"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.