In a state with a poorly organized government and where the laws are insignificant, and the ruler has lost his dignity as the result of the accumulation of liberal rights, I find a new right, namely, the right of might to destroy all existing order and institutions, to lay hands on the law, to alter all institutions, and to become the ruler of those who have voluntarily, liberally renounced for our benefit the rights to their own power.
With the present instability of all authority our power will be more unassailable than any other, because it will be invisible until it is so well rooted that no cunning can undermine it.
From temporary evil to which we are now obliged to have recourse will emerge the good of an unshakable government, which will reinstate the orderly functioning of the mechanism of popular existence now interrupted by liberalism. The end justifies the means. In laying our plans we must turn our attention not so much to the good and moral as to the necessary and useful. Before us lies a plan in which a strategic line is shown, from which we must not deviate on pain of risking the collapse of many centuries of work.
In working out an expedient plan of action it is necessary to take into consideration the meanness, vacillation, changeability of the mob, its inability to appreciate and respect the conditions of its own existence and of its own well-being. It is necessary to realize that the power of the masses is blind, unreasoning, and void of discrimination, prone to listen to right and left. The blind man cannot guide the blind without bringing them to the abyss; consequently, members of the crowd, upstarts from the people, even were they men of genius but incompetent in politics, cannot step forward as leaders of the mob without ruining the entire nation.
Only the person prepared from childhood to autocracy can understand the words which are formed by political letters.
The people left to themselves, that is to upstarts from among them, are ruined by party dissensions created by greed for power and honors, and by the disorders resulting therefrom. Is it possible for the masses of the people to direct the affairs of the state without rivalry, and without interjecting personal interests? Are they capable of protecting themselves against external enemies?—This is impossible, since a plan divided into as many parts as there are minds in a mob loses its unity, and consequently, becomes incomprehensible and unworkable.
Only an autocrat can outline great and clear plans which allocate in an orderly manner all the parts of the mechanism of the government machinery. From this it is concluded that the government which is the most efficient for the benefit of a country must be concentrated in the hands of one responsible person. Civilization cannot exist without absolute despotism, for government is carried on not by the masses, but by their leader, whoever he may be. A barbarous crowd shows its barbarism on every occasion. The moment the mob grasps liberty in its hands it is speedily changed to anarchy, which is in itself the height of barbarism.
Look at those beasts, steeped in alcohol, stupefied by wine, the unlimited use of which is granted by liberty.
Surely you cannot allow our own people to come to this. The people of the Goys are stupefied by spirituous liquors; their youth is driven insane through excessive study of the classics, and vice to which they have been instigated by our agents—tutors, valets, governesses—in rich houses, by clerks, and so forth, and by our women in the pleasure places of the Goys. Among the latter I include the so-called “society women,” their volunteer followers in vice and luxury.
Our motto is Power and Hypocrisy. Only power can conquer in politics, especially if it is concealed in talents which are necessary to statesmen. Violence must be the principle; hypocrisy and cunning the rule of those governments which do not wish to lay down their crowns at the feet of the agents of some new power. This evil is the sole means of attaining the goal of good. For this reason we must not hesitate at bribery, fraud, and treason when these can help us to reach our end. In politics it is necessary to seize the property of others without hesitation if in so doing we attain submission and power.