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Title: Patriotism, or Peace?
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Date: 1896
Language: en
Topics: letter, patriotism, peace, nationalism, war, United States, Venezuela, pacifist
Source: Original text from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=10676, 2021.

Leo Tolstoy

Patriotism, or Peace?

[The following letter, called forth by the dispute about Venezuela

between the United States and England, was written by Count Tolstoy to

an English correspondent in the early part of the present year (1896),

and first appeared in The Daily Chronicle of 17th March.]

You write asking me to state my opinion on the case between the United

States and England, "in the cause of Christian consistency and true

peace," and you express the hope "that the nations may soon be awakened

to the only means of ensuring international peace."

I entertain the same hope; and for this reason. The complication which,

in our time, involves the nations: exalting patriotism as they do,

educating the young generation in that superstition, and at the same

time shirking that inevitable consequence of patriotism,—war: has, it

seems to me, reached that last degree at which the very simplest

consideration, such as suggests itself to every unbiassed person, may

suffice to show to men the extreme contradiction in which they are

placed.

Often, when one asks children which they choose of two incompatible but

eagerly desired things, they will answer, "Both." "Which do you wish—to

go for a drive, or to play at home?" "To go for a drive and to play at

home."

Exactly so with the Christian nations, when life itself puts the

question to them, "Which do you choose—patriotism or peace?" They

answer, "Patriotism and peace." Although to combine patriotism and peace

is just as impossible as to go for a drive and to stay at home at one

and the same time.

The other day a conflict arose between the United States and England

over the frontier of Venezuela. Salisbury did not agree to something;

Cleveland wrote a message to the Senate; patriotic, warlike cries were

raised on both sides; a panic occurred on 'Change; people lost millions

of pounds and dollars; Edison said he was devising machines to kill more

men in an hour than were killed by Attila in all his wars: and both

nations began to make energetic preparations for war. But, together with

these preparations for war, alike in England and America, various

writers, princes, and statesmen began to counsel the governments of both

nations to keep from war, insisting that the matter in dispute was not

sufficiently serious for war, especially as between two Anglo-Saxon

nations, peoples of one language, who ought not to go to war with each

other, but rather in amity together domineer over others. Whether

because of this, or because all kinds of bishops, clergymen, and

ministers prayed and preached over the matter in their churches, or

because both sides considered they were not yet ready; for one cause or

another, it has turned out there is to be no war this time. And people

have calmed down.

But one would have too little penetration not to see that the causes

which have thus led to dispute between England and the States still

remain the same; that if the present difficulty is settled without war,

yet, inevitably, to-morrow or next day, disputes must arise between

England and the States, between England and Germany, England and Russia,

England and Turkey, disputes in all possible combinations. Such arise

daily; and one or other of them will surely bring war.

For, if there live side-by-side two armed men, who have from childhood

been taught that power, riches, and glory are highest goods, and that to

obtain these by arms, to the loss of one's neighbors, is a most

praiseworthy thing; and if, further, there is for these men no moral,

religious, or political bound; then is it not clear that they will

always seek war, that their normal relations will be warlike, and that,

having once caught each other by the throat, they separate again only,

as the French proverb has it, pour mieux sauter,—they draw back to take

a better spring, to rush upon each other with more ferocity?

The egoism of the individual is terrible. But the egoists of private

life are not armed; they do not count it good to prepare, or to use,

arms against their competitors; their egoism is controlled by the powers

of the State and of public opinion. A private person who should, arms in

hand, deprive his neighbor of a cow or an acre of field, would be at

once seized by the police, and imprisoned. Moreover, he would be

condemned by public opinion; called a thief and a robber. Quite

otherwise with states. All are armed. Influence over them there is none;

more than those absurd attempts to catch a bird by sprinkling salt on

its tail, such as are the efforts to establish international congresses,

which armed states (armed, forsooth, that they may be above taking

advice) will clearly never accept. And above all, the public opinion

which punishes every violent act of the private individual, praises,

exalts as the virtue of patriotism, every appropriation of other

people's property made with a view of increasing the power of one's own

country.

Open the newspapers on any day you like, and you will always see, every

moment, some black spot, a possible cause for war. Now, it is Korea;

again, the Pamirs, Africa, Abyssinia, Armenia, Turkey, Venezuela, or the

Transvaal. The work of robbery ceases not for an instant; now here, now

there, some small war is going on incessantly, like the exchange of

shots in the first line; and a great real war may, must, begin at some

moment.

If the American desires the greatness and prosperity of the States

before all nations, and the Englishman desires the same for his nation,

and the Russian, Turk, Dutchman, Abyssinian, Venezuelan, Boer, Armenian,

Pole, Czech, each have a similar desire; if all are convinced that these

desires ought not to be concealed and suppressed, but, on the contrary,

are something to be proud of, and to be encouraged in oneself and in

others; and if one country's greatness and prosperity can only be

obtained at the expense of another, or at times of many other countries

and nations; then how can war not be?

