Is it possible even by means of the most cleverly devised and energetically expressed propaganda to imbue the great masses of a nation with tendencies, aspirations, passions, and thoughts that are absolutely foreign to them, that are not the product of their own history, of their customs and traditions? It seems to me that when the question is so posed, any reasonable and sensitive man who has even the least idea of how the popular conciousness is developed, can answer only in the negative. Ultimately, no propaganda has ever artificially created a source or basis for a people's aspirations and ideas, which are always the product of their spontaneous development and the actual conditions of life.
What, then, can propaganda do? It can, in general, express the proletariat's own instincts in a new, more definite and more apt form. It can sometimes precipitate and facilitate the awakening consciousness of the masses themselves. It can make them conscious of what they are, of what they feel, and of what they already instinctively wish; but never can propaganda make them what they are not, nor awaken in their hearts passions which are foreign to their own history.
Now to discuss the question whether by means of propaganda is it possible to make a people politically conscious for the first time, we must specify what political consciousness is for the masses of the people. I emphasize for the masses of the people. For we know very well that for the privileged classes, political consciousness is nothing but the right of conquest, guaranteed and codified, of the exploiter of the labor of the masses and the right to govern them so as to assure this exploitation. But for the masses, who hve been enslaved, governed, and exploited, of what does political consciousness consist? It can be assured by only one thing--the goddess of revolt. This mother of all liberty, the tradition of revolt, is the indispensible historical condition for the realization of any and all freedoms.
We see then that this phrase political consciousness, throughout the course of historical development, possesses two absolutely different meanings corresponding to two opposing viewpoints. From the viewpoint of the privileged classes, political consciousness means conquest, enslavement, and the indispensible mechanism for this exploitation of the masses: the coexistive organization of the State. From the viewpoint of the masses, it means the destruction of the State. It means, accordingly, two things that are diametrically and inevitably opposed.
Now it is absolutely certain that there has never existed a people, no matter how low-spirited or maltreated by circumstances, who did not feel at least at the beginning of their slavery some spark of revolt. To revolt is a natural tendency of life....In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt. In the world of beasts as in the human world there is no habit more degrading, more stupid, or more cowardly than the habit of supine submission and obedience to another's oppression. I contend that there has never existed a people so depraved that they did not at some time, at least at the beginning of their history, revolt against the yoke of their slave drivers and their exploiters, and against the yoke of the State.