Nationalism and Culture (46 page)

No, the way to health can only lie in the direction of freedom, for every dictatorship is based on an extreme attitude of dependence which can never further the cause of liberation. Even when dictatorship is regarded as only a transitional state necessary to reach a desired goal, the practical activity of its leaders, even if they really have the honest intention to serve the cause of the people, forces them always farther from their original aimj not only because every provisional government, as Proudhon says, always strives to make itself permanent, but most of all because all power is inherently uncreative and therefore incites to misuse. One may think of using power as a means to an end, but the means itself soon grows into a selfish end before which all others vanish. It is just because power is unfruitful and cannot give birth to anything creative itself that it is compelled to draft the creative forces of society into its service. It is compelled to put on a false garment to hide its own weakness, and this circumstance seduces its leaders into false promises and conscious deception. By striving to make the creative force of the community subservient to its special ends it kills the deepest roots of this force and chokes the sources of all creative activity, which, while it welcomes stimulation, will not endure compulsion.

A people cannot be liberated by subjecting it to a new and greater power and thus starting again around the vicious circle of stupidity. Every form of dependency leads inevitably to a new system of slavery—dictatorship more than any other form of government, because it forcibly suppresses every adverse judgment upon the activity of its leaders and so inhibits in advance any better understanding. Every condition of dependence, however, has its roots in man's religious consciousness and cripples his creative powers, which can only develop properly in freedom. The whole of human history has up to now been a constant struggle between the cultural, creative forces of society and the power aims of particular castes, whose leaders put definite bounds to cultural efforts, or at least tried to do so. Culture gives man consciousness of his humanity and

creative strength j but power deepens in him the sense of dependence and of slavish bondage.

It is necessary to free man from the curse of power, from the cannibalism of exploitation, in order to release in him those creative forces which can continually give his life new meaning. Power degrades man into a dead part of a machine set in motion by a superior will. Culture makes him the master and builder of his own destiny and deepens in him that feeling of communion from which everything great is born. Man's liberation from the organized force of the state and the narrow bondage of the nation is the beginning of a new humanity, which feels its wings grow in freedom and finds its strength in the community. Lao Tse's gentle wisdom holds good also for the future:

To rule according to the Way is to rule without force: Just and equal give-and-take rules in the community.

Where there is war, there grow thorns, and the year is without harvest.

The good man Is, and does not need force,

Is and does not rely on splendor.

Is and does not boast or glory,

Is and does not support himself on his deed,

Is and does not found himself on severity.

Is and does not strive after power.

Zenith means decline.

All outside of the way is apart from the way.

THE NATIONAL CONCEPT IN THE PROCESS OF TIME. THE NATION AS COMMUNITY OF DESCENT. THE NATION AS COMMUNITY OF INTEREST. DIVISION OF THE NATION INTO CASTES, RANKS AND CLASSES. NATIONAL INTEREST AND CLASS INTEREST. THE CONFLICT IN THE RUHR. POIN-CARES "NATIONAL POLICY." THE DEALINGS OF GERMAN HEAVY INDUSTRY WITH THE "HEREDITARY ENEMY" AGAINST GERMAN LABOR. THE "FOLK COMMUNITY" AT WORK. THE PENSIONERS OF THE GERMAN REPUBLIC. THE NATION AS COMMUNITY OF SPIRITUAL INTEREST. RELI-c;l()(S AND PARTY CONFLICTS. WORLD-PHILOSOPHICAL ANTAGONISMS. THE NATION AS COMMUNITY OF MORALS AND CUSTOMS. CITY AND COUNIRY. RICH AND POOR. THE NATIONAL TRADITION. MEMBERSHIP IN THE NATION AS THE RESULT OF POLITICAL EFFORTS. NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA. THE NATION AND SOCIETY.

