GOVERNT IS VIOLENCE

TH FIRST COLLCI10N OF TOLSTOY'S ESSAYS

ON ANARCIlSM AND NON - VIOLENT REVOLUTION

People can only be freed from slavery

by the abolition of Goverments

A Government, and especially a Government

entrusted with military power.
is the most dangerous organization possible

As long as Governments with armies exist,

the termination of
armaments and wars is impossible

The Anarchists are right in everything ...

they are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy
can be instituted by a violent revolution

Freedom, not imaginary but actual, is attained

not by barricades and murders,
nor by any new kind
of institution coercively introduced, but
only by the cessation of obedience
to any human authority whatever

TOLSTOY
GOVERNT IS VIOLENCE
essay L
ANARCIHSM and PACTFTS
TOLSTOY
GOVERNMENT IS
VIOLENCE
GOVNT IS VIOLENCE
TOLSTOY
GOV IS VIOLENCE
essays on anarchism and pacifism
Edited and introduced by
David Stephens
Phoenix Press
London
1990
Le Tolstoy
GOVNT IS VIOLENCE
essays on anarchism and pacifism
ISBN: 0 94898 4 15 5
Published by Phoenix Press
YBox 824
London
NI9DL
Typeset by Kaw-djer and Ie Vieux Foudrc
Arlwork by Penny Rimbaud
Printed and bound by bLLWhcatons, Exeter
Cover photo: To]SLy in I0o
CONTENTS
On this b k
5
Tbe non-violent anarchism or Leo Tolstoy 7
The End of the Age
21
An Appeal to Social Rdormers
5J
On Anarchy
67
Thou Sbalt Not Kill
71
Patriotism and Government
77
The Kingdom of Go uWithin You
YJ
The Slavery of Our Time
111
On Silism, State and Christian
157
Source 168
Further Reading on Tolstoy 170
Notes 174
ON THIS BOOK
1book has Ddesigned to complemCnl lhe 1987 republication
by New Soiety of Toistoy's Writings on Civil Disobedience mNon
violence, which contains many of Tolstoy's Christian pacfist essays.
However, the New Society collection docs not include the classic anar
chist texts that Tolstoy wrote around the lum of the century, which,
although of len republished, remain scattered in pamphlets and magazines
long out-of-print and hard Vfind. The aim, therefore, of this collection is
t present in onc volume the most importnt of Tolstoy's writings on
anarchism and revolution, some of which (On Anarchy, On Socialism,
Slate and Christian) have not, to my knowledge, been republished m
English since Tolstoy's death in 1910. One essay lhal appears in the New
Society collection, Thou Shall NOI Kill, is also reproduced here, as its dis
cussion of anarchist terrorism is ccntralL the theme of this book. Both
collections include extacts from The KingdomojGod uWithin You; they
are, however, from different chapters and do not overlap.
Tolstoy often covered lhesame ground in several essayswilh slightly
different emphasis; whilst all of Ihe eight essays republished here deal wilh
the State and revolution, they have ben arranged to give a rough
progression fom an evaluation of anarchist theories and tactics to a
criticism of militarism, capi1lism and Marxism. The essays appear
essentially in meir original form with a minimum of editing to remove
suprfuous references to contemporary circumstance; some of the bans
lators' more obsolete English expressions have, however, been updated
where necessary. Details of the editing and sources are indicated at the
back of the bok, as arc suggestions for further reading on Tolstoy and
anarcho-pacifism. Besides gi ving details of events or persons mentioned
by TolsLy, the foototes also refer to modern illustrations of points ms
in me essays. Fo Cof consultation,mey have been grouped at lheend
of me book, rather than appearing at the end of each essay.
My thanks must go to Michael Holman of Leeds University for
academic advice and research, and to all the people over me lasl five years
who have kept Ihe idea of the book going: Pen, Bron and G of Crass, Alben
and Chris of the Wa Resisters' International/Pcacc News, Kaw-djcr who
had the unenviable task of typing it all and, above all, Mo who was the frst
5
to hear of it and the one who finally brought it into being. This book is for
Rachel, as it always was.
David Stephens
Wildcat by Donald Rooum appears in Freedom every momh.
6
THE NON
VIOLENT
ANARCHISM OF
LEO TOLSTOY
Eightyyearshavenowelapsedsincc LoTolstoy'sdeath i n 191O.and
yet the many essays which Tolstoy wrote in the last twenty years of his l
t expund his innovatve brand of non -violent anarchism raise issues that
are still of importance today. The twentieth century has seen increasing
convergence (and expansion)of anarchist and pacifist ideas: theanarchist
movement has seen the vast escalation of militarism and the seemingly
invincible annoury of repression as perhaps the greatest threat posed by
the State; the pacifist movement has gone beyond a simplistic rejetion of
violence on a prsonal level to consider the role of the State in militarism,
and has embraced direct action as a means of combatting it. Both
anarchism and pacifism have as their common enemy the State as te
'organ of violence' , and yet some anarchists refuse to reognize this com
munity of interest - the OclObcr 1986 issue of Black Flag comments:
'Mny paciflSt have come to think of themselves as anarchist. But
their "anarchism" remained militant libralism ... "non-violent anar
chism" is not a variant of anarchism: it is an attack on it'.
This uncompromising stand is not echod in other counties; indeed,
in Germany, where anarchism is much more alive than in Britain, te
numerically stongest and most acti ve anarch ist group is the Federaton of
Non-violent Action Groups with their magazine Grqssroots Revolutwn
Thee is no reason for the antipathy that exists btween different currents
of anarchist thought; it has long been an unfortunate feature of anarchists
that they tend lO emphasize the differences between themselves rather U
recognize the similarites. This has prevented anarchists from meeting the
need for a reappraisal of their revolutionary hislOry; whilsl authoritarian
ideologies have each had their day, anarchism has never succeeded i n
consolidating a large-scale and durable libertarian society beyond thelem
porary and partial achievements bor of civil war. Anarcho-pacifists
would argue that this is because of the unique model of society anarchism
represents; in being alone in rejecting the State and corcion. anarchists
must develop a non-coercive strategy for revolution different from tai
Proposed by authoritarian ideologies. In order lO do this, anarchists must
7
be prepared to listen to one an other instead of each fightng from their
comer, to listen too to theexampJes from the past of anarchist revolution
aries like Kroptkin, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman who,
having espoused violence, came to be disillusioned by it as a means of
struggle. TolslOY'S arguments on the incompatibility between anarchism
and violence and his proposed strategy of non-violent revolution are a
useful starling-point for discussion, but the debate is not made any easier
if such ideas arc rejcted out of hand by some anarchists. Albert Meltzer,
for example, writing in hisAnarchism, Arguments For and Against, even
w kto deny the historical and ideological links between Tolstoy and the
anarchist movement:
'The "Pacifist-Anarchist" approach differs radically fom revolu
tionary anarchism. Il is too readily conceded that "this is. after a ,
anarchism" ... popular opinion made such figures as Tolstoy into an
anarchist he was not; neither was he in the normal sense of the word a
Christian or a pacifist. as popularly supposed'.
The history of the anarchist movement and the essays contained in
this bok show otherwise. TOlstoy's political writings express an uncom
promising rejection of Authority and 8its trappings, a scathing criticism
of Church and State, capitlsm and Marxism, militarism and patiotism.
Historically, Tolstoy'S conversion from a dissolute and privilege soiety
autor to the non-violent and spiritual anarchist of his latter days was
brought about by two tips around Europe in 1857 and 1860-61. At that
tme,stfled by thepolilical and literary repression ofTsaristRussia, many
Russian nobles left to taste the winds of change then blowing through
Wester Europe; other Russian aristocrats radicalizd by their tavels in
Westem Europe were Kropotkin, Bakunin and Herten. During his first
visit toEurope, Tolstoy had a traumatic experience which was to mark the
beginning of his evolution; after wilnessing a public execution in Paris, he
WUto his friend V. P. Botkin on April 6, 1857:
'The tuth is that the S tate is a conspiracy designed not only toexploit,
but above 8 to corrupt its citizens ... I understand moral and religious
laws, not compulsory for everyone, but leading forward and promising a
more harmonious future; I feel the laws of art, which always bring
happiness. But political laws seem to me such prodigious lies, that I fail
to bhow one among them can be bcUeror worse than any of the others
... Henceforth I shall never serve any govermcnt anywhere'.
However, it was during his second trip to Europ that Tolstoy met the
man who was to shap his political lransformation. In 1860-61, Tolstoy
visited Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Belgium (NOTE No 1) to
8
gather ides on education, ides which would lead him to set up severa1
librtarian schools near his home of Yasnaya Polyana. During his visit to
Brussels in March 1861, armed with a leur of reommendation fom
Alexander Herzen, Tolstoy called on a mathematics lea cher by the name
of Emile Durfon, in reality the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
then living in exile after the publication of his On Justice in the Revolution
and in the Church in 1858. Tolstoy later chronicled his meeting with
Proudhon mhis educational notebooks:
'Last year, I had the chance to speak to W. Proudhon abut Russia.
At that time, he was engaged in writing a bok on the laws of war. I
described to him the latest news from Russia - the feing of the serfs -and
I told him that amongst the goveming classes there was a strong desire to
develop ppular education, and also that sometimes this desire tok on a
somewhat comic form and became a kind of fashion. "Is that really so?"
he remarked. I replied that, as far as I could judge, Russian society was
beginning to understand that, without popular education, no State stuc
ture can be stable. Proudhon stood up and began pacing around the room.
"lfthis is tue", he said in an almost envious tone, "then the future belongs
to you, the Russians" . If l recount this conversation with Proudhon, it is to
show that, in my personal experience, he was the only man who under
sto the significance of education and of the printing press in our
time'(NOTE N02).
Tolstoy's views on proprty were alsodecply innuenced by Proudhon,
in particular by Proudhon's What is property?, published in 1840, which
Tolstoy had read some time before his meeting with Proudhon. Criticiz
ing the constitutional moves in Russia which had emancipated the serfs but
delivered them intothepowerofthe landowners, Tolstoy noted in his diary
for August 18, 1865:
'The mission of Russia in world history consists in bringing into the
world the idea of a soialized organization of land ownership. "Prperty
is theft" will remain a greater tuth than the truth of the English constit
tion, as long as mankind exists ... This idea has future. The Russian revo
lution can b founded only on this idea. The revolution will not be against
the Tsar and despotism, but against private property in land'.
Besides discussing education and property, Tolstoy and Proudhon
also talked ofProudhon ' s fonhcomi ng book on war, still one of the French
author's most controversial works. The book, published a few months
afterTolslOy's visit, was entitled On War and Peace; three years later, in
186, t he year which saw the publication ofProudhon's bok in Russian,
Tolstoy used the same title when he began writing his grealest l iterary
9
work which contains much of Proudhon's philosophy.
On his retur to Russia, TolstOy threw himself intO educational
activities founding thirteen schools for pasants in and around his estates
at Yasna;a Polyana (NOTE No 3). The schols wre to rn iniuenlly
for the next V years and functioned on purely hbrtanan pnnclples, as
Tolstoy describd in his essay, The School GYasnaya Poiyana (1862):
'The schol has evolved freely from the principles intoduced into it
by teahers and pupils. In spite of the preponderating influence of e
techer, the pupil has always had the right not to come to Shol, or, havm
come, not to listn to the teacher. The techer has had the nghtnot toadmn
a pupil ... Now we have pupils in the first class, who themselves demad
that the programme b adhered to, who Bdsatisfied hen ey a diS
turbd in their lessons,and who constantly nve out the httlechlldrcn who
run in to them. In myopinion, this outward disorder is useful and valuable,
however strange and inconvenient it may seem to te teacher ... Obeying
only natural laws, flowing from their nature, they revoltand gru ble hen
they have to obey your untimely interference. They do nOl
o
beeve m e
legality of your bells, rosters and rules ... I have succeeded m
.
dlscovenng
among them some rough sense of justice. How often maffalfs settled by
lhem by Wn of one kows not what law, and yet seuled in a manner
stisfactory to both parties! .,. The best policy and administative system
for a shol is to allow the scholars prfect freeom of leing and of
govering themselves as they like'.
Tolstoy retured to the question of forced learing in his Lfler on
Education (1902):
'That children grow up without having leart certain subjects is nOl
nearly so bad as what happns to almost all children they get educational
indigestion andcometodetcsteducation. A child,or a man,can le when
he has an appetite for what he studies. Without appetite, instuction is an
evil a terrible evil, causing people to become mentally crippled'.
In many respects, Tolstoy anticipated the ideas of voluntary lessons
and self-goverment for children that A. S. Neill put into practice in his
school Summerhill, founded in 1921 and still running today. Indeed, one
could say that libertarian education strted in practice in 1861 when
Tolstoy'S school at Yasnaya Polyana opened with the mott 'Come and go
freely'. Although the schools themselves functioned well. Tolstoy was
subjected to increasing official harassmen t as knowledge of their methods
spread. Many of the teachers were young radical students from Moscow,
and the Tsarist seret police dispatched several agents to infiltrate their
10
circles, culminating in a police raid on TOlStoy's house in July 1862.
Tolstoy, who was not there at the time, narrowly escapd arrest when
Maria Tolstoy managed to conceal a sheaf of leuers fom Alexander
Hercn by sittng down on them and refusing to move until the police had
left their home(N OTE No 4). A lthough hi s expriments in libertarian edu
cation were spradic (1849,1859 - 1863, 1868 - 1875), Tolstoycontnued
to write on eucation and to produce elementary schol bkfor many
years. His New ABC (1875) is still used in the Soviet Union toay; m
schol, however, was taken over by the Ministy of Educaton and no
longer runs on his pioneering principles,
Tolstoy'S relationship with Proudhon was brought loan untimely end
by the death ofProudhon in January 1865, but in the 1890s, when Tolstoy
was writing many of his greatest anarchist essays, he came into contact
with Kropotkin and they corresponded through the intermediary of Tol
stoy's exiled follower Vladimir Tchertkoff (NOTE No 5), Tolstoy ex
pressed great admiration at the Russian pri nee's rejection of his privileged
position in favour of his ideals, an example Tolstoy was himself to follow
in 1891 when he gave up his estates and renounced copyright on m his
works wriuen af 1881. Tolstoy and Kropotkin had much in common in
their private lives - Russian ex-aristocrats and ex-soldiers who beame
revolutionaries, drawing their ideals from the simple life of rural agicul
tural communities: both blieved that life without Authorit was only
pssible Ucommunit principles were followed (NOTE No 6. Tol
stoy even developd Kropotkin's idea of mutual aid furthe, calling it
mutual service. Kropotkin valued Tolstoy both as a thinker and as an
author, and wrote to Vladimir Tchertkoff saying:
`m orde to understand how much I sympathize with the ideas of
Tolstoy, it is sufficient to say that I have written a large volume to
demonstate that life is created, not by the stuggle for existence, but by
mutual aid' (NOTE No 7).
Kropotkin also wrote several essays on TOlStoy's literary achieve
ments; apart fom a section in his Ideals and Realities in Russian Litera
lure, Kropotkin devoted an essay to Tolstoy entitled uo Tolstoy: His An.
His Personality which was writen in 1910 but which remained unpub
lished until 1958 (NOTE No 8).
Tolstoy in tum recommended Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread and
Fields, Factories and Workshops to his readers in his Appeal to the
Working People. The two Russians, whilst agreeing on the evils of the
State and the need for communitarian anarchism, differed on the question
of revolutionary violence; whilst Tolstoy totally rejected violence as a
!
mens of reaching anarchy, Kropotkin regretted that sometimes violence
might be nccessary. Tolstoy never called himself an anarchist because of
its contemjrary connetion with violence, but showed great understand
ingofKrojtkin 'sfeelings on thesubjcct in a letlerto VladimirTchertkoff
in 1897:
'His arguments in favour of violence do not seem to me the expres
sion of his opinions, but only of his fidelity to the banner under which he
has served so honestly all his life. He cannOI but se that in order to b
strong, a protest against violence must be solidly based, and that a protest
which permits itself the usc of violence has not a leg to stand on and is, as
a consequence, doomed to failure' (NOTE No 9).
Botll however agreed tIlat the wave of assassinations by anarchists
that roked Europe and America in the 1890s was counter-productive;
David Miller comments in his Anarchism:
'After having endorsed the insurrectionary stategy in the 1870s, and
then individual acts of terror in the early 1880s, Kropotkin had come by
tile 1890s to disapprove of acts of violence except those performed in self
defence in the course of a revolution' (NOTE No 10).
MirroringTolstoy's views expressed in his Thou Shalt Not Kill, Kro
potkin contributed a critical essay entitled On the murder ofthe Austrian
Emress to the first issue of Tchertoff's Free Word Ns-sheel, pub
lished in November 1898.
KropLln gives us an excellent insight into Tolstoy'S plitical
philosophy mtile section on anarchism that he contributed to LheEneyc/o
paediaBritannica in 1905:
'Without naming himself an anarchist, Tolstoy, like his prede
cessors in the popular religious movements of the 15m and 16th centuries,
Chojecki, Denk and manyothers, took the anarchist position asregards the
State and property rights, deducing his conclusions from me general spirit
of the teachings of Christ and from the necessary dictates of reason. With
all the might of his talent, he made (especially in The Kingdom of God is
Within You) a powerful criticism of the ChurCh, the State and Jaw
altogether, and especially of the present property Jaws. He describes the
State as the domination of me wicked, supported by brutal force. Robbers,
he says, ae far less dangerous than a well-organized Government. He
makes a searching criticism of the prejudices which are now current
concering the benefits confrred upon men by the Church, the State and
the existing distribution of propeny, and from the teaching of Christ, he
I2
deduces the rule of non-resistance and lhe absolute condemnation of all
wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined with
arguments borrowed from a dispassionate observation of the present evils,
that
the anarchisl portions of his works appeal to the religious and the non
religious reader alike' (NOTE No 11).
Kropotkin righty identifies religious faith as the spring of Tolstoy's
anarchism and pacifism: in essence, Tolstoy argues that the fundament of
spirituality rests on the principle of non-violence, and that pacifism must
inevitbly lead to anarchism due to the State's role as the 'organ of
violence', waging war and repressing interal dissent. Tolstoy succinctly
described his beliefs in an undated letter to Dr. Eugen Heinrich Schmitt,
editor of the Budapest magazine Ohne Staat:
'Goverment is violence, Christianity is meekness, non-resistance,
love. And, therefore, Government cannOt be Christian, and a man who
wishes to be a Christian must not serve Government'.
These ideas arc most fully expounded in Tolstoy'S major
work on Christian anarchism, The Kingdom ofGod is Within You,
published in 1894, in which Tolstoy described the State as follows:
Take a man of our times, whoever he may be ... he lives on quietly
untl one day pople come and say to h im: "Firstly, you mUSt give your oath
and promise Lhat you will submit like a slave toall we may command you,
and that you will obey and believe to he absolute truth whatever we may
wish to decide and Claws; secondly, you must give us a pan of your
labour to be used at our discretion, and we shall employ it to keep you in
slavery and to prevent you from resisting our dccisions; thirdly, you must
elect and be eleted among those who ae suppsed to take p in
Goverment, knowing 8the while that me Goverment will go on quit
regardless of the foolish speeches you and others like you may pronounce,
and solely i n accordance with our will, that is, with me will of those who
have the army at their disposal; fourthly, you must appear at cenain times
at the law court and take pan in the senseless cruelties which we perpetate
against misguided men, for whose depravity weare ourselves responsible,
but whom we subject to imprisonment, exile, solitary confinement and
death. Fifthly, and most important of all, although you may be on the most
friendly terms with men of other nations, you must be ready ata moment's
notce, and whenever we command you, to look upon mose whom weshall
point out to you as your enemics. and to help personally or by money in
ruining, murdering and robbing mese men and women, children and aged
Iple, and todo the same towards your rell ow-countrymen or even your
Own
parents, we happen to require it" '.
13
IKingdom ofGod is Within You was the fruition of a long priod
of refection that startd in 1881 when Tolstoy announced his withdrawal
from literature and wrote My Confession, followed in 1884 by What I
believe and in 1886 by What then must we do? The religious faith which
moved Tolstoy topolitical and soial criticism should,as Kroplkin noted,
not distance the atheist, for, as TolsLOY wrote in What is religion? (1902):
'True religion is a relatonship that man establishes with the infinite
life surrounding him, and it is such as binds his life to that infinity and
guides his conduct'.
George Woodcock notes in his Anarchism
.
'I thin I ave said enough LO show lhat in its essentials Tolstoy's
Sial teaching IS a tue anarchism, condemning the authoritarian orderof
existing society, proposing a new libertarian order, and suggesting the
means by wh ich it may be attained. Since his religion is a natural and
rational one, and seeks its Kingdom in the reign of justice and loveon this
e,it does not tanscend his anarchist doctine, but is complementary
to it'.
Tolstoy's idea of religion, then, was nota mystical doctr ine buta new
option of life that had no need of Church and clergy, litany and ritual;
UhiS ulter to a Non-Commissioned Ofcer (1899), Tolstoy wrote:
'It is only necessary to act towards others as we wi sh
thm toact towards us. In that is all the law and all te prophets,asChrist
sid. And to act in this way we ned neither icons, nor relics, nor church
services, nor priests, nor catechisms, nor Goverments, but on the con
uary, we need prfect freedom from all that; for to do unto others as we
wish them to do unto us is only possible when a man is free from the fables
which the priests give out as the only tuth'.
Not surprisingly, the Orthodox Church would not tolerate such
'heresy' and excommunicated Tolstoy in 1901 for his persistent con
demnations of the Church as a reactionary body which supponed the
miliwism of the State
. Tolstoy was unconcerned by his excommunica
tion; he had long ago become convinced of the' false Christianity' of the
Church as he wrote in his Reply to the Synod's Edict ofExcommunication
(1901):
'I ame convinced that Church doctine is theoretica II y a crafty and
harmful he, and practically a collection of the grossest superstitions and
14
sorc
ery, which completely conceals the whole meaning of Christ's teach
ing'.
Tolstoy's understanding of Christianity was an essntially revolu
tiOnary and liberatory one; in the words of Herbrt Newton:
'Christ founded no church. established no Stale, made no laws,
impsed no goverent or exteral authority; he simply set himself to
wite the law of Lin the hearts of men in order that they might b able
to gover themselves'.
Tolstoy's spiritual anarchism rested on the principle of totl non
violence, and in his essays Tolstoy gives numerous reasons for rejectng
violence as a means of attaining anarchy. Quite apart from the practical
consideration that to take uparmed struggle is to fight the Stale on its own
ground where itis stongest, Tolstoy argues that the grip of the State over
the media will ensure the 'hypnotization' of the people in support of State
violence - either wars or interal repression - through the elaborate
maintenance of 'enemy images' and the gut reaction of fear. Far from
enlightening people, 'murder only increases the hypnotism', 'dynamite
and the dagger only cause reaction' . The popu larreputation that anarchism
acquired during its espousal of terrorist tactics in Tolstoy's time has
contiued to b a handicap to broad support for its ideas today. Our
twenlleth-centry experience with terrorism has shown that violence has
not helpd to challenge the State creo, but actually drives the pople
tads it. Panicked by media hysteria and skilfully manipUlated by State

