Sergiei Nilus

“ We will so tire the Goys by all this that we will force them to offer us an international power, which by its position will enable us conveniently to absorb, without destroying, all governmental forces of the world and thus to form a super-government. In lieu of modern rulers, we will place a monster which will be called the Super-Governmental Administration. Its hands will be stretched out like pincers in every direction so that this colossal organization cannot fail to conquer all the peoples. ”

“ Who of us does not know that these fantastic blessings are the direct road to baseless hopes which lead to anarchistic relations between the people and the government? Progress, or better still the idea of progress, has led to the creation of different modes of emancipation without setting any limit to it. All so-called liberals are essentially anarchists in thought if not in action. Each one of them pursues the phantom of liberty, becoming self-willed, that is to say, falling into a state of anarchy by protesting for the mere sake of protesting. ”

“ You have no idea how easy it is to bring even the most intelligent Goys to a state of unconscious credulity, and, on the other hand, how easy it is to discourage them by the smallest failure, or merely by ceasing to applaud them, thus bringing them into servitude for the sake of achieving new success. To the same extent as our people ignore success for the sake of carrying out their plans, so are the Goys ready to sacrifice all their plans for the sake of success. Their psychology makes the problem of direction easier for us. ”

“ We have included in constitutions rights which for the people are fictitious and are not actual rights. All the so-called “rights of the people” can exist only in the abstract and can never be realized in practice. What difference does it make to the toiling proletarian, bent double by heavy toil, oppressed by his fate, that the babblers receive the right to talk, journalists the right to mix nonsense with reason in their writings, if the proletariat has no other gain from the constitution than the miserable crumbs which we throw from our table in return for his vote to elect our agents. ”

“ As you can see for yourselves, I base our despotism upon right and duty; the right of forcing the performance of duty is the direct function of government, acting as the father to its subjects. It is the right of the strong to utilize his power in order to lead humanity towards a social order established by the law of nature, namely, obedience. Everything in the world is subject, if not to some other persons, then to circumstances, or to its own nature ”

“ From this it is concluded that the government which is the most efficient for the benefit of a country must be concentrated in the hands of one responsible person. Civilization cannot exist without absolute despotism, for government is carried on not by the masses, but by their leader, whoever he may be. A barbarous crowd shows its barbarism on every occasion. The moment the mob grasps liberty in its hands it is speedily changed to anarchy, which is in itself the height of barbarism. ”

“ The Communist party not only does not demand any liberty of the press, of speech, meetings, unions, etc., for [122] the bourgeois enemies of the people, but, on the contrary, it demands that the government should be always in readiness to close the bourgeois press; to disperse the meetings of the enemies of the people, to forbid them to lie, slander, and spread panic; to crush ruthlessly all attempts at a restoration of the bourgeois régime. This is precisely the meaning of the dictatorship of the proletariat. ”

“ In a state with a poorly organized government and where the laws are insignificant, and the ruler has lost his dignity as the result of the accumulation of liberal rights, I find a new right, namely, the right of might to destroy all existing order and institutions, to lay hands on the law, to alter all institutions, and to become the ruler of those who have voluntarily, liberally renounced for our benefit the rights to their own power. ”

“ Our power will be glorious because it will be mighty; it will rule and guide, and not helplessly crawl after leaders and orators, shouting insane words which they call great principles, and which in reality are simply Utopian. Our power will lead to order, which, in turn, brings happiness to the people. The prestige of this power will excite mystical adoration, and the peoples will bow before it. True power does not yield to any right, even be it that of God. ”

“ In the Goy society, where we have planted such deep roots of dissension and protest, order can only be restored by merciless measures which will serve as evidence that our power cannot be infringed. There is no necessity for regard towards the victims sacrificed for the future good. To attain good, even though by the sacrifice of life, is the duty of every government which realizes that its existence depends not upon privileges alone, but upon the exercise of its duties as well. ”

“ The recognition of our autocrat may come even before the abolition of the constitution; the moment for this recognition will come when the people, tormented by dissension and the incompetency of their rulers, incited by us, will exclaim: Depose them, and give us one universal sovereign who will unite us and abolish the causes of dissension—national frontiers, religion, state indebtedness—and who will give us the peace and quiet which we cannot find with our rulers and representatives. ”

“ But Lenine sends the poor committees, agitators, to incite peasants who have no land to conspire against those who have, and to take the guns he gives them for fighting, robbing, and plundering neighbors in their own and neighboring villages who have land. When you come later to read, gentlemen, the history of the Russian revolution, some of the bloodiest fights, you will find, and worst horrors, have occurred in villages. Those simple, peace-loving people have been living among themselves for centuries in more or less harmony under their communistic system. ”

“ What form of government can be given to such societies other than a despotism such as I shall describe?
We will create a strong centralized government, so as to gather the social forces into our power. We will mechanically regulate all the functions of political life of our subjects by new laws. These laws will gradually eliminate all the concessions and liberties permitted by the Goys. Our kingdom will be crowned by such a majestic despotism that it will be able, at all times and in all places, to crush both antagonistic and discontented Goys. ”

“ We might fear the union of the intelligent power of the Goys’ rulers with the blind power of the masses, but we have taken all measures against such a possibility. Between the two powers we have raised a wall in the form of mutual terror; thus the blind power of the people continues to be our support, and we alone will act as its leader and, naturally, we will direct it towards our goal. ”

