Religion, property, authority, the family, having slowly evolved from human aspirations, became gradually defined; but as they became precise in conception, as their purposes grew clear, they became the nucleus of an evolution which, as it developed, led them to concentrate more within themselves, and gradually transformed them into well-defined castes, each having its attributes and privileges. Of these the military caste was not the last to form, develop, and become preponderant everywhere. For wherever it was compelled to cede the foremost rank to the sacerdotal caste, it yielded merely an honorary precedence. Was it not at bottom the military caste which could, by its cooperation, ensure stability of power in the hands of those who held that power? Did it not furnish the nominal or real chiefs in whom was summed up the omnipotence of caste?

In all this conflict of interests the idea of “the country” held very little place. Group fought against group, tribe against tribe, and, in historic times, city against city; whole peoples, even, sought to enslave other peoples; nations, indeed, commenced to be distinguished; but the notion of a “fatherland” was still very vague and uncertain. We must come down to modern times before we see the idea of “the country” formulated, exact, and setting its authority above that of kings, priests, or warriors, who are no more than servants of this new metaphysical entity, “the country,” priests of the new religion. In France it was in 1789 that the idea of the country, together with that of the law, revealed itself in all its potency. It was an idea congenial to the bourgeoisie to substitute the authority of the nation for that of divine right, to present it to the workers as a synthesis of all rights, and to lead them to defend the new order of things by affording them the belief that they were struggling for the defense of their own rights. (For it is well to observe that the idea of the country, the nation, as it is called, summed up the whole of the people, their rights and institutions, rather than the soil itself. It was only little by little, and under the influence of ulterior causes, that the idea of the country shrunk and shriveled to the narrow sense taught today, of love of the soil without concern for those who live upon it or the institutions in operation among them.) But whatever the prevalent idea of the country, the bourgeoisie found it too much to their interest to cultivate that idea not to seek to develop it in men’s minds and make a religion of it, in the shelter of which they could preserve their sturdily contested authority. At all events the defense of the soil was but too good a pretext for maintaining the army necessary to the support of their privileges, and the “collective interest” an invincible argument for compelling the workers to contribute to the defense of said privileges. Happily the spirit of criticism grows and spreads day by day, and man no longer content with words wants to know their meaning. If he does not grasp it at the first attempt, his memory is capable of storing up the facts, deducing consequences and drawing a logical conclusion from them.

What, in reality, does the word “country” represent, beyond the natural affection one has for his family and his neighbors, and the attachment engendered by the habit of living upon one’s native soil? Nothing, less than nothing, to the major portion of those who go off to get their heads broken in wars of whose causes they are ignorant and whose cost they alone pay, as workers and combatants! Successful or disastrous, these wars cannot alter their situation in the least. Conquerors or conquered they are the ever-to-be-exploited, submissive cattle, subject to impress, which the capitalist class is anxious to keep under its thumb.

If we agree to the interpretation given it by those who talk the most about it, “the country” is the soil, the territory belonging to the State of which one is a subject. But States have only arbitrary limits; such limitation most frequently depends upon the issue of battles. Political groups were not always constituted in the same manner as they exist today, and tomorrow, if it pleases those who exploit us to make war, the issue of another battle may cause a portion of the country to pass under the yoke of another nationality. Has it not always been the same throughout the ages? As, in consequence of the wars they have made upon each other, nations have appropriated, then lost again or retaken the provinces which separated their frontiers, it follows that the patriotism of these provinces, tossed first to this side then to that, consisted in fighting sometimes under one flag, sometimes under another, in killing their allies of the day before, in struggling side by side with their enemies of the day after:⁠—first proof of the absurdity of patriotism!

And, moreover, what can be more arbitrary than frontiers? For what reason do men located on this side of a fictitious line belong to a nation more than those on the other side? The arbitrariness of these distinctions is so evident that nowadays the racial spirit is claimed as the justification for parceling peoples into distinct nations. But here again the distinction is of no value and rests upon no serious foundation, for every nation is itself but an amalgamation of races quite different from each other, not to speak of the interminglings and crossings which the relations operating among nations, more and more developed, more and more intimate, bring about every day. According to such a method of calculation, the ancient division of France into provinces was more logical, for it took into account the ethnic differences of the populations. Yet today even this consideration would no longer have any value; for the human race is moving too rapidly towards unification and the absorption of the variations which divide it, to leave any distinctions remaining save those of climate and environment which will have been too profound to be completely modified.

