FOOTNOTES:
[18] Issue of Nov. 14, 1891.
[19] Le Radical, May 30, 1893.
X.[20]
Just as the idea of revolution is identified with the ideas of murder and destruction, in the same way the internationalism of the workers is identified with anti-patriotism. There is in the latter case as in the former a fundamental error, and it remains for me to show that, theoretically and practically, the identification of the internationalism of labor with anti-patriotism is unjustifiable. And, to begin with, he who says internationalism says internationalism, and does not say anti-nationalism; consequently, you see at once that no one ought—either to approve or condemn it—to use the word, internationalism, to express what it does not mean and what other words do mean.
Instead of allowing ourselves to be led astray by our various fantastic notions, let us here as elsewhere examine the facts and see what conclusions they impose upon us. Socialism flows from the facts, it follows them and does not precede them. This is the truth to which we must constantly return, which we must never forget. Now, the facts show us, bon gré mal gré, two things: on the one hand, the existence of countries (fatherlands); on the other, the existence, in every social stratum, of an international solidarity.
It is with countries as with classes; some deny the existence of the former, others of the latter. Now, in reason it is no more possible to deny the existence of the country (fatherland) than the existence of classes in that country. It is all right to look forward to the day when national patriotism shall be swallowed up in world-wide brotherhood, when classes shall vanish in human solidarity, but while waiting for the facts to turn this noble ideal into a reality, we must, in both cases, adapt ourselves to the facts as they actually are at present. To wish to suppress them (classes, etc.) does not suppress them, to protest against their existence does not at all prevent them from existing and, so long as countries and classes shall exist, it will be necessary for us, not to deny their existence in declamations in the Bryan-McKinley style, but to adapt our tactics to the facts which are the consequences of their existence.
Just as the feeling of national solidarity is added to the feeling of family solidarity, without destroying the latter, in the same way the relatively new sentiment of international solidarity is added to the former which is still retained. A new sentiment springing from a new situation does not annihilate the older sentiments and emotions as long as the conditions that gave them birth continue to exist, and families and nations are still in existence.