The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies

"Depuis que l'insurrection de la Commune a été vaincue, la France n'a plus été troublée. Au lendemain de la guerre, elle s'est remise au travail. Elle a payé aux Allemandssans difficulté l'énorme contribution de guerre de cinq milliards. Mais la France a perdu sa renommée militaire pendant la guerre de 1870. Elle a perdu une partie de son territoire. Plus de quinze cents mille hommes, qui habitaient nos departements du Haut Rhin, du Bas Rhin et de la Moselle, et qui étaient de bons Français, ont été obligés de devenir Allemands. Ils ne sont pas resignés à leur sort. Ils détestent l'Allemagne; ils espèrent toujours redevenir Français. Mais l'Allemagne tient à sa conquête, et c'est un grand pays, dont tous les habitants aiment sincèrement leur patrie et dont les soldats sont braves et disciplinés. Pour reprendre à l'Allemagne ce qu'elle nous a pris, il faut que nous soyons de bons citoyens et de bons soldats. C'est pour que vous deveniez de bons soldats, que vos maîtres vous apprennent l'histoire de la France. L'histoire de la France montre que dans notre pays les fils ont toujours vengé les désastres de leurs pères. Les Français du temps de Charles VII. ont vengé leurs pères vaincus à Crécy, à Poitiers, à Azincourt. C'est à vous, enfants élèves aujourd'hui dans nos écoles, qu'il appartient de venger vos pères, vaincus à Sédan et à Metz. C'est votre devoir, le grand devoir de votre vie. Vous devez y penser toujours," etc.

At the foot of the page there is a whole series of questions, to correspond to the articles. The questions are as follows: "What did France lose when she lost part of her territory? How many Frenchmen became German with the loss of this territory? Do the French love Germany? What must we do, in order to regain what was taken away from us by Germany?" In addition to these there are also "Réflexions sur le Livre VII.," in which it says that "the children of France must remember our defeats of 1870," that "they must feel on their hearts the burden of this memory," but that "this memory must not discourage them: it should, on the contrary, incite them to bravery."

Thus, if in official speeches peace is mentioned with great persistency, the masses, the younger generations, yes, all the Russians and Frenchmen in general, are imperturbably impressed with the necessity, legality, profitableness, and even virtue of war.

"We are not thinking of war, – we are concerned only about peace."

One feels like asking "Qui, diable, trompe-t-on ici?" if it were necessary to ask this, and if it were not quite clear who the unfortunate cheated are.

The cheated are the same eternally deceived, stupid, labouring masses, the same who with their callous hands have built all these ships, and fortresses, and arsenals, and barracks, and guns, and steamboats, and quays, and moles, and all these palaces, halls, and platforms, and triumphal arches; and have set and printed all these newspapers and books; and have secured and brought all those pheasants, and ortolans, and oysters, and wines, which are consumed by all those men, whom they, again, have nurtured and brought up and sustained, – men who, deceiving the masses, prepare the most terrible calamities for them; the same good-natured, stupid masses, who, displaying their sound, white teeth, have grinned in childish fashion, naïvely enjoying the sight of all the dressed-up admirals and presidents, of the flags fluttering above them, the fireworks, the thundering music, and who will hardly have time to look around, when there shall be no longer any admirals, nor presidents, nor flags, nor music, but there will be only a wet, waste field, hunger, cold, gloom, in front the slaying enemy, behind the goading authorities, blood, wounds, sufferings, rotting corpses, and a senseless, useless death.

And the men like those who now are celebrating at the festivities in Toulon and Paris, will be sitting, after a good dinner, with unfinished glasses of good wine, with a cigar between their teeth, in a dark cloth tent, and will with pins mark down the places on the map where so much food for cannon, composed of the masses, should be left, in order to seize such and such a fortress, and in order to obtain such or such a ribbon or promotion.

VI

"But there is nothing of the kind, and there are no warlike intentions," we are told. "All there is, is that two nations feeling a mutual sympathy are expressing this sentiment to one another. What harm is there in this, that the representatives of a friendly nation were received with especial solemnity and honour by the representatives of the other nation? What harm is there in it, even if it be admitted that the alliance may have the significance of a protection against a dangerous neighbour, threatening the peace of Europe?"

The harm is this, that all this is a most palpable and bold lie, an unjustifiable, bad lie. The sudden outburst of an exclusive love of the Russians for the French, and of the French for the Russians, is a lie; and our hatred for the Germans, our distrust of them, which is understood by it, is also a lie. And the statement that the aim of all these indecent and mad orgies is the guarantee of European peace, is a still greater lie.