.
smfo ation, the pople themsel ves call for increased pwers of repres
slon.In hIS utter toRussian Liberals( 1896), Tolstoyargue that violence
was counter-productive:
'The violence of the Revolutionists only strengthens the order of
things they strive against ... for it drives the whole crowd of undecided
people -who stnd wavering between the two parties - into the camp of the
conservative and retrograde party'.
.
This mechanism has been well understood by States; they do not
heSitate to make use of agents provocateurs and to orchestrate fake
terroristauacks whenever they feel that the legislation on interal surveil
lance d repression needs reinforcing. The 'strategy of tension' in Italy,
the SUICide of West German democracy in the 1970s and British manipu-
I .
.
allon of the Northe Ireland conniCt are eloquent examples of this
process. To use violence is then merely to play into the Sta te's hands.
But perhaps Tolstoy's most prsuasi ve argument against revolution-
!
ary violence as a stategy to reach anarchy is that the means and the end
B incompatible; reasoning that violence is the most naked for of
corcion, he assen s that alempts to introduce an anti -authoriwian soiety
through violent revolution can only end in dictatorship. In his evaluation
of other anarchist thinkerS,A n Appeal to Social Reformers, Tolstoy wro t:
'lf power is to be ablished, this can be accomplished in nowise by
force, as pwer having abolished power will remain pwer'.
Echoing the concers ofKroptkin and Alexander Berkman that the
defcnceofthe revolution may destroy therevolution itself, Tolstoy argued
in his Letter to Russian Liberals:
'Even d an attempt to alter the existing regi me by violent means could
succed, there would be no guarantee that the new organization would be
durable, and that the enemies of that new order would not, at someconven
ientoppor tunitY,triumph by using violence such as had been used against
them ... And so, the new order of things, established by violence, would
have continually to be supported by violence - i.e. by wrongdoing. And
conscquent1y, it would inevitably, and very qui ckly, becorruptd, like the
order it replaced'.
In a leUer com.meming on the 1905 revolution to his friend V. V.
S!v on September 20, 1906, Tolstoy foresaw the fate of the Russian
Revolution of 1917:
'What is going on now amongst the people (not the proletiat) is very
imprtant and. of course, good. but what is being done by all these comic
parties and com minees is not important and not good ... From the direction
things are taking, unless the people, the npeople, the hundred million
pasants who work on the land, by their passive non-panicipation in
violence make all this frivolous, noisy. irritable and touchy crowd harm
less and unneces , we shall surely arrive at a military diculorship, and
arrive at it by way of the great crimes and corruption which have already
begun ... SO this is what I think: I rejoice for the revolution, bUlgrieve for
those who, imagining that they are making it, are destroying it'.
Tolstoy's thoughts on the impossibility of rcching anarchy through
violence m echoed in an exchange of leuers in 1928 between veteran
revolutionaries Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, the latter im
prisoned Cor nearly fifteen years for his participation in the anarchist
terrorism of the 1890s:
'There are moments when I fccl [hat the revolution cannot work on
16
Ana
rchist principles. But when the old methods are followed, they never
lead V Anarchism' (Berkman).
'I feel that violence i n whatever form never has and
proba
bly never will bring constructive results' (Goldman).
'Unless we set our face against the attitude to revolution as a violent
erupton desuoying everything of what has bn built up over centuries of
painful and painstaking effort not by the burgeoisie but by the combined
effort of humanity, we must become Bolsheviks, and accept terror and m
that it implies, or become Tolstoyans. There is no other way. I insist that
if we can undergo changes in every other method of dealing with soial
issues, we will also have to lear to cha nge in the methods of revoluton'
(Goldman) (NOTE No 12).
Tolstoy'S suggested means of attaining anarchy were those that have
now beome well-known as civil disobedience and non-violent direct
action. Tolstoy called his stategy 'non-resistance' after the Biblical
quotation (so often partially cited as a justilication for revenge):
'Ye have heard, it was said of old, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth, but I say uO(o you, Resist not evil' (Matthew V, v. 38-39).
Tolstoy's choice of terms - 'non-resistance' and 'passive submis
sion' - is unfonunate, suggesting mute acceptance of oppression, and this
has led to Tolstoy bing accused ofbing a quietist. This is, however, far
fom what To Istoy recommends; contasting 'passive submission' with
violent reton, Tolstoy advocates unbnding moral resistance to
Authority. Theanarchist historian, Max NeuJau,commente on this in the
following words:
'It would b a complete misunderstanding of Tolstoy to see
his philosophy as one of resignation. of submission to evil in a spirit of
"Christian" patience and of obedience due to all authority . Tolstoy upheld
exactly the contrary: he wanted resistance to evil I and added to one
method of resistance - that of active force - a second: resislance through
disobedience, in other words, passive force. He did not say: suffer the
wrong that is done to you, or turn the other chek once you have ben
Stuck, but instead: do nOI do what you are ordered lOdo ,do not take the
rifle which is given to you to kill your brothers ... If Tolstoy had read
Godwin's book, he would have found the same idea expressed there ... The
Emerson-Tolstoy-Gandhi approach is as valid a means of struggle as is
revolutionary action in the form of strikes and, above ail, the Genera]
Stike'(NOTE No 13).
17
Il was from Tolstoy's ideas of non-compliance, refusal of taxes and
non-violent resistance to Authority that Gandhi developed his lhCry of
saryagraha. Therelationship betwen Tolstoy and Gandhi wasa brief one,
lastingjustovcra year, but Tolstoy's writings had already had a profound
influence on the future exponen t of non violence. In his autobiography A f
men are brothers Gandhi acknowleged his debt to Tolstoy:
'Il was forty years ago, when I was passing through a severe crisis of
septicism and doubt that I came across Tolstoy's book The Kingdom of
God is Within You, and was deeply impressed by it. I was at that time a
believer in violence. Its reading cure me of my scepticism and made me
a finn bliever in ahimsa (non-violence) ..
.
He was the greatest apostle of
non-violence that the present age has produced'.
Gandhi corresponded with Tolstoy from October 1909 until Tol
stoy's death in November 1910, informing Tolstoy of his non-violent
resistance to race laws in South Africa and obtaini ng T olSlOY' s penn ission
t publish an Indian tanslation of Tolstoy's uller to a Hindu. In this
essay, TOlStoy's infuence on Gandhi can besecn in the following passage:
'A come
.
rcial company enslaved a nalion comprising
two hundred mllhons ... do nOl the fgure make it clear that it is not the
English who have enslaved the Indians, bUI the Indians who have enslaved
themselves? bthe pople of India Benslaved, it is only bcause they
themselves hve and have lived by violence, and do not recognize me
elCral law of love inherent in humanity. As son as men Iive entirely in
accord with the law of love natl to their hearts and now revealed to
them, which excludes aresistance by violence, and thererore they hold
al?f from all participation in violence - as soon as this happens, not only
Will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, bUI not even millions will be
able l enslave a single individual' (NOTE No 14).
For Tolstoy, the State could only survive with the consent of the
goveed; a revolution to overthrow it had to take a personal rather than
a htJcal form. Th
.
e German anarchist Gustav Landauer developed this
pomt further, argumg that goverment was not an institution but the
product ofan authoritarian mentality:
. ': tate is nOt something thatcan be destoyed by a revolution, but
IS a condlUon, a certain relationship between human beings; we destroy it
by conltacting other relationships, by behaving differently.'
George Woodcock comments in his Anarhism:
18
'To attain this soiety where the Stt and law and proprty w
babolished, Tolstoy - like Gowin and to a great extent like Proudhon -
advoates a moral rather than a politcal revolution. A political revoluton,
he suggests, fights the Stateand property from without; amoral revolution
works within the evil soiety and wears at its very foundations. Tolstoy
dos make a distinction between the violence of a goverment, which i
whoUyevil bause it is dclibrateand works by the prversion of Un
and the violence of an angr pople, which is only partly evil beause i
arises from ignorance. Yet the only effective way he ses of changing
soiety uby reason, and, ultimately, by persuasion and example. The man
who wishes uablish the State must cease lO corate with it, refuse
militry service, police service, ju service, the payment of taxes. The
refusal to obey, in other words, is Tolstoy'S great weapn'.
Tolstoy has this to add:
'There C be only one permanent revolution - a moral one: the
regeneraton of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place?
Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it
clearly
.
in himself. And y
.
cI in our world, everybody minks of changing
humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.
The man
Of virtuous soul commands not nor obeys.
Power like a desolating pestilence
Pollutes whate'er it lOuches: and obedience,
Bane of genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanized automaton.
Sheffey
19
David Stephens
OF TH AGE
THE END OF THE
AGE
An Essay on the
Approaching
Revolution
(1905)
.
.
In Gospel language "the age" and "the end of the age" dos not
sigmey the end and bginning of a century, but the end of one view oClife
of one faith, of one melhod of m intercourse between men, and th
commencement of another view of life, another faith, anomer melhod of
soial intecourse. [... ]Every revolution bgins when Soiety has Qut
grown the view of life on which the existing fonns of soial life were
founded. when contradictions btween life such as it is. and Life as it
shO

ld b.

n
.
might b, bcome so evident to the majority that they feel
the IfJSSlbility of continuing existence under fonner conditons. The
revolution bgins in that nation wherein the majority of men bcome
conscious of this contadiction. P to the revolutionary methods these
depend on the object towards which the revolution tends.
In 1793 the consciousness of the conttion betwen the idea of
equality of men and the despotic power of kings, priesthood, nobility, and
bureaucracy was felt not only by the nations suffering from oppression,
but also by thc best men of the ruling classes in all Christendom. But
nowhere were these classes so sensitive to this inequality, and nowhere

as the consciousness of the people so little stultified by the servitude as

In France, and therefore the revolution of 1793 actually began in France.
The most adequate means of realizing equality naturally seemed to be to
take back that which the authorities possessed, and therefore those
revolutionaries realized their aims by violence.
22
At the present dale. 1905. the contradiction between the consious
ness of the possibility and the lawfulness, offree lifeon theone hand, and
the
unreason and disaster of obedience to corcive authority. arbity
depriving pple of the product of their labour forarmaments which can
have
noend. of authority capable at any momentof complling natons to
partcipate in insensaleand cruel manslaughleron the other is felt not only
by the masses suf ng fom this corcion, but als by the bst men of the
ruling cI. Nowhere is thi s contradiction felt so stongly as in Russia
.
Tuis partly due to the insane and humiliating war into which they have
drawn by the Govement and to the agricultotal life yet retained by
the Russian people, but above all to the particularly viUl. Christian
consciousness of this poplc. That is why Ithink that the revolulon of
1905 having as its objective the liberation of men from coercion must
begin and has already begun in Russia. The means of realizing the
objctivesof arevolution for the freedom of men obviously must be other
than that vio1enceby which men have hitherto attempted to raise equalit .
The men of the great French revolution wishing retain equality might
make the mistake of thinking that equality is attainable by coercion,
although it would seem evident that equality cannot be secured by
coercion, as coercion is in itself the keenest manifestation of inequality.
But freedom constituting the ch ief ai m of the present revolution cannal
in any case be attained by violence. Yet at present the people who
producing the revolution in Russia think thai the Russi an revolution.
having repeated all that has laken place in Europan revolutions with
solemn funera] processions, destuction of prisons. brilliant spe hes,
Alez dire vtre mitre. constitutional assemblies and so fonh. and
having ovenhrown the existing Goverment and institute constttional
monarchy oreven a soialistic republic, will attain the objective at which
the revoluton aimed.
Buthistory dos not repeat itself. Violent revolution has outive its
time. All it can give men, it has already given them, butat the same time
it has shown what it cannot attain. The revolution now beginning in Russia
amongst a popUlation of one hundred million souls of quite a peculiar
mentl attitude. and taking place not in 1793 but in 1905.cannot possibly
have the same objectives, and be realized by the same methods, as the
revolutions of sixty, eighty, a hundred years ago amongst German and
Latin nations quite differently constituted.
The Russian agricultural nation which, as a matter of fact, means the
,
,hole nation, required not a Duma and not the grant of a certain kind of
fight. the enumeration of which more than anything clearly demonstates
the
absence of simple tue freedom, not the substituton of one form of
coercive power for another, but a true and complete freedom fom 8
coer
cive power.
The signifcance of the revolution beginning in Russia and hanging
23
ovcr aU the world does not consist in thc establishmcnt of income [or
other taxes, nor the separation of Church from State, nor in the acquisition
by the State of soial institutions, nor in thc organization of elections and
the i maginary participation of the peoplc in the ruling power, nor i nthe
founding of the most demoratic, or even soialistic republic with univer
sl suffrage. It consists only in actU lfeedom.
Freedom not imaginary, bUl actual, is attained not by barricades or
murders, nor by any kind of new institution coively intouced, but
only by the cessation of obedience 0any human authority whatever.
II
The fundamental cause of the impending revolution, as of all past and
future revolutions, is a religious onc. By the word rcligion is usually
undcrstoodeithercertain mystical definitions of the unseen world, certain
riles. a cult supporting, consoling and inspiring men in life. or else the
explanation of the origin of the universe, o moral rules of life sanctioned
by divine command; bUl tue religion is before all else the disclosure of that
law common to all men which at any given time affords them the greatest
welfare.
Amongst various nations, even bfore the Christian teaching, there
was exprand prolaimed a supreme religious law, common to all
mankind and consisting mthis, that men for their welfre should live not
each forhimself, but each for the god of all, for mutal service (Buddha.
Is. Confucius, LL,the Stoics). Thelaw was prolaimed. and those
who knew it could not but se all its truth and bneficence. But custom
founded not upn mutual service but on violence had penetated to such
an extent into all institutions and habits that, whilst pple recognized the
bncfcenceofthe law of mutual servke, they contnued to live according
t the laws of violence, justifing this by the necessity of threts and
retibution. It seemed to them that without threats, and without retuing
evil for evil, soial life was impssible. Certain pople for the establish
ment of order and the correction of men took upn themselves the duty of
applying laws, and while they commanded, others obeyed. But the rulers
were inevitably depraved by the power they used. Then being themselves
depraved, instead of correcting men, they tansmitted to them their own
depravity. Meanwhile those who obeyed were depraved by panicipaton
in the coercive actions of the rulers by the imitation of the rulers and by
servile submission. One thousand nine hundred years ago Christianity ap
peared. Christianity con finned with new force the law of mutual service
and further explained the reasons why this law had not been fulfilled.
With extaordinary clarity the Christian teaching showed that this
reason was the false idea about the lawfulness and the necessity of
cocion for retibution. Having demonstrated from various sides the un-
24
lawfulness and harmfulness of retibUlion it showed thaI the greatst
cala
mities of men proeeded from acLS of violence which undertheexcuse
of
retribution are commiued by some men upon others. The Christian
teachi ng demonstated not only the injustice but the harmfulness of
vengea
ce, it showed that the only means of deliverance from violence is
the
submissive and peaceful endurance of il.
'Ye have heard that it was said. an eye for an eye, and a toth for a
toth: But I say unto you, that ye resist not him that is evil: but whosover
smiteth thee on thy rightchcek, tum to him the other s.And if any man
would go to law with thee and take away thy coat, let him have thy cl
also. And whosoever shall compel thee to goone mile, go with h ta.
Give tohim thatasketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee m
not thou away.' (Matl v. 38-42).
This teaching pinted out that if the judge as to the cases when force
is admissible, is the man who uses force, then there will be no limit to
violence, and therefore, that there may not be violence it is necessary that
no-one under any pretext whmever should use violence, especially under
the H$f usU l pretext ojrelribution.
This Leachingconfltlled the simple self-evidenltruth thatevil cannot
b abolishe by evil, and that the only means of diminishing the evil of
violence i abstinence fom violence.
This Leaching was clerly expressed and established. But the
idea of the justice of retibution as a necessary condilion of human mhad
bcome so deeply rooted, and so many people did not know the Christian
teching, or knew itonly in a distorted form. that those who had accepted
the law of Jesus yet continued to liveaccording to the law of violence. Te
leaders of the Christian world thought that it was pssible uaccept the
teching of mutual service without that teaching of non-resislance which
constitutes the keY-Slone of the whole teaching of the mutual life of
mankind. To accept the law of mutual service without accepting the com
mandment of non-resistance was the same as to build an arch without
securing it where it meets.
Christian pple, imagining that without having accepted the com
mandment of non-resistance, they could B ge a life better than the
pagan, continued todo not only what non-Christian nations did. but things
much worse, and increasingly departed from the Christian life. The
esscnceofChristanity, owing to its incomplete acceptance. became more
and more concealed. and Christian nations at last attained the position in
which they Bnow, namely, the transformation of Christian nations into
inimical camps giving all thei r powers to arming themselves against each
other, and ready at any moment to devour each other; and they have
reached the position that they not only 8themselves against each other.
but have also armed and Banning against themselves the non-Christan
natons who hate them and have risen againsl lhem; and above 8 tey
25
have reched thecomplel repudiation not only of Christianity bUl of any
highe law in life whalver
.
.
. .
.
.
The fundamental religious cause of the Impending revoluuon lIes :0
the distortion of the higher law of mutual service, and of the command
mentof non-resistanee given by the Chrstian teaching which rendes this
law possible.
III
Not only did the Christian teaching show that vengeance, ld the
ret of evil for evil, is disadvantageous and unreasonabl since it
increases the evil - it showed, moreover, that nonresistance 0 evil by
violence, the baring of every kind of violence without violently stug
gling againstit, is theonly means forthe attainmentofthatfeedom which
is natural to man. The teaching showed that the moment a man enters into
stife against violence he thereby deprives himself of fedom, for by
admittng violence on his part towards others, he thereby admits also the
violence against which he has striven; and even ifhe remain the victor yet
entering into the sphere ofexternal slrife he is always in danger of being
in the future conquered bya yet stonger violence.
This teaching showed that only that man can be free who sets as his
aim the fulflment of the higher law, common to mankind, and for
which there can be no obstacle. The leaching showed that the one means
to achieve bth the diminuton of violence in the world and the attainment
ofcomplete freedomis the submissive peaceful enduranceof all violence
whatver.
The Christian teaching prolaimed the law of the complete fre dom
of man, but under the necessary condition ofsubmitting to this higher law
in all its significance.
'And fearnot them which kill thebody, butaenotable kll the soul:
but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.'
(Mtt X. 28).
Those who accepted this teaching in all its significance, obying the
higher law, were freefrom any other obedience
.
They submissively bore
violence frommen, but they did not obey men in things incompatible with
the highe law.
Thus acted the flfSt Christians when they were a small number
amongst pagan nations
.
They refusedtoobeyGovernrents in maners incompatible wit the
higher law which they called the law of God; they werepersecuted and
exeuted for this. but they did not obeyman and were m But when the
whole nations living in established State organizations supponed by
violence were by means oftheexteral rite ofbaptsm recognized as Chris
tians, the relation of the Christians the authorities completely allred.
Goverments by the help of a servile priesthood inculcated into their
2
b CU that violence and murdermight be perpetated when they werere
:ed to forjust retribution and in defenof the oppress
.
and weak.
Beside this, by forcing men to swear aeg13nce to the autholJes, Vvow
before
God that they would unreservedly fulfl 8tt mlht b com-
dedby the authorities, the Governments reduced their subjets to such
m
:1e that pple regarding themselves as Christans ceased to lokupn
ilence and murder as forbidden. Committing violence and murder
themse
lves. they naturally submitted to the same
.
when perptatupon
them. And it came to this, that Christian men, ms of 0fe m
prolaimed by Jesus. instead of as formerly regardmg as a duty te
endurance of every violence while obying no-one except Go bgan t
understand their dutes in adirectly oppsilesense. Thy bgan tofeel
peful endurance was humiliating and to regardtheir most sc duty
obdience to the authority ofGoverments, and becam
.
e slaves. Educated
in these traditions they were not onl y unashamed ofthelf slavey, but were
proudof the pwer of their Goverments as slaves 8aJ ways proud of the
gucof their masters.
From this distrtion of Christianity thee has latterly developed yet
a new deceit which seured the Christian nations in their oppressio.
deceitconsistsin inculcating in a given nation -by means ofacomphcated
organizaton of suffrageand representation in govermen1 insttutions
that by electing the one who will then with others el
.
oct thl or that score
of candidates unknown to him, or by directly elecung therr representa
tives, they bcome participators in govermental power, and that therefore
in obying the Goverment they are but obeying themselves and s are
presumably fe . This deceit, it would seem. ouht 0have bobvlOs
bth theoretically and practically, as even with the most demra
.
bc
organi zation and universal suffragethe people canno express thew:,
they cannot express it. flCst, because there does nOlexlst such a mversa
will of a nation of many millions; and seondly, bcause even If such a
universal will ofthe whole people didexist, a majority of votes could never
express it, and they do not themselves know nor can know what they
require. Tis deceit, apart fromthe circumstances that the eleted repre
sentatives who participale in the Goverment, institute laws and rule
people, not with a view totheir welfare, but in most cases are gidedonly
by the aim ofretaining their position and power amidst the stoeof par
ties. Not to mention the corruption of the nation by every knd of faud,
stultfcation and bribery produced by the deceit. the deceit is especialy
pericious in the voluntary slavery to which it reduces men who fall under
its
influence Those fallen under the influence of this deceit imagine m
in
obeying thGoverment they obeythem selves, and never make up their
minds to disobey theordinancesofhuman authority, even though the Ialter
be
COntry not only to their personal taslS, inlerests and desires, butatso
to the higher law and to their consciences. Yet the actions and measures
27
ofthe Goverments ofsuch pseudo-selfgovering nations detennined by
the complex ste of partes and intrigues, by lhe stife of ambition and
,dependas little upon me will and desireof the whole nation as the
action and measures or lhe majority imagining tat they are free if they
have the right to votein the election of the gaolers and fr me inteal ad
ministatve measures in the prison.
A subject of the most despotc Goverment can be completely fe
although he may be subjected to cruel violence on the pan of the
authorities he has not established; but a member of a constitutonal State
is always a slave because, imagining that he has participated or can
participate in his Goverment, he recognizes te legality of all violence
peretrated upn him; he obeys all the orders of the authorities. So that
people in constitutional States imagining that mey are fe, owing to this
veryimagination lose the idea itself of what tue freedomis, and more and
more surrender themselves imo increasing slavery to teir Goverments.
Nothing demonstates so clearly the increasing enslavement of nations as
the growth, spread and success ofsocialistic theories: that is, the tendency
towards greatr and greater slavery.
Although the Russian people in this respect mplaced in more
advantageous conditions since hitherto they never have participated in
power. and so have not yet been depravedby such participation, stiU the
Russian people like oter nations have been subjetedtoall the deceit of
the glorification of authority, of oaths, of the prestige andgreatess of the
Stt and of the Fatherland, and they also regardit as their duty toobey the
Goverment in everything. Latterly, , shortsighted men of Russi an
soiety have endeavoured to reduce the Russian peple also to that
constitutional slavery in which the other European natons find them
selves.
So that the chief consequence to the non-acceptance of the law of
non-resistance, besides the calamity of universal armament and of war,
has been the greater and greater loss of freedomfor those who profess the
distorted law of Jesus .
IV
The distortion ofthe teaching of Jesus with thenon-acceptance of the
commandment of non-resistance has brought Christian nations to mutual
enmity and to consequent calamities as well as to continually increasing
slavery, and peple of me Christian worldarc beginning to feel the weight
of this slavery. This is the fundamental general cause of the approaching
revoluton. Theparticularand temporarycauses, owing to which this revo
lution is beginning at this verytime, consist first inthe insanity of growing
militarism of the peoples of the Christian world as it stands revealed in the
Japanese war, andsecondly, inthe increasing state of calamity anddissat
isfaction of the working people proceeding rromtheir being deprived of
28
their legitimate and natural right to usc the land.
These twO causes are common to all Christian nations, but owing to
ped
al historical conditions of me life of the Russian nation tey arc felt
y it more acutcl an byther nations d at this particular time. This
misery of its postuon flowlOg from obechence to the Goverment has
beCO
me especially evident to theRussian people, not, I think, only through
the
dreadful insane war into which their Goverment has drawn them, but
also
beCause the atitude of Russian people to the ruling powe |always
been
different from that of European nations. The Russian people have
neverstuggled with thei rruiers, and, above all, having neverpartcipated
inpower, have not been depraved by such participation.
The Russian people have always regardedpower, notas agod thing
towards which it is natural for every man to strive, as the majority of
European nations regardpower (and as unfortunately some corrupt people
of the Russian nation are already regarding it), but it has always looked
upon power as an evil which man should avoid. The majority of the
Russian nation have therefore always preferred to bear all kinds of
physical misery proceeding fromviolence rather than accept thespiritual
responsibility of participating in it. So that the Russian people in its
majorityhas submitted topower, and is submitting to it, not because they
cannotoverthrow it as the revolutionaries wish toteach them todo, and not
because they cannot attain such participation as the liberals wish to teach
them to allain. but because in their majority the Russian people have
always preferred, and doprefer, submission to violence rather than sti fe
wim it or participation in it. This is how a despotic Goverment was
established and has maintained itself in Russia, that is, thesimple violence
of the stong and pugnacious over the weak or those not desirous of
stuggling.
The legend of the call of the Varangians (NOlE No 15), obviously
composed after the Varangians had already conquered the Slavonians.
fully expresses the relation of the Russian pople towards power even
bforeChristianity . 'We ourselves do not wish to participate in the sins of
pwer. Uyou donot regard itasa sin,comeand gover us.' By this same
atitude towards power Cbe explained me submission of the Russian
people to the most cruel and insaneaulrats oftennot even Russian, from
Ivan IVdown to Nicholas II.
Thus in older times did the Russian people regard power and their
relation towards it. Even now the majority look upon it in the same way.
Ilis tue that as inother States, the same deceits, bywhich Christian people
have
been unconsciously compelled not only to submit but to obey in
deedscontary LoChristianity, have beenperpetated also inrelaton to the
Russian people. But these deceits reached only the upper, corrupt layers
ofthe people, whereas the majority have retained that view or power by
Which man regards it as better to bear suffering from violence than to
29
Parti
cipate in
w
e
vio
lence.
The cause
of @Dch
.
dattit.ude of the Russian people towards power
con
sis
ts I thin
l. in th1S: that IU the Russi an nation more than in other
nati
o
ns
h
as
be
n
conserved tue Christianity asa teaching ofbrothcrho.
equ
ality
,
humi
l i
t
y love,

