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

"But why should we wage war?" asked the elder.

"How can we permit France to manage our affairs?"

"But you say yourself that things are better arranged with them than with us," the elder said, quite seriously. "Let them arrange matters in our country, too."

My friend told me that this reflection so startled him that he was absolutely at a loss what to say, and only laughed, as laugh those who awaken from a deceptive dream.

Such reflections one may hear from any sober Russian labouring man, if only he is not under any hypnotic influence of the government. They talk of the love of the Russian masses for their faith, their Tsar, and their government, and yet there will not be found one commune of peasants in the whole of Russia, which would hesitate for a moment, which of the two places to choose for its colonization, – Russia, with the Tsar, the little father, as they write in books, and with the holy Orthodox faith in its adored country, but with less and worse land, or without the little father, the white Tsar, and without the Orthodox faith, somewhere outside of Russia, in Prussia, China, Turkey, Austria, but with some greater and better advantages, as indeed we have seen before and see at present. For every Russian peasant the question as to what government he will be under (since he knows that, no matter under what government he may be, he will be fleeced just the same) has incomparably less meaning than the question as to whether, I will not say the water is good, but as to whether the clay is soft and as to whether there will be a good crop of cabbage.

But it may be thought that the indifference of the Russians is due to this, that any other government under whose power they may come will certainly be better than the Russian, because in Europe there is not one that is worse than the Russian; but that is not so: so far as I know, we have seen the same in the case of the English, Dutch, German immigrants in America, and of all the other colonists in Russia.

The transference of the European nations from the power of one government to another, from the Turkish to the Austrian, or from the French to the German, changes the condition of the nations so little that in no case can they provoke the dissatisfaction of the working classes, so long as they are not artificially subjected to the suggestions of the governments and the ruling classes.

XII

People generally adduce, in proof of the existence of patriotism, the manifestations of patriotic sentiments in a nation during a time of all kinds of celebrations, as, for example, in Russia during a coronation or the meeting of the emperor after the calamity of the seventeenth of October, or in France during the proclamation of war against Prussia, or in Germany during the festivities of victory, or during the Franco-Russian celebrations.

But it ought to be known how these manifestations are prepared. In Russia, for example, people are especially dressed up by the village commune and the owners of factories to meet and welcome the emperor whenever he passes through a given locality.

The transports of the masses are generally prepared artificially by those who need them, and the degree of transport expressed by the crowd shows only the degree of the art of the arrangers of these transports. This business has long been practised, and so the specialists in arranging such transports have reached a high degree of virtuosity in these arrangements. When Alexander II. was still an heir apparent, and was in command, as is usually the case, of the Preobrázhenski regiment, he once drove out after dinner to the regiment in camp. The moment his carriage appeared, the soldiers, coatless as they were, rushed out to meet him, and with such transport welcomed, as they say, their most august commander, that all ran a race behind his carriage, and many of them made the sign of the cross while on a run, looking all the time at the heir apparent. All those who saw this meeting were deeply touched by this naïve loyalty and love of the Russian soldiers for their Tsar and his heir, and by that sincere religious and apparently unprepared transport which was expressed in the faces, the motions, and especially in the signs of the cross, which the soldiers made. However, all that was done artificially and prepared in the following manner: after the inspection of the previous day the heir said to the brigade commander that he would drive up the next day to the regiment.

"When are we to expect your Imperial Majesty?"

"In all probability in the evening. Only, please, no preparations."

The moment the heir drove off, the brigade commander called together the commanders of the companies and gave the order that on the following day all the soldiers were to appear in clean shirts, and, as soon as they saw the heir's carriage, which the signallers were to announce, they were to run at haphazard after the carriage, shouting "Hurrah!" and that, at the same time, every tenth man in the company was to run and make the sign of the cross. The sergeants drew up the companies, and, counting the soldiers, stopped at every tenth man: "One, two, three … eight, nine, ten, – Sidorénko – the sign of the cross; one, two, three, four … Ivánov – the sign of the cross…" Everything was carried out as by command, and the impression of transport was complete, both on the heir apparent and on all the persons present, even on the soldiers and the officers, and even on the commander of the brigade, who had invented all that. Just so, though less coarsely, they do in all places, wherever there are any patriotic manifestations. Thus the Franco-Russian celebrations, which present themselves to us as free expressions of the people's sentiments, did not originate with the people, but were, on the contrary, very artfully and quite obviously prepared and provoked by the French government.