We all know that we have experienced no particular love for the French, neither before, nor even now, even as we have not experienced any hostile feeling toward the Germans.

We are told that Germany has some intentions against Russia, that the Triple Alliance threatens the peace of Europe and us, and that our alliance with France balances the forces, and so guarantees the peace. But this assertion is so obviously absurd, that it makes one feel ashamed to give it a serious denial. For this to be so, that is, for the alliance to guarantee peace, it is necessary that the forces be mathematically even. If now the excess is on the side of the Franco-Russian alliance, the danger is still the same. It is even greater, because, if there was a danger that William, who stood at the head of the European alliance, would violate the peace, there is a much greater danger that France, which cannot get used to the loss of her provinces, will do so. The Triple Alliance was called a league of peace, but for us it was a league of war. Even so now the Franco-Russian alliance cannot present itself as anything else than what it is, – a league of war.

And then, if peace depends on the balance of the powers, how are the units to be determined, between whom the balance is to be established? Now the English say that the alliance between Russia and France menaces them, and that they must, therefore, form another alliance. And into how many units of alliances must Europe be divided, in order that there be a balance? If so, then every man stronger than another in society is already a danger, and the others must form into alliances, to withstand him.

They ask, "What harm is there in this, that France and Russia have expressed their mutual sympathies for the guarantee of peace?" What is bad is, that it is a lie, and a lie is never spoken with impunity, and does not pass unpunished.

The devil is a slayer of men and the father of lies. And the lies always lead to the slaying of men, – in this case more obviously than ever.

In just the same manner as now, the Turkish war was preceded by a sudden outburst of love of our Russians for their brothers, the Slavs, whom no one had known for hundreds of years, while the Germans, the French, the English have always been incomparably nearer and more closely related to us than Montenegrins, Servians, or Bulgarians. And there began transports, receptions, and festivities, which were fanned by such men as Aksákov and Katkóv, who are mentioned now in Paris as models of patriotism. Then, as now, they spoke of nothing but the mutual sudden outburst of love between the Russians and the Slavs. In the beginning they ate and drank in Moscow, even as now in Paris, and talked nonsense to one another, becoming affected by their own exalted sentiments, spoke of union and peace, and did not say anything about the chief thing, the intentions against Turkey. The newspapers fanned the excitement, and the government by degrees entered into the game. Servia revolted. There began an exchange of diplomatic notes and the publication of semiofficial articles; the newspapers lied more and more, invented and waxed wroth, and the end of it all was that Alexander II., who really did not want any war, could not help but agree to it, and we all know what happened: the destruction of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and the bestialization and dulling of millions.

What was done in Toulon and in Paris, and now continues to be done in the newspapers, obviously leads to the same, or to a still more terrible calamity. Just so all kinds of generals and ministers will at first, to the sounds of "God save the Tsar" and the Marseillaise drink the health of France, of Russia, of the various regiments of the army and the navy; the newspapers will print their lies; the idle crowd of the rich, who do not know what to do with their powers and with their time, will babble patriotic speeches, fanning hatred against Germany, and no matter how peaceful Alexander III. may be, the conditions will be such that he will be unable to decline a war which will be demanded by all those who surround him, by all the newspapers, and, as always seems, by the public opinion of the whole nation. And before we shall have had time to look around, there will appear in the columns of the newspapers the usual, ominous, stupid proclamation:

"By God's grace, we, the most autocratic great Emperor of all Russia, the King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Finland, etc., etc., inform all our faithful subjects that for the good of these dear subjects, entrusted to us by God, we have considered it our duty before God to send them out to slaughter. God be with them," and so forth.

The bells will be rung, and long-haired men will throw gold-embroidered bags over themselves and will begin to pray for the slaughter. And there will begin again the old, well-known, terrible deed. The newspaper writers, who under the guise of patriotism stir people up to hatred and murder, will be about, in the hope of double earnings. Manufacturers, merchants, purveyors of military supplies, will bestir themselves joyfully, expecting double profits. All kinds of officials will bestir themselves, foreseeing a chance to steal more than they usually do. The military authorities will bestir themselves, for they will receive double salaries and rations, and will hope to get for the killing of people all kinds of trifles, which they value very much, – ribbons, crosses, galloons, stars. Idle gentlemen and ladies will bestir themselves, inscribing themselves in advance in the Red Cross, preparing themselves to dress the wounds of those whom their own husbands and brothers will kill, and imagining that they are thus doing a most Christian work.