Obviously, to avoid war, it is necessary, not to preach sermons and pray

God for peace, not to adjure the English-speaking nations to live in

peace together in order to domineer over other nations, not to make

double and triple counter-alliances, not to intermarry princes and

princesses, but to destroy the root of war. And that is, the exclusive

desire for the well-being of one's own people; it is patriotism.

Therefore, to destroy war, destroy patriotism. But to destroy

patriotism, it is first necessary to produce conviction that it is an

evil; and that is difficult to do. Tell people that war is an evil, and

they will laugh; for who does not know it? Tell them that patriotism is

an evil, and most will agree; but with a reservation. "Yes," they will

say, "wrong patriotism is an evil; but there is another kind, the kind

we hold." But just what this good patriotism is, no one explains. If

good patriotism consists in inaggressiveness, as many say, still, all

patriotism, even if not aggressive, is necessarily retentive; that is,

people wish to keep what they have previously conquered. The nation does

not exist which was founded without conquest; and conquest can only be

retained by the means which achieved it—namely, violence, murder. But if

patriotism be not even retentive, it is then the restoring patriotism of

conquered and oppressed nations; of Armenians, Poles, Czechs, Irish, and

so on. And this patriotism is about the very worst; for it is the most

embittered and the most provocative of violence.

Patriotism cannot be good. Why do not people say that egoism may be

good? For this might more easily be maintained as to egoism, which is a

natural and inborn feeling, than as to patriotism, which is an unnatural

feeling, artificially grafted on man.

It will be said, "Patriotism has welded mankind into states, and

maintains the unity of states." But men are now united in states; that

work is done; why now maintain exclusive devotion to one's own state,

when this produces terrible evils for all states and nations? For this

same patriotism which welded mankind into states is now destroying those

same states. If there were but one patriotism—say of the English

only—then it were possible to regard that as conciliatory, or

beneficent. But when, as now, there is American patriotism, English,

German, French, Russian, all opposed one to another, in this event,

patriotism no longer unites, but disunites. To say that patriotism was

beneficent, unifying the states, when it flourished in Greece and Rome,

and that it is also similarly and equally beneficent now, after eighteen

centuries of life under Christianity, is as much as to say that, because

plowing was useful and good for the field before the sowing, it is

equally so now, when the crop has come up.

It might, indeed, be well to let patriotism survive, in memory of the

benefits it once brought, in the way we preserved ancient monuments,

like temples, tombs, and so on. But temples and tombs endure without

causing any harm; while patriotism ceases not to inflict incalculable

woes.

Why are Armenians and Turks now agitated, being massacred, becoming like

wild beasts? Why are England and Russia, each anxious for its own share

of the inheritance from Turkey, waiting upon, and not ending, these

butcheries of Armenians? Why are Abyssinians and Italians being

massacred? Why was a terrible war within an ace of outbreak over

Venezuela; and since, another over the Transvaal? And the Chino-Japanese

war, the Russo-Turkish, the Franco-German? And the bitterness of

conquered nations: Armenians, Poles, Irish? And the preparations for a

war of all nations? All this is the fruit of patriotism. Seas of blood

have been shed over this passion; and will yet be shed for it, unless

people free themselves of this obsolete relic of antiquity.

Several times now I have had occasion to write about patriotism; about

its entire incompatibility, not only with the truly understood teaching

of Christ, but with the very lowest demands of morality in a Christian

society. Each time my arguments have been met either with silence, or

with a lofty suggestion that my ideas, as expressed, are Utopian

utterances of mysticism, anarchism, and cosmopolitanism. Often my ideas

are summed up, and then, instead of counter-arguments, the remark only

is added, that "this is nothing else than cosmopolitanism!" As if this

word, cosmopolitanism, had indisputably refuted all my arguments.

Men who are serious, mature, clever, kind, and who—this is the most

important matter—stand like a city on a mountain-top: men who by their

example involuntarily lead the masses; such men assume that the

legitimacy and beneficence of patriotism are so far evident and certain,

that it is not worth while answering the frivolous and foolish attacks

on the sacred feeling. And the majority of people, misled from

childhood, and infected with patriotism, accept this lofty silence as

the most convincing argument; and they continue to walk in the darkness

of ignorance.

Those who, from their position, can help to free the masses from their

sufferings, and do not do so, commit a vast sin.

The most fearful evil in the world is, hypocrisy. Not in vain did

Christ, once only, show anger; and that against the hypocrisy of the

Pharisees.

But what was Pharisaic hypocrisy compared with the hypocrisy of our own

time? In comparison with our hypocrites, those among the Pharisees were

the justest of men; and their art of hypocrisy was child's play, beside

ours. It cannot be otherwise. All our lives, with their profession of

Christianity, of the doctrine of humility and love, lived in an armed

robber camp, cannot be other than one unbroken, frightful hypocrisy. It

is very convenient to profess a doctrine which has, at one end.

Christian holiness and consequent infallibility, and at the other end,

the heathen sword and gallows; so that, when it is possible to deceive

and impose by holiness, holiness is brought in play, while, when the

deceit fails, the sword and gallows are set to work. Such a doctrine is

very convenient. But a time comes when the cobweb of lies gives way, and

it is no longer possible to keep up both ends; one or other has to go.