"The moment the arrival of the Russian sailors became known," I am again quoting the same Rural Messenger, the official organ, which collects its information from all the other newspapers, "committees for the arrangement of celebrations were being formed, not only in all the large and small cities lying on the route from Toulon to Paris, a considerable distance, but also in a large number of towns and villages which lie quite to either side of this route. Everywhere a subscription was opened for contributions to meet the expenses for these celebrations. Many cities sent deputations to Paris to our imperial ambassador, imploring him to let the sailors visit their cities even for one day or even for one hour. The municipal governments of all those cities in which our sailors were ordered to stay set aside vast sums, averaging more than one hundred thousand roubles, for the arrangement of all kinds of festivities and amusements, and expressed their willingness to expend even greater sums, as much as should be needed, provided the welcome and the celebrations should be as magnificent as possible.

"In Paris itself a private committee collected, in addition to the sum set aside by the city government for this purpose, an immense sum by private subscription, also for the arrangement of amusements, and the French government assigned more than one hundred thousand roubles for expenses incurred by the ministers and other authorities in welcoming the guests. In many cities, where our sailors will not set foot at all, they none the less decided to celebrate the first of October with all kinds of festivities in honour of Russia. A vast number of cities and provinces decided to send special deputations to Toulon and Paris, in order to welcome the Russian guests and to offer them presents to remember France by, or to send to them addresses and telegrams of welcome. It was decided everywhere to consider the first of October a national holiday and to dismiss the pupils of all the educational institutions for that day, and in Paris for two days. Officials of lower rank had their penalties remitted, that they might gratefully remember the joyful day for France, – the first of October.

"To make it easier for those who wished to visit Toulon and take part in the welcome to the Russian squadron, the railways lowered the rates to one-half and sent out special trains."

And thus, when by means of a whole series of universal, simultaneous measures, which the government can always take by dint of the power which it has in its hands, a certain part of the nation, preëminently the scum of the people, the city crowd, is brought to a condition of abnormal excitement, they say: "Behold, this is the free expression of the will of the whole nation." Manifestations like those which just took place in Toulon and in Paris, which in Germany take place at the meeting of the emperor or of Bismarck, or at manœuvres in Lorraine, and which are constantly repeated in Russia at every meeting circumstanced with solemnity, prove only this, that the means of an artificial excitation of the people, which now are in the hands of the governments and the ruling classes, are so powerful that the governments and the ruling classes, which are in possession of them, are always able at will to provoke any kind of a patriotic manifestation they may wish by rousing the patriotic sentiments of the masses. Nothing, on the contrary, proves the absence of patriotism in the masses with such obviousness as those tense efforts which now are made by the governments and the ruling classes for the artificial excitation of patriotism, and the insignificant results which are obtained in spite of all the efforts.

If patriotic sentiments are so proper to the nations, they should be permitted to manifest themselves freely, and should not be provoked by all kinds of exclusive and artificial means, applied on every possible occasion. Let them even for a time, for one year, stop in Russia compelling all the people, as they are doing now, upon the accession of every Tsar, to swear allegiance to him; let them at every divine service stop solemnly repeating several times the customary prayers for the Tsar; let them stop celebrating his birthdays and name-days with ringing of bells, illumination, and the prohibition to work; let them stop everywhere hanging out and displaying representations of him; let them stop, in prayer-books, almanacs, text-books, printing his name and the names of his family, and even the pronouns referring to him, in capitals; let them stop glorifying him in special books and newspapers printed for the purpose; let them stop imprisoning men for the slightest disrespectful word uttered concerning the Tsar, – let them stop doing all that for a time only, and then we should see how proper it is for the masses, for the real labouring masses, for Prokófi, for elder Iván, and for all the men of the Russian masses, – as the nation is made to believe and as all the foreigners are convinced of it, – to worship the Tsar, who in one way or another turns them over into the hands of a landed proprietor or of the rich in general. So it is in Russia; but let them similarly stop in Germany, France, Italy, England, America doing all that which is done there with the same tension by the ruling classes in order to rouse patriotism and loyalty and submission to the existing government, and we should see in how far this imaginary patriotism is characteristic of the nations of our time.

