-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
watch that none should become too strong. That is the conception
of European equilibrium, which forms coalitions and breaks them
up again. Where it is possible without endangering the
equilibrium, smaller states are destroyed; an example: the partition
of Poland. Princes regard countries no differently from the way an
estate owner regards his forests, meadows, and fields. They sell
them, they exchange them (e.g., for "rounding off" boundaries);
and each time rule over the inhabitants is transferred also. On this
interpretation, republics appear as unowned property that anyone
may appropriate if he can. This policy did not reach its high point,
by the way, until the nineteenth century, in the Enactment of the
Delegates of the Holy Roman Empire of 1803, in Napoleon's
establishments of states, and in the decisions of the Congress of
Vienna.
Lands and peoples are, in the eyes of princes, nothing but
objects of princely ownership; the former form the basis of
sovereignty, the latter the appurtenances of landownership. From
the people who live in "his" land the prince demands obedience
and loyalty; he regards them almost as his property. This bond that
binds him with each one of his subjects should, however, also be
58
Nation and State
the only one that joins the individual persons into a unit. The
absolute ruler not only regards every other community between his
subjects as dangerous, so that he tries to dissolve all traditional
comradely relations between them that do not derive their origin
from state laws enacted by him and is hostile to every new
formation of community, perhaps through clubs; he also will not
allow the subjects of his different territories to begin to feel
themselves comrades in their role as subjects. But, of course, in
seeking to tear apart all class ties to make subjects out of nobles,
the bourgeoisie, and peasants, the prince atomizes the social body
and thereby creates the precondition for the rise of a new political
sentiment. The subject who has grown unaccustomed to feel
himself a member of a narrow circle begins to feel himself a
person, a member of his nation, and a citizen of the state and of the
world. The way opens up for the new outlook on the world.
The liberal theory of the state, hostile to princes, rejects the
princes' greed for lands and chaffering in lands. First of all, it finds
it a matter of course that state and nation coincide. For so it is in
Great Britain, the model country of freedom, so in France, the
classical land of the struggle for freedom. That seems such a
matter of course that no further word is wasted on it. Since state
and nation coincide and there is no need to change this, there is no
problem here.
The problem of state boundaries first appeared when the power
of the idea of freedom gripped Germany and Italy. Here and in
Poland there stands behind the despicable despots of the present
day the great shadow of a vanished unified state. All Germans,
Poles, and Italians have a great political goal in common: the
liberation of their peoples from the rule of princes. That gives
them first unity of political thinking and then unity of action.
Across state boundaries, guarded by customs guards and gardeess,
the peoples stretch their hands in unity. The alliance of the princes
59
Nation, State, and Economy
against freedom is confronted by the union of peoples fighting for
their freedom.
To the princely principle of subjecting just as much land as
obtainable to one's own rule, the doctrine of freedom opposes the
principle of the right of self-determination of peoples, which
follows necessarily from the principle of the rights of man.14 No
people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a
political association that it does not want. The totality of freedom-
minded persons who are intent on forming a state appears as the
political nation; patrie, Vaterland becomes the designation of the
country they inhabit; patriot becomes a synonym of freedom-
minded.15 In this sense the French begin to feel themselves a nation
when they break the despotism of the Bourbons and when they
take up the struggle against the coalition of monarchs who threaten
their just won freedom. The Germans, the Italians become
nationally minded because foreign princes, joined in the Holy
Alliance, hinder them from the establishing a free state. This
nationalism directs itself not against foreign peoples but against the
despot who subjugates foreign peoples also. The Italian hates
above all not the Germans but the Bourbons and Habsburgs; the
Pole hates not the Germans or Russians but the Czar, the King of
Prussia, and the Emperor of Austria. And only because the troops
on which the rule of the tyrants rests are foreign does the struggle
also adopt a slogan against foreigners. But even in battle the
Garibaldians shouted to the Austrian soldiers: Passate l'Alpi e
tornerem fratelli.16 ["Go back across the Alps, and we'll become
brothers again."] Among themselves the individual nations fighting
for freedom get along marvelously. All peoples hail the struggle
14 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- zambezia2013.opx.pl