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.
XIII.
"But if the men of the masses do not experience the sentiment of patriotism, this is due to the fact that they have not yet reached that exalted sentiment, which is characteristic of every cultured man. If they do not experience this exalted sentiment, it has to be educated in them. It is this that the government is doing."
Thus generally speak the men of the ruling classes, with such full confidence that patriotism is an exalted sentiment, that the naïve men of the masses, who do not experience it, consider themselves at fault, because they do not experience this sentiment, and try to assure themselves that they experience it, or at least pretend that they do.
But what is this exalted sentiment, which, in the opinion of the ruling classes, ought to be educated in the nations?