But, as it is, the masses are stultified from childhood by all possible means, by school-books, divine services, sermons, books, newspapers, verses, monuments, which all tend in one and the same direction; then they select by force or bribery a few thousands of the people, and when these assembled thousands, joined by all the loafers who are always happy to be present at any spectacle, to the sounds of cannon-shots and of music, and at the sight of every kind of splendour and light begin to shout what the leaders shout to them, we are told that this is an expression of the sentiments of the whole nation. But, in the first place, these thousands, or, if it is a great crowd, these tens of thousands, who shout something at such celebrations, form but a tiny, a ten-thousandth part of the whole nation; in the second place, out of these tens of thousands of shouting men, who wave their hats, the greater part are either collected by force, as is the case with us in Russia, or artificially provoked by some enticement; in the third place, among all these thousands, there are scarcely tens who know what it is all about, and all the rest would as gladly shout and wave their hats if the very opposite took place; and, in the fourth place, the police are always present, and they will make any one shut up if he does not shout what the government wants and demands shall be shouted, and lock him up at once, as was done with much force during the Franco-Russian festivities.

In France they welcomed with equal enthusiasm the war with Russia under Napoleon I., and then Alexander I., against whom the war was waged, and then again Napoleon, and again the allies, and Bourbon, and Orleans, and the Republic, and Napoleon III., and Boulanger; and in Russia they acclaim with the same enthusiasm, to-day Peter, to-morrow Catherine, the next day Paul, Alexander, Constantine, Nicholas, the Duke of Leuchtenberg, the brother Slavs, the King of Prussia, the French sailors, and all those whom the government wants them to welcome. The same happens in England, America, Germany, Italy.

What in our time is called patriotism is, on the one hand, only a certain mood, which is constantly produced and maintained in the masses by the schools, the religion, the venal press, having such a tendency as the government demands, and, on the other, a temporary excitation, produced with exclusive means by the ruling classes, in the masses, who stand on a lower moral and even mental plane, – an excitation, which later is given out as a constant expression of the will of the whole nation. The patriotism of the oppressed nationalities does not form an exception to this. It is as little characteristic of the working classes, and is artificially inculcated upon them by the upper classes.

XIII

"But if the men of the masses do not experience the sentiment of patriotism, this is due to the fact that they have not yet reached that exalted sentiment, which is characteristic of every cultured man. If they do not experience this exalted sentiment, it has to be educated in them. It is this that the government is doing."

Thus generally speak the men of the ruling classes, with such full confidence that patriotism is an exalted sentiment, that the naïve men of the masses, who do not experience it, consider themselves at fault, because they do not experience this sentiment, and try to assure themselves that they experience it, or at least pretend that they do.

But what is this exalted sentiment, which, in the opinion of the ruling classes, ought to be educated in the nations?

This sentiment is in its most precise definition nothing but a preference shown to one's own state or nation in comparison with any other state or nation, a sentiment which is fully expressed in the German patriotic song, "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles," in which we need only substitute Russland, Frankreich, Italien, or any other state for Deutschland, and we shall get the clearest formula of the exalted sentiment of patriotism. It may be that this sentiment is very desirable and useful for the governments and the integrity of the state, but one cannot help but observe that this sentiment is not at all exalted, but, on the contrary, very stupid and very immoral: stupid, because, if every state will consider itself better than any other, it is obvious that they will all be in the wrong; and immoral, because it inevitably leads every man who experiences the feeling to try to obtain advantages for his own state and nation, at the expense of other states and nations – a tendency which is directly opposed to the fundamental moral law recognized by all men: not to do unto another what we do not wish to have done to ourselves.

Patriotism may have been a virtue in the ancient world, when it demanded of man that he serve the highest ideal accessible to him at the time, – the ideal of his country. But how can patriotism be a virtue in our time, when it demands of men what is directly opposed to what forms the ideal of our religion and morality, – not the recognition of the equality and brotherhood of all men, but the recognition of one state and nationality as predominating over all the others. This sentiment is in our time not only not a virtue, but unquestionably a vice; no such sentiment of patriotism in its true sense does or can exist in our time, because the material and moral foundations for it are lacking.

