Lev Tolstoy. patriotism or peace? Global peace - patriotism or peace

Patriotism or Peace?

Your Majesty,

You write to me asking me to speak out on the issue of the North American States with England “in the interests of Christian consistency and true peace”, and express the hope “that the peoples will soon awaken to the only means of ensuring international peace».

I have the same hope. I nourish this hope because the blindness in which peoples in our time find themselves praising patriotism, raising their younger generations in the superstition of patriotism and, meanwhile, not wanting the inevitable consequences of patriotism - war, has reached, it seems to me, to that final degree. in which the simplest reasoning, begging to be spoken on the tongue of every unprejudiced person, is enough for people to see the glaring contradiction in which they find themselves.

Often, when you ask children what they choose from two incompatible things, but which they both really want, they answer: both. What do you want: go for a ride or play at home? And go for a ride and play at home.

In exactly the same way, Christian peoples answer us the question life poses to them: which of the two do they choose: patriotism or peace? They answer: both patriotism and peace, although combining patriotism and peace is as impossible as going for a ride and staying at home at the same time.

The other day there was a clash between the North American States and England over the borders of Venezuela. Salisbury did not agree to something, Cleveland wrote a message to the Senate, patriotic, warlike cries were heard from both sides, panic occurred on the stock exchange, people lost millions of pounds and dollars, Edison announced that he would invent such shells that could kill in an hour more people, than Attila killed in all his wars, and both peoples began to energetically prepare for war. But is it because, simultaneously with these preparations for war, both in England and in America, various writers, princes and statesmen began to admonish the governments of both peoples that they should refrain from war, that the subject of contention was not important enough to start a war, especially between two related, speaking the same language, Anglo-Saxon peoples, who should not fight each other, but calmly dominate others. Either because all kinds of bishops and archdeacons, canons prayed about it and read sermons in their churches, or because both sides did not consider themselves ready yet, but it so happened that there would be no war this time. And the people calmed down.

But one must have too little perspicacité (insight) not to see that the reasons that have now led to the clash between England and America remain the same, and that if the current clash is resolved without war, then inevitably tomorrow, the day after tomorrow other clashes will appear between England and America, and England and Germany, and England and Russia, and England and Turkey in all possible movements, as they arise every day, and one of them will inevitably lead to war.

After all, if two armed men live side by side, who have been inspired from childhood that power, wealth and glory are the highest virtues and that therefore acquiring power, wealth and glory with weapons to the detriment of other neighboring rulers is the most commendable thing, and if at the same time these people are not is there any moral, religious, or state restrictions, then isn’t it obvious that such people will always fight, that their normal relationship with each other will be war, and that if such people, having fought, separated for a while, then they did this only because French proverb: poor mieux sauter, i.e. They scattered in order to jump better and rush at each other with greater frenzy.

The egoism of private people is terrible, but egoists privacy are not armed, do not consider it good to either prepare or use weapons against their rivals; the selfishness of private people is controlled and state power and public opinion. A private person who, with a weapon in his hands, takes away a neighbor’s cow or a tithe of crops will immediately be taken by the police and put in prison. Moreover, such a person will be condemned public opinion, he will be called a thief and robber. It’s completely different with states: they are all armed, there is no power over them, except for comic attempts to catch a bird, throwing salt on its tail, attempts to establish international congresses, which, obviously, will never be accepted by powerful (that’s why they are armed, so as not to listen to anyone) states, and the main thing is that public opinion, which punishes any violence of a private person, praises and elevates into the virtue of patriotism any appropriation of someone else’s property for increasing the power of his fatherland.

For as long as you want, open the newspapers and always, every minute you will see a black dot, the reason for a possible war: it will be Korea, then the Pamirs, then African lands, then Abyssinia, then Armenia, then Turkey, then Venezuela, then the Transvaal. The banditry’s work does not stop for a minute, and here and there there is a small war going on, like a shootout in a chain, and a real one, big war can and should begin any minute.

