DEAR SIR:--You write to me asking me to express myself in respect to
the United States of North America "in the interests of Christian
consistency and true peace," and express the hope that "the nations
will soon awaken to the one means of securing national peace."
I harbour the same hope. I harbour the same hope, because the
blindness in our time of the nations that extol patriotism, bring
up their young generations in the superstition of patriotism, and,
at the same time, do not wish for the inevitable consequences of
patriotism,--war,--has, it seems to me, reached such a last stage
that the simplest reflection, which begs for utterance in the mouth
of every unprejudiced man, is sufficient, in order that men may see
the crying contradiction in which they are.
Frequently, when you ask children which they will choose of two
things which are incompatible, but which they want alike, they
answer, "Both."
"Which do you want,--to go out driving or to stay at
home?"--"Both,--go out driving and stay at home."
Just so the Christian nations answer the question which life puts to
them, as to which they will choose, patriotism or peace, they answer
"Both patriotism and peace," though it is as impossible to unite
patriotism with peace, as at the same time to go out driving and
stay at home.
The other day there arose a difference between the United States
and England concerning the borders of Venezuela. Salisbury for some
reason did not agree to something; Cleveland wrote a message to
the Senate; from either side were raised patriotic warlike cries;
a panic ensued upon 'Change; people lost millions of pounds and of
dollars; Edison announced that he would invent engines with which
it would be possible to kill more men in an hour than Attila had
killed in all his wars, and both nations began energetically to
arm themselves for war. But because, simultaneously with these
preparations for war, both in England and in America, all kinds
of literary men, princes, and statesmen began to admonish their
respective governments to abstain from war, saying that the subject
under discussion was not sufficiently important to begin a war
for, especially between two related Anglo-Saxon nations, speaking
the same language, who ought not to war among themselves, but
ought calmly to govern others; or because all kinds of bishops,
archdeacons, canons prayed and preached concerning the matter in all
the churches; or because neither side considered itself sufficiently
prepared,--it happened that there was no war just then. And people
calmed down.
But a person has to have too little perspicacity not to see that
the causes which now are leading to a conflict between England
and America have remained the same, and that, if even the present
conflict shall be settled without a war, there will inevitably
to-morrow or the day after appear other conflicts, between
England and Russia, between England and Turkey, in all possible
permutations, as they arise every day, and one of these will lead to
war.
If two armed men live side by side, having been impressed from
childhood with the idea that power, wealth, and glory are the
highest virtues, and that, therefore, to acquire power, wealth,
and glory by means of arms, to the detriment of other neighbouring
possessors, is a very praiseworthy matter, and if at the same time
there is no moral, religious, or political restraint for these men,
is it not evident that such people will always fight, that the
normal relation between them will be war? and that, if such people,
having clutched one another, have separated for awhile, they have
done so only, as the French proverb says, "_pour mieux sauter_,"
that is, they have separated to take a better run, to throw
themselves with greater fury upon one another?
Strange is the egotism of private individuals, but the egotists
of private life are not armed, do not consider it right either
to prepare or use arms against their adversaries; the egotism of
private individuals is under the control of the political power
and of public opinion. A private person who with gun in his hand
takes away his neighbour's cow, or a desyatína of his crop, will
immediately be seized by a policeman and put into prison. Besides,
such a man will be condemned by public opinion,--he will be called
a thief and robber. It is quite different with the states: they are
all armed,--there is no power over them, except the comical attempts
at catching a bird by pouring some salt on its tail,--attempts at
establishing international congresses, which, apparently, will
never be accepted by the powerful states (who are armed for the
very purpose that they may not pay any attention to any one), and,
above all, public opinion, which rebukes every act of violence in a
private individual, extols, raises to the virtue of patriotism every
appropriation of what belong to others, for the increase of the
power of the country.
Open the newspapers for any period you may wish, and at any moment
you will see the black spot,--the cause of every possible war: now
it is Korea, now the Pamir, now the lands in Africa, now Abyssinia,
now Turkey, now Venezuela, now the Transvaal. The work of the
robbers does not stop for a moment, and here and there a small war,
like an exchange of shots in the cordon, is going on all the time,
and the real war can and will begin at any moment.
If an American wishes the preferential grandeur and well-being of
America above all other nations, and the same is desired for his
state by an Englishman, and a Russian, and a Turk, and a Dutchman,
and an Abyssinian, and a citizen of Venezuela and of the Transvaal,
and an Armenian, and a Pole, and a Bohemian, and all of them are
convinced that these desires need not only not be concealed or
repressed, but should be a matter of pride and be developed in
themselves and in others; and if the greatness and well-being of
one country or nation cannot be obtained except to the detriment of
another nation, frequently of many countries and nations,--how can
war be avoided?
And so, not to have any war, it is not necessary to preach and pray
to God about peace, to persuade the English-speaking nations that
they ought to be friendly toward one another, in order to be able
to rule over other nations; to form double and triple alliances
against one another; to marry princes to princesses of other
nations,--but to destroy what produces war. But what produces war
is the desire for an exclusive good for one's own nation,--what is
called patriotism. And so to abolish war, it is necessary to abolish
patriotism, and to abolish patriotism, it is necessary first to
become convinced that it is an evil, and that it is hard to do.