Patriotism could have some sense in the ancient world, when every nation, more or less homogeneous in its structure, professing one and the same state religion, and submitting to the same unlimited power of its supreme, deified ruler, appeared to itself as an island in the ocean of the barbarians, which ever threatened to inundate it.

We can see how with such a state of affairs, patriotism, that is, the desire to ward off the attacks of the barbarians, who were not only prepared to destroy the social order, but who also threatened wholesale plundering and murder, with the enslavement of men and the rape of women, was a natural feeling, and we can see why a man, to free himself and his compatriots from such calamities, could have preferred his nation to all the others, and could experience a hostile feeling toward the barbarians around him, and could kill them, in order to protect his nation.

But what significance can this sentiment have in our Christian time? On what ground and for what purpose can a man of our time, a Russian, go and kill Frenchmen or Germans, or a Frenchman Germans, when he knows full well, no matter how little educated he may be, that the men of the other state and nation, against which they are rousing his patriotic hostility, are not barbarians, but just such Christians as he, frequently of the same faith and profession with him, desiring like him nothing but peace and a peaceful exchange of labour, and that, besides, they are for the most part united with him either by the interests of common labour, or by commercial or spiritual interests, or by all together? Thus frequently the men of another country are nearer and more indispensable to a man than his own countrymen, as is the case with labourers who are connected with employers of other nationalities, and as is the case with commercial people, and especially with scholars and artists.

Besides, the conditions of life themselves have so changed now that what we call our country, what we are supposed to distinguish from everything else, has ceased to be something clearly defined, as it was with the ancients, where the men forming one country belonged to one nationality, one state, and one faith. We can understand the patriotism of an Egyptian, a Jew, a Greek, who, defending his country, was at the same time defending his faith, and his nationality, and his home, and his state.

But in what way will in our time be expressed the patriotism of an Irishman in the United States, who by his faith belongs to Rome, by his nationality to Ireland, by his state allegiance to the United States? In the same condition are a Bohemian in Austria, a Pole in Russia, Prussia, and Austria, a Hindoo in England, a Tartar and an Armenian in Russia and in Turkey. But, even leaving out these men of the separate conquered nationalities, the men of the most homogeneous states, such as are Russia, France, Prussia, can no longer experience that sentiment of patriotism, which was peculiar to the ancients, because frequently all the chief interests of their life (sometimes their domestic ones, – they are married to women of another nation; the economic ones, – their capital is abroad; their spiritual, scientific, or artistic ones) are not in their own country, but outside it, in that state against which the government is rousing his patriotic hatred.

But most of all is patriotism impossible in our time, because, no matter how much we have tried for eighteen hundred years to conceal the meaning of Christianity, it has none the less trickled through into our life, and is guiding it in such a way that the coarsest and most stupid of men cannot help but see the absolute incompatibility of patriotism with those moral rules by which they live.

XIV

Patriotism was necessary for the formation, out of heterogeneous nationalities, of strong, united kingdoms, protected against the barbarians. But as soon as the Christian enlightenment transformed all these kingdoms alike from within, by giving them the same foundations, patriotism not only became unnecessary, but was also the one barrier against that union of the nations for which they are prepared by dint of their Christian consciousness.

Patriotism is in our time the cruel tradition of a long-gone-by period of time, which holds itself only through inertia and because the governments and the ruling classes feel that with this patriotism is connected not only their power, but also their existence, and so with care and cunning and violence rouse and sustain it in the nations. Patriotism is in our time like the scaffolding, which at one time was necessary for the construction of the walls of a building, but which now, though it only interferes with the proper use of the building, is not taken down, because its existence is advantageous for some persons.

Among the Christian nations there has for a long time ceased to exist any cause for discord, and there can be no such cause. It is even impossible to imagine why and how Russian and German labourers, who peacefully work together near the border and in the capital cities, should begin to quarrel among themselves. And much less can we imagine any hostility between, let us say, a Kazán peasant, who supplies a German with corn, and the German, who supplies him with scythes and machines, and similarly among French, German, and Italian labourers. It is even ridiculous to talk of quarrels among the scholars, artists, writers of various nationalities, who live by the same interests, that are independent of nationality and the state structure.