e Christianity

hich sees a radical differ

ence
btween
s
u
b
mltUng to violence and obylOg it
.
A true Christian may
sub
mit, he can
n
ot even but submit without strife toevery violence. but he
f0
Rq
lOby
tl.
P8
tis. reogni
.
zc its lawfulness
:
How

ver UL0uGover
m
ents in gener
al.
8D0
the Rus

lan Goverment In parucular. have striven,

an
d
are striving
,
to
replace thiS tuly Christian atitude towards power by
the
Onhodox
-Chr
istian' teaching. the Christian spirit and the distinction
b
et
ween 'sub
rlli
Ssion' lopower and 'obedience' continues to live in the
gre
at majorit
y
of
e ussian working people.
The inco
fl
pa
ob,IUY of govermental coercion and Christianity m
"

Yt ceased
|
be
felt by the majority of the Russian pople, and this
C
On
t
adiction
lla
S been especially keenly and distinctly felt by the more
s
e
n
Sitive Chr
is
tians,
who did not embrace the distorted teaching of
ort
h
Odoxy,
th
at
is,. by th
.
e so-called

t members. These Christians of

varo
us deno
rinal
JOns did not recognize the lawfulness of govermental
P
wer
.
From
fear the majority submitted to Govement demands alt
h
o
ught hey
k0

w
em to unlawful, but some of the minority circum
ve
nted them
bY
van
ousdevlccs, or else fled from them. When, with the in
t
rOduction
of
u
nive
rsal

oscription, State coercion threw, as it were, a

Ch
allenge
to
all
true
Chfl
.
slans, demanding from every man readiness to
i
H
_
many o
r
ox
usslan people began to
.
understand the incompatibil
I
t
y o
fChs
tiamt
y with pwer. At the same lime non-orthoox Christians
Ot
H most
..ariou
s denominations began categorically V refuse to
b
ome sold
ie
rs
(Nr No 16). Although there were not many such
"u@g)@(har
dlY
one 1Ra thou

nd conscripts), still their significance was

8t @inU
c
refusls, which called forth cruel executions and prse
_
o
@on

@of the Goverment, opened the eyes no longer of sect

brsonl
Y,
but of all Russi an people to the un-Christian demands of
Vt@q gp0
0
:
An enormous ra jorit y of people who previously had not
t
h
ought aboL
lt

e contradiction belwe

n t
.
he divine and human law saw
1@contrad
iC
tion,
and amongst the majority of the Russian nation there
bgan the in ..
isible, persisten, nca1culable work of the liberation of con
SCiousness.
SL
lch
was the poSition of the Russian nation when the utlerly
u
__
_____

J
apanese war broke out It is this war, coupled with the
developme
nt
of.
reading and

riting, ,ith the universal dissatisfaction,

g
_
abo Y
all
wllh
the necessity of calling out for the first time hundreds
O1
l
housan
dOf
middle-a

edmen dispersed all over Russia, and now lor

[g
theirf
ilics
and rauonal labour(the reservists) for a glaring, insane
nd
cruel
g_whic has served as the

nal impetus to transform the

lnvisible
dp
ersistent Inner development Int a clear consciousness of
the
unlaf
ulness and sinfulness of obedience to a Goverment requiring
such aclons.
This conscousness has el pressed itself, and is now el pressing itself,
in
the
most ..aned and momentous events: in the conscious refusals of
resrvists to enter the army; in desrtions fromthe army; in equally con
sciouS refusals Oshot and fight, espcially in refusals to shot atone's
comr
ad.esduring suppression of revolts; and abve all, i nthe continually
incre
aSing numbr of cases of refusal to lake the oath and enr the mili
gservice. Such 8the consious manifestations of the 11Izwfulness
and
needlessness of obeying the Goverment; wBtIsl the ;.; nCOiscious
maniftions of it 8 to b oun in all that which now being
accomp
lished both by therevoluuonanes and by their enemies: slch as the
sailors' revolts in the Black Sea and in Kronsladt, the military folts m

iel and othe places, wrcckings, self-constituted violence, peasants'

no. -:he presllgeof
.
theaulhorities is destrOyed,and before the enormous
maJonty of the RUSSian people of our time there has arisen in all its great
significance the question as to whether onc should - whether it is one's
dUI to -0ty theGoverment. In thisqueslion arisen amongst the Russian
nallon consIsts one of the causes of lhe great revol ution which is approach
ing and perhaps has already begun.
N
.
The seond exteral cause of the approaching revoluton consists in
thIS: that the workng pople are deprived of their natural and lawful right
to the use f e land, and that this deprivation has brought lothe nations
of the ChnSll

orld e continuall increasing misery of the working
pople an elf IOc

slOg exasperauon againsllhose who exploit their

labour. Thl

L .espally perceptible in Russia bause it is only in Russia
that the maJoflty of the working pople still live an agricultural life and
he Rus
.
sian people. owing to the increase of the population and lhe
msufclen

y ofth

land, are only now placed under the necessity eilher
of aa

oO!ng their accustomed agricultural life in which they see the

poss.lblhty of the realiztion of the Christian commonwealth, or else of
ceasing toobey the Goverment which keeps in the hands of the landown
ers the land taken from the people.
It is generally thought that the cruellest slavery is personal slavery:
":hen one man can do anything he likes with another torture mutilate kill
him h'l h .
' , ,
'
.": .' e t at which we do nOleven call slavery, the deprivation of the
POSSibility of using the land, is thought merely certain somewhat unjust
economical institution.
.
But this view is quite false. Tat which Joseph did with te Egyptians,
w
lchallconquerors have done with thevanquished nations, which unow
g one by men to men in the deprivation of the pssibility of usi ng the
-IS themostdreadf ul and cruel slavery. The personal slave the slave
31
of one, but the man deprived of the right to use the land is the slave of all.
Even this is not the principal calamity of the land slave. However cruel
might have been the owner of the personal slave, in view of his own
ad vantage and that he might not lose the slave, he did not force hi m to work
incessantly, did not torture him, did not starve him, whereas the man
deprived of the land is always oblige to work byond h.is strength, to
suffer, and to starVe, and can never for one minute be completely provided
for and b set free from the arbitary will of men, espcially fom that of
evil and avaricious men. Yet even this is not the chief calamity of me land
slave. The worst is that he cannot live amoral life. Not living Dlabur on
the land, not struggling with natre, he is inevitably oblige to suuggle
with men, to endeavour to take fom them by force or cunning that which
they have acquired from the land and from the labour of others.
Land slavery is not, as is thought even by those who recognize
deprivation of land as slavery, one of the remaining forms of slavery, but
is the radical and fundamental slavery, from which has grown and grows
every form of slavery, and which is incomparably more painful than
personal slavery. Personal slavcry is merely one of the particular cases of
exploitation by land slavery, so that the emancipation of men from
personal slavery without their emancipation from land slavery, is not
emancipation, but merely the cessation of exploitation by one form of
slavery, and in many cases, as it was in Russia (when the serfs were
emancipated with but a small portion of land), is a deceit which can only
for a time conceal fom the slaves their uue position.
The Russian pople always understoo this, during serfdom, saying,
'We are yours, but the land is ours', and during the emancipation of the
land. During the emancipation from serfdom the people were cajoled by
a little land being given mem, and for a time they subsided, but with
inc of ppulation the question of me insufficiency ofland again as
bfore them, and that in the clearest and most definite fonn.
While the people were serfs they used the land as much as wa
necessry for their existence. TheGovemmentand Ihe landowners had Ihe
care of distibutng the increasing population on the land, and so the people
did not see the essential injustice of the seizure of the land by private
individuals. But as soon as serfdom was abolished the care of the
Government and landowners concerning the people's economic agricul
tural - I shall not say welfare but possibility of existence was also
ablished. Thequantityofland which the peasants might possess was once
and for all determined without te possibility of increasing it as the
population increased, and the people saw more and more clearly that it was
impossible U live thus. They waited for the Goverment to rescind the
laws which deprived them of the land. They waited ten, twenty, thirty,
fony years, but the land has been seized even more and more by private
landowners, and before the people was placed the choice: of starving,
32
c
esing to multiply, or altogether abandoning rural life and fonning
gen
eration of navvies, weavers or locksmiths. Half a century passed, their
pOition kept oming worse and worse, and reached

h alate thatlhe
order of life whIch they regarded as necessary for Chnstlan hfe bgan to
(to pieces, and the Goverment not only did not give them land, but
gave it to its minions, and, securing it forthe latter, intimated to the pople
that they need never hop for the emancipation of Ihe land, while on the
Europan moel it organized for them an industrial life, wi th labour
insp
ction, which the pple regarded as bad and sinful.
The deprivation of the people of their legitimate right to te land is
the principal cause of the calamitous position of the Russian pple. The
same cause lies at the basis of the m i scry and discontent with their psiton
felt by the working people of Europe and America, the difference is only
this: that the seizure of the land from the European peoples by recogniton
of the lawfulness of landed propeny has taken place long ago; so many
new relations have covered up this injustice that the men of Europe and
America do not see the true cause of their position, but search for it
everywhere: in the absence of markets, in tari ffs, in un fair txation, in capi
talism' in everything save in the deprivation of the people of their right to
the land (NOTE No 17).
To the Russian people the radical injustice - not having yet been
completely perpetated upon them - is clearly seen.
The Russian people living on the land clearly see what people wish
to do with them, and they cannot reconcile themselves to iL
Senseless and ruinous armaments and wars, and the deprivation of
the pople of their common right to the land - these, in my opinion, are the
cause of the revolution impnding over the whole of Christendom. And
this revolution is beginning in no other place but in Russia, bcause
nowhere except amongst theRussian pople has the Christian view of life
ben preseved in such stength and purity, and nowhere save in Russia h
ben so far conserved the agricultural conditon of the majority of te
pople.
VI
The Russian people before other nations of the Christan world,
owing to their speci al qualities and conditions of life, have been brought
to the consciousness of the disasters proceeding from obedience to
corcive State power. In this consciousncss and in the aspiration to free
them
selves from the coercion of their rulers lies, in my opinion, me es
sence of the revolution which is approaching, not only for the Russian
p
ople, but also for all nations of the Christian world. But to people living
in
States founded upon violence, it seems that the abolition of the power
ofGo
vemment will neessarily involve the greatest of disasters.
But the assenion that the degree of safety and welfare which men
33
enjoy is ensured by State power is ahogether an arbitrary one. We kow
thos disasters and such welfare as exist among pople living under State
organizaton, but wedo not know the position in which pple would b
were they to get clear of the Stale. If one takes into consideraton the u
of those small communities which happen to have lived and living
outside great States, such communities, whilst profiting fom all the
advantages of social organization, yet being freefromState corcion, do
notexprience one-hundredth part of the disasters which undergone by
people who obey State authority.
The people of the ruling classes for whom the Stale organizaton is
advantageus speak most about the impssibility of living wiLout Stat
organizaton. But ask those who bonly the weight of State pwe,
theagriculturallaourers, lheone hundred million pasants in Russia, and
you will find they fecionly its burden, and, far fromregarding themselves
assaferforSlate power, they could altogether dispense with it In many of
my writngs I have repeatedly endeavoured to show that what intimidates
men - the fear that without govemmenta1 power the worst men would
triumph whilst thebest would beoppressed - is precisely whathas long ago
happned, andis still happening, in States, since everywhere thepower
is in the hands ofthe worst men; as, indeed, cannot beoterwise, because
only the worst men could doall these crfty , dastardl y and cruel act which
Bneessary forparticipation in pwer. Many times I have endeavoured
toexplain that all the chief calamities from which men suffer, such as the
accumulation of enormous wealth in the hands of some people and the
deep poverty of the majority, the seizure of the land by those who do not
workon it, the unceasing armaments and wars, and thedeprivaton of men,
flow only fom the recognition of the lawfulness of govermental coer
cion; I have endeavoured to show that before answering the queston
whether the position of men would be the worse or the better without
Goverments, one should solve the problem as who makes up the
Goverment. Arethose who constitute it bttcrorworse than the average
level of men? If they better than theaverage run, then theGovemment
will b bneficent; but if they are worseit will b pricious. And thatthese
men - Ivan IV, Henry VIII, Marat, Napleon, Arakcheyef. Mettemich,
Tallynd, and Nicholas - are worse than the general run is proved by
history.
In every human society there are always ambitious, unscrupulous,
cruel men, who, I have already endeavoured to show, are ever ready to per
ptate any kind of violence, robberyor murder for their own advantage;
and that in a soiety without Goverment these men would be robbers,
restained in their actions partly by strife with those injured by them (self
muuKjustice. lynching), but partly and chiefly by the most pwerful
weapon of influence upon men -publicopinion. Whereas in asociet ruled
by corcive authority. these same men are those who will seize authority
34
and will make use ofiL, not only wi thout Brestaint of public opinion, but,
on the cont. supprted, praised and extolled by a bribd and artificially
maintained public opinion.
It is said: 'How can people live without Goverments and corcion?'.
On the contary, one should say: 'How can people, if they are rational
beings, live reognizing violence and not rational agreement as the inner
connecting umof their life?'.
Eitherone or the other: men arc either ratonal or irrational bings. If
they arenOlrational beings, then all matters betwcn them can and should
b decided by violence. and thereis noreason for some to have and others
not to have this right toviolence. But if menarational beings, then their
relations should be founded, not on violence, but on Un.
One would think that thisconsideralion would b conclusive to men
recognizing themselves as rational beings. But those who defend State
power do not think of man, of his qualities, of his rational nature; they
speak of a certain combination of men to which they apply a knd of
superatural Umystical signification.
What will happen to Russia, France, Britain, Germany, say they, if
peoplecease toobeyGovernments? What will happen toRussia? -Russia?
What is Russia? Where is its beginning or its end? Poland? The Baltic
Provinces? The Caucasus with mits nationalities? The Ka Ta?
Ferghana Province? All these are not only not Russia, but all these are
foreign natonalities desirous ofbeing freedfromthe combination which
is called Russia. The circumstance that these nationalities areregarded as
parts of Russia is an accidental and temporary one, conditioned in the past
by a whole series of historical events, prncipal! y acts of violence, injustce
and cruelty. whilst in the present this combination is mainlained only by
the power which spreads over these natonalities. During our memory.
Nice was Italy and suddenly became France; Alsace was France and
became Prussia. The Trans-Amur Province was China and became Rus
sia. Sakhalin was Russia and became Japan. At present the power of
Austia spreads over Hungary, Bohemia and Galicia, and that of the
British Govermenl over Ireland, Canada. Australia, Egypt and India, that
of the Russian Goverment over Poland and Guria. But tomorrow this
power may cease. The only force uniting all these Russias, Austias,
Bri tains and Frances is coercive power, which is the creation of men who,
contrary to their rational nature and the law of freedom as revealed by
Jesus, obey those who demand of them evil works of violence. Men need
only become conscious of their freedom, natural lO rational beings. and
cease to commit acts contrary to their conscience and the Lw, and then
these artificial combinations of Russia, Britain, Germany, France. which
appear so splendid, will no longer exist. and that cause, in the name of
which peple sacfice not only their lifebut the libnypropr to rational
beings will disappar.
35
It is usual to say that the formation of great States outof small oncs
continually struggling w0each other, by substituting a great exteral
frontier for small boundaries, diminishes strife and bloodshed and Lheir
attendant evils. But Lhis assertion also is quite arbitrary, as no-one has
weighed the quantities of evil in the one and the other psitions. It is
difficult to blieve that mthe wars of theconfederateprio mRussia, or
of Burgundy ,Flanders and Normandy inFrance, cost as many victims as
the wars of Alexander or of Napolen or as the Japanese war latlyended.
The only justification forthe expansion of LheState is the formation
of a universal monarchy, the existence of which would remove 8
pssibility of war (NOTE No 18). But all auempts 8forming such a mon
archy by Alexander of Macedon, by the Roman Empire, or by Naplen,
never attained this objective of pacification. Lthe conty, they were the
cause of !he greatcstcalamities for !he nalions. So that !he pacification of
men cannot pssibly be attained except only by the opposite means: !he
abolition of States with thei corcive power.
There have existed cruel and pericious superstitions, human sacri
fices, burings for witchcraft, 'religious' wars, lOnures ... but men have
free !hem selves from !hese; whereas the superstition of !he State as
some!hing sacred conti nues its hold upon men, and Uthis superstition
offered perhaps more cruel and ruinous sacrifices !an lO aU the others.
The essence of this superstition is !his: thal men of different loalilies,
habits and interests persuaded that Lhey all com pose one whole bcause
one and the same violence is applied l all of them, and these men believe
0,and are proud of belonging to this combination.
This suprstition has existed for so long and is so strenuously main
tained that not only those who profit by it - kings, ministers, generals, !he
military and officials - 8certain that lhe existence, confirmation and
expansion of these artificial combinations is god, but even the groups
within the combinations become so accustomed to this supersttion that
they are proud of belonging LO Russia, France. Britain or Germany,
although this is not at anecessary to them, and brings them nothing but
evil.
Thereforeiftheseanificial combinations inLO greatStatcs were tob
abolished by people, meekly and peacefully submitting to every kind of
violence, while ceasing to obey the Goverment, then such an abolition
would only lead to there being among such men less corcion, less
suffering, less evil, and to its becoming easier forsuch men tolive accord
ing to the higher law of mutual service, which was revealed to men two
thousand five hundre yers ago, and which gradually enters more and
more into the consciousness of mankind.
In general for the Russian people, both the lOwn and the country
population it is, in such a critical time as the present, imponant above all
not to live by the experience of others, not by others' thoughts, ideas,
36
words, not by various social demoracies, constitutions. expropriations.
bureaux, delegatcs, candidatures and mandates, but to thi nkwith their own
mind, to live theirown life, constructing outoftheirown past, out of their
own
spiritual foundations new forms of life proper to this past and these
foundations.
VII
Therevolution now impendingovermankindconsists in their libera
tion from the deceit of obdience to human power. Amm ce of d
revolution is quite different fromthe essence of all formertlOiutions in
theChristian world, thereforealso theactivity of those partcipatng in this
revolution must b quite different from !he activity of those who partici
pated in formerevolutions.
The activity of those involved in former revolutions consisted in the
violent ovenhrow of power and in its reseizure. The activity of mose
pple involved in the present revolution should, and C,consi st in the
cessation of that obedience lOany violent power whatever, which has now
lost its meaning, and in !he ordering of one's life independently of
Govement
Besides theactivity of those engaged in the coming revoluton bing
different fom that of the peplewho panicipated in former revolutions,
the principal participants in this revolution 8 themselves also quite
different, as is !he loality where it musl We place, and the number of
panicipants.
The panicipants in former revolutions wereprincipally people of the
higher professions, freefromphysical labour, and the urban workers led
by these men; whereas the participants in the coming revolutionmust, and
will, be chieOy the agricultural masses. The localities where former
revolutions began were towns; !he loality of the present revolution must
b chieOy the county. The number of participants in former revolutions
was ten or twenty per cent of the whole nation; now the number of
Participants in the revolution which is taking place in Russia must b
eighty or ninety pr cent
Thereforeall the activity of the agitated urban population of Russia,

