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.