And, drowning in their hearts their despair by means of songs, debauches, and vódka, hundreds of thousands of simple, good people, torn away from peaceful labour, from their wives, mothers, children, will march, with weapons of murder in their hands, whither they will be driven. They will go to freeze, to starve, to be sick, to die from diseases, and finally they will arrive at the place where they will be killed by the thousand, and they will kill by the thousand, themselves not knowing why, men whom they have never seen and who have done them and can do them no harm.

And when there shall be collected so many sick, wounded, and killed that nobody will have the time to pick them up, and when the air shall already be so infected by this rotting food for cannon that even the authorities will feel uncomfortable, then they will stop for awhile, will somehow manage to pick up the wounded, will haul off and somewhere throw into a pile the sick, and will bury the dead, covering them with lime, and again they will lead on the whole crowd of the deceived, and will continue to lead them on in this manner until those who have started the whole thing will get tired of it, or until those who needed it will get what they needed.

And again will men become infuriated, brutalized, and bestialized, and love will be diminished in the world, and the incipient Christianization of humanity will be delayed for decades and for centuries. And again will the people, who gain thereby, begin to say with assurance that, if there is a war, this means that it is necessary, and again they will begin to prepare for it the future generations, by corrupting them from childhood.

VII

And so, when there appear such patriotic manifestations as were the Toulon celebrations, which, though still at a distance, in advance bind the wills of men and oblige them to commit those customary malefactions which always result from patriotism, every one who understands the significance of these celebrations cannot help but protest against everything which is tacitly included in them. And so, when the journalists say in print that all the Russians sympathize with what took place at Kronstadt, Toulon, and Paris; that this alliance for life and death is confirmed by the will of the whole nation; and when the Russian minister of education assures the French ministers that his whole company, the Russian children, the learned, and the authors, share his sentiments; or when the commander of the Russian squadron assures the French that the whole of Russia will be grateful to them for their reception; and when the chief priests speak for their flocks and assure the French that their prayers for the life of the most august house have reëchoed joyfully in the hearts of the Russian Tsar-loving nation; and when the Russian ambassador in Paris, who is considered to be the representative of the Russian nation, says after a dinner of ortolans à la soubise et logopédes glacés, with a glass of champagne Grand Moët in his hand, that all Russian hearts are beating in unison with his heart, which is filled with a sudden outburst of exclusive love for fair France (la belle France), – we, the people who are free from the stultification, consider it our sacred duty, not only for our own sakes, but also for the sake of tens of millions of Russians, in the most emphatic manner to protest against it and to declare that our hearts do not beat in unison with the hearts of the journalists, ministers of education, commanders of squadrons, chief priests, and ambassadors, but, on the contrary, are full to the brim with indignation and loathing for that harmful lie and that evil which they consciously and unconsciously disseminate with their acts and their speeches. Let them drink Moët as much as they please, and let them write articles and deliver addresses in their own name, but we, all the Christians, who recognize ourselves as such, cannot admit that we are bound by everything that these men say and write. We cannot admit it, because we know what is concealed beneath all these drunken transports, speeches, and embraces, which do not resemble the confirmation of peace, as we are assured, but rather those orgies and that drunkenness to which evil-doers abandon themselves when they prepare themselves for a joint crime.

VIII

About four years ago, – the first swallow of the Toulon spring, – a certain French agitator in favour of a war with Germany came to Russia for the purpose of preparing the Franco-Russian alliance, and he visited us in the country. He arrived at our house when we were working in the mowing. At breakfast, as we returned home, we made the acquaintance of the guest, and he immediately proceeded to tell us how he had fought, had been in captivity, had run away from it, and how he had made a patriotic vow, of which he was apparently proud, that he would not stop agitating a war against Germany until the integrity and glory of France should be reëstablished.

In our circle all the convictions of our guest as to how necessary an alliance between Russia and France was for the reëstablishment of the former borders of France and its might and glory, and for making us secure against the malevolent intentions of Germany, were of no avail to him. In reply to his arguments that France could not be at peace so long as the provinces taken from it were not returned to it, we said that similarly Prussia could not be at rest, so long as it had not paid back for Jena, and that, if the French "revanche" should now be successful, the Germans would have to pay them back, and so on without end.

In reply to his arguments that the French were obliged to save their brothers, who had been torn away from them, we said that the condition of the inhabitants, of the majority of the inhabitants, of the working people in Alsace-Lorraine, was hardly any worse under German rule than it had been under France, and that, because some Alsatians preferred to belong to France rather than to Germany, and he, our guest, found it desirable to reestablish the glory of French arms, it was not worth while, either to begin those terrible calamities which result from war, or even to sacrifice one single human life.