But wherein the inconsistency is still greater, on the part of the major portion of those who go to get themselves killed without having any motive for hatred against those designated to them as their enemies, is that this soil which they thus go forth to defend or to conquer does not and will not belong to them. This soil belongs to a minority of property-owners, who, sheltered from all danger, bask tranquilly in their chimney-corners, while the workers foolishly go out to slay each other, stupidly permitting themselves to take up arms for the purpose of wresting from others the soil which will serve⁠—their masters, as a means to exploit themselves⁠—the workers⁠—still further. We have seen in fact that property does not belong to those who possess it: robbery, pillage, assassination, disguised under the pompous names of conquest, colonization, civilization, patriotism, have been its not least important factors. We shall not, therefore, repeat what we have already said concerning its formation; but if the workers were logical, instead of defending “the country” by fighting⁠—other workers, they would begin by getting rid of those who command and exploit them; they would invite all the workers, of whatever nationality, to do the same, and would all unite in production and consumption at their ease. The earth is vast enough to support everybody. It is not lack of room nor the scarcity of provisions that has brought about these bloody wars in which thousands of men have cut each other’s throats for the greater glory and profit of a few; on the contrary, it is these iniquitous wars to which the desires of rulers, the rivalries of the ambitious, the commercial competition of the great capitalists have given birth, which have fenced off the peoples as distinct nations, and which, in the middle ages, brought about those plagues and famines that mowed down those whom the wars had spared.

Just at this point, however, the capitalist, and with him the gullible patriot, interrupt, exclaiming: “But if we no longer had an army the other great powers would come in and make laws for us, massacre us and impose conditions upon us still harder than those we are now subjected to.” Some, even though not believing in patriotism, exclaim: “We are not patriots; certainly property is badly divided, society does need reformation; but admit with us at least that France is in the vanguard of progress. To let it be dismembered would be to permit a step backward, to lose the fruit of past struggles; for, vanquished by a despotic power, what would become of our liberties?”

Most assuredly we have no intention at this time of tracing a line of conduct for Anarchists in case of war. Such conduct must depend upon circumstances, condition of mind, and a multitude of things which it is impossible to foresee; we desire only to treat the question from the standpoint of logic, and logic tells us that wars being enterprises for the profit of our exploiters solely, we can take no part in them.

We have seen that no matter whence authority proceeds, he who is subjected to it is always a slave. The history of the proletariat proves to us that national governments are not afraid to shoot down their “subjects” when the latter demand a few liberties. What more, then, could foreign exploiters do? Our enemy is the master, no matter to what nationality he belongs! Whatever the excuse with which a declaration of war be decorated or disguised, there can be nothing in it at bottom but a question of bourgeois interest: whether it be disputes on the subject of political precedence, commercial treaties, or the annexation of colonial countries, it is the advantage of the privileged alone⁠—of rulers, merchants, or manufacturers⁠—which is at stake. The republicans of today humbug us nicely when they congratulate us upon the fact that their wars are no longer made in the interest of dynasties, the republic having replaced kings. Caste interest has replaced dynastic interest⁠—that is all; what difference does it make to the worker? Conquerors, or conquered, we shall continue to pay the tax, to die of hunger when out of work; the almshouse or the hospital will continue to be our refuge at old age. And the capitalistic class would like us to interest ourselves in their quarrels! What have we to gain by it?

As to fearing a worse condition, the stoppage of progress in case a nation should disappear, this is failing to take into account what international relations are nowadays, and the general diffusion of ideas. A nation, today, might be divided, parceled out, dismembered, its name taken away, yet you could not succeed, short of utter extermination, in changing its proper foundation, which is diversity of character and temperament, the very nature of the races composing it. And if war were declared, all these liberties, real or pretended, which are claimed as our especial lot, would be speedily suspended, the Socialist propaganda muzzled, authority reinstated in the hands of the military power; and we should no longer have anything for the most thorough absolutism to envy.

War, consequently, can bring no good to the workers; we have no interests engaged in it, nothing to defend but our skins; it is our lookout to defend them still better by not exposing ourselves to get holes put through them, for the greater profit of those who exploit and govern us. The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, have an interest in war; it enables them to preserve the armies which keep the people respectful, and defend their institutions; through it they can succeed in forcing the products of “their industry” on others, opening up new markets with cannon shots. They alone subscribe to the loans which war necessitates, the interest upon which we, the workers, alone pay. Let the capitalists fight themselves, then, if they want to; once more: it is no concern of ours. And, moreover, let us revolt once for all; let us endanger the privileges of the bourgeoisie, and it will not be long till we see those who preach patriotism to us, appealing to the armies of their conquerors, be they German, Russian, or of no matter what country. They are like Voltaire, their patron: he did not believe in God, but judged that some religion was necessary to the common people; they have frontiers between their slaves, but for themselves they mock at such when their interests are at stake.

There is no “country” for the man truly worthy of the name; or at least there is but one⁠—that in which he struggles for true right, in which he lives and has his affections; but it may extend over the whole earth! Humanity is not to be chucked into little pigeonholes, wherein each is to shut himself up in his corner, regarding the rest as enemies. To the genuine individual all men are brothers and have equal rights to live and to evolve according to their own wills, upon this earth which is large enough and fruitful enough to nourish all. As to your countries by convention, the workers have no interest in them, and nothing in them to defend, consequently, on whichever side of the frontier they may chance to have been born, they should not, on that account, have any motive for mutual hatred. Instead of going on cutting each other’s throats, as they have done up to the present, they ought to stretch out their hands across the frontiers and unite all their efforts in making war upon their real, their only, enemies: authority and capital.