At university lectures, in literature and in the press is this view that nationalism is an obsolete concept, that patriotism is unworthy of a modern "man of culture" (who must love all mankind equally), that war is a vestige of barbaric times, and that the army is the main impediment to progress.
These ideas, which start in university circles, in the literary world, and at the publishing offices, and which are so devastating to the entire system, eventually penetrate the rest of society, so that every nincompoop who joins in this view thus acquires the license to consider himself to be a member of the "progressive intelligentsia."
A logical consequence of such a world view is the complete rejection of military valor and a contempt for military service as stupid and harmful.
Such an attitude toward the army within the intellectual spheres of our society has not yet managed to corrupt the soldier. But it does have a rather bad effect on the officers.
Watching this sad phenomenon, one inevitably comes to the conclusion that, to undergo a radical healing, we need to experience some rough times again, so that our cosmopolitans would have a chance to test the practical applicability of these utopias on their own backs.
Thus, at a time when even the most democratic countries try to instill a pro-military sentiment in their people in the interests of national security, our progressive intelligentsia is preoccupied with the reverse goal and is not in the least embarrassed to declare this even during an unsuccessful war.
In the last few years, our government itself has headed the anti-war movement. Naturally, the ostentatious statements of the government's communique could not abolish all the wars in the universe, but they did give all the numerous enemies in the country's social structure the right to loosen the very foundations of the army, using the government's authority as their cover.
The uneducated masses were interested in the war only insofar as it affected their families and economic interests. The actual news from the far-off theater of war reached the broad masses only in the form of rumors.
And as far as the "progressive intelligentsia" was concerned, it viewed the war as a convenient opportunity for the achievement of its goal: the destruction of the current regime and the creation of a new state in its place. Since it seemed much harder to accomplish this with a victorious war than an unsuccessful war, our radicals not only wished for defeat but tried to provoke it.
Major General (Russia) E. E. Martinov, 1904