In reply to his arguments that it was all very well for us to speak thus, since we had not experienced the same, and that we should be speaking differently, if we had the Baltic provinces and Poland taken away from us, we said that even from the political standpoint the loss of Poland and of the Baltic provinces could not be a calamity for us, but might rather be considered an advantage, since it would diminish the necessity for a military force and the expenses of state; and from the Christian point of view we never could permit a war, since a war demanded the killing of men, whereas Christianity not only forbade every murder, but even demanded that we do good to all men, considering all, without distinction of nationalities, as our brothers. The Christian state, we said, which enters upon war, to be consistent, must not only haul down the crosses from the churches, turn all the churches into buildings for different purposes, give the clergy other offices, and, above all, prohibit the Gospel, but must also renounce all the demands of morality which result from the Christian law. "C'est à prendre ou à laisser," we said. But until Christianity was abolished, it would be possible to entice men to war only by cunning and deceit, as indeed is being done nowadays. We see this cunning and deception, and so cannot submit to it. As there was no music, no champagne, nothing intoxicating about us, our guest only shrugged his shoulders and with customary French amiability remarked that he was very thankful for the fine reception accorded to him in our house, but that he was sorry that his ideas were not treated in the same way.

IX

After this conversation we went to the mowing, and there he, in the hope of finding more sympathy for his ideas among the masses, asked me to translate to the peasant Prokófi, an old, sickly man, with an enormous rupture, who none the less stuck to his work, and was my companion in the mowing, his plan of attacking the Germans, which was to squeeze the Germans, who were between the French and the Russians, from both sides. The Frenchman gave an ocular demonstration of this to Prokófi, by touching from two sides Prokófi's sweaty hempen shirt with his white fingers. I recall Prokófi's good-naturedly scornful surprise, when I explained to him the Frenchman's words and gestures. The proposition to squeeze the Germans from both sides was apparently taken by Prokófi as a joke, for he would not admit the idea that a grown man and a scholar should calmly and when he was sober talk of the desirability of war.

"Well, if we squeeze the German from both sides," he replied jestingly to what he thought was a joke, "he will have no place to go to. We must give him room."

I translated this to my guest.

"Dites lui que nous aimons les Russes," he said.

These words obviously startled Prokófi even more than the proposition to squeeze the German, and provoked a certain sentiment of suspicion.

"Who is he?" Prokófi asked me, with mistrust, indicating my guest with his head.

I told him that he was a Frenchman, a rich man.

"What is his business?" Prokófi asked me.

When I explained to him that he had come to invite the Russians to form an alliance with France in case of a war with Germany, Prokófi apparently became quite dissatisfied, and, turning to the women, who were sitting near a haycock, he shouted at them in a strong voice, which involuntarily betrayed the feelings which this conversation had provoked in him, that they should go and rake up the unraked hay.

"Come now, you crows! Have you fallen asleep? Come! Much time we have to squeeze the German! We have not finished the mowing yet, and it looks likely that we shall be mowing on Wednesday," he said. And then, as though fearing to offend the stranger by such a remark, he added, displaying his half-worn-off teeth in a good-natured smile, "You had better come and work with us, and send the German, too. When we get through working, we shall have a good time. Well take the German along. They are just such folk as we." And, having said this, Prokófi took his muscular arm out of the crotch of the fork, on which he had been leaning, threw the fork over his shoulders, and went away to the women.

"Oh, le brave homme!" the polite Frenchman exclaimed, smiling. And with this he then concluded his diplomatic mission to the Russian people.

The sight of these so radically different men, – the one beaming with freshness, alacrity, elegance, the well-fed Frenchman, in a silk hat and long overcoat of the latest fashion, energetically illustrating with his white hands, unused to labour, how to squeeze the Germans, and the sight of the dishevelled Prokófi, with hay-seed in his hair, dried up from work, sunburnt, always tired and always working, in spite of his immense rupture, with fingers swollen from work, with his loosely hanging homespun trousers, battered bast shoes, jogging along with an immense forkful of hay over his shoulder in that indolent pace of a labouring man, which economizes motion, – the sight of these two so radically different men elucidated to me then many things, and has occurred to me now, after the Toulon-Paris celebrations. One of them personified all those men, nurtured by the labours of the masses, who later use these masses as food for cannon; and Prokófi personified to me that food for cannon, which nurtures and makes secure the men who dispose of it.