Tell people that war is bad, and they will laugh at you: who does
not know that? Tell them that patriotism is bad, and the majority
of people will agree with you, but with a small proviso. "Yes, bad
patriotism is bad, but there is also another patriotism, the one we
adhere to." But wherein this good patriotism consists no one can
explain. If good patriotism consists in not being acquisitive, as
many say, it is none the less retentive; that is, men want to retain
what was formerly acquired, since there is no country which was not
based on conquest, and it is impossible to retain what is conquered
by any other means than those by which it was acquired, that is,
by violence and murder. But even if patriotism is not retentive,
it is restorative,--the patriotism of the vanquished and oppressed
nations, the Armenians, Poles, Bohemians, Irish, and so forth. This
patriotism is almost the very worst, because it is the most enraged
and demands the greatest degree of violence.
Patriotism cannot be good. Why do not people say that egotism can be
good, though this may be asserted more easily, because egotism is a
natural sentiment, with which a man is born, while patriotism is an
unnatural sentiment, which is artificially inoculated in him?
It will be said: "Patriotism has united men in states and keeps
up the unity of the states." But the men are already united in
states,--the work is all done: why should men now maintain an
exclusive loyalty for their state, when this loyalty produces
calamities for all states and nations? The same patriotism which
produced the unification of men into states is now destroying those
states. If there were but one patriotism,--the patriotism of none
but the English,--it might be regarded as unificatory or beneficent,
but when, as now, there are American, English, German, French,
Russian patriotisms, all of them opposed to one another, patriotism
no longer unites, but disunites. To say that, if patriotism was
beneficent, by uniting men into states, as was the case during its
highest development in Greece and Rome, patriotism even now, after
eighteen hundred years of Christian life, is just as beneficent,
is the same as saying that, since the ploughing was useful and
beneficent for the field before the sowing, it will be as useful
now, after the crop has grown up.
It would be very well to retain patriotism in memory of the use
which it once had, as people preserve and retain the ancient
monuments of temples, mausoleums, and so forth. But the temples and
mausoleums stand, without causing any harm to men, while patriotism
produces without cessation innumerable calamities.
What now causes the Armenians and the Turks to suffer and cut
each other's throats and act like wild beasts? Why do England and
Russia, each of them concerned about her share of the inheritance
from Turkey, lie in wait and do not put a stop to the Armenian
atrocities? Why do the Abyssinians and Italians fight one another?
Why did a terrible war come very near breaking out on account
of Venezuela, and now on account of the Transvaal? And the
Chino-Japanese War, and the Turkish, and the German, and the French
wars? And the rage of the subdued nations, the Armenians, the Poles,
the Irish? And the preparation for war by all the nations? All that
is the fruits of patriotism. Seas of blood have been shed for the
sake of this sentiment, and more blood will be shed for its sake, if
men do not free themselves from this outlived bit of antiquity.
I have several times had occasion to write about patriotism,
about its absolute incompatibility, not only with the teaching of
Christ in its ideal sense, but even with the lowest demands of the
morality of Christian society, and every time my arguments have
been met with silence or with the supercilious hint that the ideas
expressed by me were Utopian expressions of mysticism, anarchism,
and cosmopolitanism. My ideas have frequently been repeated in a
compressed form, and, instead of retorting to them, it was added
that it was nothing but cosmopolitanism, as though this word
"cosmopolitanism" unanswerably overthrew all my arguments. Serious,
old, clever, good men, who, above all else, stand like the city on
a hill, and who involuntarily guide the masses by their example,
make it appear that the legality and beneficence of patriotism
are so obvious and incontestable that it is not worth while to
answer the frivolous and senseless attacks upon this sentiment, and
the majority of men, who have since childhood been deceived and
infected by patriotism, take this supercilious silence to be a most
convincing proof, and continue to stick fast in their ignorance.
And so those people who from their position can free the masses from
their calamities, and do not do so, commit a great sin.
The most terrible thing in the world is hypocrisy. There was good
reason why Christ once got angry,--that was against the hypocrisy of
the Pharisees.
But what was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in comparison with the
hypocrisy of our time? In comparison with our men, the Pharisees
were the most truthful of men, and their art of hypocrisy was
as child's play in comparison with the hypocrisy of our time;
nor can it be otherwise. Our whole life, with the profession of
Christianity, the teaching of humility and love, in connection with
the life of an armed den of robbers, can be nothing but one solid,
terrible hypocrisy. It is very convenient to profess a teaching at
one end of which is Christian sanctity and infallibility, and at the
other--the pagan sword and gallows, so that, when it is possible to
impose or deceive by means of sanctity, sanctity is put into effect,
and when the deception does not work, the sword and the gallows
are put into effect. Such a teaching is very convenient, but the
time comes when this spider-web of lie is dispersed, and it is no
longer possible to continue to keep both, and it is necessary to
ally oneself with either one or the other. It is this which is now
getting to be the case in relation to the teaching about patriotism.