If an American desires the greatness and prosperity of America, preferable to all other nations, and the Englishman desires exactly the same, and the Russian, and the Turk, and the Dutchman, and the Abyssinian, and the citizen of Venezuela and the Transvaal, and the Armenian, and the Pole, and the Czech desire the same, and they are all convinced that these desires not only should not be hidden and suppressed, but that one can be proud of these desires and should develop them in oneself and others, and if the greatness and prosperity of one country or people cannot be acquired otherwise than at the expense of another or sometimes many other countries and peoples, then how can there not be war. And therefore, in order for there to be no war, one must not read sermons and pray to God for peace, not persuade English speaking nations to be friends with each other in order to rule over other nations, not to form dual and triple alliances against each other, not to marry princes to princesses of other nations, but to destroy what produces war. What produces war is the desire for the exclusive good of one’s people, what is called patriotism. Therefore, in order to destroy war, patriotism must be destroyed. And in order to destroy patriotism, you must first of all make sure that it is evil, and this is what is difficult to do.

Tell people that war is bad, they will laugh: who doesn’t know that? Say that patriotism is bad, and most people will agree, but with a small reservation. - Yes, bad patriotism is bad, but there is another patriotism, the one we adhere to. - But no one explains what this good patriotism is. If good patriotism consists in not being aggressive, as many say, then all patriotism, if it is not aggressive, is certainly retentionist, that is, that people want to retain what was previously conquered, since there is no country that would not have been founded by conquest, and it is impossible to retain what has been conquered by other means than those by which something is conquered, that is, by violence, murder. Even if patriotism is not restraining, then it is restorative - the patriotism of conquered, oppressed peoples - Armenians, Poles, Czechs, Irish, etc. And this patriotism is perhaps the worst, because it is the most embittered and requires the greatest violence.

Patriotism cannot be good. Why do people They do not say that selfishness can be good, although this could rather be argued, because selfishness is a natural feeling with which a person is born, while patriotism is an unnatural feeling, artificially instilled in him.

They will say: “Patriotism has united people into states and maintains the unity of states.” But people have already united into states, this thing has been accomplished; Why now support the exclusive devotion of people to their state, when this devotion produces terrible disasters for all states and peoples. After all, the same patriotism that brought about the unification of people into states is now destroying these very states. After all, if there was only one patriotism: the patriotism of some Englishmen, then it could be considered unifying or beneficial, but when, as now, there is patriotism: American, English, German, French, Russian, all opposite to one another, then patriotism is no longer connects and separates. To say that if patriotism was beneficial, uniting people into states, as it was during its heyday in Greece and Rome, then this makes patriotism now, after 1800 years of Christian life, just as beneficial, the same as saying that it is so just as plowing was useful and beneficial for the field before sowing, it will also be beneficial now that the sowing has already sprouted.

PATRIOTISM or PEACE?
Your Majesty,
You write to me asking me to speak out on the occasion of the North American States with England “in the interests of Christian consistency and true peace,” and expressing the hope “that the peoples will soon awaken to the only means of ensuring international peace.”
I have the same hope. I nourish this hope because the blindness in which peoples in our time find themselves praising patriotism, raising their younger generations in the superstition of patriotism and, meanwhile, not wanting the inevitable consequences of patriotism - war, has reached, it seems to me, to that final degree , in which the simplest reasoning, begging to be spoken on the tongue of every unprejudiced person, is enough for people to see the glaring contradiction in which they find themselves.

Often, when you ask children what they choose from two incompatible things, but which they both really want, they answer: both. What do you want: go for a ride or play at home? And go for a ride and play at home.
In exactly the same way, Christian peoples answer us the question life poses to them: which of the two do they choose: patriotism or peace? They answer: both patriotism and peace, although combining patriotism and peace is as impossible as going for a ride and staying at home at the same time. [...]
After all, if two armed men live side by side, who have been inspired from childhood that power, wealth and glory are the highest virtues and that therefore acquiring power, wealth and glory with weapons to the detriment of other neighboring rulers is the most commendable thing, and if at the same time these people are not is there any moral, religious, or state restrictions, then isn’t it obvious that such people will always fight, that their normal relationship with each other will be war, and that if such people, having fought, separated for a while, then they did this only because French proverb: poor mieux sauter, i.e. They scattered in order to jump better and rush at each other with greater frenzy.

The egoism of private people is terrible, but the egoists of private life are not armed, they do not consider it good to either prepare or use weapons against their rivals; the selfishness of private people is under the control of both state power and public opinion.
A private person who, with a weapon in his hands, takes away a neighbor’s cow or a tithe of crops will immediately be taken by the police and put in prison. In addition, such a person will be condemned by public opinion, he will be called a thief and robber.
It’s completely different with states: they are all armed, there is no power over them, except for comic attempts to catch a bird by throwing salt on its tail, attempts to establish international congresses, which, obviously, will never be accepted by the powerful (that’s why they are armed, so that not to obey anyone) by states, and the main thing is that public opinion, which punishes any violence of a private person, praises and elevates into the virtue of patriotism any appropriation of someone else’s property to increase the power of one’s fatherland.

