Many non-Socialist thinkers have perceived the antithesis between the doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man and the particularism of national patriotism. Björnstjerne Björnson wrote: "Patriotism is a stage of transition." This doctrine may come as a shock to the average reader, yet it is undoubtedly a prophetic and accurate statement of what will some day be generally accepted. Thoughtfully considered, the idea will be found less shocking than it at first appears. Neither Björnson nor any other non-Socialist contemplates the abandonment of patriotism and state lines except by natural development. The world, in other words, is in a transitional stage, and when this transition shall have been completed it will find a world where the egoism of national patriotism has made way for the altruism of internationalism. And this will have been accomplished without violent revolutionary changes, but merely by a natural and peaceful evolutionary development.
Against such a development, if it come in the manner described and anticipated, nobody can properly protest. But the Socialists of the international school--and this is what makes international Socialism a menace to all governments and gradually but surely undermined the German state--will not wait upon the slow processes of transition. Upon peoples for whom the flags of their respective countries are still emblems of interests transcending any conceivable interests of peoples outside their own state boundaries, emblems of an idea which must be unquestioningly and unthinkingly accepted and against which no dictates of the brotherhood of other men or the welfare of other human beings have any claim to consideration, the Socialists would impose over night their idea of a world without artificial state lines, and would substitute the red flag for those emblems which the majority of all mankind still reverence and adore. It requires no profound thinking to realize that such a change must be preceded by a long period of preparation if anarchy of production and distribution is to be avoided. To impose the rule of an international proletariat under the present social conditions means chaos. The world has seen this exemplified in Russia, and yet Russia, where the social structure was comparatively simple and industry neither complex nor widely developed, was the country where, if anywhere today, such an experiment might have succeeded.