THE concepts of the nation and nationality have in the course of time undergone many changes, and have even today the same double meaning as the concept of race. During the Middle Ages the unions of fellow countrymen who were students in the universities were called nations. The famous University of Prague was divided into "four nations": Bavarians, Bohemians, Poles and Saxons. One also spoke frequently of a nation of physicians, of smiths, of lawyers, and so on. Even Luther makes a decided distinction between folk and nation in his pamphlet, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation^ designating as the nation the possessors of political power exclusively, that is, princes, knights and bishops, in contradistinction to the common people. This distinction prevailed for a considerable time, until gradually the demarcation between nation and people began to disappear in language. Frequently an unpleasant flavor was attached to the concept of the nation. Ludwig Jahn argues, thus, in his German Folkways:

That which really is the highest, and was so regarded in Greece and Rome, is with us still a term of revilcmcnt: Folk and Nation! "He has gone among the folk," was said of the miserable deserters who for the sake of the money they got from the recruiting officer ran away, and will serve seven

potentates in one pair of shoes. "That's the regular nation," was colloquially said of Gypsies, thievish vagabonds, tramps, and Jewish peddlers.

There was a time when one was content to use the term "nation" o£ a human community whose members were born in the same place and were consequently held together by fundamental social relations. This concept corresponds best to the meaning of the Latin word natio, from which the term "nation" is derived. This is the more understandable since it is based on the more limited idea of home. But this concept does not correspond to the modern idea of the nation, nor is it in harmony with the national endeavors of the time, which seek to give the nations the widest possible boundaries. Were the nation in fact to comprise only the neighborhood where a man first saw the light, and were national consciousness to be defined only as the natural feeling of attachment between men who have been welded into a community by being born in the one place, then we could not speak of Germans, Frenchmen, Turks and Japanese, but at the most of Hamburgers, Parisians, Amsterdammers, or Venetians—a situation which actually existed in the city republics of ancient Greece and the federated communities of the Middle Ages.

Later, the concept of the nation became much broader, comprising a human grouping which had developed through a community of material and spiritual interests, and of morals, customs and traditions j hence, it represents a sort of "community of destiny," which holds within itself the laws of its particular life. This concept is not nearly as clear as the first J and is, moreover, in conflict with the daily experiences of life. Every nation includes today the most various castes, conditions, classes and parties. These not only pursue their separate interests, but frequently face one another with definite antagonism. The results are countless, never-ending conflicts and inner antagonisms which are infinitely more difficult to overcome than the temporary wars between the various states and nations.

The same nations which only yesterday faced each other on the "field of honor," armed to the teeth, to settle their real or imaginary difficulties by bloody wars, tomorrow or the day after make alliances of defense and offense with their former enemies against other nations with whom they had been previously allied by trade agreements or treaties of a political or military nature. But the fight between the various classes within the same nation can never be eliminated so long as these classes themselves exist and cleave the nation with eternal economic and political antagonisms. Even when by extraordinary circumstances or catastrophic events the class antagonisms are apparently overcome or temporarily allayed, as by the proclamation of the so-called "citizens' peace" during the World War, it is only a passing phenomenon arising from the pressure

of circumstances, the real meaning of which is never clear to the great masses of the people. Such alliances have no permanency and they break apart at the first occasion for the lack of a real inner tie of community interests. A tyrannical system of government may under certain circumstances be able to prevent an open outbreak of inner conflicts, as has been done currently in Italy and Germanyj but one does not abolish internal conflicts by preventing the people from speaking about them.

The love of his own nation has never yet prevented the entrepreneur from using foreign labor if it was cheaper and made more profit for him. Whether his own people are thereby injured does not concern him in the least J the personal profit is the deciding factor in such a case, and so-called national interests are only considered when they are not in conflict with personal ones. When there is such conflict all patriotic enthusiasm vanishes. Concerning the nature of the so-called "national interests" Germany got a lesson during the frightful years after the war which is not easily misunderstood.