For as long as you want, open the newspapers and always, every minute you will see a black dot, the reason for a possible war: it will be Korea, then the Pamirs, then African lands, then Abyssinia, then Armenia, then Turkey, then Venezuela, then the Transvaal. The banditry’s work does not stop for a minute, and here and there a small war is going on without ceasing, like a shootout in a chain, and a real, big war can and should begin any minute.

If an American desires the greatness and prosperity of America, preferable to all other nations, and the Englishman desires exactly the same, and the Russian, and the Turk, and the Dutchman, and the Abyssinian, and the citizen of Venezuela and the Transvaal, and the Armenian, and the Pole, and the Czech desire the same, and they are all convinced that these desires not only should not be hidden and suppressed, but that one can be proud of these desires and should develop them in oneself and others, and if the greatness and prosperity of one country or people cannot be acquired otherwise than at the expense of another or sometimes many other countries and peoples, then how can there not be war.
And therefore, in order for there to be no war, one must not read sermons and pray to God for peace, not persuade English speaking nations to be friends with each other in order to rule over other nations, not to form dual and triple alliances against each other, not to marry princes to princesses of other nations, but to destroy what produces war.

What produces war is the desire for the exclusive good of one’s people, what is called patriotism. Therefore, in order to destroy war, patriotism must be destroyed. And in order to destroy patriotism, you must first of all make sure that it is evil, and this is what is difficult to do.
Tell people that war is bad, they will laugh: who doesn’t know that? Say that patriotism is bad, and most people will agree, but with a small reservation.
- Yes, bad patriotism is bad, but there is another patriotism, the one we adhere to.
But no one explains what this good patriotism is. If good patriotism consists in not being aggressive, as many say, then all patriotism, if it is not aggressive, is certainly retentionist, that is, that people want to retain what was previously conquered, since there is no country that would not have been founded by conquest, and it is impossible to retain what has been conquered by other means than those by which something is conquered, that is, by violence, murder.
Even if patriotism is not restraining, then it is restorative - the patriotism of conquered, oppressed peoples - Armenians, Poles, Czechs, Irish, etc. And this patriotism is perhaps the worst, because it is the most embittered and requires the greatest violence.

Patriotism cannot be good. Why don’t people say that selfishness can be good, although this could rather be argued, because selfishness is a natural feeling with which a person is born, while patriotism is an unnatural feeling, artificially instilled in him.
They will say: “Patriotism has united people into states and maintains the unity of states.” But people have already united into states, this thing has been accomplished; Why now support the exclusive devotion of people to their state, when this devotion produces terrible disasters for all states and peoples.
After all, the same patriotism that brought about the unification of people into states is now destroying these very states. After all, if there was only one patriotism: the patriotism of some Englishmen, then it could be considered unifying or beneficial, but when, as now, there is patriotism: American, English, German, French, Russian, all opposite to one another, then patriotism is no longer connects and separates. [...]

Why are Armenians and Turks now suffering and being slaughtered and brutalized? Why do England and Russia, each preoccupied with its share of the inheritance after Turkey, wait and not stop the Armenian massacres? Why do Abyssinians and Italians cut themselves? Why did a terrible war almost break out over Venezuela, and now over the Transvaal? What about the Sino-Japanese War, and the Turkish, and the German, French? And the bitterness of the conquered peoples: Armenians, Poles, Irish! What about preparations for a war of all nations? - All these are the fruits of patriotism. Seas of blood have been shed because of this feeling and will be shed more because of it if people do not free themselves from this outdated remnant of antiquity. [...]

Serious, old, intelligent, kind people and, most importantly, standing like a city on the top of a mountain, people who involuntarily lead the masses by their example, pretend that the legality and beneficence of patriotism is so obvious and undoubted that there is no point in responding to frivolous and insane attacks on this sacred feeling, and the majority of people, deceived and infected by patriotism from childhood, take this arrogant silence as the most convincing argument and continue to stagnate in their ignorance.
And therefore, those people who, by their position, can save the masses from their misfortunes and do not do this, commit a great sin. The most terrible evil in the world is hypocrisy. [...]