ho. imitating Europe, combine into unions, preparestrikes, demonsta

lions and revolts, and invent new forms of Goverment, not to mention
those unfonunate brutalized men who commit manslaughter, thinking
thereby to serve Ihedawning revolution, the activity of all these men, far
from
being in harmony with theimpnding revolution,arrests its progress
much
more efectually than Goverments do (for, without knowi ng it
emselves, they are the truest assistants of the Goverment), and falsely
dlfccts and impedes it.
hedangernow ttening the Russian nation is not thattheexisting
c
orciv
e Goverment may not bev iolentl y overthrown and that in its place
37
may not be established another Goverment also coercive, however
democratic oreven socialistic, but that this struggle with the Goverment
may draw the nation itself into an activity of violence. The danger lies in
this: that the Russian people, called by peculiar circumstances in which it
is placed to pint out a peaceful and certain way of liberation, instead of
this may, by those who do not understand all the si gnificance of the
revolution taking place, b atracted into a servile imitaton of former
revolutions, and that, abandoning the way of salvation on which they
now standing, they may advance along the false way by which other
nations of Christendom areadvancing to their certain ruin.
In order to avoid this danger the Russian pople should frst of b
lhemselves; they should not seek to ascertain how they shouldactand what
they should do from Europan nations and American constirutions, or
from soi alistc programmes. They should inquire and seekadvice only
fom their own conscience. The Russian people, in order that they may
fulfil the great work now before them, should not only refrain from
concering themselves with thepolitical goverment of Russia and with
the securing of feedom tothecitizens of the Russian State, but should first
of all free themselves from the very idea of the Russian State, and
consequently also from all concer in therights of the citizens of such a
State (NOT No 19). At the present moment the Russian people, so that
they may obtain freedom, should n010nly refrain fromtaking this or that
action, but should refrainfrom 0undertakings, fom those into which the
Govermentis luring them aswellas fromthose into which therevolution
aries and librals desire t draw them.
The pasants, the majority ofthe Russian pple, should continue to
live 8 they have always lived, in their agricultural. communal life,
enduring 8 violence, both govermental and non-govermental, without
struggle, but not obying demands t panicipate in any kind of gover
mental corcion; they should not willingly pay tes, they should not
willingly serve in the plice, the administration, the customs, in the army,
in the navy, nor in any coercive organization whatever. Likewise, and still
morestrictly, the peasants should refain fromthe violence to which they
are bing incited by the revolutonaries. All violence of peasants towards
the landowners will call forth stife with reacting violence, and will end in
any case by the establishment of a Govemmentofthis orthat kind, but un
avoidably coercive. And with anycoerciveGovemment, ashappens inthe
frecstcounties of Europe and America, the same sensclessand cruel wars
will be prOClaimed and carried on, and in the same way the land will
continue ube thepropenyof the wealthy. It is only thenon-participation
ofthe people in any violence whateve which can abolish all coercion from
which they suffer, and prevent possibility of endless armaments and
wars, and also abolish private property in land.
Thus should the agricultural peasants act in orderthat the revolution
38
now
taking place may produce god results.
Ato the urban classes, the nobles, merchants, dotors, scientists.
writers, mehanics and soon, who are now ocupied with the revolution,
they
should flfSt of all understand their insignificance, be it only numeri
cal, of one to a hundred i ncomparison to the agricultural populaton; they
sho
uld undersrand that the objective of the revolution now laking place
cannot, and should not, consi st in the foundation of a new plitcal
corcive order, with whatever universal suffrage, whatever improved
soialistic institutions, but that this Objective can, and should, consist in
the liberation of the whole people and espially of their majority , the one
hundred million agricultral workers, fromevery kind ofcorcion: fom
militry corcion -soldiery; fom economic corcion - taxes and triffs;
and fom agrarian coercion - the seizure of the land by the landowners. For
this purpose that fetful, unreasonable and unkind activily with which
Russian liberals and revolutionaries are now ocupied is not at m
necessay, but something quite differenL These men should understand
that Revolutions cannot be made toorder. 'Let us organize a revolution';
that revolution cannot be producedby imitating the ready-made patters
ofwhat has taken place a hundred years previously underutterly different
conditions. Above all. these men should understand that a revolution C
improve theconditon of a people only when they, havingrecognized the
unreasonableness and calamity of fonner foundations of life, strive to
ge a life on new foundations capable of giving them tue welfare,
when peple pssess ideals of a new better life.
Those who are now endeavouring to produce in Russia a plitcal
revolution according to the moel of Europan revolutons, howeve.
possess neither any new foundations nor any new ideals. They stive
merely t substtute forone old formof coercion another new one, also to
be reali zed by corcion, and carrying with it thesame calamites as those
from which the Russian people now suffer, as we see in Europe and
America, goaning under the same m i Ii tarism, the same taxation, the same
seizure of the land.
The majority of revolutonaries put forwardas their ideal a socialistc
organizaton which could be obtained only by the cruellest corcion. and
which, if it ever were attained, would deprive mcn of the last remnants of
liberty.
In order to fe themselves from all the evils which now oppress
them. the working men should, without stife, without coercion, cease to
obey the authorites. And this same is also necessary for the fulfi lment of
that law which Christian nations profess. A Christian, as a Christian,
cannot obey (and obeying therebynecearily participate in) an authority
which is entirely based on violence, maintained by violence, and unceas
ingly
committing acts of violence the most contrary 0the Christian law:
SOldie
ry, wars, prisons, executions, thcdepriving of the people of cpos-
39
sibility of using the land. So, both the bodily welfare of man, as well as the
highe spiritual welfare. can only be attained in one way: by the suffering
wilhout suuggle of all violence, but at the same time by the abstinence
fom parcipation in it, by disobedience to the authorities.
So, if pple of the urban classes really desire to serve the great
revolution which is taking place. the fi rst thing they should do is to desist
from thecruel,revolutionary, unnatural, artificial activity with which they
are now ocupied. and to settle down in the county and share the people's
labour. leing from the pople their patience, their indifference and
contempt towards the e,ercise of power, and. abve aU, their habits of
industy endeavouring nOl only to refrain from inciting people, as they
now do, to violence, but, on the contrary, restraining them fm all
partcipaton in acts of violence and fm any obedience to coercive power
of whatever kind, and to serve them. should it be necessary, with their
sientific knowledge, to clarify those questions which will inevitably
with the abolition of Govermcnt.
VllI
Buthow and in what forms can men of the Christian world live uthey
will not live in the form of States obying Goverment rule?
Theanswerto this question lies in those very qualites of the Russian
people. owing to which I think that the impending revolution must begin
and must happen mRussia rather than in other counties.
The absence of Goverment power in Russia has never prevented the
sial organizaton ofagricuhural communes. On the contary, the inter
venton of Goverment power always hindered thi s inner organization
naturailO the Russian people. The Russian people, like the majority of ag
ricuhural nations. natura1ly combine like bees in a hive into definite social
relatons fully satisfying the demands of the common life of men. Wher
ever Russian pople sel e down without the intervention of Goverment
they have always established an order not corcive but founded upon
mutal agreement, communal, and with communal possession of land,
which has completely satisfied the demands of paceful social life.
Without the aid of the Goverment such com m unes have populated the
easter bundarie of Russia. Such communes haveemigte to Turkey,
like the Nekassovisi, and retaining their Christian communal organiza
tion. quietly have lived, and are living there. under the power of the
Turkish Sultan. Such communes have without knowing it passed into
Chinese territory, into Central Asia. and have lived there for a long time,
without needing any Goverment beyond their own inner organizaton
(NOm No 2). In precisely the same way do the Russian agricultural
pople, the enonnous majority of the population of Russia live without
needing the Goverment, but merely suffering it. The Goverment for the
Russian people hnever been a necessity but always a burden.
+
The absence ofGovemment, of that same Goverment which retains
by force the right of putting the land into the hands of the non-labouring
landowners. can only contribute to that communal agricultural life which
the Russian pople regard as a necessary condition of go .It will
contribute to it, in that power of maintaining proprty in land being
abolished. the land will be mand all will have equal right to it.
Theefore the Russian people, when aboliShing Goverment, need
not invent any new forms of combined life with which replace the
former. Such forms of combined life exist amongst the Russian pople,
have always ben natura1 to them, and have satisfied their soial demands.
These fonns area communal organization with theequality of 8 the
members, aco-operative system in industial undertakings, and acommon
possession of the land. The revolution which is impending over Christen
dom and is now beginning amongslthe Russian people. L distinguished
from former revolulionspreci sely by this. that lauerdestoyed without
substituting anything for that which was destroyed by them, or else
replaced one form of violence by another; in the impending revolution
nothi ng need b destyed, it is only necessary to cease participating in
violence. not to root up the plant. putting in its place something artificial
and lifeless, but merely to remove 8 which has hindered its growth.
Therefore thes hasty, bold-faced and self-assured people who, without
understanding the cause of the evil with which they are violently strug
gling, and who. without admitting the reality of any form of life without
violence. blindly and thoughtlessly overthrow the existing violence in
order to replace it by new violence, will not contibute anything to the
revolution now taking plae. Those whowillcontibute to itare those who,
without overthrowing anything. without breaking anything, will organize
their life independently of the Government, will pacefully endure any
violence inflicte upn them, but will not participate in the Govcmment,
and will not oby it.
The Russian nation, the agricultural nation. the enonnous majority,
need only continue to live as it lives now, an agricultural communal li fe,
only with Rparticipation in the works of the Government and with out
obedince R it.
The closer the Russian pople will stick to the combined lif which
is natural to them, the less possible will b the interference of govermen
Lcoercive rule in their life, and the more easily will this be removed,
finding fewer and fewer occasions for interference, and fewer and fewer
assistants in the doing of its deeds of violence.
Therefore to the question as to what consequences will follow the
cessaton of obedience to Govement. one can say for certain that the
consequence will be the abolition of the coercion which compelled men
to fight with each other an d deprive them of the right to use the land. Men
liberated fom violence. no longer preparing forwarnor fghting with each
41
other, but pssessing access 1 the land, will naturally ret1 the most
joyous, helthy and moral agiculwral labour propr to all men, in which
man's effort will b direcled to a struggle with nature and not with men;
to a labur on which rest all other branches of labur, and which can b
abandoned only bythose who live by violence. Thecessation of obedience
to Govemmentmust bring men to agricultural life, and agricultral life in
its tumwill bring them to thecommunal organization most natural under
the conditions of life in small communities placed in similar agricuhural
conditons.
Ris very probable that these communities will not live in isolaton,
but owing to unity ofeonomical, racial or religious conditons, will entr
into newfeemutual combinations, completely different, however, fom
the formerState combinatons foundedupon violence. Therepudiaton of
corcion dos not deprive men of the pssibility of combinaton, but
combinaton foundeupon mutual agreement can be formed only when
those founded upon violence are abolished.
Inorder mat one may build a new and durable house in the place of
one fl g into ruins, onemust take down the old wall, Stone bystne, and
build it anew.
So it uwith mose combinations which may develop amongst men
8the abolition of the combinations founded on violence.
O
But what is to become of all which mankind has elaborated? What
will bome of civilization?
'The ret of monkeys' - Voltaire's leuer to Rousseau about
leing to walkon all fours- 'the returto some kind of primitive, natural
m,say those who are so certain lhat the civilization they possess is so
great a good that they cannot even admit the idea of the loss of anylhing
which has been attained by civilization.
'What! a coarse agricultural commune in rural solitude long ago
outlived by mankind instead of our cites with underground and over
gound electic ways, with eletric suns, museums, lheatres and manu
ments? 'cry these pople. 'Yes,and with paupers' quaners, with lheslums
of Landon, NewYork and all large cities. with the houses of prostitution,
the usury, explosive bombs against exteral and interal foes, with
prisons, gallows and millions of military', I say.
'Civilization, ourcivilizalion, is a greal boon', people say. But those
who m so certin of this are the few people who nOl only live in this
civilization, but live by t,they live in complete content, almost idly in
comparison with the labour of the working people, just because this civi
lizaton dos exist.
Pthes pople - kings. emperors, presidents, princes, ministers,
officials, the milir., landowners, merchants, mehanics, dolOrs, seien
42
Lists. artsts, teachers, priests, writers they know for certain that our
civilizaton usuch agreat b n that one cannot admit the ideanot only of
any pssibilit ofits disapparance, but even ofit alteration. But ask the
enormous mass of the Slav, Chinese, Indian. Russian agricultural people,
nine-tenths of humanity, whether the civili zation which appar so pre
cious to the nonagricultural professions is indeed a boon or not (01
No 21).
Stange tosay, nine-tenths ofhumanity wi II answer quite different!y .
They know that they requireland, manure, water, irrigation, thesun,rain,
wos, harvests, certin simple implements of labur which can be
manufactred without interrupti ng agicultural pursuits; butas to ci viliz
tion, either they mnot acquainled with it or else when it appars tothe
in the formof town depravation orunjust law-courts with their prisons and
hardlabour; or in the formof taxes and the erecton of unnecessary palaces,
museums, monuments; or in the form of customs impeding the m
exchange of products; or of guns, ironclads, armies devastating whole
counties, they will say that if civiliztion consists in these things then it
is not only unnecessary but cxcccdingly harmful tothem.
Those who profit bythe advantages of civilization say that it is a boon
forthe whole of mankind, but thenin thi s question theymnot the judges,
nor the witesses, but one of the litigants.
It ubyond doubt that grat advances have ben made along the road
of thc pg ,but who has advance along this road? That small
minority which lives on the shoulders of the working pople; whilst the
working peple themselves. those who serve these other men who profit
bycivilization, continue in all Christendom to live even as they lived fve
orsix centuries ago. profiting only at times and in rarecases by therefuse
of civiization. If they do Jive better then lhe difference separating their
position fom that of the wealthy classes is not less, but is rather greater,
than the one which separated themfromthe wealthy six centuries ago. I
do not sy that when we have understod that civilization is not the
absolute advantage that so many think it is. we should throw aside all that
men have attained in their struggle with nature; but I do say that beforewe
can know that what has ben attained bymen dos indeed serve their wei
fare, it is nC ary that all should profit by these advantages. and not a
small number; it is necessary that people should not be compulsorily
deprived of their own wei fareforother people's benefit in the hope that the
same advantages shall some day reach their descendants.
We look upon the Egyptian pyramids and arehorrifiedby thecruelty
and insanity ofthose who ordered thei r erection. as well as of those who
fulfiled these orders. But how much morecruel and insane arethose than
the thinysix storey houses which men ofour time erect in cities and are
proud of.Around lies the land with its grass, its wods, its pure water, pure
N. sun, birds, animals, but men with dreadful eITon shut the sun from
43
others and erecl thirty-si x storey houses, rockedbythe wind, where there
is neither grass nor tees. and where everting, both water and air. is
contami nated, all the foodadulterated and spoilt, and life itself is tedious
and unhealthy. Is not this a sign of manifest madness ina whole soiety of
men, not only toaccomplish such insanities but also to pride themselves
upn doing so?This is not theonly example: lok around you and you will
wat every step what equals these tirty-six storey houses and Egyptian
pyramids.
The justifiers of ci vi lization sy: 'Weareready t corret the evil, but
only on the condition that all which mankind mattained should remain
intacL' Why, this is what a dissipated man who has ruined his life. his
psition and his health, says Khis dotor. He is readyto agrewith alilhe
dotor will prescribe. but only on condition that he may continue his
depraved life. To such a man, we say that if he is Vimprove his state, he
must cease to live as he is living. It is time for Christian humanity to say
and understand the same. The unconscious misle which those who
defend civilizaton make is that they regardcivilization. which is only a
means, as an endor a result, and deem it always an advantage. It might b
an advantage if only the rulers of soiety weregood. Explosive gasses are
very useful for opening means of communication by blasting rock. but
they arepricious in bombs. Iron is useful forploughs but pericious for
shells and for prison bars.
ThePress may disseminate goodfeelings and wise thoughts but with
yet more suC . that which is immoral and false. The question as to
whether civilization is useful or otherwise depends upn whether in a
given soiety god prevails or evil In our soiety, where the minority
crushes the majority, civilization is a great evil. It i s merely an exta
weapn for the oppression of the masses by the ruling minority.
Hutime forus to understand that our salvationlies, not in continuing
along the monwhich we have beenmoving. and not in the retention of
what we have elaborated. but in the recognition that we have advanced
along a false road and have entereda bg out of which we mustcxtricatc
ourselves. and that weshould bconcered. not in retaining that which we
have, but, on the contary. should boldly throw aside all the most useless
things we have been dragging upon ourselves. so that in some way (it
on all fours) we may scramble out upon a mbank.
A rational and righteous life consists only in man choosing amongst
the many actionsorpaths beforehim the most rational and good. Christian
humanity in its present condition has before it the choice of two things;
either to continue on the path in which existing civilization will give the
greatest welfaretothe few,keeping the many inwantand servitude, orelse
alonce, without postponement to some farfuture. to abandona portion or
even all those advantages which civilization has attained for the few, if
such advantages hinder the liberation of the majority fromservitude.
4
X
That men of our time tl about scpar.ue liberties, the freedom of
speech. of the Press. of conscience. of assembly, of this or that kind of
elect
ons, of B iatons, of iatur, and of much else. clearly demon
stateSthat such pple -as at the present time our Russian revolutionaries
_ pssess a very fallacious idea, or have noidea whatever of feedom m
general. That simple feeom, which is comprehensible t all. consists m
thee
bigno pwer over man demanding fromhi m actions conty to
his desires and advantages.
In this non-comprehension of what constitutes freedom and mthe
consequent idea that the permission of certain pple t do certain actions
is freedom, lies a great andmost pernicious error. This error is that men of
our times imagine that the servile SUbjection to violence in which they
stand, in relation to the Goverment, is a natural position and that the
authorization by govermental power of certain actions defned by this
power, is fredom; somewhat as if slaves were Vregardas freedomthe
permission to go to church on Sundays, or to bathe in hot weather, or in
thei r leisure time t mend their clothes, and so forth.
One need only for one minute reject established customs, habits and
superstitions. and examine the position of every man in Christendom,
whethe blonging to the most despotic or t the most democratc State.
in orderto b horrified at the slavery under wh ich men mnow living while
imagining that they are m .
Over every man, wherever he may have ben br, there exists a
goup of individuals completely unknown to him, who establish the law
of hi s life. What he should and what he should not do. The more prfect
the State organization. the closer is the net of these laws. It is defned to
whom and how he shall swer allegiance - to whom he Umpromise to
full any laws that may b invented and prolaimed. It is defined how and
when he should 0(he may marry only one woman but he may make
use of prosttuton); it i sdefned how he may divorce hi s wife, how he
should maintin his children, which of them he should regard as legiti
mate, which illegitimate, andfromwhom andhow he should inheritand
to whom transmit his property. It is defined forwhat transgressions of the
lawand how and bywhom he shall be judged and punished. It is defined
when he must himself appear incourt, in the capacity of juror or witness.
Theageat which he may makeuseor the labouror assistants. of workmen,
is defined, and even the number of hours a day which his assistants may
work, and the food he must give them; it is dermed when and how he
should inoulate preventive diseases into his children. The methods B
defned which he must undertake. and to which he must submit in case of
this ormq=afflicting him, his family or his cattle. The schools into
which he must send his children aredefinedas well as the proportion and
45
the stability of the house which he must build. It is define how he should
maintain his animals, horses and dogs, how he must make useof water, and
where he may walk without a road. For the non-fulHlmentof all these and
many other laws the punishments are defined. It is impossible to enumer
ate all the laws upon Jaws and rules upon rules to which he must submit,
and the ignorance of which (although it is impssible to know them)
cannot se . . eas an excuse for a man even in the most demoratic State. He
is, morever, placed in such a position that in buying every anicle which
he consumes: salt, | ,wine, cloth, iron,oil, lea,sugar, and soon, hemuSl
surrender a gret prtion of his labour for cetain undertings unknown
Bhim, and for the paying of interest on debts contacted by somebody or
other in times of his grandfather and great-grandfathers. He must also
surrender a part of his labour on the ocasion of any removal from place
to place, or of any inheritance he may come into, or of any tansaction
whatever with his neighbour. Further, for the portion of the land he
occupies, either by his abode or by cultivation, a yet more considerable
part of his labour is demanded frm him. SO that if he lived by his own
labour and not by that of others, the greater part of his labour, instead of
being used for that alleviation and improvement of his own position and
that of his family, gos 0pay these taxes, tariffs, and monopolies.
More than this! This man, in some States (the majority), as he comes
of age, is ordered to enter for several years the military service, the most
cruel servitude, and to go and fight, and in other States (Britain and
America), he must hire other people for this same purpose. Yet pople
placed in this psition not only fail to S!heir own slavery, butare proud
of it. regarding themselves as free citizens of the great States of Britain,
France orGermany; they are proud of this just as lackeys are proud of the
importance of the masters they se ...
.
e.
It would appar na to man with undepraved and unweakened
spiritual pwers, on fnding himself in so dreadful and humiliating a
psition to say himself: 'But why should I go !hrough all this? I desire to
live my life in the best way! I wish to decide for myself what is pleasant.
useful and necessary for me to do. Leave me in peace with your Russia,
France, Britain. Whoever wishes all this, let him takecareofthese Brimins
and Frances, but I do not require them. By force you can seize from me
everything you Iikeand kill me butof myown accord I do not wish my own
enslavement and shall not participate in it.' It would appear natural to act
thus, yet no-one does act in this way.
The belief that to belong to some State or other is a necessary
condi tion of human life has become so fi nnl y rooted that men cannOl make
up their minds to act as their own reason, their own sense of right, or their
direct advantage bids them.
People maintaining their se ... itude in the name of their blief in the
State are exactly like those birds which, notwithstanding that the door of
+
their cage is opn, contnue to sit in their prison partly by habit and party
bu th ydnot realize they are free.
This error i s more remarkable in those who themselves satisfy their
own necessites, such as the agricultural ppulation of Germany, ]q
Canaa. Austlia, and espcially of Russia. These have neither ned nor
advantage in the slavery to which they voluntrily submit
One can undestand why the townsfolk do not thus act bcause their
interests are so intertwined with the interests of ruling classes that the
enslavement in which they find themselves is advantageous to them. W
Rokefellercannot desire to refuse t oby the laws of his county beause
the laws ofthatcoumry give him the possibility of gaining andconseving
his billions, to the deliment of the interests of the masss of the pople;
neither can the diretors of WRokefeller's undertaking and those who
serve these diretors, and the servants or these se . . ants, desire to refuse
obedience. So it is with the inhabitants or towns. Their position is similar
to that of the Russian household retainers or old times towards te
peasants, the enslavement of the peasants is advantageous to the former.
But why should agricultural nations submit to this power so unnec
essary tothem?Thee lives a family in the GovernmentofTula (NOTE No
22) or in Posen, in Kansas, in Normandy, in Ireland, in Canada. These
people ofTula have no concern whatever in the Russi an State, with its St
Petersburg, Caucasus, Baltic Provinces, its Manchurian annexations and
diplomatc aess. So also a family live in Posen and have no concer
in Prussia, with its Berlin and its African colonies; nor has the Irishman in
Britain, with its London and its Egyptian, Bor and other interests; nor the
man in Kin the United States, with their New York and the Philip
pines. Yet these families are complled to surrender a stipulated prtion
of their labour, areobtiged to participate in preparations for war, and in wa
itself, also broughton not by themselves but by someone else, are obliged
to obey laws established not by themselves but by others. They are, it is
true, assured that whilst obying certain unknown individuals in all these
cases of the uunost importance for thei r life, they obey not others but
themselves, since they have elected one out of a thousand representatves
unknown to them. But this can be believed only by him who wishes and
needs to deeive himself and othes.
Whilst belonging toaStatea man cannot be rree. And the greater the
State, the more is violence necessary, and the less is tue freedom possible.
To form one combination outof the most diverse nationalities and people
- such asBritain, Russia, Austia - and to retain them in this combination,
very much coercion is necessary.
Although less coercion is necessary for maintaining the unity of men
in small States, such as Sweden, Portugal or SwilZerland, yet, on the other
hand, in these small States it is more difficult for the subjects to evade the
demands of theauthorities. !herefore the sum or non-freedom. of corcion.
47
is the same as in large States.
To bind and keep together a bundle of woo, a sUOng rop is
necessary and a certain degree of tension. So also to kccp together in one
State a great collecton of men, a certain degree of applied corcion is
ne. In thecaseofthe wod, the difference may boruy in its relative
psition, in such and nOlother piees of wod bing directly submitted t
the pressure of the rope, but the pwer holding them together is one and
the same in whatever psition the pieces may be placed. 1l is thesame with
any corcive State of whatever kind, a despotism, a constitutional monar
chy' an oligarchy or a republic. If the union of men is maintained by
corcion, by me establishment by some people of laws forcibly applied t
omers, then there will always exist corcion, equal in extent, of some
pople over others. In one place it will manifest itselfin cOviolence,
in another- in me power of money. Thedifference will beonly that in one
corcive State organization, te coercion will weigh more upon a certain
secton of people, whilst in another organization on anOlher.
State coercion may b compared to a black thread upon which beads
are loosely stung. The beads mmen. The black thread is the State. So
long as the beads are on tbe thread, they will not be able to move freely.
They may all be gathered together on one side, and on this side the black
thread will nOl be visible between them; but on tbe other side a large
prtion of me thread will be bare (despotism). One may 8ge the beads
together in separate groups, leaving corresponding intervals of black
tbred btween these groups (constittional monarchy). One may lcave a
small prtion of thread btwen each bead (republic). But so long as the
nOt tken off the mread, so long as the tbreads Bnot severed,
it will not b pssible to conceal tbe black thread.
So long as the State and the corcion ne for its maintenance
exist, in whatever form, there will not, mere cannot, be freedom, le
freedom. that which all men have always understo. and so understand,
by that word.
'But howcan men pssibly live without the Stale?' is generally asked
by mose who have bcome soaccustomed toevery man nmonly being tbe
son of his parents, the descendant of his ancestors, living by the labur he
has chosen, but , above all, being also a Frenchman or an Englishman, a
German, an American, a Russian - and, belonging to this or that coercive
organization which is called France, with its Algeria, Annam or Nice; or
Britain, with its alien population of India, Egypt, Australia or Canada; or
Auslria, with its nationalities not united interally in any way; or to such
mixed and enormous Statcsas the Unite States or Russia. Thesemen have
bcome so accustomed to this, that it seems to them as impossible to live
without belonging to these combinations, possessi ng no interal union, as
tho

