WorkLeo Tolstoy

Patriotism and Government

Written after the Hague peace conference, in the middle of the Boer War: Tolstoy's case that there is no good patriotism, only the kind governments need.

by Leo Tolstoy60 passages held

Russian, the original language

Original title: Патриотизм и правительство
First published: 1900(aged 72)
Original language: Russian

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Overview

Whenever he attacked patriotism, Tolstoy writes at the start of this essay, the answer came back the same: only bad patriotism, jingoism and chauvinism, did harm, while true patriotism was a noble feeling, and condemning it was close to a crime. No one, he adds, ever said what the good kind consisted of. He had made the attack before, in "Christianity and Patriotism" in 1894, and here he takes on the reply. There is no good patriotism, he argues: preferring one's own nation to all others is unnatural, unreasonable and harmful; governments cultivate the feeling because they live by it, and it is what made Europe accept universal military service and the armaments that were ruining its peoples. The essay answered a German soldier, Johann Kleinpoppen, who had begged Tolstoy for a good book against war. Its evidence was the year just past: in 1899 delegates of the powers had met at The Hague for a disarmament conference proposed by the Russian government, which, Tolstoy notes, had just ordered an increase in its own army; within months Britain was at war with the Transvaal. For Tolstoy that sequence settled the matter: governments that spy on every movement of each other's troops cannot disarm by agreement, and the only way out is for people to free themselves from patriotism and from the obedience to governments that rests on it. Governments themselves, the last page says, are institutions left over from antiquity, and they will fall away once people understand that they are children of God rather than of fatherlands. Tolstoy signed it at Pirogovo, his brother Sergei's estate, on 10 May 1900. It could not be printed in Russia. Vladimir Chertkov, his disciple, exiled to England since 1897, published it there through his Svobodnoe Slovo ("Free Word") press, and a German translation authorised by Tolstoy came out in Leipzig the same year.

Key concepts

What is the good patriotism that Tolstoy says does not exist?

It is the defence his critics always made: that jingoism and chauvinism do harm, but true patriotism is a noble feeling. Tolstoy's reply is that nobody ever said what that good kind consisted of, because it consists of nothing different. Any preference for one's own nation over all others is, in his words, unnatural, unreasonable and harmful, whatever name it is given.

Why do governments need patriotism, in Patriotism and Government?

Because they live by it. Tolstoy argues that governments cultivate the feeling since it is what makes people accept what governments require of them: universal military service, and armaments that were ruining the peoples of Europe. Patriotism is therefore not a natural sentiment governments happen to share but the instrument by which they keep their subjects obedient.

Why can governments not disarm by agreement, according to Tolstoy?

Because each one watches the others and none can afford to trust them. Governments that spy on every movement of each other's troops will not lay down arms by treaty. The year 1899 was his proof: the Russian government proposed the Hague disarmament conference just after enlarging its own army, and within months Britain was at war with the Transvaal.

What does Tolstoy mean by calling governments institutions left over from antiquity?

That they belong to an earlier stage of human life and have outlived their reason. Tolstoy expects them to fall away once people understand that they are children of God rather than of fatherlands. The change he looks for does not come from governments at all, but from people withdrawing the patriotism and obedience on which governments rest.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

There Is No Good Patriotism

Is there a noble patriotism hidden behind the bad kind, as Tolstoy's critics kept replying? He answers that preferring one's own nation is itself the harm.

Whenever Tolstoy attacked patriotism, the answer came back that only the bad kind, jingoism and chauvinism, did harm, while true patriotism was noble and condemning it close to a crime. No one, he notes, ever said what the good kind consisted of. His reply is that there is none: preferring one's own nation to all others is unnatural, unreasonable and harmful. Governments cultivate the feeling because they live by it, and it is what made Europe accept universal military service and the armaments that were ruining its peoples.

patriotism
nationalism
propaganda
political deception
education
militarism
conscription
ideals
war
imperialism

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Why Governments Cannot Disarm Themselves

Can peace come from agreements between governments? The Hague conference and the Boer War that followed persuaded Tolstoy it could come only from people withdrawing their obedience.

The year 1899 supplied the evidence. Delegates met at The Hague for a disarmament conference proposed by the Russian government, which had just ordered an increase in its own army, and within months Britain was at war with the Transvaal. Governments that spy on every movement of each other's troops, Tolstoy concluded, cannot disarm by agreement. The way out is for people to free themselves from patriotism and from the obedience that rests on it, and governments, institutions left over from antiquity, will then fall away.

government
disarmament
peace
international relations
state power
political power
power
historical development
anarchism
human brotherhood
christian ethics

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Within this work

passages held: 60
distinct concepts: 111
by passages held, corpus-wide: #622

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “patriotism” and “war”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 22 pairings. 38 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
patriotism	war	9
government	patriotism	7
militarism	patriotism	6
nationalism	patriotism	6
government	war	5
militarism	war	5
government	militarism	4
patriotism	political power	4
patriotism	political violence	4
nationalism	political violence	3
government	political power	2
imperialism	nationalism	2
imperialism	patriotism	2
imperialism	war	2
government	political violence	1
imperialism	militarism	1
imperialism	political violence	1
militarism	political violence	1
nationalism	political power	1
nationalism	war	1
political power	war	1
political violence	war	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1884 A Confession (Исповедь)
Tolstoy submitted it as an introduction to a larger, then-unpublished work, his critique of church theology and his own reading of the Gospels, and it stands at the door of everything he wrote after his conversion.
RU
1885 What I Believe (В чём моя вера?)
A statement of positive faith, written between 1882 and 1884: where A Confession ends at the threshold of belief, this book sets out what the belief is.
RU
1886 What Then Must We Do? (Так что же нам делать?)
Of all Tolstoy's post-conversion books, this is the one that starts in the street: it turns the religious conclusions of What I Believe onto money, work and the city he was living in.
RU
1888 On Life (О жизни)
After the social criticism of What Then Must We Do?, it gives Tolstoy's religious turn the form of a philosophical treatise, tried out first on Moscow's university philosophers.
RU
1892 The Four Gospels Harmonized and Translated (Соединение и перевод четырёх Евангелий)
The workshop behind What I Believe and everything after it, and the long study that A Confession was written to introduce: a work of translation and commentary rather than argument.
RU
1893 Religion and Morality (Религия и нравственность)
In the same year he finished The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Tolstoy set down here, in compact form, what he meant by religion.
RU
1893 The Kingdom of God Is Within You (Царство Божие внутри вас)
The doctrine of non-resistance that What I Believe set out as a personal faith is here turned against the state itself.
RU
1897 What Is Art? (Что такое искусство?)
Standing apart from the religious and political writing around it, this is Tolstoy's treatise on aesthetics.
RU
1900 Patriotism and Government (Патриотизм и правительство) you are here RU
1908 I Cannot Be Silent (Не могу молчать!)
Two years before his death, Tolstoy turned from the treatise to the newspaper page: a signed article addressed to everyone who ordered, carried out or lived by the executions of 1908.
RU

— or open another of their works