27
nations possible. During the prevalence of French or Latin this intercourse was not more perfect, quite the contrary; the knowledge of these tongues was limited to the educated classes and the nobility. To-day education and also the knowledge of languages is more general, more democratic.
Internationalism of to-day is something different from the cosmopolitanism of the 18th century; it was an aristocratic cosmopolitanism limited to the nobility and the educated classes. In the 20th century, in addition to the French and English, other nations and their languages achieved prominence (German, Italian, Russian), and at the same time the improved means of communication and the evergrowing intermigration of nations, especially of working men, strengthened democratic internationalism. The socialist “International” is its peculiar organ; but not merely the working men, to-day all classes—scientists and philosophers, engineers, merchants, lawyers, artists, &c., are organised internationally.
This internationalism makes possible a division and organisation of labour of the nations, not merely economic labour, but all cultural labour. Europe and humanity are becoming more unified. Internationalism is not impeded by small nations, as was proved even in this war.
10. Political Independence and National Autonomy.
20. Political independence is for an enlightened, civilized nation a vital need,—politically dependent nations have even in the most civilized states been oppressed and exploited economically and socially. The more thoughtful and energetic the nation, the more it feels its subjection; and there are cases where the political master is less educated, less efficient than the subject people. The greatest Polish poets gave a very penetrating analysis of the constant revolutionary sentiment of an oppressed enlightened nation; Mickewicz summed it up in the words “The only weapon of a serf is treason.” The forcible suppression and denationalisation is a tremendous loss of energy, a lowering of the moral level; it hurts also the dominant oppressing nation in that it commits violence and does not amalgamate with itself the best characteristics of the oppressed nation. The Hungarian State, with its Magyarisation by violence, is an ugly example of the deterioration of character by forcible denationalisation.
Political independence is, of course, becoming more and more relative, but that is no argument against the concession of independence to oppressed nations. The former sovereignty of absolute states is passing away by the growing interstatism and internationalism; that sovereignty was, to a large extent, conditioned by isolation. Contemporary political alliances are a manifest weakening of former sovereignty. It may be admitted that small states feel the pressure of large neighbors—an example may be seen in the relations of Austria-Hungary to the Balkan States. It has been, therefore, often suggested that it would be better for small states and nations if they became directly a part of the large hostile states; Serbia—so its adversaries said—would, if annexed by Austria-Hungary, increase the number of the Jugoslavs and even unify them, and would oppose its enemy more efficiently than as an independent state.
These and similar counsels are derived from the principles of contemporary Machiavellian politics. The development of Europe and humanity tends towards democratization, that is, humanization of interstate and international relations; politics will cease to be carried on on Machiavellian principles, national independence and self-existence will freely develop along with increasing internationalism.
In recent days champions of the existing great mixed states, principally of Austria-Hungary, proposed national autonomy as the means for solving national questions; that is also the program of many socialists. (The Austrian socialists Springer, Renner, and Bauer give a detailed program,