After losing the war Germany found itself in a desperate situation. It had to give up economic spheres of great importance, and its export trade had been almost totally lost. Added to this were the extreme economic mandates of the victors and the breakdown of the old system. If the slogan about national unity had any meaning at all it had to be proved at this stage that the nation was indeed minded to face the newly created conditions unitedly and equitably to spread the load of misfortune over all sections of the population. But this never entered the minds of the owning classes. On the contrary, they tried to make profits from the situation. These patriots were bent solely upon gain, even though wide sections of their own people would be thereby impoverished.

It was the representatives of Prussian junkerdom and German heavy industry who during the frightful years of the war had secretly advocated the most ruthless annexation policy and by their insatiable greed brought on the great catastrophe of the debacle. Not content with the fabulous profits they had made during those years, they pursued the same ends when the war was over, and never for a moment considered sacrificing to the nation even a penny of their gains. The owners of German heavy industry got themselves relieved from the taxes which were deducted from the wages of even the poorest: laborer. They raised the price of coal to unheard-of levels while the nation froze in front of cold stoves. They knew how to make enormous profits from the paper credits of the Reichsbank. (It was just this speculation with the monetary distress which it had itself caused that gave heavy industry the power to confirm its rule over the hungry nation.) Its representatives, under the leadership of Hugo Stinnes, really brought about the occupation of the Ruhr, causing the

German nation to lose fifteen billion gold marks—to which these industrialists contributed not a single penny.

The Ruhr conflict in its various phases of development is a splendid illustration of the capitalistic "interest" policy as a background for the national ideology. The occupation of the Ruhr was but a continuation of the same criminal power policy which led to the World War and for four years dragged people to the shambles. This conflict concerned exclusively the antagonistic interest of German and French heavy industry. Just as the great German industrialists were during the war the most pronounced advocates of the annexation idea and made the incorporation of Briey-Longuy one of the chief objects of German propaganda, so, later on, Poincare's national policy followed the same line and represented the undisguised desire for annexation of French heavy industry and its powerful organization, the Comite des Forges. The same aims formerly pursued by the great German industrialists were now taken over by the representatives of French heavy industry, namely, the creation of certain monopolies on the continent under the direction of special capitalistic groups for whom the so-called "national interests" have always served as stalking horse for their own ruthless business interests. It was the union of the Lorraine iron mines with the coal fields of the Ruhr basin, in the form of a powerful amalgamation planned by French heavy industry, which was to secure for it an unlimited monopoly on the continent. And since the interests of the great industrialists harmonized with the interests of the gainers by the reparations and were favored by the military caste, so they worked from that side by every means for the occupation of the Ruhr.

But before it went so far there were negotiations between the German and French heavy industries for a peaceful, purely businesslike solution of the question whereby both parties were to profit in proportion to their forces. Such an understanding would indeed have been achieved, for the great German industrialists did not give a hang for the national interest of the Reich, so long as their profits were secure. But as the owners of the British coal mines, to whom an amalgamation on the continent would have been a severe blow, doubtless held out to them the prospect of greater advantages, they suddenly rediscovered their patriotic hearts and let the occupation proceed. Together with the laborers and office employees who, ignorant of the inner connections, again allowed themselves to be used in the interest of their masters, they organized a passive resistance, and the press owned by Stinnes blew mightily into the national trumpet in order to rouse the country's hatred against the hereditary enemy. When the resistance collapsed, Stinnes and the other owners of German industry did not wait on the Stresemann government, but dealt directly with the French. On October 5, 1923, Stinnes, Klockner, Velsen, and Vogler met

the French general, Degoutte, and tried to persuade him to enforce the ten-hour day on the German workers who only the day before had been their allies in the passive resistance against the French cabinet. Could there be a better illustration of the nation as community of interest? ^

Poincare seized on Germany's alleged failure in the coal deliveries as a pretext for letting the French troops march into the Ruhr. This was of course only an excuse to give plain robber raids an appearance of legality, as is plainly proved by the fact that France was at the time richer in coal than any land in Europe with the sole exception of England. The French government even saw itself compelled to impose an extra duty of 10 percent on coal from the Saar in order to protect French coal in the home market. The fact is that 20 percent of this coal was being sent back into Germany and that only 35 percent of it was used in French industry.