Something is taking place incomprehensible and impossible in its cruelty,
falsehood, and stupidity. The Russian Tsar, the same man who exhorted all
the nations in the cause of peace, publicly announces that,
notwithstanding all his efforts to maintain the peace so dear to his
heart (efforts which express themselves in the seizing of other peoples'
lands and in the strengthening of armies for the defence of these stolen
lands), he, owing to the attack of the Japanese, commands that the same
shall be done to the Japanese as they had commenced doing to the
Russians--_i.e._ that they should be slaughtered; and in announcing this
call to murder he mentions God, asking the Divine blessing on the most
dreadful crime in the world. The Japanese Emperor has proclaimed the same
thing in relation to the Russians.
Men of science and of law (Messieurs Muravieff and Martens) strenuously
try to prove that in the recent call of all nations to universal peace
and the present incitement to war, because of the seizure of other
peoples' lands, there is no contradiction. Diplomatists, in their refined
French language, publish and send out circulars in which they
circumstantially and diligently prove (though they know no one believes
them) that, after all its efforts to establish peaceful relations (in
reality, after all its efforts to deceive other countries), the Russian
Government has been compelled to have recourse to the only means for a
rational solution of the question--_i.e._ to the murder of men. The same
thing is written by Japanese diplomatists. Scientists, historians, and
philosophers, on their side, comparing the present with the past, deduce
from these comparisons profound conclusions, and argue interminably about
the laws of the movement of nations, about the relation between the
yellow and white races, or about Buddhism and Christianity, and on the
basis of these deductions and arguments justify the slaughter of those
belonging to the yellow race by Christians; while in the same way the
Japanese scientists and philosophers justify the slaughter of those of
the white race. Journalists, without concealing their joy, try to outdo
each other, and, not hesitating at any falsehood, however impudent and
transparent, prove in all possible ways that the Russians only are right
and strong and good in every respect, and that all the Japanese are wrong
and weak and bad in every respect, and that all those are also bad who
are inimical or may become inimical toward the Russians--the English, the
Americans; and the same is proved likewise by the Japanese and their
supporters in relation to the Russians.
Not to mention the military, who in the way of their profession prepare
for murder, crowds of so-called enlightened people, such as professors,
social reformers, students, nobles, merchants, without being forced
thereto by anything or anybody, express the most bitter and contemptuous
feelings toward the Japanese, the English, or the Americans, toward whom
but yesterday they were either well-disposed or indifferent; while,
without the least compulsion, they express the most abject, servile
feelings toward the Tsar (to whom, to say the least, they were completely
indifferent), assuring him of their unlimited love and readiness to
sacrifice their lives in his interests.
This unfortunate, entangled young man, recognized as the leader of one
hundred and thirty millions of people, continually deceived and compelled
to contradict himself, confidently thanks and blesses the troops whom he
calls his own for murder in defence of lands which with yet less right he
also calls his own. All present to each other hideous ikons in which not
only no one amongst the educated believes, but which unlearned peasants
are beginning to abandon; all bow down to the ground before these ikons,
kiss them, and pronounce pompous and deceitful speeches in which no one
really believes.
Wealthy people contribute insignificant portions of their immorally
acquired riches for this cause of murder or the organization of help in
connection with the work of murder; while the poor, from whom the
Government annually collects two milliards, deem it necessary to do
likewise, giving their mites also. The Government incites and encourages
crowds of idlers, who walk about the streets with the Tsar's portrait,
singing, shouting hurrah! and who, under pretext of patriotism, are
licensed in all kinds of excess. All over Russia, from the Palace to the
remotest village, the pastors of churches, calling themselves Christians,
appeal to that God who has enjoined love to one's enemies--to the God of
Love Himself--to help the work of the devil to further the slaughter of
men.
Stupefied by prayers, sermons, exhortations, by processions, pictures,
and newspapers, the cannon's flesh, hundreds of thousands of men,
uniformly dressed, carrying divers deadly weapons, leaving their parents,
wives, children, with hearts of agony, but with artificial sprightliness,
go where they, risking their own lives, will commit the most dreadful act
of killing men whom they do not know and who have done them no harm. And
they are followed by doctors and nurses, who somehow imagine that at home
they cannot serve simple, peaceful, suffering people, but can only serve
those who are engaged in slaughtering each other. Those who remain at
home are gladdened by news of the murder of men, and when they learn that
many Japanese have been killed they thank some one whom they call God.
All this is not only regarded as the manifestation of elevated feeling,
but those who refrain from such manifestations, if they endeavor to
disabuse men, are deemed traitors and betrayers, and are in danger of
being abused and beaten by a brutalized crowd which, in defence of its
insanity and cruelty, can possess no other weapon than brute force.