patriotism (at 8 per cent!) would be only too happy to see us, the French and German workers marching against each other, butchering each other by the hundred thousand, in order to find out whether Morocco should belong to the capitalists of Paris or to those of Berlin.
We know, as you see, the mysterious and interested sources of your patriotism. Yes, you are quite right, from your point of view, in trying to cultivate among the enslaved workers the worship of your countries and of your flags; to maintain the domination of your class you are well-advised in propagating among the masses those patriotic sentiments which veil class antagonisms and make the sheep believe that they are of the same race, the same family, and the same country as the wolves who devour them.
But you must understand, Mr. Advocate-General, that we of the manual and intellectual proletariat have quite other sentiments towards your countries.
For you, the country is a mother; for us, it is a cruel stepmother, a shrew whom we detest.
For you, patriotism is a sentiment which is natural and profitable; for us, it is a snare.
We may have conserved a certain predilection for the town or the village where we were born, where we grew up, and where we have loved and suffered. This is a natural and instinctive feeling which has nothing in common with your patriotism. But we have lost all feeling of love for such countries of privilege and iniquity as are the great countries of today.
For us there are only two countries in the world: that of the privileged and that of the disinherited, or rather that of the conservatives and that of the rebels, whatever language they may speak, or whatever the land may be which chanced to give them birth. Our compatriots are not the capitalists here, who would have us massacred if they could, just as they massacred our fathers in the Commune. Our compatriots are the conscious proletarians, the socialists, the revolutionaries of the whole world,
