Oh, this brutal and abject discipline, which breaks a man utterly, crushes his spirit, deforms his character, destroys his will! Horrible machine for brutalization, to which you deliver up a young man who only asks the opportunity to develop his sentiments towards the beautiful and the true, whose energies might be unfolded in the daily struggle for life, whose intellect might expand under the impulse of knowledge already acquired and the necessity of knowing more! Military discipline lays upon him a leaden weight which will cramp him and contract his brain forever, slackening even the rhythm of his heartbeats. After having ground him for three years in the multiple gearings of its hierarchy, it will give you back a shapeless rag, if it have not completely devoured him!
We have seen, O savage bourgeoisie, that this fatherland of which you wish to make us the defenders, is but the organization of your privileges; this militarism, that you teach is a duty to which all should conform, is instituted solely for your defense, all the burden whereof you cast upon those against whom it is directed. It furnishes you, into the bargain, with the chance to bestow rank, honors, and emoluments upon those of your relations incapable of performing more elevated functions, the aforesaid ranks and emoluments serving at the same time to stimulate the unhealthy ambitions of those who abandon the class whence they sprang to become your convict-keepers!
What are your country, your frontiers, your arbitrary boundaries between peoples to us? Your country exploits us, your frontiers stifle us, your nationalities are strangers to us! We are men, citizens of the universe; all men are our brothers; our only enemies are our masters, those who exploit us, who prevent us from evolving freely, developing the plenitude of our forces. We no longer wish to serve you as playthings, to be defenders of your privileges, to have the degrading livery of your militarism, the brutalizing yoke of your discipline thrust upon us. We want to bow our heads no longer; we want to be free.
And you, poor devils destined to fall under the stroke of the military law, and who read in the newspapers the recitals of injustices committed every day in the name of discipline, who have not gone without hearing from time to time the story of other infamies of which those who were silly enough to enlist have been the victims, will you not indulge in some reflections on the life which awaits you in the barracks? And all you who had never, until now, beheld the military life save through the smoke of the incense burned before it by the poets, can you not understand all the knavery of these bourgeois writers who have celebrated in every key the “military virtues,” the “honor of the soldier,” and “warlike dignity?” Go, poor devils, who for the sake of the word “country,” or for fear of the court-martial, are going to waste the best years of your youth in these schools of corruption called “barracks.” Go, and know the destiny that awaits you! If you wish to finish your term of service without accidents, leave behind you with your civil clothes every sentiment of personal dignity; crush out of your heart every feeling of independence; the “virtues” and “military honor” require that you be nothing more than killing machines, passive brutes; for if you have unluckily preserved in your heart, under the livery with which they clothe you, the least grain of pride, it may prove fatal to you. If some drunken veteran is pleased to insult you, and if he have stripes upon his sleeves, take care to hide the jerk which in spite of you will twitch your muscle under the insult; the hand which you have lifted to strike the insulter in the face—carry it with military precision to your cap and salute; if you open your mouth to reply to threat or insult, twist it into saying, “Brigadier, you are right!” And yet a gesture, a word, the slightest sign of emotion might be interpreted as irony, and draw down punishment upon you for want of respect to your superior! Whatever be the insult or outrage, nerve yourself against the anger which will prompt you to resent it; remain calm, insensible, inert—your hand in its place, your heels close together! That’s well! You remain impassive under the injury? You do not flinch? No.—Well and good! You are good soldiers. That is what the country demands of its defenders!
“But if it be impossible for us to remain calm,” you will ask; “if, in spite of us, the blood rise to our heads making us blush?” Then there is but one thing for you: do not set foot in this prison, whence you cannot reissue without being debased, brutalized, corrupted. If you wish to remain men, do not be soldiers; if you cannot stand humiliations do not don the uniform. If, however, you have already committed the imprudence of clothing yourselves therewith, and some day you find yourselves in the situation of being unable to control your indignation—neither insult nor strike your superiors— … … Let daylight through them! You will pay no more for it.
XIV
Colonization
Colonization is extending too widely, in the present epoch, for us to neglect to treat separately of this hybrid product of patriotism and mercantilism combined—brigandage and highway robbery for the benefit of the ruling classes! A private individual goes into his neighbor’s house, breaks everything he lays his hands on, seizes everything he finds convenient for his own use: he is a criminal; society