nds of years ago it appeared to pople to live without offering

sacnficcs Ugods. and without oracles directing the actions of men.
48
How can men live without belonging to any Goverment?
Why, exactly as mey live now, only without doing those silly and
obje
tionable things which they now do for me sake of this dul
sup
rstiton. Tey wili liveas they now live. but wimoutdepriving their
fa
milies of the proucts of their laburs that mey may give i n the form of
uue
sand duties for theevil deeds of men unknown to them; they will live
with
out parcipating either in corcion, or in Jaw courts, or in wars
organized by thes men. Yes. it is only this superstition which in our tme
no sense, which gives tesome hundreds of men an insane and uttely
unjustifiable pwer over milions. and deprives these millions of le
freedom. A man living in Canada. Kansas, Bohemia. Little Russi a or
Normandy, cannot b mso long as he considers himself. and often 'ith
pride. a subjetofGreat Britain, me United States. Auslia. Russia. .
Norcan Goverments, whose vocation consist in maintaining the unity of
such
impossible and senseless combinations as RUSSia. Britain, Germany
or France, give their subjets real freedom, but only its mere counterfeit,
as is tte case with all the anfuJ constitutions, monarchic, republican or
demoratc. The principal, ifnot the only. cause of the absenceoffreedom
is the State suprstition. People can indeed be deprived of liberty in te
absence of the Stte. Bul whilst they belong to a State. there cannot be
librty.
Those now paticipatng in me Russian revolution do not understand
this. They 8sliving for various librties for the subjects of the Russian
State imagining that in this consists the purpse of the revolution now
taking place. But its purs and ultimate result is much more far-reahing
mmrevolutonaries .Te goal i s emancipaton mState corcion.
Towards this gt revoluton is leading that complex work of mistakes
and evil-doings now taking plae on the decaying surfceof the enormous
Russian ppulaton, amongst a small portion of urban classes. me %
called intellectals and factory workmen. AU this complex actvity.
chiefly pre ing fom the lowest impulses of vengeance. spite or
ambition, has for the mass of the Russian nalion only one significance: it
serves t show the nation what they should not do and what they can and
should do. Hmust serve to demonstrate all the futility of the substtuton
for one form of Goverent corcion and evil-doing, of another form of
Goverment corcion and evil-doing, and to destroy in their conscious
ness the superstition and spell of Statedom.
The geat majority of the Russian people, observing present events
and all the new fonns of violence manifested in the cruel revolutionary
activity of wrekings, devastations, stikes, depriving whole populaton of
their livelihod, and above all, fraticidal strife, Bbeginning to under
stand meevil notonly of me former Stale coercion under which they have
lived and from which they have already suffered so much, but also of that
new thing. still Stale coercion, which isnow being manifested by similar,
49
but new. deceits and evil-doings. and that neither the one nor the other is
bner or worse but that both are bad and that therefore they should m
themselves from all State coercion. and that this is very easy and possible.
The po ple. espcially the Russian agricultural pople. the geat
majority who have lived and are living, solving their soi al questions
through the village assembly without needing any Goverment. contem
plating present events will unavoidably come u understand that they
require no Govement at all, whether the mOSt despotic or the most
demoratc, just as a man does not require t be bund by any chains
whether of brass or iron, whether short or long. The nation requires no
special separate feedom, but only one true. complete, simple freedom.
Pis always the case, so now, the solution of apparently difficult
problems is most simple. In order t attain, not thisor that fonn of fredom,
butofthe one, true, complete freedom, it is not strife with the govermen
Lpower which is necessary, nor the intervention of any particular kind
of reptaton which could but conceal fom men their State slavey,
but only one thing - disobedience.
1the pople only cease to obey the Goverment and there will be
neither taxe, nor seizure of land, nor prohibitons from theauthorities, nor
soldiery. nor wars. This is so simpieand appears so easy. Then why have
not men done this hitherto and why are they still not doing it?
Why, bcause ifone is nOt 0oby the Goverment, one has to obey
God and live a righteous life.
Only in that degree in which men live such a life can they cease to
obey men and bome free.
One cannot say to oneself, I will not obey men. It is possible not to
oby men only when one obeys the higher lawofGod,common t all. One
cannot b fre whilst transgressing the higher universal law of mutual
service. as it is tansgressed by the life of the wealthy, and of the urban
cls who live by the labour of the working, especially the agicultural,
pople. A man can be free only the degree in which he fulfils the higher
law. The fulfilment of this law is not only difficult but almost impossible
in the town and factory organization of soiety. where man's success is
founded upon contest with other men. Il is only possible and easy under
agricultral conditions of life. when all man's effort are directed to a
stuggle with nature. Therefore the libration of men from obedience 0
Goverment.and from the belief in the artificial combination of the States
and of the Fatherland. must lead them to natural, joyous in the highest
degre. moral life of agricultural communities, subjet only to their own
regulatons realizable by all and founded not on corcion but on mutual
agreement.
In this lies the essence of the great revolution approaching for
Christian nations.
How this revolution will take place, what steps it will go through, is
50
not given uus t kow. but we do know, it is inevitable, for it is taking
place and y may ben realizd in the consciousness of men.
The lie of men consists in this: that tme keeps further and further
unfolding that which was concealed, and showing the correctess O
!ncorrecess of the way along which they have advanced in the past. Life
IS the enltghtenment of the consciousness, conceing the falsity offonner
foundations. and the establishment of new ones and the relization of
them. The life of mankind as well as that of the individual man, isa gowth
out of a fnner condition into a new one. This growth is inevitably
accomparued by the recognition of one's mistakes and libraton fom
them.
There are of course periods in the life of the whole of mankind as well
as in that of the separate individual. when the mistake bcom clear.
These are priods of revolution. In such a positon the Christian nations
now fnd themselves.
Md lived according Vthe law of violence and knew no other.
The tme came when the progressive leaders of humanity prolaimed a
new law of mutual service, common uall mankind. Man accepted this
law,
.
but not in
.
its full ming, and although they tied uapply it, they still
contnued uhve acordmg to the law of violenc. Christianity app
and confllIe the tuth that there is only one law common to all men which
gives them the greatest welfare -the law of mutual scrvice _ and indicated
the reason why this law had not ben realized in life. It was not realized
because man regarded the use of violence as necessary and beneficent for
go ends, and regarded the law of retibution as just. Christianity showed
that violence is always pericious, and that retibution cannot be applied
by men, But Christian humanity, not having acepted this explanation of
the law of mutual service common to all men, although it desired ulive
according u is law, involuntrily continued to live aCOrding to the
pagan law of Violence. Such a contradictory state of things kept increasing
e criminaliry of life and the exteral comforts and lUXury of the minor
IQ,at the same time increasing the slavery and misery of the majority
amongst Christian nations.
I
,
n latertimes the criminality and luxury of the life of one portion, and
the mlSry and slavery of the other portion of Christendom have attained
the highest degree, especially amongst those nations which have long
?banoned the natural mof agriculture and fallen under the deceit of
Imagmary self-goverment.
:hese nations, suffering from the misery of their position and the