But the governments cannot leave the nations alone, that is, in peaceful relations among themselves, because the chief, if not the only justification of the existence of the governments consists in making peace between the nations, that is, in allaying their hostile relations. And so the governments provoke these hostile relations under the guise of patriotism, and then make it appear that they are making peace among the nations. It is something like what a gipsy does, who pours some pepper under his horse's tail, and lashes it in the stall, and then leads it out, while hanging on to the bridle, pretending that he has the hardest time to restrain the mettled horse.

We are assured that the governments are concerned about preserving the peace among the nations. In what way do they preserve this peace?

People are living along the Rhine in peaceful intercourse among themselves, – suddenly, in consequence of all kinds of disputes and intrigues between the kings and emperors, war breaks out, and the French government finds it necessary to recognize some of these inhabitants as Frenchmen. Ages pass, men have become accustomed to this state of affairs; again there begin hostilities between the governments of the great nations, and war breaks out on the slightest pretence, and the Germans find it necessary to recognize these inhabitants once more as Germans, and in all the French and the Germans ill-will flames up toward one another. Or Germans and Russians are living peacefully near the border, peacefully exchanging their labour and the products of labour, and suddenly the same institutions which exist only in the name of the pacification of the nations begin to quarrel, to do one foolish thing after another, and are not able to invent anything better than the coarsest childish method of self-inflicted punishment, if only they can thus have their will and do something nasty to their adversary (which in this case is especially advantageous, since not those who start a customs war, but others, suffer from it); thus the Customs War between Russia and Germany was lately started. Then, with the aid of the newspapers, there flames up a malevolent feeling, which is still farther fanned by the Franco-Russian celebrations, and which, before we know it, may lead to a sanguinary war.

I have cited the last two examples of the manner in which the governments affect the people by rousing in them a hostile feeling toward other nations, because they are contemporary; but there is not one war in all history, which was not provoked by the governments, by the governments alone, independently of the advantages to the nations, to which war, even if it is successful, is always harmful.

The governments assure the nations that they are in danger of an incursion from other nations and from internal enemies, and that the only salvation from this danger consists in the slavish obedience of the nations to their governments. This is most obvious in the time of revolutions and dictatorships, and this takes place at all times and in all places, wherever there is power. Every government explains its existence and justifies all its violence by insisting that, if it did not exist, things would be worse. By assuring the nations that they are in danger, the governments subject them to themselves. When the nations submit to the governments, these governments compel these nations to attack the other nations. In this manner the nations find confirmed the assurances of their governments in regard to the danger from being attacked by other nations.

Divide et impera.

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most unquestionable significance is for the rulers nothing but a tool for attaining their ambitious and selfish ends, and for the ruled a renunciation of human dignity, reason, conscience, and a slavish submission to those who are in power. Thus is patriotism actually preached, wherever it is preached.

Patriotism is slavery.

The advocates of peace through arbitration judge like this: two animals cannot divide their prey otherwise than by fighting, as do children, barbarians, and barbarous nations. But sensible people settle their differences by discussion, conviction, the transmission of the solution of the question to disinterested, sensible men. Even thus must the sensible nations of our time act. These reflections seem quite correct. The nations of our time have reached an age of discretion, are not hostile to one another, and should be able to settle their differences in a peaceable manner. But the reflection is correct only in reference to the nations, to the nations alone, if they were not under the power of their governments. But the nations which submit to their governments cannot be sensible, because submission to the governments is already a sign of the greatest senselessness.

How can we talk of the sensibleness of men who promise in advance to do everything (including the murder of men) which the government, that is, certain men who have accidentally come to hold this position, may command them to do?

Men who are able to accept such a duty of unflinching submission to what certain strangers will, from St. Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, command them to do, cannot be sensible, and the governments, that is, the men who possess such power, can still less be sensible, and cannot help abusing it, – they cannot help losing their minds from such a senselessly terrible power. For that reason the peace among the nations cannot be attained by any sensible means, through conventions, through arbitrations, so long as there exists a submission to the governments, which is always senseless and always pernicious.

But the submission of men to the governments will always exist, so long as there is any patriotism, because every power is based on patriotism, that is, on the readiness of men, for the sake of defending their nation, their country, that is, the state, against supposed dangers that are threatening it, to submit to the power.