This is about to happen with the doctrine of patriotism.

Whether people wish it or do not wish it, the question stands clear to

mankind, How can this patriotism, whence come human sufferings

incalculable, sufferings both physical and moral, be necessary, and be a

virtue? This question, of compulsion, must be answered.

It is needful, either to show that patriotism is so beneficent that it

redeems all those terrible sufferings which it causes to mankind; or

else, to acknowledge that patriotism is an evil, which, instead of being

grafted upon and suggested to people, should be struggled against with

all one's might, to escape from it.

C'est à prendre ou à laisser, as the French say. If patriotism be good,

then Christianity, as giving peace, is an idle dream, and the sooner we

root it out, the better. But if Christianity really gives peace, and if

we really want peace, then patriotism is a survival of barbarism, and it

is not only wrong to excite and develop it, as we do now, but it ought

to be rooted out by every means, by preaching, persuasion, contempt,

ridicule. If Christianity be truth, and we wish to live in peace, then

must we more than cease to take pleasure in the power of our country; we

must rejoice in the weakening of that power, and help thereto. A Russian

should rejoice if Poland, the Baltic Provinces, Finland, Armenia, should

be separated, freed, from Russia; so with an Englishman, in regard to

Ireland, India, and other possessions; and each should help to this,

because, the greater the state, the more wrong and cruel is its

patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power

is founded. Therefore, if we really wish to be what we profess to be, we

must not only cease our present desire for the growth of our state, but

we must desire its decrease, its weakening, and help this forward with

all our might. And in this way we must train the rising generation; we

must educate them so that, just as now a young man is ashamed to show

his rude egoism by eating everything and leaving nothing for others, by

pushing the weak out of the way that he may pass himself, by forcibly

taking that which another needs: so he may then be equally ashamed of

desiring increased power for his own country; and so that, just as it is

now considered stupid, foolish, to praise oneself, it shall then be seen

to be equally foolish to praise one's own nation, as is now done in

divers of the best national histories, pictures, monuments, text-books,

articles, verses, sermons, and silly national hymns. It must be

understood that, so long as we praise patriotism, and cultivate it in

the young, so long will there be armaments to destroy the physical and

spiritual life of nations; and wars, vast, awful wars, such as we are

preparing for, and into the circle of which we are drawing, debauching

them in our patriotism, the new and to be dreaded combatants of the far

East.

The Emperor William, one of the most absurd personages of our

time,—orator, poet, musician, dramatist and painter, chief of all,

patriot,—lately had made a sketch representing all the nations of

Europe, standing, with drawn swords, on the sea-shore; there, under

direction of the Archangel Michael, gazing at figures of Buddha and

Confucius, seated in the distance. In William's intention, this denotes

that the nations of Europe must unite, to oppose the danger moving upon

them from the quarter shown. And he is perfectly right; that is, from

his pagan, gross, patriotic point of view, obsolete these eighteen

hundred years.

The European nations, forgetful of Christ for the sake of patriotism,

have ever more and more excited and incited these peaceful peoples to

patriotism; and now have roused them to such a degree that really, if

only Japan and China as completely forget the teaching of Buddha and

Confucius as we have forgotten the teaching of Christ, they would soon

master the art of killing (soon learned, as Japan has shown); and being

brave, skillful, strong, and numerous, they would inevitably do with

Europe what the European countries are doing with Africa; unless Europe

can oppose to them something stronger than armaments and Edisonian

devices. "The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is

perfect shall be as his master."

To the question of a petty king, as to how many men, and in what way, he

should add to his troops, in order to conquer a southern tribe which

refused submission to him, Confucius replied, "Disband all your army,

use what you now spend on troops for the education of your people, and

for the improvement of agriculture; and the southern tribe will expel

its king, and, without war, submit to thy authority."

Thus taught Confucius, whom we are counseled to fear.

And we, having forgotten the teaching of Christ, having renounced him,

wish to subdue nations by violence; thereby only to prepare for

ourselves new enemies, yet more powerful than our present neighbors.

A friend of mine, having seen William's picture, said, "The picture is

excellent, only it does not at all signify what is written below. It

really shows the Archangel Michael pointing out to all the governments

of Europe, represented as brigands hung round with arms, that which is

to destroy, annihilate them—namely, the meekness of Buddha and the

reasonableness of Confucius." He might have added, "and the humility of

Lao-Tse." And indeed we, in our hypocrisy, have so far forgotten Christ,

and corroded out of our lives all that is Christian, that the teachings

of Buddha and Confucius rise incomparably higher than that bestial

patriotism which guides our pseudo-Christian nations.

The salvation of Europe, of the whole Christian world, comes not by

being girt with swords, like brigands, as in William's picture; not by

rushing across seas to kill our brethren: but, oppositely, by casting

off that survival of barbarism, patriotism; and having renounced it, by

disarming; showing the oriental nations an example, not of savage

patriotism and ferocity, but that one of brotherly life which has been

taught to us by Christ.