onSlousness of the contradiction they are involved in, search for salva
lion
everywhere; in imperialism, SOCialism, the scizureof other people's
ad, in evey kind of stife, in tariffs, in tehnical improvements in vice
In
anything except the one thing which can save them _ the fing of
the
mselves from the superstition of the State, of the Fatherland, and the
51
cessation of obedience to coercive State power of any kind whatever.
Owing to their agricullUral life. t the absence of te deceit of self
goverment. t the greaUless of their number. and above all. to the
Christian attitude towards violence preserved by the Russian people. this
pople. 8kacruel. unnC ary and unfortunate war i nto which they had
ben drawn by their Govement. and after the neglect of their demands
that the land taken from them should b reture. have understo soner
0others the principal causes of the calamities of Christendom of our
time. and therefore the great revoluton impending over all mankind.
which can alone save it from its unneessary suffering. must bgin
amongst this nation.
Herein lies the significance of the revolution now beginning in
Russia. This revolution has not yet bgun amongst the nations of Europ
and America. but the causes which have called it forth in Russi a Bthe
same for all the Christian world; the same Japanese war which has
demonstated to the whole world the inevitable advantage in military 3
of pagan nations over Christian. the same armaments of the gret States
reaching the utmost dcgreeof strain and unable ever to cease. and the same
calamitous positon and universal dissatisfaction of the working people
owing t thei r loss of their natural right to the land.
The majority of Russian people clearly S that the cause of all the
calamities they suffer is obedience K power. and that they have before
them the choice either of decli ning to be rational. free beings. or else of
ceasing t oby t he Goverment And if the pople of Europe and America
do not yet se this. owi ng t the bustle of their life and the deceit of self
goverment. they will very soon Mit Participation in the corcion ofthc
govering of geat States. which they call freeom. has brought and is
bringing them t continually increasing slavery and to the calamities
nowing from this slavery. These increasing calamities will. in their UO,
bring them t the only means of deliverance from them; uthe cessation
of obdience. t the abolition of the corcive combinations of StaleS.
For this great revolution to take place it uonly neessary that men
should understand that the State. the Fatherland. is a fiction. and that life
and true librty are realities; and that, therefore. it is not life and librty that
should bscrificed for the artificial combination called the State. but that
men ought mthe name of true life and liberty to free themselves from the
superstition of the State and from iLSouLome -criminal obedience t men.
In this alteration of men's attitude towards the Stale and the authori
ties is the end of the old and the beginning of the new age.
52
AN APPEAL
TO SOCI
REFORMERS
AN APPEAL
TO
SOCIAL
REFORMERS
(1903)
In my Appeal to the Working People I expressed
.
thep
.
inion that
the working men are to fe themselves from opplon, It Jne
that they should themselves cease to live as they now hve, stuglmg With
their neighbours for their personal welfare, and thal, according to the
Gospl rule, they should 'act towards others as one Om that others
should aCllOwards oneself.' The metho I had suggested called forth. as
1 expte. one and the same condemnation fro pople f _most
oppsite views. 'It is an Utopia. impractical.
,
To WlIl fo the libration of
mcn whoare suffeing fm oppression and vIolence unul they all become
virtuous would mean, whilst recognizing the existing evil, to dom onlf
to inaction.' Theefore 1 would like to say a few words as to why I believe
this idea is not so impractical as it appearS, but, on the contary. deserves
that more atention bdirected to it than to the other methos propsed
by sientific men for the improvement of the soial oer. now address
these words to those who sincerely desire to serve their neighbours.
I
The ideals of soial life which direct the activity of men change. and
together with them the order of human life also changes. There was time
when the ideal of soiai life was complete animal feedom. accordmg to
which one prtion of mankind, as far as it was able, devoured e other,
bth in the direct and in the figurative sensc. Then followed a ume when
the social ideal became the power of one man, and men deified their rulers,
and not only willingly, bUlenthusiastically submiUed to them a i Egypt
and Rome. Morituri Ie salutanL Next, people recognized as their Ideal an
organization of life in which power was recognized, not for its ow e,
but for the goo organization or men's lives. Attempts for the realuon
of such an ideal were at one time forunivcrsl monarchy. then a umvcrsal
church unitng vaious States and directing them, then came the ideal of
representaton, then of a republic, with or without universal suffrage. At
54
the present time, it is imagined mthis ideal can b realize through an
economic organization wherein all the means of prouction will ceas to
b private property, and will become the property of the whole nation.
However diffrent all these ideals may be, yet to intoduce them into
life, power wasruways postulated. That is. coercive pwer, which forces
men to oby established laws. The sme is pstulated now.
It is suppsd that the realiztion of the gt welfare for is
at by certain pple (acording to the Chines teching. the most
virous; according to the Europan teaching, the anointed, or elected by
the pople) being entrusted with power. They will establish and supprt
the organization which will secure the greatest pssible safety of the
citizens against encroachments on ech other's labour and on freeom and
life. Not only those who recognize the existing State organiztion as a
ne condition of human life, but also Revolutionists and Soialists.
though they regard the existing State organization as subjet to ruteration,
nevertheless recognize power, that is. the right and pssibility of some to
compl others to obey estab l ished laws as the neessary condition of sociru
order.
Thus it has ben from ancient times, and still continues to b. But
those who were com plled by force to submit to certain regUlations did not
always regard these regulations as the bst. and theefore, often revolted
against those in power, deposed them, and. in place of the old orde.
established anew one, which according to their opinion, beuerensured the
welfare of the people. Yet as those possessed of power always became
depraved by this possession, and thererore used their power not so much
for thecommon welfare as for their own personal inteests. the new power
has always bsimilar to the old one, and often still more unjusL
It ben like this when those who had revolted against authority
oveUe it On the other hand. when victory remaine on the side of the
existing power, then the latter, tiumphant in self-protetion, always
increased the means of its defence, and became yet more injurious to the
librty of it citizens. It has always ben like this, both in the past and the
present. and it is most instructive to study the way this has taken place in
our Europan world during the wholeofthe nineteenth century. In the frst
half, revolutions had been for the most part successful, but the new
authorities which replaced theold ones. Napolen I, Charles X, Napoleon
1II. did not increase the liberty of the citizens. In the second halr. after the
year 1848, aattempts at revolution were suppressed by the Goverments.
and owing to former revolutions and attempted new ones, the Gover
ments entenched themselves in greater and greater self-defence; and
having fuished men with hitherto unknown pwers over natre and over
each other, they have increased their authority. until towards the end of the
ast century they have developed it to such a degree that it has become
Impo
ssible for the people to struggle against it. The Goverments have not
55
only seize enonnous riches collected from the pple, have not only
disciplined artfully levied tops, bUl have also grasped all the spiritual
mens ofinnuenci ng the masses, the diretion of the Pressand of religious
development, and above all, of educaton. These means have b s
organized and, have bcome so powerfulthat sincethe yer 1848 there has
not ben any successful attempt atrevolution in Europ.
II
This phenomenon is quite new and absolutely pculiar to our time.
However powerful were Nero, Khengis Khan or Charles the Great, they
could not suppress risings on the borders of their domains and still less
could they diret the spiritual activity of their subjects,their education, sci
entifi and mora1, and their religious tendencies. Whereas now all these
means are in the hands of the Goverments.
It is not only the Parisian 'macadam' which, having replaced the
previous stone roadways, renders barricades impossible during revolu
tions in Paris, but the same kind of 'macadam' appeared during the latter
half of the nineteenth century in all branches of State Goverment. The
secret police. the system of spies, bribery of the Press, railways, tele
graphs, telephones, photography, prisons, fortfications, enonnous riches,
the eucation ofthe younger generatons and, aboveall, the ann y arein the
hands of the Goverment (NOTENo 23).
All is organizein such a way that the most incapable and unintelli
gent rlers(fom the instinctive feelingofselfpreservaton) can prevent
serous ptons fora rising, and Calways, without any effort, sup
pthos wek attemplS atopen revolt which frm time to time are yet
undertaken by blatedrevolutionislS who by these auemplS only incO
the pwers of GovemmenlS.
The only means at preent for overcoming GovermenlS lies inthis:
that the anny. composed of the pople. having reognize the injustice.
cruelty and injury of the Goverment towards themselves, should c to
supprt it But in this rt also, the Goverments knowing that their
chief pwer is in the anny have so organized its mobilization and its
discipline that no propagandaamongst the peoplecan snatchthe annyout
of the hands of the Goverment. No man, whatever his political convic
tions. who is serving inthe anny, and has been subjectedtothat hypnotic
breaking.in which is called discipline, can, whilst in the ranks, avoid
obeying commands, just as an eye cannot avoid winking when a blow is
aimedat it. Boys ofthe age oftwenty who are enli sted andeducated in the
false ecclesiastic or materialistic and moreover 'patiotic' spirit, cannot
refuse to serve, as children who aresent toschool cannot refuse to obey.
Having entered the service, these youths, whatever their convictions
thanks to artful discipline, elaborated during centuries are invariably
uansfonned in one year into submissive tools in the hands ofthe authori
56
ties. Ifrare cases occur one out of 10.00 of refusals of military service,
this is accomplished only by socalled 'sect members', who act thus out
of religious convictons unreognized by the Goverments. Therefore, 8
present, in the European world onlythe Goverments desire to retain
their pwer, and they cannot but desirethis, because the ablition of pwer
would involve downfll of the rulers no serious rising can b
organized. and if anything of the kind b organized, it will always b sup
pressed and will have no other consequences bUl destucton ofmany
lightminded individuals and the increase of Goverment powe.
may not b Mby Revolutonists andSoialists who, following outlived
taditons, aecarried awaybystrife, which forsomehas bomeadefmite
profession; but this cannot fail t be recognized by all those who fely
consider historical evenlS.
This phenomenon is quite new, and therefore the activity of those
who desire to a1ter the existing order should confonn with this new
position ofexisting powers in the European world.
III
The stuggle between the State and the pople which has lasted
during long ages at first produce the substitution of one power for
another, ofthis one by yet a third, and SO on. But in our Europan world,
fomthe middle ofthe last centurythe power ofthe existing Goverments,
thanks to the thnical improvemenlS of our time, have D fhed
with such mens of defencethat strife with it has become impssible. U
proprtion as dpwer has attained greater and greatedegree it
demonstate more and more ilS inconsistency: therehas bcome even
moreevident that inner contadictionwhichconsists incombination ofthe
ide of a bnefcent pwerand of violence, which constitutes the essnce
of8 pwe. It bcame obvious that pwer,whiCh, to b bneficent, should
b in the hands of the very bestmen, was always inthe hands ofthe worst,
as the bst men, owi ng to the very nature ofpower, which consists in the
use of violence towards one's neighbur, could not desire power, and.
therefore, never obtainedor retained it.
This contadiction is so selfevident that it would $ everyone
must have always secn it. Yet such are the pompous surroundings of
pwer, the fearwhich itinspires, andtheinertiaoftradition, thatcenturies
and. indeed. thousands of )'earspassed beforemen understood their error.
Onl), in latter days have men beguntounderstand that notwithstanding the
solemnity with which power always drapes ilSelf, ilS essence consislS in
threatening pople with the loss of properl)', liberty and life. and in
carrying out these threalS, and that therefore, those who, like kings,
emprors, ministers, judges and others, devote their life t this activity
without an)' other objetive except the desire toretain their advantageous
position, not only Bnot the bst, but arealwa)'s the worst men, andbeing
57
such, cannot by their power contibute tothe welfare of humanity, but on
the contary, have always represented, and still represent, one of the
principal causes of the soial ca1amities of mankind (NOTE No 2).
Therefore pwer, which fonnerlyelicited in the popleenthusiasm and de
votion, at present, amongst the greater and best portion of mankind ca1ls
fonh not only indifference, but often contempt and hat. This more
enlightened section of mankind now understands that a1l that pmpus
show with which pwer surrounds itself is naught else than the red shirt
and velvet tousers of the executioner, which distinguish him fom other
convicts bause he lakes upon himself the most immoral and infamous
work, that of exeuting people.
Power, being conscious of this attitude towards itself continually
growing amongst the people, in our days no longer leans upon the higher
foundations of anointed right, popular election O inbor virtue of the
rulers, but rests solely on corcion. Resting thus merely on coercion,
therefore it still more loses the confidence of the people, and losing this
confidence it is more and more compeJled to have recourse to the seizure
of all the activities of natural life, and owing to this seizure it inspires
greater and grealer dissatisfaction.
IV
Power has become invincible, and rests no longer on the higher
nationa1 foundations of anoi nted right, of eletion or representation, but on
violence alone. At the same time, the people cease to beli eve in Jwer and
to respct it, and they submit to it only because they cannot do otherwise.
Since the middle of the last cenwry, from the very time when Jwer
had simultaneusly become invincible and lost its prestige, there bgins
to appar amongst the pple the teaching thallibeny is incompatible with
the pwer of cenain men over others. Not that fantastical liby which is
preached by the adherents of cocion when they affinn that a man who is
complled, under fear of punishment, to fulfl the orders of other men, is
free, but that only true liberty, which consists in every man being able to
live and act according to his own judgement, to pay or not pay taxes, to
entr or not enter the military service, to be friendly or inimical to
neighbouring nations.
According to this teaching, power is not. as was fonnerly thought,
something divine and majestic, neither is it an indispensable condition of
social life, but is merely the reult of the coarse violenceof some men over
others. Be the power in the hands of Louis XVI, or the Committee of
National Defence, or the Directory, or thc Consulate of Napoleon, or Louis
XVIII, or the Sultan. the President, the chief Mandarin or the Prime
Minister -whosoever it be, there will exist the Jwerofcertain men over
others. and there wil not be freedom, but there will be the oppression of
one prtion of mankind by another. Therefore power must be abolished.
S8
Buthow toabolish it, and how, when it is ablished, toB ge things
$that, without te existence of power, men should not retu to the savage
state of cOviolence towards each other?
All Anarchists (NOTE No 25) - as the preachers of this teaching are
called quiteunifonnly answer the frst question by reognizing that if that
power is to b relly ablished, it must be abolished not by force but by
man's consciousness of its uselessness and evil. To the second question,
as to how Soiety should borganized without pwer, Anarchists answer
variously.
The Englishman Gowin, who lived at the end of the 18th and the
bginning of the 19th centuries, and the Frenchman, Proudhon, who wrote
in the middle of the last century, answer the first question by sying 0
for the ablition of pwer the consciousness of men is sufficient, that the
general welfare (Godwin) and jutia (Proudhon) are tansgressed by
pwer, and tat if the conviction were disseminate amongst the people
that general welfare and justice can be realized only in the absence of
power, then power would of itself disappar.
Ato the second question, by what means will the order of a new
Soiety b ensured without power, both Godwin and Proudhon answer
that peple whoare led by the consciousness of general welfare (accord
ing to Gowin) and of ju lice (according to Proudhon) will instnctvely
find the most universally rational and just forms or life.
WhCother Anarchists, such as Bakuninand Kropotkin. a1though
they aisoreognize the consciousness in the masses of the harmfulness of
pwer and its incompatibility with human progress, nevenheless as a
means for its abolition regard revolution as pssible, and even as nees
,for which revolution they reommend men to prepare (NOTE No'
26). Theseondquestion they answer by theassenion that as son as State
organizaton and proprty shall baboli she, men will naturally combine
in ratonal, feand advantageous conditions of life.
To the queston as to the means of ablishing power, the Gennan,
NSter, and the American, Tucker,answer almost in the same way as
the others. Both of them believe that if men understod that the pesonal
interest of each individual is a perfectly sufficient and legitmate guide for
men's ations, and that Jwer only impedes the full manifestation of this
leading factor of human life, then power will perish of ilSelf, both owing
to disobedience to it, and above all, as Tucker says, to non-participation
in it. Their answer to the second question is thaI men freed from the
superstiton and necessity of power and merely following their persona1
interests would, of themselves, combine into fonns of life most adequate
and advantageous for each.
All these teachings are perfectly correct in this - that if power uto be
abolished, this can b accomplished in nowise by force, as power having
ablished power will remain power; but that this abolition of power can be
S9
accomplished only by the realization in the consciousness of men of the
truth that power is useless and harmful, and that men should neither oby
it nor participate in it. This truth is incontrovertible: pwer can b abl
ished only by the rational consciousness of mcn. But in what should 0
consciousness consist? The Anarchists believe that this consciousness c
be founded upn considerations abut common welfare, justce, progress
or the prsonal interests of men. But apart fom the fact that athese fa
ctors are not in mutual agreement, the very definitions of what constitutes
general welfare,justice, progress or personal jnurest are understood by
man in infinitely various ways. Therefore it is impssible to suppse that
pople who are not agreed amongst themselves and who differently
understand the baseson which they oppse pwer, could abolish pwer so
frrmly fxed and so ably defended. Moreover, the suppsition that con sid
erations abut genera] welfare, justice or the law of progress can suffice
to Sm that men, free from corcion, but having no motive for
sacrificing their personal welfare to the general welfare, should combine
in just conditions without violating thcir mutual liberty, is yet more
unfounded. The utilitarian, egoistic theory of Max Stimer and Tucker,
who 8m that by each following his own personal inlerest,justrelations
would be intoduced between all, is not only arbitary, but in complete
contadiction to what in reality has taken place, and is taking place.
So that whilst correctly recognizing spiritual weapns as_the only
means of ablishing pwer, the Anarchistic teaching, holding an irrelig
ious materialistic l ife conception, dos nOlpssess this spiritual weapn,
and is confined to conjectures and fancies which give the advoates of
cocion the pssibility of denying its tue foundations, owing to the in
efficiency of the suggested means of realizing this teaching (N01E No
27).
This spiritual weapon is simply the one long ago known to men,
which has always destroyed power and always given to those who used it
complete and inalienable fredom. This weapon is but mis, a devout
understanding of life, according to which man regards his earthly exis
tence as only a fagmentary manifestation of me complete life, and con
necting his life with infinite Iife,and reognizing his highest welfare in the
fmetofmese laws as more binding upon himself than the fulfLIment
of any human laws whatsover.
Only such a religious conception, uniting all men in the same
understanding of life, incompatible with subordination to power and
participation in it, can truly destroy power.
Only such a life-conception will give men the possibility, without
joining in violence, of combining into rational and just fonns of life.
Strange to say, only after men have been brought by life ilSeIfto the
conviction that existing power is invincible, and in our ti me cannot be
overthrown by force, have they come to understand the ridiculously self-

evident trot h that power and all the evil produced by it are but results of
bad life in men, and that thererore for !he abolition of pwer and the evil
it
produces, go life on the part of men is necessary.
Men are bginning to understand this. Now they have further to
understand that there i s only one means for a god life amongst men: the
profession and realization of a religious teaching natural and comprehen
sible to the majority of mankind.
Only by means of professing and reali zing such a religious teaching
can men attain me ideal which has now arisen in their consciousness, and
lOwards which they are striving.
Pother attempts at the abolition of power and at organi zing, without
pwer, a go Damongst men areonly a futile expnditure of effort and
do not bring near the aim towards which men are stiving, but only
removes them fom it.
V
Thi s is what I wish to say to you, sincere people, who, not satisfied
with egoistic D, desire to give your strength to the service of your
brothers. If you participate, or desire to participate, in govermental
activity, and by this means to serve the people, then consider the nature of
every Goverment resting on power. Having considered it, you cannot but
wthat there is no Goverment which dos not prepare to commit, dos
not commit, dos not maintain itself by violence, robbry and murder.
A litte-kown American writer, Thoreau, in his essay on why it is
men's duty to disoby the Govement, relates how he refused to pay the
Goverment of me Uni kStates a tax of one dollar, explaining hi s refusal
on the grounds mat he did not desi re by his dollar to participate in the
activity of a Goverment which sanctioned the slavery of the negroes
(NOTE No 28). Cannot, and should not, the same thing be felt in relation
to his Goverment, I do not say by a Russian, but by a citizen of the most
progressive State, the United States of America, with its ation in Cuba,
in the Philippines, with its relation to negs, me banishment of the
Chinee; or of England, with its opium and Bors; or of France with its
horrors of militarism?
Therefore,a sincere man, wishing lO serve his fellow men, uonly he
has seriously realized what every Govement is, cannot participate in it
otherwise than on hi s stength of the principle that the end justifies the
means.
But such an activity has always been harmful for those in whose
interests it was undertaken, as well as for those who had recourse to it.
The thing is very simple. You wish. by submitting to the Goverment
and making usc of its laws, to snatch from it more liberty and rights for the
people. But the liberty and the rights of the peple arc in inverse ratio to
the power of the Goverment and, in general, of the ruling classes. The
61
more liberty andrights the people have, !he less power and advantage will
the Goverment gain fomthem. Goverments know this,and, having the
power in their hands, they readily allow all kind of liberal prattle,and even
some insignificant liberal reforms which justify its power, but they imme
diately coercively arrest liberal inclinations which threaLn not only !he
advantages of the rulers, but !heir very existence. So that myour efforts
to serve the people through the power of govemental administation, or
through Parliaments. will only lead to you, by your actvity ,increasing the
Iwer of the ruling classes, and you will, according to the degree of your
sincerity, unconsciously or consciously. participate in this power.
If, on the o!her hand, you belong to the category of sincere peopl e
desiring to serve the naton by revolutionary. Soialistic activity, then
(apart fom the insufficiency of aiminvolved in that material welfare of
men towards which you are striving, which never satisfied anyone)
conside those means which you possess for its auai nmenL These means
are, in the first place and above all, immoral, containing falsehood.
deception, violence, murder; in the second place, these means can in no
case attain their end. The stength and cauton of Goverments defending
their existence are in our time so great thatnot only can no ruse, decepton
or hash action overthrow them, !hey cannot even shake them. All reva.
lutonary atempts only fish new justification for !he violence of Gov
erments, and increase their power.
But even if we admit the impossible - !hat a revolution in our time
could becrowned with success - then, whyshould we expect that, contary
to all whichhas ever taken place, the power whichhas overtured another
power can increase the liberty of men and beome more beneficent than
the one i t has overthrown? Or, if that conjecture. though contrary to
common sense and experience, were possible. and one power having abol
ishedanotherpowercould give people the freedom necessa to estblish
those conditions of life which they regard as most advantageous for them
selves, thenthere would stll be no reason whatever to suppose that people
living an egotistical life could establish amongst themselves better condi
tions than the previous ones.
Let the Queen of the Dahomeys establish the most liberal constitu
tion, and let her even achieve that nationalization of the means of
production whiCh, in the opinion of the Socialists, saves people from
their calamities, it would be necessary for somene to have power in order
that the constitution should work, and the means of production should not
b seized into private hands. But as long as these people BOabomeys
with their life conception, it is evident that, although in anothe form. the
violence of a certain portion of the Oahomeys over the others will be the
same as without a constitution and without the nationalization of the
means of production. Before realizing the Socialistic organization, i t
would be necessary for the Dahomeys to lose their taste for bloody
62
tyranny. Just the same is necessaryfor Europeans also.
In order thatmen may live a common life without oppressing each
other. there is necessary, not an organization supported by force, but a
moral condition in accordance with which people act from their inner
conviction and not coercion. Such a condition does not exist. It exists in
religious Christian communities in America. in Russia, in Canada. Hee
people do indeed, without laws enforced by violence, live the communal
l i fe without oppressing each other.
Thus the rational activity proper to our time for men of our Christian
Soiety is only one: the profession and preaching by word and ded of the
lastand highest religious teaching known to us. of the Christian teaching;
not of that Christian teaching which, whilst submittng 0 the existing
order of life, demands of men only the fulfilment of exteral ritual, or is
satisfied with faith in and the preaching of salvation through redemption,
butof that vital Christianity, the inevitable condition of which is not only
non-participation in the action of the Goverment, but di sobedience of its
demands. since these demands - fom taxes and customhouses to law
courts and armies - are aopposed to this tue Christianity. If this be s,
then it u evident that it is not to the establishment of new forms that the
activity ofmen desirous of serving their neighbour should be di rected, but
to the alteraton and perfecting of their own characters and those of other
peple.
Those who act in the other waygenerally think that the forms of lif
and the character and life-conception of men may simulaneously im
prove. But, thinking thus, they make the usual mistake of takingthe result
for the cause and thecause for theresult or for an accompanying condition.
The alteration of character and life-conception of men inevitbly
brings with it the alleration of those forms in which men have lived,
whereas the alteration of the forms of life not only does not contribute to
the alteration of the character and life-conception ofmen, but. more than
anything else, obstucts this alteration by direting the attention and activ
ity of men into a false channel. To alter the forms of life, hoping thereby
to alter the character and life-conception of men, is like altering in various
ways the position of wet wood in a stove, believing that there can be such
a position of wet fuel as will cause it Vcatch fire. Only dry wood will take
fire independently of the position in which i t is placed.
This error is sobvious that people could not fall into it if there were
not a reason which rendered !hemliable Bit. This reason consists i te
fact that the alteraton of the character of men must begin in themselves,
and demands much struggle and labour, whereas the alteration of the
forms of the life of others is attained easily without inner effort over
oneself, and has the appearance of a vcry important and far-reaching
activity.
It is against this error, the source of the greatest evil, that I wa you.
63
men sincerly desirous of serving your neighbur by your lives.
VI
'But we cannot livcquictly occupying ourselves wilh lhe profession
and leching of Christianity whenwe seearoundussuffcringpople. We
wishlOservelhemactively. Forlhis weare readytosurrenderour labour,
even our lives', say peple wilh more or less sincere indignation.
Howdo you know, I would answer these peple, that you are called
to serve men precisely by thaL method which appars LO you the most
useful and practical? What you say only shows that you have already
decided 0we cannot serve mankind by a Christian life, and that tue
service lies only in plitical activity, which auraclS you.
Ppliticians think likewise, and they are in opposition Vech
other, and thereforecenainly cannot b right. It would be very wel1 if
everyone could servemen as hepleased, but such is not the case, and there
exislS only one meansofserving men andimproving their condition. This
sole means oonsislS in the profession and realization of a teaching from
which fows the inner workof pefectng oneself. The self-perfecting of
a tue Christian, always living naturally amongst men and !Wt avoiding
them, oonsislS in the establishment of beuer, more and more loving
relatons btween himself and other men. The establishment of loving
relations btwen men cannot but improve thcir gcneral conditons,
although the formof this improvement remains unknown to man.
It is te that inservinglhroughgovermental activity, parliamentry
or revolutionary, we can determine bforehand the results we wish to
attain, and at the same time profit by all the advantages of a pl0t,
luxurious life, and obtain a brilliant position. the approvalof men and geat
fame. bthose whoparticipat in such activity haveindeedsometimes to
suffer, it is such a possibility ofsufferingas inevery strife is reeemedby
thepssibilityof success. In military activity ,sufferingand even death
stiU more pssible, and yet onlythe least moral and the egoistic chose it
On the other hand, the religious activity. in the first place dos not
show us the results which it attains, and in the second place, such activity
demands the renunciation of extal success and not only dos not afford
a brilliant position and fame, but brings men V the lowest psiton fom
the soial point of view, subjecting themnot only to contempt and con
demnation, but Vthe most cruel suffcrings and death.
Thus, in our time of universal conscripton, religious activity com
pels every man who is called to the service of murder to bear mthose
punishments with which the Goverment punishes refusal of military
service. Therefore,religiollsactivity is difficult. but italone gives man the
consciousnes of true freedom, and the assurance that he is doing that
which he should do.
Consequently, this activity alone is truly fruitful, attaining not only

its highest object,but also incidentally and in the most naturaland simple
way, thos results towards which soial refonnersstive i nsuch acial
ways.
Theeuonly one means of serving men, which consists in oneself
living agod l. Tis means is not merely visionary, as it is regarded by
thoset whom it is notadvantagcous, but uthe only reality, allothermeans
bingphantoms, bywhich the leadersof the masses lure them mRa fals
way, distting themfromthat which alone is true.
VII
'But if this b so, when will it come t p ?' say those who wish R
lhe rtonof this ideal a quickly as p le.
Rwould b very well done could quickly, immediately, gow a
forest. Butonecannotdo this, one must wait tll lhe seedsshol, then the
leaves, then the branches and then the mwill grow up.
One stck branches into the ground, and fora short time they will
resemble a wood, but it will b only a resemblance. Thesame applies t
a rapidestablishment of god soial orderamongst men. One can ge
a Dblanceof god order, as dothe Goverments, but these imitations
only remove the pssibility of tue order. They remove it - fi rstly, by
cheting men, showing lhem the apce of go order where it dos
notemt; andseondly. bause Ihesm itatons oforderattained only
bypwer, and pwerdepravesmen, rulers as well asrule, and therefore
makes tue ordekpssible.
Therefore, attempts at a rigid realization of the ideal not only fail t
contibute t itsactual realization, but more than anything impde it.
Whether the ideal of mankind, a well organized Soiety without
violence, will be realized soon, or not soon, depends upon whether the
rules ofUte masses who sincerely wish the pople goo will soon under
stand that nothing removes men somuch from the realizationof their ideal
as that which they now doing, by either contnuing t maintain old
suprstitons, or denying all religions. and direting the pople's activity
t the service of the Govemment. of revolution or of Soiilism. If thos'
menwho sincerely wish t servetheir neighbur wereonly to understand
8 the fuitlessness of those means of organizing the welfare of men
proposed by the supporters of the State and by revolutionists. if only they
weretounderstand that the one means by which men can liberated fom
theirsufferings consists in men themselves ceasing VIivean egoistic, hea
thenm,and beginning tolivea universal Christian one, not recognizing,
as theydo now, the pbibilityand the legality o'fuSlng'violence over one 's
neighours, and partcipating in it for on!'s prsonal aims. If, on the
contary, lhey we to follow in life the fundamental and highest law of
acting lOwards others as one wishes others to act lOwards oneelf, then,
very quickly, those irratonal and cruel forsoflife inwhich we now live
65
would b ovenhrown and new ones would develop corresponding t the
new consciousness of men.
Think only what cnonnous and splendid mental pwers are now
spent in the service of the State and in its defence fromrevolution; how
much youthful and enthusiastic effort is spent onattempts at revolution,
on an impssible stggle with the Stale; how much isspnt on Soialistic
dreaming. AI this is not only delaying, but rendering impssible te
realization oCme welfaretowards which all men arestriving. How would
ithir those whoarespnding their pwers so fruitlesly, 8of lenwith
h t their neighbours, were K direct them aU to that, which alone
aCCords the possibility of good social l ife- t their inner self.perfetion?
Howmany times would one b able 0build a new house out of the
new solid material, if all those efronswhich have b n and arenow bing
spent on propping up the old house were used resolutely and conscien
tiously forte preparationofthe material fora new house and the building
thereof, which, although obviously it could notat flt beas luxurious and
conveniem forthe chosen fewas was the old one, would undoubtedly be
moreslable. and would affordthecomplete possibility forthoseimprove
ments which are nes , not for the chosen few only, but also for 8
men!
So, all I have said hereamoums to the simple, generally comprehen
sible and irrefutable tuth, that in order that good Iifeshould exist amongst
men, it unecessary thal men should b god.
There is only one way of innuencing men towards a good life:
namely, 0live a god moneself. Therefore the activity of those who
desire to contibute 0theestablishment of god mamongst men can and
should consist in efforts IOwards inner perfection in the fulfilment of that
which is expressed in the Gospel bythe words: 'Be yeperfecteven as your
Father in Heaven is perfect.'

