ABSTRACT
Participation in war has been universally considered the primary form and activity in which patriotism manifests itself. To speak of patriotism was to think of war; to hear the words “a great patriot” was to visualize a man with arms in hand risking his life on the field of battle. In descriptive terms this state of mind is a mixture of “patriotism,” anticommunism, and ignorance. The patriotism has to be accompanied by an extraordinary amount of ignorance, and the ignorance has to be about theory and practice of communism. Patriotism, genuine or false, is, of coure, not necessarily accompanied by anticommunism, and anticommunism is not necessarily accompanied by ignorance of the theory and practice of communism. Patriotism literally and historically means love of one’s fatherland, one’s people, which love during the millennia since the beginnings of civilization has been most closely associated with willingness to risk one’s life on the field of battle in defense of one’s fatherland and people.