“ The Jew will not sooner become the friend of a Christian or a Mohammedan than at the time when the light of the Jewish faith—the only religion of reason—will spread throughout the world. Scattered among peoples who are hostile to our rights, to our interests, we wish above all to be and always to remain Jews. Our nationality is the religion of our fathers and we do not recognize any other. Living in lands of dispersion we cannot be concerned about the changing aims of those lands which are strange to us until the time when our own aims both moral and material are in danger. ”

“ If we have already managed to subjugate the minds of the Goys to such an extent that almost all of them see world events through colored glasses which we put over their eyes; if, even at present, there is not one state which bars our access to state secrets, so termed by the stupid Goys, then what will it be when we, in the person of our universal sovereign, are the recognized rulers of the world? ”

“ Every loan proves the impotency of the government and its failure to understand its own rights. Loans, like the sword of Damocles, hang above the heads of the rulers, who instead of placing temporary taxes on their subjects, stretch forth their hands and beg the charity of our bankers. Foreign loans are leeches, which can never be removed from the governmental body until they either fall off themselves or the government itself manages to get rid of them. ”

“ Any of these impressions would be detrimental to the prestige of the new constitution. It is necessary for us that, from the first moment of its proclamation, when the people are still dumbfounded by the accomplished revolution and are in a state of terror and surprise, they should realize we are so strong, so invulnerable, and so mighty that we shall in no case pay attention to them, and not only will we ignore their opinions and desires, but be ready to and capable of suppressing at any moment or place any sign of opposition with indisputable authority. ”

“ Hunger gives to capital greater power over the worker than the legal authority of the sovereign ever gave to the aristocracy. Through misery and the resulting jealous hatred we manipulate the mob and crush those who stand in our way. ”

“ There is nothing more dangerous than individual initiative; if it has a touch of genius it can accomplish more than a million people among whom we have sown dissensions. We must direct the education of the Goy societies so that their arms will drop hopelessly when they face every task where initiative is required. The intensity of action resulting from individual freedom of action dissipates its force when it encounters another person’s freedom. ”

“ The people left to themselves, that is to upstarts from among them, are ruined by party dissensions created by greed for power and honors, and by the disorders resulting therefrom. Is it possible for the masses of the people to direct the affairs of the state without rivalry, and without interjecting personal interests? Are they capable of protecting themselves against external enemies?—This is impossible, since a plan divided into as many parts as there are minds in a mob loses its unity, and consequently, becomes incomprehensible and unworkable. ”

“ In order that the minds of the Goys may have no time to think and notice things, it is necessary to divert them in the direction of industry and commerce. Thus all nations will seek their own profit, and while engaged in the struggle they will not notice their common enemy. But in order that liberty should finally undermine and ruin the Goy’s society, it is necessary to put industry on a basis of speculation. The result of this will be that everything, absorbed by industry from the land, will not remain in the hands of the Goys, but will be directed towards speculation ”

“ Progressive taxation, assessed according to the amount of capital, will produce a much greater revenue than the present system of taxing every one at an equal rate, which is useful to us now only as a means of exciting revolt and discontent among the Goys. The power of our sovereign will rest mainly in equilibrium and in guarantees of peace. For these, the capitalists must cede a part of their income so as to protect the action of the government machine. Public needs must be met by those who can best afford to do so and by those from whom there is something to take. ”

“ But it is strange that the greater the persecution of the Russian Church the nearer and dearer does it become to the tortured Russian people. Indeed, the priests of the Russian Church boldly denounce the Bolsheviks. Not one of the secular rulers has accused them so openly as Tikhon, the All-Russian Patriarch, over whom the Damocles sword of the Bolsheviks is always hanging. But the sword can only kill the body, and not the spirit. ”

“ To guard the sovereign openly is equivalent to an admission of the weakness of his governmental organization.
Our sovereign, when amidst his people, will always appear to be surrounded by a crowd of curious men and women, who will stand beside him as though accidentally and will hold back the other people as though through respect for order. ”

“ We welcome, accordingly, your suggestion that British Jews should ‘dissociate themselves from a cause which is doing the Jewish people harm in all parts of the world.’ This is profoundly true, and we, on our behalf and on behalf of numbers of British Jews with whom we have conferred, desire to dissociate ourselves absolutely and unreservedly from the mischievous and misleading doctrines which those articles are calculated to disseminate. We repudiate them as dangerous in themselves and as false to the tenets and teachings of Judaism. ”

“ Whether the state is exhausted by internal convulsions, or whether civil wars deliver it into the hands of external enemies, in either case it can be regarded as hopelessly lost: it is in our power. The despotism of capital, which is entirely in our hands, holds out to it a straw which the state must grasp, although against its will, or otherwise fall into the abyss. ”

“ The second secret necessary for the success of governing consists in so multiplying popular failings, habits, passions, and conventional laws that no one will be able to disentangle himself in the chaos, and consequently, people will cease to understand each other. This measure would help us to sow dissension within all parties, to disintegrate all those collective forces which still do not wish to subjugate themselves to us; to discourage all individual initiative which might in any degree hamper our work. ”

“ It is precisely here that the triumph of our theory becomes apparent: the relinquished reins of power are, according to the laws of nature, immediately seized by a new hand because the [12] blind force of the people cannot remain without a leader even for one day, and the new power merely replaces the old, weakened by liberalism.
In our day the power of gold has replaced liberal rulers. There was a time when faith ruled. The idea of freedom cannot be realized because no one knows how to make reasonable use of it. Give the people self-government for a short time and it will become corrupted. ”