ON ANARCJ- I Y
ON ANARCHY
(1900)
TheAnarchislSareright in everything; i n the negation afthe existing
orde, and in the assertion that, without Authority, therecould not be worse
violence than that of Authority under existing conditons. They are
mislaken only in lhinking that Anarchy can be institted by a [violent
Editor] revolution. 'To estblish Anarchy'. 'Anarchy will be insttuted'.
But it will be instituted only by there being more and morc people who do
not require the protecton of govermental power. and by there bing more
and more pople who will b ashamed of applying this power.
`capitalistc organiztion will pass into the hands of workers, and
then there wbe no more oppression of these workers, and no unequal
distibution of eings.'
'But who will establish the works; who will administer them?'
'It will goon of its own accord; the workmen themselves will arrange
everg .
'But the capilalistic organizaton was established just because, for
evey practical affair, there is need for administators fuished with
power. Hthere b work, there will be leadership, administators with
power. And when there is powe, there will beabuseofit- the vey thing
against which you are now strivin.'
To the question, how to be without a Slate, without cu, armies,
and s on, an answer cannot be given, bcause the question is badly
formulated. The problem is not how to arrange a State after the patter of
today, or after anew patter. Neither, I, nor any of us, is appointed to settle
mqueston.
But, though voluntarily, yet inevilably must we answer the question,
how shall I act faced with the problem which ever arises before me?
I to submit my conscience to the acts taking place around me, B I to
profuim myself in agreement with the Govement, which hangs ering
men, sends soldiers to murder, demoralizes nations with opium and spirits,
andsoon.or I to submit my actions Rconscience. i.e., not paricipate
in Goverment, the actons of which are contary to my reason?
What will b the outcome of this. what kind of a Goverment there
will b - of all this I know nothing; not that I don't wish to know; but that
I cannOl I only know that nothing evil can result from my following the
higher guidance of wisdom and love, or wise love, which is implanted in
6
me;justas nothi ng evil comes of the b following the instinct implanted
her, and flying out of the hive with the swarm, we should say. to ruin.
But, I repl, I do not wish Rand cannot judge about this.
In this precisely consists the power of Christ's teaching and that not
bu Christ is God or a great man, but because His teaching is
irrefutable. The meit of His teaching consists in the fact that it transferred
the matter frm the domain of eteral doubt and conjecture on to the
gound of certainty. 'Thou a man, a bing rational and kind, and thou
knoweSl that today or tomorrow thou wilt die. disappar. Uthee b a L,
then thou wilt go to Him, and He wask of the an account of thy actons,
whethe thou hast acted in accordance with His law, or, at least, with the
highe qualities implanted in thee. If there b no God, thou regardest rea
son and loveas the highestqualities, and must submit to them thy other in
clinatons,andnotlet them submit to thy animal nature -to the cares about
the commodities of life. to the fea of annoyance and material calamities.'
The question is not, I repeat. which community will b the more
secure, the better - the one which is defended by arms, cannons, gallows,
or the one that is not so safeguarded. But thee is only one queton for a
man, and one it is impssible to evade: 'Wilt thou, a rational and goo
bing, having for a moment app in this world, and at any moment
liable todisappar -wilt thou take Qin the murder of erring men or men
of a different race, wilt thou participate in the extermination of whole
natons of so-called savages. wilt thou participate in the artificial deteio
raton of generations of men by means of opium and spirits for the sake of
profit, wilt thou participate in all these actions, or even be in agreement
with those who pemit them, or wilt thou not?'
And there can be but one answer to this question for those to whom
it has presnted itself. As to what the outcome will b of it, I don't know,
because it is not given me to know. But wht should be done, I do unmis
takablyko. And uyou .'What will happen?' Then 1rely that go
will cely happn; because. acting in the way indicate by reason and
love, I acting in accordance with the highest law known to me.
The situaton of the majority of men, enlightened by tue brotherly
enlightenment, at present crushed by the deceit and cunning of usurpers,
who are forcing them to ruin their own lives this situation is terrible, and
appears hopless.
Only two issues present themselves. and both are closed. One is to
destoy violence by violence. by terrorism, dynamite bmbs and daggers,
as our Nihilists and Anarchists have atempted to do. to destoy this
conspiracy of Goverments against nations. from without; the other is to
come Ran agement with the Goverment, making concessions to it,
partcipating in it, in order gradually to di sentangle the net which is
binding the people, and Bset them free. Both these issues are closed.
69
Dynamite and the dagger, 8 experience has already shown, only
cause reaction, and destroy the most valuable pwer, the only one at our
command, that of public opinion.
The other issue is closed, beaus Goverments have already let
how far they may allow the participation of men wishing Vrefonn them.
They admit only that which dos not infringe, which is non-cssential; and
they are very sensitve concering things harmful 0 them - sensitive
because the mauerconcers thei r own existence. They admit men who do
not share their views, and who desire reform, not only M order to satisfy
the demands of these men, but also in their own interest, in that of the
Goverment. These men are dangerous to theGovcmments if they rmain
outside them and revolt against them oppsing to the Goverments the
onlyeffective instrument the Goverments possess -public opinion; they
must therefore render these men harmless, attracting them by means of
concessions, in order to render them innocuous (like culti vat microbes),
and then make them serve the aims of the Goverments, i.e., oppress and
exploit the masses.
Both thescissues being frmly closed and impregnable, whalremains
0be done?
To use violence is impossible; it would only cause reaction. Tojoin
the ranks of the Goverment is also impossible one would only become
its instrument. One course therefore remains to fight LheGovcmmem by
means of thought. sp h, actions, life. neither yielding to Goverment
nor joining its ranks and thereby inCing its power.
This alone is needed, will certainly be successful.
And this is the will of L,teaching of Christ.
There can b only one pnnanent revolution a moral one: the
regeneraton of the inner man.
How is this revoluton to take plae? Nobody knows how it will take
place in humanity, but every man fels ilcicarly M himself. And yet in our
world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of
changing himself.
70
TIIOU SHALT
THOU SHALT NOT
KILL
(1900)
WeKingsarecxeuted after m, as in the case of Charles I, Lu
7and Maximilian of Mexico; or when they are kiled in Court conspira
cies, like Peter Ill, Pul, and various Sultans. Shahs and Khans - little is
sid Nout it; but when they are killed without a mNand without a Court
conspiracy -as in the case of Henry IV of France, Alexander II (NOTE No
29), the Empress of Austria (NOTE No 30). the late Shah of Persia and,
recenty. Humbert (NOTE No 31) - such murders excite the greatst
surprise and indignation among Kings and Emperors and their adherents.
justas U they themselves never tok part in murders. nor profted by them,
nor instigated them. But, in fact, the mildest of the murdered Kings (Al
exander )or Humbn. for instance), nOl l spak of exeutions in their
own coumies, were instgators of, and accomplices and partakers in, the
murde of tens of thousnds of men who prished on the feld of banJe;
while more cruel King s and Emprors have b n guihy of hundreds of
thousands, and even millions, of murders.
The teching ofChristrcpeals the law, An eye foran eye. and a rooth
for a toth'; but those who have always clung to lhat law, and still cling to
it. and who apply it to a terrible degree - not only claiming 'an eye for;
eye,' bUl without provoation decreing the slaughter of thousands, as
lhey dwhen they declare war - have no right to b indignant at the
applicaton of lhat sme law to themselves in so small an insignifcant a
dege tht hardly one King or Empror is killed for eah hundrd
thousand,orprhapseven foreach million, whoare killed by lheorder and
with the consent of }jngs and Emprors. Kings and Emperors not only
should not be indignant at such murders as those of Alexander II and
Humbrt, but they should b surprised that such murders are so I, con
sidering lhe continual and universal example of murder that they give to
mankind.
The crowd are so hypnotized lhat they se what is going on bfore
their eyes, butdo not understand its meaning. They see what constnt C
Kings, Emprors and Presidents devoe to their disciplined annies; lhey
se the review s, parades and manouvres the rulers hold, abut which they
72
baSt to one another; and the pople cowd to see their own brothers,
brightly dup in fols' clothes. ted into machines to the sound of
drum and tumpt. ,at lhe ShOUl of one man, making one and the sme
movement atone and the same moment but they do not understand what
it all means. Yet lhe meaning of this drilling is very clear and simple: it is
nothing but a preparation forkiling.
Jtis stupfyingmen in orderto make them fit instuments for murder.
And those who do this, who chieny direct this and are proud of it. are the
Kings. Emp and Presidents. And it ujust these men - who are
spcially ocupied in organizing murder and who have made murder their
profesion. who wear miLity uniforms and carry murderous weapns
(swords) at theirsides -that are horrifie and indignant when one of them
slves umurdeed.
The murder of Kings -!he murder of Humbrt - i terrible. bUl not on
account of its cruelty. The !hings done by command of Kings and
Emprors - not only past events such as the masscre of SI Bartholomew,
religious butcheries. the trrible repressions of peasant rebllions. and
Paris cousd' etat. but the present -day Goverment executions, the doing
to-deth of prisoners in solitary confinement, the Disiplinary Battalions.
the hangings. the bheadings. the shotings and slaughter in wars -are in
comparably more cruel than the murdes committed by Anarchists. Nor
are thes murders terrible bcause undesrved. If A1exander and
Hum btdid not deerve death. still less did mthousands of Russians who
prished atPlevna, or ofItians who peished in Abyssinia Such murders
are terible, not bause they are cuel or unmerited, but bcause of the
unnableness of those who commit them.
H the regicides act under the infuence of personal feelings of
indignation evoked by the sufferings of an oppressed peple, for which
they hold AlexanderorCamot (NOTE No 32) or Humbert respnsible; or
if they at fom ponal felings of revenge. then however immoral their
conduct may b it is at least intelligible; but how is it that a body of men
(AnarchisLS, weare told) such as lhose by whom Bresci wassem, and who
are now threatening another Empror - how is it that they cannot devise
any btter means of improving the condition of humanity than by kl g
pople whose destuction can no more b of use than the decapitation of
that mythical monster on whose nek a new head app as son as one
was cutoff? }jngs and Emprors have long ago arranged for themselves
a system like that of a magazine-rifle; as soon as one bullet has ben
discharged. anothe takes its place. !roi est RI,\ive lc roi So what is
the u of killing them?
Only on a most suprficial view can the killing of these men seem a
mens of sving the nations fromoppression and from wars destuctve of
human W.
Lonly ned rememb that similar oppression and similar W
73
went on, no maner who was at the head of the Goverment - Nicholas or
Alexander, Frederick or Wilhelm, Napoleon or Louis, Palmerston or
Gladstone, McKinley (NOTENo 33) or anyone else - in order to under
stand that it is nOlany partcular person who causes these oppressions and
these wars fromwhich the nations surre. The misery of nations is caused
not by particular persons, but by the particular order of Soiety

nder
which the popleareso tied up together that they find themselves all 1Dthe
pwer of a few men, or more often in the power of one single man: a m
s prverted by his unnatural psition as arbiter of the falC and lives of
millions, that he is aJways in an unhea1thy state, and aJways surfers more
or less froma mania ofself-aggrandizemenl, which only his exceptionaJ
position conceals fom generaJ notice.
Apart from the fact that such men are surrounded fom earliest
childhod to the grave by me most insensate luxury and an atmosphere of
falsehood and flauery which aJways accompanies them, their whole
education and aJl their occupations Bcentred on one object leaing
aboul former murders, the best present-day ways of murdering, and the
best preparations for fulure murder. From childhood they le about
kil ing in all its possible forms. They always carry about with them
murderous weapons - sword or sabres; they dress Lhemselves in various
uniforms; mey attend parades, reviews and manoeuvres; they visit one
another, presenting one another with Orders and nominati ng one another
to the command of regiments - and not only does no-one tell them plainly
what they are doing, or say tat to busy oneself with preparations for
killing urevolting and criminal, but fromall sides they hear nothing but
approvaJ and enthusiasm for 8 0ativity of theirs. Every lime they go
out , and at each parade and review, crowds of people flok to greet them
with enthusiasm, and it seems to them as if the whole nation approves of
their conduct. Teonly partofthe Press that reaches them, andthat sems
to them the ex pression of the feelings of the whole pple or at ieastof its
best representatives, most slavishly extols their every word and action,
however silly or wicked they may b. Those around them, men and
women, clergy and laity - 8 pople who do not prize human dignity -
vying with one another in refined flauey, agree with them about anything
and deeive them about everything, making it impossible forthem to se
life as it is. Such rulers might live a hundred years without ever seeing one
single really indepndent man or ever hearing the tuth spoken. One is
sometimes appalled to hear of the words and deeds of these men; but one
need only consider their position in order to understand that anyone in their
place would act as they do. If a reasonable man found himself in their
place, there is only one reasonable action hecould perform and that would
be t getaway fromsuch a position. Any one remaining in it would behave
as they do.[ ... )
So it unot the Alexanders and Humbrts, nor the Wihelms, Nicho-
74
lases and Chamberlains - though they decree these oppressions of the
nations and these wars - who really the most guilty of these sins, but
it is rather those whop\aceand supprt them in the position of arbiters over
the lives of their fellow-men. And, therefore, the thing todois not xAI
exanders,Nicholases, Wilhelms and Humbrts, buttocease to supprt the
arrangement of soiety of which they 8a result. And what supportS the
present order of soiety is selrlShncss and stupfaction of the pople,
who sell their feedom and honour for insignifcant material advantages.
People who stand on the lowest rung of the ladder-partly asa result
of bing stpefed by a pariOlic and pseudo-religious education, and
partly for the sake of personal advantages - cede their freedomand sense
of human dignity at the bidding of those who stand above them and offer
tem material advantages. In the same way - in consequence of stupefac
tion, and chiefly for the sake of advantages - those who arc a little higher
up the ladder cede their freedom and manly dignity, and the same thing
repeats itself with those standing yet higher, and soonto the topmoslrung
- to those who, or to him who, standing at the apex of the social cone have
nOlhing more to obtain: for whom the only motives of action are love of
pwer and vanity ,and whoare generally so perverted and stupefied by the
power of lifeand death which they hold over their fellow-men. and by the
consequentservility and flattery ofthose who surround them, that, without
ceasing to do evil, they feel quite assured that they arcbenefactors to the
human race.
!tis the pople who sacrifce their dignity as men formateriaJ proft
that prouce these men who cannot act otherwise as they do act, and
with whom it uuseless to beangry fortheir stupid and wicked actions. To
kill such men is like whipping children whom one first spilt.
That natons should not be opprs, and that there should b none
of these useless wars, and that men may not be indignant with those who
seem to cause these evils, and may not kill them - it seems that only a very
H8 thing is nee. It is necessary that men should understand things
as they are, should call them by their right names, and should know that
an anny is an instument forkilling, and that the enrolment and manage
mentofanarmy - the very things which Kings , Emperors and Presidents
ocupy themselves with sself-confdently - is a preparation for murder.
Uonly each King, Emperor and President understood that his work
of direting annies is not an honourable and important duty, as his
flatterers persuade him it is, but a badand shameful act of preparation for
murde - and ueach private individual understood that the payment of
taxes wherewith to hire and equip soldiers, and, above aJl. milit service
itself, are not matters of indiffcrcnce, butare bad and shameful actons by
which he not only prmits but participates in murder - then this pwer of
Emprors, Kings and Presidents, which now arouses our indignation, and
which causes them to be murdered, would disappear of itself.
75
So. lhe Alexanders. lOL. Humbert and others should not b
murdered, but it should b explained K them that they are themselves
murderers, and, chiefy. lhey should not be allowed K kill people; men
should refuse Kmurder al their command.
If the pople do not yet act in ts way, it is only bause Gover
ments, t maintin themselves, diligently exercis a hypnotic influence
upn lhe pople. And. therefore. we may help t prevent pople killing
eilher Kings or one another, not by killing - murder only incr the
hypnotism but by arousing pople fromtheir hypnotic condition.
And it ulhis I have tried t do bythese remarks.
76
PATRIOTISM AND
GOVERNMENT
(1900)
I have alreadyseveral times expressed the thought that in our day the
feeling of patiotism is an unnatural, irrational and harmful feeling, and a
cause of a gretpart of the ills fromwhich mankind is suffering; and that,
consequently, this feeling should not becuitivaled, as is now being done,
but should, on the contary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means
available 0rational men. Yel, strange to say - Iough it i sundeniable that
universal armaments and destuct ve wars which areruining the pople
rcsuhfrom that one feeling -my arguments showing the backwardness.
anachronism and harmfulness ofpaliotism have ben mel, and Bstill
met, either by silence. by intentonal misinterpretation, or by a stange
unvarying reply to the effet that only bad patiotsm (Jingoism or
Chauvinism) is evil, but that n,goopatriotism is a veryelevated moral
feeling, to condemn which is not only irrational but wicke.
What
.
lhis ,god patiotism consists in, we are never told; or, if