Whether people want it or not, the question clearly faces humanity: how can that patriotism, from which innumerable physical and moral sufferings of people arise, be necessary and be a virtue? And this question needs to be answered. It is necessary either to show that patriotism is such a great good that it redeems all the terrible disasters that it produces in humanity, or to admit that patriotism is an evil that not only should not be instilled and instilled in people, but from which we must try with all our might get rid of. [...]

We must educate the younger generations in such a way that, as it is now a shame young man to show your gross selfishness, for example, by eating everything without leaving it for others, pushing the weakest out of the way so that you can pass yourself, taking by force what another needs - it would be just as shameful to want to increase the power of your fatherland; and just as praising oneself is now considered stupid and ridiculous, so would praising one’s own people be considered [stupid], as it is now done in various false national stories, paintings, monuments, textbooks, articles, poems, sermons and stupid folk hymns.
But we must understand that as long as we praise patriotism and educate it in younger generations, we will have weapons that destroy both the physical and spiritual life of peoples, there will be terrible wars, terrible wars, like those for whom we are preparing and into whose circle we are now introducing, corrupting them with our patriotism, new terrible fighters Far East. [...]

To the question of one king: how many and how to add troops in order to defeat one southern people who did not submit to him, Confucius answered: “destroy your entire army, use what you are spending now on the army, on the education of your people and on improving agriculture, and the southern people will drive out their king and submit to your power without war.”
This is what Confucius taught, whom we are advised to fear. We, having forgotten the teachings of Christ, having renounced him, want to conquer the nations by force and by this we are only preparing for ourselves new and more strong enemies than our neighbors. [...]
And therefore, the salvation of Europe and the Christian world in general does not lie in rushing, like robbers, hung with swords, as William depicted them, to kill their brothers overseas, but, on the contrary, in abandoning the relic of barbaric times - patriotism and, refusing from him, take off your weapon and show eastern peoples not an example of wild patriotism and brutality, but an example of fraternal life [...].

Magazine "Tolstoy's Leaf/Forbidden Tolstoy", third issue, publishing house "AVICO PRESS", Moscow, 1993. OCR: Gabriel Mumzhiev ( [email protected])

Your Majesty,

You write to me asking me to speak out on the occasion of the North American States with England “in the interests of Christian consistency and true peace,” and expressing the hope “that the peoples will soon awaken to the only means of ensuring international peace.” I have the same hope. I nourish this hope because the blindness in which people in our time find themselves praising patriotism, raising their young generations in the superstition of patriotism and, meanwhile, not wanting the inevitable consequences of patriotism-war, has reached, it seems to me, to that final degree. in which the simplest reasoning, begging to be spoken by every unprejudiced person, is enough for people to see the glaring contradiction in which they find themselves.

Often, when you ask children what they choose from two incompatible things, but which they both really want, they answer: both. What do you want: go for a ride or play at home? And go for a ride and play at home.

In exactly the same way, Christian peoples answer us the question posed to them by life: which of the two do they choose: patriotism or peace? They answer: both patriotism and peace, although combining patriotism and peace is as impossible as going for a ride and staying at home at the same time.

The other day there was a clash between the North American States and England over the borders of Venezuela. Salisbury did not agree to something, Cleveland wrote a message to the Senate, patriotic, warlike cries were heard from both sides, panic occurred on the stock exchange, people lost millions of pounds and dollars, Edison announced that he would invent such shells that could kill in an hour more people than Attila killed in all his wars, and both peoples began to energetically prepare for war. But is it because, simultaneously with these preparations for war, both in England and in America, various men of letters, princes and statesmen began to exhort the governments of both nations to refrain from war, that the subject of contention was not important enough to begin a war, especially between two related, speaking the same language, Anglo-Saxon peoples, who should not fight among themselves, but calmly! dominate others. Either because all kinds of bishops and archdeacons, canons prayed about it and read sermons in their churches, or because both sides did not consider themselves ready yet, but it so happened that there would be no war this time. And the people calmed down.

But one must have too little perspicacité (insight) not to see that the reasons that have now led to the clash between England and America remain the same, and that if the current clash is resolved without war, then inevitably tomorrow, the day after tomorrow other clashes will appear between England and America, and England and Germany, and England and Russia, and England and Turkey in all possible movements, as they arise daily, and one of them will inevitably lead to war.

