So strongly do all the instincts of the Prussian
drive against liberty that he would rather oppress other peoples'
subjects than think of anybody going without the benefits of oppression.
He is a sort of disinterested despot. He is as disinterested as the
devil, who is ready to do any one's dirty work.

*The Paradox of Prussia.*

This would seem obviously fantastic were it not supported by solid facts
which cannot be explained otherwise. Indeed it would be inconceivable if
we were thinking of a whole people, consisting of free and varied
individuals. But in Prussia the governing class is really a governing
class, and a very few people are needed to think along these lines to
make all the other people act along them. And the paradox of Prussia is
this: That while its princes and nobles have no other aim on this earth
but to destroy democracy wherever it shows itself, they have contrived
to get themselves trusted, not as wardens of the past, but as
forerunners of the future. Even they cannot believe that their theory is
popular, but they do believe that it is progressive. Here again we find
the spiritual chasm between the two monarchies in question. The Russian
institutions are, in many cases, really left in the rear of the Russian
people, and many of the Russian people know it. But the Prussian
institutions are supposed to be in advance of the Prussian people, and
most of the Prussian people believe it. It is thus much easier for the
war lords to go everywhere and impose a hopeless slavery upon every one,
for they have already imposed a sort of hopeful slavery on their own
simple race.

*A Factory of Thumbscrews.*

And when men shall speak to us of the hoary iniquities of Russia and of
how antiquated is the Russian system we shall answer, "Yes; that is the
superiority of Russia." Their institutions are part of their history,
whether as relics or fossils. Their abuses have really been uses; that
is to say, they have been used up. If they have old engines of terror or
torment, they may fall to pieces from mere rust, like an old coat of
armor. But in the case of the Prussian tyranny, if it be tyranny at all,
it is the whole point of its claim that it is not antiquated, but just
going to begin, like the showman. Prussia has a whole thriving factory
of thumbscrews, a whole humming workshop of wheels and racks, of the
newest and neatest pattern, with which to win Europe back to reaction
* * * infandum renovare dolorem.