Whether people want it or not, the question stands clearly before
humanity: how can that patriotism, from which result innumerable
physical and moral calamities of men, be necessary and a virtue? It
is indispensable to give an answer to this question.
It is necessary either to show that patriotism is such a great good
that it redeems all those terrible calamities which it produces in
humanity; or to recognize that patriotism is an evil, which must
not only not be inoculated in men and impressed upon them, but from
which also we must try to free ourselves at all cost.
_C'est à prendre ou à laisser_, as the French say. If patriotism
is good, then Christianity, which gives peace, is an idle dream,
and the sooner this teaching is eradicated, the better. But
if Christianity really gives peace, and we really want peace,
patriotism is a survival from barbarous times, which must not
only not be evoked and educated, as we now do, but which must
be eradicated by all means, by means of preaching, persuasion,
contempt, and ridicule. If Christianity is the truth, and we wish to
live in peace, we must not only have no sympathy for the power of
our country, but must even rejoice in its weakening, and contribute
to it. A Russian must rejoice when Poland, the Baltic provinces,
Finland, Armenia, are separated from Russia and made free; and an
Englishman must similarly rejoice in relation to Ireland, Australia,
India, and the other colonies, and coöperate in it, because, the
greater the country, the more evil and cruel is its patriotism,
and the greater is the amount of the suffering on which its power
is based. And so, if we actually want to be what we profess, we
must not, as we do now, wish for the increase of our country, but
wish for its diminution and weakening, and contribute to it with
all our means. And thus must we educate the younger generations:
we must bring up the younger generations in such a way that, as it
is now disgraceful for a young man to manifest his coarse egotism,
for example, by eating everything up, without leaving anything for
others, to push a weaker person down from the road, in order to pass
by himself, to take away by force what another needs, it should
be just as disgraceful to wish for the increase of his country's
power; and, as it now is considered stupid and ridiculous for a
person to praise himself, it should be considered stupid to extol
one's nation, as is now done in various lying patriotic histories,
pictures, monuments, text-books, articles, sermons, and stupid
national hymns. But it must be understood that so long as we are
going to extol patriotism and educate the younger generations in
it, we shall have armaments, which ruin the physical and spiritual
life of the nations, and wars, terrible, horrible wars, like those
for which we are preparing ourselves, and into the circle of which
we are introducing, corrupting them with our patriotism, the new,
terrible fighters of the distant East.
Emperor William, one of the most comical persons of our time,
orator, poet, musician, dramatic writer, and artist, and, above
all, patriot, has lately painted a picture representing all the
nations of Europe with swords, standing at the seashore and, at the
indication of Archangel Michael, looking at the sitting figures
of Buddha and Confucius in the distance. According to William's
intention, this should mean that the nations of Europe ought to
unite in order to defend themselves against the peril which is
proceeding from there. He is quite right from his coarse, pagan,
patriotic point of view, which is eighteen hundred years behind the
times. The European nations, forgetting Christ, have in the name of
their patriotism more and more irritated these peaceful nations,
and have taught them patriotism and war, and have now irritated
them so much that, indeed, if Japan and China will as fully forget
the teachings of Buddha and of Confucius as we have forgotten the
teaching of Christ, they will soon learn the art of killing people
(they learn these things quickly, as Japan has proved), and, being
fearless, agile, strong, and populous, they will inevitably very
soon make of the countries of Europe, if Europe does not invent
something stronger than guns and Edison's inventions, what the
countries of Europe are making of Africa. "The disciple is not above
his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master"
(Luke vi. 40).
In reply to a prince's question how to increase his army, in order
to conquer a southern tribe which did not submit to him, Confucius
replied: "Destroy all thy army, and use the money, which thou art
wasting now on the army, on the enlightenment of thy people and on
the improvement of agriculture, and the southern tribe will drive
away its prince and will submit to thy rule without war."
Thus taught Confucius, whom we are advised to fear. But we, having
forgotten Christ's teaching, having renounced it, wish to vanquish
the nations by force, and thus are only preparing for ourselves
new and stronger enemies than our neighbours. A friend of mine,
who saw William's picture, said: "The picture is beautiful, only
it does not at all represent what the legend says. It means that
Archangel Michael shows to all the governments of Europe, which are
represented as robbers bedecked with arms, what it is that will
cause their ruin and annihilation, namely, the meekness of Buddha
and the wisdom of Confucius." He might have added, "And the humility
of Lao-tse."
Indeed, we, thanks to our hypocrisy, have forgotten Christ to such
an extent, have so squeezed out of our life everything Christian,
that the teachings of Buddha and Confucius stand incomparably higher
than that beastly patriotism, by which our so-called Christian
nations are guided. And so the salvation of Europe and of the
Christian world at large does not consist in this, that, bedecking
themselves with swords, as William has represented them, they
should, like robbers, cast themselves upon their brothers beyond
the sea, in order to kill them, but, on the contrary, they should
renounce the survival of barbarous times,--patriotism,--and, having
renounced it, should take off their arms and show the Eastern
nations, not an example of savage patriotism and beastliness, but an
example of brotherly love, which Christ has taught us.
_Moscow, January 2, 1896._