After all, if two armed men live side by side, who have been inspired from childhood that power, wealth and glory are the highest virtues and that therefore acquiring power, wealth and glory with weapons to the detriment of other neighboring rulers is the most commendable thing, and if at the same time these people are not is there any moral, religious, or state restrictions, then isn’t it obvious that such people will always fight, that their normal relationship with each other will be war, and that if such people, having fought, separated for a while, then they did this only in French proverb: pour mieux sauter, i.e. They scattered in order to jump better and rush at each other with greater frenzy.

The egoism of private people is terrible, but the egoists of private life are not armed, they do not consider it good to either prepare or use weapons against their rivals; the selfishness of private people is under the control of both state power and public opinion. A private person who, with a weapon in his hands, takes away a neighbor’s cow or a tithe of crops will immediately be taken by the police and put in prison. In addition, such a person will be condemned by public opinion, he will be called a thief and robber. It’s completely different with states: they are all armed, there is no power over them, except for comic attempts to catch a bird by throwing salt on its tail, attempts to establish international congresses, which, obviously, will never be accepted by the powerful (that’s why they are armed, so that not to obey anyone) by states, and the main thing is that public opinion, which punishes any violence of a private person, praises and elevates into the virtue of patriotism any appropriation of someone else’s property to increase the power of one’s fatherland.

For as long as you want, open the newspapers and always, every minute you will see a black dot, the reason for a possible war: it will be Korea, then the Pamirs, then African lands, then Abyssinia, then Armenia, then Turkey, then Venezuela, then the Transvaal. The banditry’s work does not stop for a minute, and here and there a small war is going on without ceasing, like a shootout in a chain, and a real, big war can and should begin any minute.

If an American desires the greatness and prosperity of America, preferable to all other nations, and the Englishman desires exactly the same, and the Russian, and the Turk, and the Dutchman, and the Abyssinian, and the citizen of Venezuela and the Transvaal, and the Armenian, and the Pole, and the Czech desire the same, and they are all convinced that these desires not only should not be hidden and suppressed, but that one can be proud of these desires and should develop them in oneself and others, and if the greatness and prosperity of one country or people cannot be acquired otherwise than at the expense of another or sometimes many other countries and peoples, then how can there not be war. And therefore, in order for there to be no war, one must not read sermons and pray to God for peace, not persuade English speaking nations to be friends with each other in order to rule over other nations, not to form dual and triple alliances against each other, not to marry princes to princesses of other nations, but to destroy what produces war. What produces war is the desire for the exclusive good of one’s people, what is called patriotism. Therefore, in order to destroy war, patriotism must be destroyed. And in order to destroy patriotism, you must first of all make sure that it is evil, and this is what is difficult to do.

Tell people that war is bad, they will laugh: who doesn’t know that? Say that patriotism is bad, and most people will agree, but with a small reservation. -Yes, bad patriotism is bad, but there is another patriotism, the one we adhere to. - But no one explains what this good patriotism is. If good patriotism consists in not being aggressive, as many say, then all patriotism, if it is not aggressive, is certainly retentionist, that is, that people want to retain what was previously conquered, since there is no country that would not have been founded by conquest, and it is impossible to retain what has been conquered by other means than those by which something is conquered, that is, by violence, murder. If patriotism is not even restraining, then it is restorative - the patriotism of the conquered, oppressed peoples - Armenians, Poles, Czechs, Irish, etc. And this patriotism is perhaps the worst, because it is the most embittered and requires the greatest violence.

Patriotism cannot be good. Why don’t people say that selfishness can be good, although this could rather be argued, because selfishness is a natural feeling with which a person is born, while patriotism is an unnatural feeling, artificially instilled in him.

They will say: “Patriotism has united people into states and maintains the unity of states.” But people have already united into states, this thing has been accomplished; Why now support the exclusive devotion of people to their state, when this devotion produces terrible disasters for all states and peoples. After all, the same patriotism that brought about the unification of people into states is now destroying these very states. After all, if there was only one patriotism: the patriotism of some Englishmen, then it could be considered unifying or beneficial, but when, as now, there is patriotism: American, English, German, French, Russian, all opposite to one another, then patriotism is no longer connects and separates. To say that if patriotism was beneficial, uniting people into states, as it was during its heyday in Greece and Rome, then this makes patriotism now, after 1800 years of Christian life, just as beneficial, the same as saying that it is so just as plowing was useful and beneficial for the field before sowing, it will also be beneficial now that the sowing has already sprouted.