X

"But France has been deprived of two provinces, – two children have been violently removed from their mother. But Russia cannot permit Germany to prescribe laws to it and to deprive it of its historic destiny in the East, – it cannot tolerate the chance of having its provinces, the Baltic provinces, Poland, the Caucasus, taken from it, as was done in the case of France. But Germany cannot tolerate the possibility of losing its prerogatives, which it has gained through so many sacrifices. But England cannot yield its supremacy on the seas to any one." And, having spoken such words, it is generally assumed that a Frenchman, a Russian, a German, an Englishman must be prepared to sacrifice everything in order to regain the lost provinces, to establish their predominance in the East, to maintain their unity and power, their supremacy on the seas, and so forth.

It is assumed that the sentiment of patriotism is, in the first place, a sentiment which is always inherent in men, and, in the second, such an exalted moral sentiment that, if it is absent, it has to be evoked in those who do not have it. But neither is correct. I have passed half a century among the Russian masses, and among the great majority of the real Russian people I have in all that time never seen or heard even once any manifestation or expression of this sentiment of patriotism, if we do not count those patriotic phrases, which are learned by rote during military service or are repeated from books by the most frivolous and spoiled men of the nation. I have never heard any expression of patriotic sentiments from the people; but, I have, on the contrary, frequently heard the most serious and respectable men from among the masses giving utterance to the most absolute indifference and even contempt for all kinds of manifestations of patriotism. The same thing I have observed among the labouring classes of other nations, and I have often been assured of the same by cultured Frenchmen, Germans, and Englishmen concerning their own working people.

The working people are too busy with the all-absorbing business of supporting themselves and their families, to be interested in those political questions, which present themselves as the chief motive of patriotism, – the questions of Russia's influence in the East, the unity of Germany, or the restitution of the lost provinces to France, or the acts of this or that part of one state toward another, and so forth, do not interest them, not only because they hardly ever know the conditions under which these questions have arisen, but also because the interests of their lives are quite independent of the political interests. It is always very much a matter of indifference to a man from the masses, where certain borders will be marked down, or to whom Constantinople will belong, or whether Saxony or Brunswick will be a member of the German union, or whether Australia or Matabeleland will belong to England, or even to what government he will have to pay taxes and to what army he will have to send his sons; but it is always very important for him to know how much he will have to pay in taxes, how long he has to serve, and how much he will receive for his labour, – and these are questions that are quite independent of the common political interests. It is for this reason that, in spite of all the intensified means used by the governments for the inoculation of the masses with a patriotism which is alien to them and for the suppression of the ideas of socialism, which are developing among them, the socialism more and more penetrates into the masses, and the patriotism, which is so carefully inoculated by the governments, is not only not adopted by the masses, but is disappearing more and more, maintaining itself only among the upper classes, to whom it is advantageous. If it happens that at times patriotism takes hold of the popular crowd, as was the case in Paris, this is only so when the masses are subjected to an intensified hypnotic influence by the governments and the ruling classes, and the patriotism is maintained among the masses only so long at this influence lasts.

Thus, for example, in Russia, where patriotism, in the form of love and loyalty for the faith, the Tsar, and the country, is inoculated in the masses with extraordinary tension and with the use of all the tools at the command of the governments, such as the church, the school, the press, and all kinds of solemnities, the Russian labouring classes, – one hundred millions of the Russian nation, – in spite of Russia's unearned reputation as a nation that is particularly devoted to its faith, its Tsar, and its country, are most free from the deception of patriotism and from loyalty to faith, the Tsar, and country. The men of the masses for the most part do not know their Orthodox, state faith, to which they are supposed to be so loyal, and when they come to know it, they immediately give it up and become rationalists, that is, accept a faith which it is impossible to attack or to defend; on their Tsar they, in spite of the constant and persistent influences brought to bear upon them, look as upon all the powers of violence, if not with condemnation, at least with absolute indifference; but their country, if by that we do not mean their village or township, they do not know at all, or, if they do, they do not distinguish it from any other countries, so that, as Russian colonists used to go to Austria and to Turkey, they now with just as much indifference settle in Russia, outside of Russia, in Turkey or in China.

XI

My old friend D – , who in the winter lived alone in the country, while his wife, whom he went to see but rarely, lived in Paris, used to talk during the long autumn evenings with an illiterate, but very clever and respectable peasant, an elder, who came in the evening to report, and my friend told him, among other things, of the superiority of the French political order over our own. This was on the eve of the last Polish insurrection and the interference of the French government in our affairs. The patriotic Russian newspapers at that time burned with indignation on account of such interference, and so heated up the ruling classes that they talked of a war with France.

My friend, who had read the papers, told the elder also of these relations between Russia and France. Submitting to the tone of the papers, my friend said that if there should be any war (he was an old soldier), he would serve and fight against France. At that time the "revanche" against the French seemed necessary to the Russians on account of Sevastopol.