Now, some men are specially educated and trained
to kill and to do violence to other people-there
are men who are supposed to have a right to use
violence, and who make use of an organization
which exists for that purpose. Such deeds of
violence and such killing are considered good
and worthy deeds.
But then people will not be so brought up, and
no one will have a right to use violence to
others, and there will be no organization to do
violence, and, as is natural to people of our
time--violence and murder will always be
considered bad actions, no matter who commits
them.
But should acts of violence continue to be
committed even after the abolition of the
Governments, such acts will certainly be fewer
than are committed now, when ail organization
exists specially devised to commit acts of
violence, and a state of things exists in which
acts of violence and murders are considered good
and useful deeds.
The abolition of Governments will merely rid us
of ail unnecessary organization which we have
inherited from the past, ail organization for
the commission of violence and for its
justification.
'But there will then be no laws, no property, no
courts of justice, no police, no popular
education,' say people who intentionally confuse
the use of violence by Governments with various
social activities.
The abolition of the organization of Government
formed to do violence, does not at all involve
the abolition of what is reasonable and good,
and therefore not based on violence, in laws or
law courts, or in property, or in police
regulations, or in financial arrangements, or in
popular education. On the contrary, the absence
of the brutal power of Government, which is
needed only for its own support, will facilitate
a juster and more reasonable social
organization, needing no violence. Courts of
justice, and public affairs, and popular
education, will all exist to file extent to
which they are really needed by the people, but
in a shape which will not involve the evils
contained in the present form of Government.
OnIy that will be destroyed which was evil and
hindered the free expression of the people's
will.
But even if we assume that with the absence of
Governments there would be disturbances and
civil strife, even then the position of the
people would be better than it is at present.
The position now is such that it is difficult to
imagine anything worse. The people are ruined,
and their ruin is becoming more and more
complete. The men are all converted into
warslaves, and have from day to day to expect
orders to go to kill and to be killed. What
more? Are the ruined peoples to die of hunger ?
Even that is already beginning in Russia, in
Italy, and in India. Or are the women as well as
the men to go to be soldiers? In the Transvaal
even that has begun.
So that even if the absence of Government really
meant Anarchy in the negative, disorderly sense
of that word--which is far from being the
case--even then no anarchical disorder could be
worse than the position to which Governments
have already led their peoples, and to which
they are leading them.
And therefore emancipation from patriotism, and
the destruction of the despotism of Government
that rests upon it, cannot but be beneficial to
mankind.
IX.
Men, recollect yourselves! For the sake of your
well-being, physical and spiritual, for the sake
of your brothers and sisters, pause, consider,
and think of what you are doing!
Reflect, and you will understand that your foes
are not the Boers, or the English, or the
French, or the Germans, or the Finns, or the
Russians, but that your foes--your only
foes--are you yourselves, who by your patriotism
maintain the Governments that oppress you and
make you unhappy.
They have undertaken to protect you from danger,
and they have brought that pseudo-protection to
such a point that you have all become
soldiers--slaves, and are all ruined, or are
being ruined more and more, and at any moment
may and should expect that the tight stretched
cord will snap, and a horrible slaughter of you
and your children will commence.
And however great that slaughter may be, and
however that conflict may end, the same state of
things will continue. In the same way, and with
yet greater intensity, the Governments will arm,
and ruin, and pervert you and your children, and
no one will help you to stop it or to prevent
it, if you do not help yourselves.
And there is only one kind of help possible--it
lies in the abolition of that terrible linking
up into a cone of violence, which enables the
person or persons who succeed in seizing the
apex to have power over all tire rest, and to
hold that power the more firmly the more cruel
and inhuman they are, as we see by the cases of
the Napoleons, Nicholas I., Bismarck,
Chamberlain, Rhodes, and our Russian Dictators
who rule the people in the Tsar's name.
And there is only one way to destroy this
binding together- it is by shaking off the
hypnotism of patriotism.
Understand that all the evils from which you
suffer, you yourselves cause by yielding to the
suggestions by which Emperors, Kings, Members of
Parliament, Governors, officers, capitalists,
priests, authors, artists, and all who need this
fraud of patriotism in order to live upon your
labour, deceive you!
Whoever you may be--Frenchman, Russian, Pole,
Englishman, Irishman, or Bohemian- understand
that all your real human interests, whatever
they may be agricultural, industrial,
commercial, artistic, or scientific--as well as
your pleasures and joys, in no way run counter
to the interests of other peoples or States ;
and that you are united, by mutual co-operation,
by interchange of services, by the joy of wide
brotherly intercourse, and by the interchange
not merely of goods but also of thoughts and
feelings, with the folk of other lands.
Understand that the question as to who manages
to seize Wei-hai-wei, Port Arthur, or Cuba--your
Government or another--does not affect you, or,
rather, that every such seizure made by your
Government injures you, by inevitably bringing
in its train all sorts of pressure on you by
your Government to force you to take part in the
robbery and violence by which alone such
seizures are made, or can be retained when made.
Understand that your life can in no way be
bettered by Alsace becoming German or French,
and Ireland or Poland being free or
enslaved--whoever holds them. you are free to
live where you will, if even you be air
Alsatian, an Irishman, or a Pole. Understand,
too, that by stirring up patriotism you will
only make the case worse, for the subjection in
which your people are kept has resulted simply
from the struggle between patriotisms, and every
manifestation of patriotism in one nation
provokes a corresponding reaction in another.
Understand that salvation from your woes is only
possible when you free yourself from the
obsolete idea of patriotism and from the
obedience to Governments that is based upon it,
and when you boldly enter into the region of
that higher idea, the brotherly union of the
peoples, which has long since come to life, and
from all sides is calling you to itself.
If people would but understand that they are
riot the sons of some fatherland or other, nor
of Governments, but are sons of God, and can
therefore neither be slaves nor enemies one to
another- those insane, unnecessary, worn-out,
pernicious organizations called Governments, and
all the sufferings, violations, humiliations,
and crimes which they occasion, would cease.