After all, it would be good to preserve patriotism in memory of the benefits that it once brought to people, just as people preserve and preserve ancient monuments of temples, tombs, etc. But the temples stand without causing any harm to people, while patriotism never ceases to produce innumerable disasters.

Why are Armenians and Turks now suffering and being slaughtered and brutalized? Why do England and Russia, each preoccupied with its share of the inheritance after Turkey, wait and not stop the Armenian massacres? Why do Abyssinians and Italians cut themselves? Why did a terrible war almost break out over Venezuela, and now over the Transvaal? What about the Sino-Japanese War, and the Turkish, and the German, French? And the bitterness of the conquered peoples: Armenians, Poles, Irish! What about preparations for a war of all nations? - All these are the fruits of patriotism. Seas of blood have been shed because of this feeling and will be shed more because of it if people do not free themselves from this outdated remnant of antiquity.

I have already had to write several times about patriotism, about its complete incompatibility with the teachings of not only Christ, in its ideal sense, but also with the lowest moral requirements of Christian society, and each time my arguments were answered either with silence or with an arrogant indication of this that the thoughts I express are utopian expressions of mysticism, anarchism and cosmopolitanism. Often my thoughts were repeated in a condensed form, and instead of objections to them, only that this was nothing more than cosmopolitanism was added, as if this word “cosmopolitanism” irrevocably refuted all my arguments.

Serious, old, intelligent, kind people and, most importantly, standing like a city on the top of a mountain, people who involuntarily lead the masses by their example, pretend that the legality and beneficence of patriotism is so obvious and undoubted that there is no point in responding to frivolous and insane attacks on this sacred feeling, and the majority of people, deceived and infected by patriotism from childhood, take this arrogant silence as the most convincing argument and continue to stagnate in their ignorance.

And therefore, those people who, due to their position, can save the masses from their disasters and do not do this, are committing a great sin.

The most terrible evil in the world is hypocrisy. It is not for nothing that Christ was angry only once, and this was against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

But what was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees compared to the hypocrisy of our time. In comparison with ours, the hypocrites-Pharisees were the most truthful people, and their art of hypocrisy in comparison with our art is child's play. And it cannot be otherwise. Our entire life with the confession of Christianity, the teachings of humility and love, combined with the life of an armed bandit camp, cannot be anything other than complete, terrible hypocrisy. It is very convenient to profess a teaching in which: at one end is Christian holiness and therefore infallibility, and at the other - a pagan sword and a gallows, so that when it is possible to impress and deceive with holiness, holiness is used, but when deception fails, it is used the sword and the gallows are used. Such teaching is very convenient, but the time comes when this web of lies spreads and it is no longer possible to continue! You have to stick to one and the other and you have to join one or the other. This is what is happening now in relation to the doctrine of patriotism.

Whether people want it or not, the question clearly faces humanity: How can that patriotism, from which innumerable physical and moral sufferings of people arise, be necessary and be a virtue? And this question needs to be answered. It is necessary either to show that patriotism is such a great good that it redeems all the terrible disasters that it produces in humanity, or to admit that patriotism is an evil that not only should not be instilled and instilled in people, but from which we must try with all our might get rid of.

C "est a prendre ou a laisser, [get rid of it if you want, or don't get rid of it] as the French say. If patriotism is good, then Christianity, which gives peace, is an empty dream, and the sooner this teaching is eradicated, the better. If Christianity really gives peace and we really want peace, then patriotism is a relic of barbaric times, which not only does not need to be aroused and educated, as we do now, but which must be eradicated by all means: preaching, persuasion, contempt, ridicule. If Christianity is the truth and we want it. to live in peace, then not only cannot you sympathize with the power of your fatherland, but you must rejoice at its weakening and contribute to this. You must rejoice when Poland, the Baltic Sea region, Finland, and Armenia separate from Russia; and other colonies and contribute to this, because the larger the state, the more evil and cruel its patriotism, the more suffering its power is based on. And therefore, if we really want to be what we profess, we not only should not, as now, want to increase our state, but want to reduce it, weaken it and contribute with all our might to this. And that’s how we raise younger generations. Young generations must be educated in such a way that, just as a young man is now ashamed to show his gross selfishness, for example, by eating everything without leaving it for others, pushing the weakest out of the way so that he can pass on his own, taking by force what another needs - the same would it was a shame to wish to increase the power of one’s fatherland; and just as praising oneself is now considered stupid and ridiculous, so would praising one’s own people be considered [stupid], as it is now done in various false national histories, paintings, monuments, textbooks, articles, poems, sermons and stupid folk anthems. But we must understand that as long as we praise patriotism and educate it in younger generations, we will have weapons that destroy both the physical and spiritual life of peoples, there will be wars, terrible, terrible wars, like those for which we are preparing and into whose circle we are now introducing, corrupting them with our patriotism, new terrible fighters from the Far East.

Emperor Wilhelm, one of the most comic figures of our time, orator, poet, musician, playwright and painter and, most importantly, a patriot, recently painted a picture depicting all the peoples of Europe with swords, standing on the seashore and, at the direction of the Archangel Michael, looking at those sitting in the distance Buddha figures in Confucius. According to William's intention, this should mean that the peoples of Europe must unite to resist the danger looming from there. And he is absolutely right with his pagan, crude, patriotic point of view, which is 1800 years behind the times.

The European peoples, having forgotten Christ in the name of their patriotism, more and more irritated and taught patriotism and war to these peaceful peoples and have now irritated them so much that indeed, if only Japan and China will forget the teachings of Buddha and Confucius as completely as we have forgotten the teaching Christ, they will soon learn the art of killing people (they will soon learn this, as Japan showed) and, being fearless, dexterous, strong and numerous, they will inevitably very soon make them out of the countries of Europe, unless Europe is able to oppose something stronger than weapons and inventions of Edison, what European countries make from Africa. “A disciple is not greater than his teacher, but even when he is perfected, everyone will be like his teacher” (Luke VI, 40).

To the question of one king: how many and how to add troops in order to defeat one southern people who did not submit to him, Confucius answered: “destroy your entire army, use what you are spending now on the army, on the education of your people and on improving agriculture, and the southern people will drive out their king and submit to your power without war.”

This is what Confucius taught, whom we are advised to fear. We, having forgotten the teaching of Christ, having renounced it, want to conquer the nations by force, and by doing this we are only preparing for ourselves new and stronger enemies than our neighbors.

One of my friends, having seen Wilhelm’s painting, said: “The painting is beautiful. Only it means something completely different from what is signed. It means that the Archangel Michael is indicating to all the governments of Europe, depicted as robbers hung with weapons, what will destroy and destroy them.” , namely, the gentleness of the Buddha and the intelligence of Confucius." He could add: “And the humility of Lao-Tse.” And indeed, thanks to our hypocrisy, we have forgotten Christ to such an extent, eradicated everything Christian from our lives, that the teachings of Buddha and Confucius stand without comparison above the brutal patriotism that guides our pseudo-Christian peoples.

And therefore, the salvation of Europe and the Christian world in general does not lie in rushing, like robbers, hung with swords, as William depicted them, to kill their brothers overseas, but, on the contrary, in abandoning the relic of barbaric times - patriotism and, abandoning him, take off our weapons and show the eastern peoples not an example of wild patriotism and brutality, but an example of the brotherly life that we were taught by Christ.

http://philosophy.ru/library/tolstoy/tol1.html

Patriotism or Peace?

“...Often, when you ask children what they choose from two incompatible things, but which they both really want, they answer: both. What do you want: go for a ride or play at home? And go for a ride and play at home. In exactly the same way, Christian peoples answer us the question life poses to them: which of the two do they choose: patriotism or peace? They answer: both patriotism and peace, although combining patriotism and peace is just as impossible as going for a ride and staying at home at the same time..."

Your Majesty,

You write to me asking me to speak out on the occasion of the North American States with England “in the interests of Christian consistency and true peace,” and expressing the hope “that the peoples will soon awaken to the only means of ensuring international peace.”

I have the same hope. I nourish this hope because the blindness in which peoples in our time find themselves praising patriotism, raising their younger generations in the superstition of patriotism and, meanwhile, not wanting the inevitable consequences of patriotism - war, has reached, it seems to me, to that final degree. in which the simplest reasoning, begging to be spoken on the tongue of every unprejudiced person, is enough for people to see the glaring contradiction in which they find themselves.

Often, when you ask children what they choose from two incompatible things, but which they both really want, they answer: both. What do you want: go for a ride or play at home? And go for a ride and play at home.

In exactly the same way, Christian peoples answer us the question life poses to them: which of the two do they choose: patriotism or peace? They answer: both patriotism and peace, although combining patriotism and peace is as impossible as going for a ride and staying at home at the same time.

The other day there was a clash between the North American States and England over the borders of Venezuela. Salisbury did not agree to something, Cleveland wrote a message to the Senate, patriotic, warlike cries were heard from both sides, panic occurred on the stock exchange, people lost millions of pounds and dollars, Edison announced that he would invent such shells that could kill in an hour more people than Attila killed in all his wars, and both peoples began to energetically prepare for war. But is it because, simultaneously with these preparations for war, both in England and in America, various men of letters, princes and statesmen began to exhort the governments of both nations to refrain from war, that the subject of contention was not important enough to begin war, especially between two related, speaking the same language, Anglo-Saxon peoples, who should not fight among themselves, but calmly rule over others. Either because all kinds of bishops and archdeacons, canons prayed about it and read sermons in their churches, or because both sides did not consider themselves ready yet, but it so happened that there would be no war this time. And the people calmed down.

But one must have too little perspicacité (insight) not to see that the reasons that have now led to the clash between England and America remain the same, and that if the current clash is resolved without war, then inevitably tomorrow, the day after tomorrow other clashes will appear between England and America, and England and Germany, and England and Russia, and England and Turkey in all possible movements, as they arise every day, and one of them will inevitably lead to war.

After all, if two armed men live side by side, who have been inspired from childhood that power, wealth and glory are the highest virtues and that therefore acquiring power, wealth and glory with weapons to the detriment of other neighboring rulers is the most commendable thing, and if at the same time these people are not is there any moral, religious, or state restrictions, then isn’t it obvious that such people will always fight, that their normal relationship with each other will be war, and that if such people, having fought, separated for a while, then they did this only because French proverb: poor mieux sauter, i.e. They scattered in order to jump better and rush at each other with greater frenzy.

The egoism of private people is terrible, but the egoists of private life are not armed, they do not consider it good to either prepare or use weapons against their rivals; the selfishness of private people is under the control of both state power and public opinion. A private person who, with a weapon in his hands, takes away a neighbor’s cow or a tithe of crops will immediately be taken by the police and put in prison. In addition, such a person will be condemned by public opinion, he will be called a thief and robber. It is completely different with states: they are all armed, there is no power over them, except for comic attempts to catch a bird by throwing salt on its tail, attempts to establish international congresses, which, obviously, will never be accepted by the powerful (that is why they are armed so that not to obey anyone) by states, and the main thing is that public opinion, which punishes any violence of a private person, praises and elevates into the virtue of patriotism any appropriation of someone else’s property to increase the power of one’s fatherland.

For as long as you want, open the newspapers and always, every minute you will see a black dot, the reason for a possible war: it will be Korea, then the Pamirs, then African lands, then Abyssinia, then Armenia, then Turkey, then Venezuela, then the Transvaal. The banditry’s work does not stop for a minute, and here and there a small war is going on without ceasing, like a shootout in a chain, and a real, big war can and should begin any minute.

If an American desires the greatness and prosperity of America, preferable to all other nations, and the Englishman desires exactly the same, and the Russian, and the Turk, and the Dutchman, and the Abyssinian, and the citizen of Venezuela and the Transvaal, and the Armenian, and the Pole, and the Czech desire the same, and they are all convinced that these desires not only should not be hidden and suppressed, but that one can be proud of these desires and should develop them in oneself and others, and if the greatness and prosperity of one country or people cannot be acquired otherwise than at the expense of another or sometimes many other countries and peoples, then how can there not be war. And therefore, in order for there to be no war, one must not read sermons and pray to God for peace, not persuade English speaking nations to be friends with each other in order to rule over other nations, not to form dual and triple alliances against each other, not to marry princes to princesses of other nations, but to destroy what produces war. What produces war is the desire for the exclusive good of one’s people, what is called patriotism. Therefore, in order to destroy war, patriotism must be destroyed. And in order to destroy patriotism, you must first of all make sure that it is evil, and this is what is difficult to do.