nylhing is sid abut it, instead of explanaton we get delamatory,

Inflated ph, or, finally, some other concept is substiwtedforpatriot
ism - some thing which has nothing incommon with the patriotism we 8
know, and fromthe results of which we all sufer so severely.[ ... ]
Neither do the peuliarities of each people consUMe patriotism,
though these things are purposely substituted forthe concept of patriotsm
by its defenders. They say that the peculiarities of each pople are an
essential eondition ofhuman progress, and that patriotsm, which seeksto
maintain those peculiarities, is, therefore, a goodand useful feeling. But
is it not quite evident lhat if, once upon a time, these peculiarities of each
peoplc - thcse customs, creeds, languages - wereconditions necessary for
life ofhumanity, in our tme these same peculiarities formthc chief
obstacle to what is aJready recognizedas anideal - the brotherly union of
the poples? And therefore the maintenance and defence of any nation
ality Russian, Gennan, French or Anglo-Saxon, provoking the corre-
5
.
nding maintenance and defcncenot only of Hungarian, Polish and Irish
nauonalities, but also of Basque, Provencal, Mordva, Tchouvash (NOTE
78
No 3) and many other nationalities - serves not to hannonizeand unite
men, but to estange and divide themmoreand morefom one anote.
So, not the imaginary but the real patriotism, which we 8kow, by
which most pople are swayed today and fromwhich humanity suffs so
severely, is not the wish for spirituaJ bnclts for onc's own pople (it is
impossible todmspirital bnelits for one's own pople only), but is
a verdefinite feeling of prfrence forone's own pople or State above
all olher poples and States, and a consequent wish to get for that people
or State the greatest advantages and power that can b got - things which
8obtinable only at the expnse of the advantages and pwer of olher
poples or States.
It would, therefore. seem obvious that patriotism as a feeling is bad
and harmful, and as a doctineis stupid. For it is clear that ifeach people
and each State considers itself the bst ofpeoples and Slates, they aUlive
in a goss and harmful delusion.
II
One would expccllhe harmfulness and irrationality ofpatiotism to
be evident to everyboy. But the surpris ing factis thai cultured and leed
men not only do not themselves notice the harmand stupidity ofpaliot
ism, but they resist every exposure of it with the greatest obstinacy and
ardour (though without any rational grounds), and continue to praise it as
benificent and elevating.
What does this mean?
Only one explanaton of this amazing fact presents itself to me.
AIhuman hislOry, from lhe carliesl limes to our own day, may be
consideredas a movement of the consciousness, bth of individuals and
of homogeneous groups, fromlower ideas to higher ones.
The whole path travelled bth by individuals and by homogeneus
groups may b representeas a conseuti ve fight ofsteps fom the lowest,
onthe level of animal life, to the highestauained by the consciousness of
man at a given moment of history.
Each man, like each separate homogeneous group, nation or Slate,
always moved and moves up this ladder of ideas. Some prtions of
humanity in front, others lag mbehind, others, again - the majority
move somewhere betweenthe most advanceand themost backward
.
But
0 ,whatever stage tey may have reached, Binevitably and irresistibly
moving fromlower to higher ideas
.
And always, at any given moment,
both the individuals and the separategroupsof people-advanced, middle
orbackward- stnd inthree differentrelations to thethree stages of ideas
amidwhich they move.
P ways, for both the individual and forthe separategroups of pople,
thereare the ideasofthe past, which Bwor out and have become strange
to them, and Vwhich lhey cannotrevert as, forinstance, in our Christan
79
world, the ideas of cannibalism, universal plunder, the rapof wives, and
other customs of which only a reordremains.
And thereare the ideas ofthe present, instilled into men's mind by
education, by Cple and bythe generalactvity ofall aroundthem; ideas
under the pwe of which they liveatagiven time: forinstance, in our Own
day, the ideas of proprty, State organization, tade, us of domestic
animals, etc;
And d are the ideas of the future, of which some are already
approahingrealiztionand areobJiging pople tochangetheirway oflife
and t stuggle against the fonneways: such ideas mour worldas thos
of freeing the laburers, of giving equality to women, of giving up meat
(NOTNo 35), etc.; while others, alreadyreognized, have not yet come
into practical conrct with the old fonns oflife: such inour times are the
ideas (which we call ideals) ohheeradicatonof violence, thearrangement
of a communal system of property, of a universal religion and of ageneral
brotherhodofmen.
And, therefore, everyman and everyhomogeneous goupof men, on
whatever level theymay stand, having behind them the wom-outremem
brances ofthe past, and beforethem me ideals of me future, are always in
a state of struggle between the moribund ideasofme presentand the ideas
of me f that are coming tolife. It usually happns that when an ide
which has ben useful and even neessary in the past bcomes supeu
ous, that idea. aftera moreor less prolonged struggle, yields its place to
a new idea which was till thenanideal, but which thus bomes a present
idea.
But it dos ocur that an antiquated idea, alreadyreplaed in pople's
consiousness by a higher one, is of such a kind that its maintenance u
profitabletothose poplewho havethe geatest infuence in their soiety.
And then it happns m this antiquated idea, though it is in sharp
contadiction to the whole surrounding fonn of u, which has b n
altering in other respts. contnues to influence popleand to sway their
actions. Such retention of antiquated ideas has always ocurred, and still
dos ocur, in the matter of rligion. Thecause is that the priests, whose
profitablepsitions arebound up with the antiquatedreligious idea, pur
psely use their power to hold pople to this antiquated idea.
The same thing ocurs, and forsimiiarreasons, inthepolitical sphere
with referenceto the patiotic idea, onwhich all arbitary power is based.
Peopleto whom it uproftable todoso, maintain that idea by artificial me
ans, though it now lacks both sense and utility. And as these people ps
sess the most pwerful means of influencing others, they are able to
achieve their object
In this, it Ms to me, lies the explanaton of the strange contrast
btwen the antiquated patriotic idea andthat whole driftofideas leading
in the oppsite diretion, which havealready entered into the conscious-
N
ness of the Christian world.
III
Patiot, as a felingof exclusive love forone's own pple. and
8a dotine of the virtue ofsacrifICing one's tanquillity, one's propty
and even one's life in defence of one's own pple fom slaughter and
outage by their enemies. was the highest idea of the prio when eah
natonconsidered it feasible and just, for its own advantage. to subject t
slaughter and outage the popleof other natons.
But, already some 2,0years ago. humanity. in the n of the
highest represntatives ofits wisdom, bgan t recognizethe higher idea
ofa brotherhoof man; and that idea, pnetating man's consciusness
moreand more, has in ourtime attained most varied fonns of reton.
to improved means of communication, and to the unity of industy,
oftrade, of me Wand of science, men are tay so bound one t another
that the dangerof conquest, massacre or outragebya neighbouingpeple,
has quite disapp, and all peoples (thepeoples, but not the Gover
ments) live together in peaceful, mutually advantageous, and friendly
commercial, industial, artistic and scientifc relations, whichtheyhaveno
need and no desire t distrb. One would think, therefore. that the
antquated feelingof patiotism -bingsuprt1uous and incompatible with
the consciousness we havereachedof theexistence of brothehooamong
men of df t natonalities - should dwindle more and more untl it
completely dispprs. Yet the very oppsiteof this ocurs: dB
and antquated feling not only continues to exist, but bums more and
morefecel y .
The pple. without any reasonable ground. and conty alike t
their conception of right and to their own advantage, not only sympathize
with Govements in their attacks on other nations. in their seizues of
foreign ps ions, and in defending by force what they have alredy
stolen (NOTENo 36) but eventhemselves demand such attacks. seizures
and defences: are glad of them, and take pride in them. The small
oppressednationalities which have fallen unde the pwer of the geat
States-thePoles, Irish, Bohemi ans, Finns or Armenians-resentingthe pa
triotismof their conquerors, which is the causeof their oppression, catch
fromthem the infetion ofthis feeling ofpatriotism - which has ceased to
b neces, and is now obsolete. meaningless and harmful - and catch
it to such a degreethat all their activity is concentrated upon it,and they,
themselves sufferingfromthepatriotism ofthe strongernations, are ready,
for the sake of patriotism, to perpetate on other peoples the very same
deeds that theiroppressorshaveperpetratedand areperpetratingon them.
This oc urs bcause the ruling classes (including not only the actal
rulers with their ofci als, but athe classes who enjoy an exceptonally
advantageus psition: the capitalisL. jouralists and most of the at
81
and sientists) can retain lheir psition - exceptionally advantgeous in
comparison wiLh that of the labouring masscs - Lhanks only the Gover
ment organization, which rests on patiotism. They have in their hands all
the most pwerful means of innuencing the pople, and always sedulously
support patriotic feeli ngs in themselves and others, more especially as
those feelings which uphold the Goverment's power are those that are
always bst rewarded by that pwer.
Every official prosprs the more in his career, the more patiotic he
is; soalso thearmy man gets promotion in time of war -the war isproduced
by patriotism.
Patriotism and its result - wars - give an enormous revenue to the
newspapr uade, and profits to many o!her tades. Every write::, teacher
and professor is more secure in his place, the morche preaches patiotism.
Every Emperor and King obtins the more fame, the more he is addicted
to patiotism.
The ruling clhave in their hands we army, money, the schols,
the churches and !he Press. In the schools they kindle paciotism in the
children by means of histories describing their own people as the best of
all poples and always in the right. Among adults !hey kindle it by
spctacies,jubiles, monuments, and by a lying patiotic Press. Aboveall,
they inname patriotism in this way: prptrating evey kind of injustice
and harshness against other nations, they provoke in them enmity towards
their own pple, and then in tum exploit that enmity to embiUer thei r
pople against the foreigner.
The intensification of this terrible feeling of patriotism has gone on
among the Europan peoples in a rapidly increasing progression, and in
our time mreached the uunost limits, beyond which there is no room for
it LO eXteCld.
IV
Within the memory of people not yet old, an ocurrence tok place
showi ng most obviously the amazing intoxication caused by patiotism
among the people of Christendom.
The ruling classes of Germany excited Lhe patriotism of the masses
of their people LO such a degree thal, in the second half of the nineteenth
century,a law was proposed in accordance wi!h which all the men had to
bcome soldiers: all the sons, husbands, fathers. leed men and godly
men, had to le to murder, to become submissive slaves of those above
them in military rank, and be absolutely ready to kill whomsover they
were ordered LO k,to xmen of oppressed nationalities, and their own
working-men standing up for their rights, and even their own fathers and
brothers -as was publicly proclaimed by that most impudent of potentates,
Wilhelm II.
That horrible mesure,oUlraging all man's bst feelings in the gross-
82
est
manner, was, under the innuenceof patriotism, acquiesced in without
murmur by the pople of Germany. Rresulted in !heir viCLOry over !he
French. Tat victory yet further excited the patiotism of Germany and, by
reaction, that of France, Russia and !he other Powes; and the men of the
European countries unresistingly submitted to the intoduction of general
military service - i.e. toastate of slavery involvinga degreeofhumiliation
psubmission incomparably worse than an y slavery of theancient world
After this sevile submission of the masses to the calls of patiotsm, the
audacity, cruely and insanity of Goverments knew no bounds. A comp
etition in the usurpaton of other peples'lands in Asia, Africa and Amer
ica bgan - evoked partly by whim. prtly by vanity, partly by covetous
ness -and was accompanied by ever geater and greater distustand emity
betwen the Goverments.
The destuction of the inhabitants on the lands seized was accepted
as a quite Bmproeding. The only question was, who should b rust
in seizing o!herpples' landanddestroying the inhabitants? All theGov
erments not only most evidently infringed, and infinging. te
elementary demands of justice in relation LO the conquered peoples, and in
relation to one another. but they wereguiity, and continue to b guilty, of
every kind of cheting, swindling, bribing, fraud, spying. robbry and
murder; and the poples not only sympathized, and still sympathize, with
them in all this, but they rejoice when it is their own Goverment and not
another Govement that commits such crimes.
The mutual enmity btween the different pples and States h
reached lanerly such amazing dimensions that. notwithstanding the fact
that there is no reason why one Stte should attack another. everyone
knows all the Goverments stand with their claws out and showing
their v .and only waiting for someone to b i n touble, or bome weak,
in order to khim to piees with as little risk as possible.
All thepeoplcs of the so-called Christian world have Dreduced by
patiotism to such a state of brutality, that not only those who obliged
to kill or to b kille desire slaughter and rejoice in murder. but all the pop
lesofEurop and America, living peaceably in their homes expsed to no
danger, ,each war - thanks to easy means of communication and to
the -in the position of the sptators ina Romancircus,and like them
deUght in the slaughter, and rais the blothirsty cry. Pollice verso
(OT No 37). Not only adults. but also Children. pure, wise children.
rejoice according to their nationality. when wey hear that the number
kiUed and lacerated by Iydditeorother shells on some particular day was
not 70 but 1 ,UEnglishmen or Bors.
And parenlS (1 know such cases) encourage their children in such
brutality.
Butthatisnotall. Every increase in theanny of one nation (and ech
nation, bing in danger, seeks to increase ilS army for patriotic reasons)
83
obliges its neighburs to increasetheir armies. also frompatriotism, and
this evokes a fresh inCe bythe firstnation.
And the same thing ocurs wit fortifications and navies: one State
has built ten ironclads, a neighbour builds eleven; then the fUSt builds
twelve, and so on to infinity (NOTENo 38).
'I'll pinch you.' 'And I'll punchyour head.' 'And I'll stab you with
a dagger.' 'And I'll bludgeon you.' 'And I'll shot you.' ... Only b
children. drunken men, or animals, qU l or fight so, but yet it is just what
is going on among the highest representatives of the most enlightened
Goverments, the very men who undertake todirect theeducation and the
moralit of their subjects.
V
The position is beoming worseandworse. and thereis no stopping
this descent towards evident perdition.
Theone way of escapebeJieved inbycredulous people has now been
closed by recent events. I refer to theHague Confrence. and to the war
between England and the Transvaal which immediately followe it
(NOlENO 39).
If peoplewho think little, or but superficially, wereable 0comfort
themselves with the idea that interational couns of arbittion would
suprsede wars and ever-increasing armaments, the Hague Conference
and the war thatfollowedit demonstatedin the mostpalpablemanner the
impssibility offnding a solution ofthe di ficulty in that way(NOTENo
40). Akthe Hague Conference. it bameobvious that as long as Gov
erments with armies exist. the tennination of annaments and of wars is
impssible. That an ageementshould bcome pssible. it is neessay that
thepartest itshouldlrust each other. And i norderthat the Powersshould
lsteach other, they must lay down their ams, as is done by thebarers
of a nag of lce when they met fora conference.
So long as Govements, distusting one another, not only do W
disband or decreastheir armies, but always iDthemin correspn
dence with augmentations made by their neighburs. and by mens of
spieswatch everymovement of to ps. knowing that each of the Powers
will auackits neighbour as son as it ses its way t doso, no agrement
is pssible. and every conference is either a stupidity. or a pastime. or a
fraud, or Wimprtnence, or all of these together.
It was particularly becoming for the Russian rather than any other
Goverment to be theenfant terible of theHagueConference. Nooneat
home bing allowed to reply to all its evidently mendacious manifesta
tions and rescripts, the Russian Goverment is so spoilt, that - having
without the least scruple ruinedits own people with armaments. strangled
Poland. plunderedTurkestan and China, and being spcially cngagedin
suffoating Finland it proposeddisarmament totheGovemcnts, in full
6
assu
rance that it would be tusted!
But stnge, unexpected and indecent as such a proposal was -
es
pcially at the very time when ordcrs were bing given to incDits
ann
y - the words publicly uueredin the hearing of the pplewere such.
for the sake of appces the Goverments of the other Powers
could nOldecline the comical andevidently insincere consultaton; andso
the delegatesmet -kowing in advance that nothing wouldcome of it - and
for several wees (during which they drew gosalaries) though they
were laughing in usleves, they all conscientiously pretended t b
much ocupie in ging paceamong the natons.
The Hague Conference. followedas it was by the teriblebloshed
ofthe Transvaal War, which no one attempted. or is now .Q npting. to
stop, was. nevertheless, ofsomeuse, though notatall inthe way expcted
ofit -it was usefl because itshowed in the most obvious manner that te
evils fom which the peoples msuffering cannot be cured by Govem
ments. That Goverments, even if thcy wished to. can tenninate neilhe
r
armaments nor wars.
Goverments. 0havea reason forcxisting, must defendtheir peple
fromother people's attack. But no onc people wishes to attck. or does
attack. another. And thereforeGoverments, far fromwishing forpeace.
carefullyexcite the anger ofother nations against themselves. And having
excite other pople's anger against themselves. and stirred up the
paliotism of their own pple, eah Goverment then assures its pople
that it is mdangerand must b defended.
And having the pwer in their hands, the Goverments can b
irritateothe nations and excite patriotism at home. and they carefully do
bththe one and theother; nor can they act otherwise. fortheir existence
depnds on thus acting.
H, in fonner times;Goverments were neessary t defnd their
poplefom other pople's attaCk. now on the conuy. Goverments
aficially qmthe pace that exists btWthe natons. and provok
e
enmityamong them.
Whnit was net ploughin orderto sow. ploughing was wise;
but evidently it is absurd and hamful togo on ploughing afterthe sed baS
Swn. But dis just what the Govements areobliging theirpople
todo: toinfinge the unit which exists. and which nothing would infnge
if it werenot forthe Goverments.
VI
In reality what athese Goverments, without which people think
theycould not exist? Theremayhavebeena ti me when such Goverments
wcrenecessary, and when thc evil of supprting a Goverment was less
tha
n thatofbeingdefencelessagainslorganized neighbours; but now su
ch
Goverments have becomeunnecessary. andBa rargreaterevil than al
85
lIle dangers with which they frighten lIleir subjects.
Not only mility Goverments, but Goverments in general, could
b, I will not say useful, but at least harmless, only ifliley consisted of im
maculate, holy pople, as is lIleoretically lle case among lIle Chinese. But
lIlen Govements, by lIle nature of their ativity, which consi st in
commilting acts of violence (NOTE No 41), a always compsd of
elements the mostconuary uholines - of the most audacious, unscrupu
lous and prverted pople.
A Govement, therefore, and espially a Goverment entusted
with military pwe, is the most dangerous organization pssible.
The Goverment, in the widet sense, including capitalist and the
W,is nothing else than an organizaton which places the grpan of
the pple mthe pwer of a smaller p who dominate them; that smaller
Qis subject to a yet smaller p,and that again to a yet smaller, and s
on, reaching at last a few pople or one single man, who by means of
militry force has pwer ove all the rest So that all this organization
resembles a cone, of which all the parts a completely in the power of
thos pple or of that one prson, who happn ub at the apex.
The QX of the COne is seized by those who are more cunning,
audacious and unscrupulous than the rest, or by someone who happens to
b the heir of those who were audacious and unscrupulous.{ ... )
And to such Govements is allowed full pwer, not only over
propny and lives, but even over the spiritual and moral development, the
education and the religious guidance of eveybdy.
Pople construct such a terible mahine of pwer, they allow any
one Useize it who can (and the chances always are that it will b seized
by the mostmora1ly worthless) - they slavishly submit uhim, and a then
surprised that evil come ofil. They are afaid of Ahists' bmbs,and
a not ad of this terrible organization which is always thretening
them with the gatest calamities.
People found it useful to tie themselves together in order to resist their
enemies,as theCircassians(NOTE N042) did when resisting attcks. But
the danger is quite past, and yet pople go on tying themselves togethe.
They carefully tie themselves up so that one man can have them
at mercy; then they throwaway the end of the rope that tes them, and leave
it trailing for some rascal or fool to seize and to do them whatever harm he
likes (NOTE No43),
Really, whatare people doing but just that- when they set up, submit
to, and maintain an organized and military Goverment?
VII
To deliver men fom the trrible and ever-increasing evils of arma
ments and war, we want neither congresses nor conferences, nor teaties,
nor couns of arbitaton, but the destuction of those instuments of
86
viole
nce which a called Govements, and from which humanity's
geatest evils flow.
To destoy Govement vilence, only one thing is neede: it is that
p
ople should understand that the feeling of patriotism, which alone
su
pprts that instument of violence, is a rude, harmful, disgeful and
bad feeling, and, abve all, is immoral. It isa rude feeling, bcause it isone
nawral only u pple standing on the lowest level of morality, and
expting fom other nations such outrages as they themselves a ready
0 inflict; it is a harmful feeling, bcause it disturbs avantageous and
joyous, paceful relatons with other poples, and abve all prouces t
Goverment organiztion under which pwer may falJ, and dos ,into
the hands of the worslmen; it is a disgraceful feeling, bause ittcms m
not merely into a slave, but into a fighting cok, a bull or a gladiator, who
wastes his stength and his life forobjetives which are not his own but his
Goverment's; and itisan immoral feling. bcause, instcadofconfessing
oneself a son of God (as Christianity teches us) or even a fee man guided
by his own reason, each man under the influence of patriotism confess
himself the son of his Fatherland and the slave of his Goverment, and
commits actions Ouu8to his reason and his conscience.
It is only necessary that people should understand this, and the
terrible bnd called Goverment, by which we a chained together, will
fall to pieces of itself without struggle; and with it will cease the terrible
and useless evils it produces.
And peple are already bginning to understand this. J, for
inslnce, is what a citzen of the United States writes:
'We a fanners, mehanics, merchants, manufactrers, teachers.
and all we ask is the privilege of attending to our own business. We own
our homes, love our fiends, a devoted to our families, and do not
interfere with our ne ighbours - we have work to do, and wish to work.
Leave us alone !
But they wlnot - Ihese pl iticians. Tey insist on govering us and
living off our labour. They Uus, eat our substance. conscript us, d our
bys into their wars. All the myriads of men who live off the Goverment
depnd upn theGovcmmcnt to tax us, and, in order uuus successfully,
standing armies are maintained. The plea lhat the army is neede for the
protection of the county is pure fraud and pretence. The French Gover
ment frightens the peple by lClling lh em that the Germans a ready and
anxious to fall upon them; the Russians fear the British; lhe Britsh fear
anybody; and now in America we a told we must increase our navy and
add to our army because Europe may at any moment combine against us.
This is faud and untuth. The common people in France, Gennany,
Engiandand America are opposed to war. We only wish Vb left alone.
Men with wives, children, sweetheans, homes, aged parents, do not want
go off and fight someone. We are paceable and we fear war; we hate
It
87
We would like to obythe Golden Rule.
War is the sure result of theexislence of anned men. That coumry
which maintains a large stnding anny will soner or Whave a war on
hand. The man who prideshimself onfsticuffs is goingsomeday to meet
a man who considers himself the bUeman, and they will fghL
Gennany andFrance haveno issue sve a dmto whichis the
btter man. Theyhave foughtmany times -and theywill fght again. Not
that the pplewant tofght, but theSupriorClass fan fght intof, and
make men think they must fght to protect their homes.
So pople who wish to follow the teaching of Christ are not
allowed to do so, but aretaxed, outaged, deceive by Govements.
Christ taughthumility, mekess, theforgivenessof one's enemies,
and thattokiD was wrong. The Bible teache men not toswear oaths; but
theSuprior Class swear us in on theBible in which they donot believe.
The questonis. How are we torelieve ourselvesoftheseconnoranlS
who toilnot, but whoarclothed inbroadclothand blue. with brassbuttons
and many costly accoutrements; who feed upon our substance, and for
whom we delveand dig?
Shall we fght them?
No, we do not blieve :ubloodshed; andbesides that. they have the
guns and temoney, and they chold out longerthan we.
But who compses this anny that theywould orderto fre upn us?
Why, our neighbursand brothers - deeived intothe idea that they
are doing Go's service by protectng their county from its enemies.
When the fact u.our country has noenemies save theSuprior Class. that
pretends to lok out for our inteests dwe will only oby and consent to
b taxed.
Tus do theysiphon ourresomand mour tuebrothersupnus
to subue and humiliate us. You cannot send a telegamt your wife. nor
an express packagetoyour friend. nor draw a chequeforyour goer. until
you Urst pay the tax tomaintain anned men, who can quickly b used to
kD you; and who surely will imprison you uyou do not pay.
The only reJieflies in education. Eucale men that it is wrongto k,
Teach themtheGolden Rule. and "et again teach themtheGolden Rule.
Silently defythis Suprior Class byrefusing tobow down to their fetish
of bullets. Cease supporting the preachers who cry for war and spout
patiotismfora consideration. Let themgotoworkas wedo. Weblieve
inChrist-theydo not. Christ spokewhat hethought; they speak whatthey
thinkwill please the men in power - the Superior Class.
We will not enlist. We will not shoot on their order. We will not
chargebayonet upn a mild and gentlepople. Wewill not Dupon shep
herds and fanners, fghting for their fsides, upona suggestion ofCecil
Rhodes. Your falsecry of"Wolfl wolf" shall not alann us. Wepay your
taxesonly bause we haveto. and we will pay no longer thanwe have l.
88
We will pay nopw-rents, no tithes to your sham chaities. and we will
gominds upn ocasion.
We will eucate men.
And all thetime our silent infuence will b going out. andeven the
men who aeconsripted wb half-heand refustofght Wewill
educate men into the thought that the Christ Lifeof Pand Gowill
is 0WVLifeof Ste. Bloshed and War.
Pon e! - it conly come when men do away with armies.
and are wl g Bdo unto othermen as they would b done by'.
So wrileS a citzen of the UniteStates; and fromvarious sides, in
various fonns. such voices are sounding. [... ]
Pople arebginning to understandthe fraudof patiotism. uwhich
all the Goverments take such pains tokeep theminvolved.
VIII
'But,' it is usually asked, 'what will there b instead of Gover
ments?'
Thee wb noting. Something that has long ben useless. and
therefore superfluous and bad. will be ablished. An organ that, being
unne , Bbecome hannful. will be abolished.
'But,' pople geneally say. 'if thee no Goverment. pople will
violate and kech other.'
Why? Why should the abliton of theorganizaton which aros in
consuence of violece,and which has bhandeddownfrom genea
tion to geeraton to do violence - why should the ablition ofsuch an
organizton, now devoid of us, caus pople to outage and \one
anoter?L0contry, the presumptionis that the abliton of the organ
of violence would reult mpple ceasingtoviolate and kone anotha.
Now. some men arespcially educated and tined tokand to do
violence toothe pple -there aremen who are suppsdtohave a right
tous violence. and who make useof anorganizationwhich exists forthat
purpse. Such deeds of violenceand such killing areconsidered god and
worthy deds.
But then. peple will not be Sbrought up, and no-one will have a
right to use violence on others, and there will b no organiztion to do
violence, and -as is naturalt popleofourtime-violence and murder will
always b considered bad actions. no matter who commits them.
But should actsof violence continue tobe committed even after the
abolition of theGoverments. such acts will certainly b fewer than are
commitd now. whenanorganizationexistsspecially devised tocommit
acts of violence, and a stateof things exists in which acts of violence and
murdersare considered goodand useful deeds.
The abliton of Goverments will merelyrid us of an unnecessry
organizaton which we have:uhrCKfromthe past. an organization for
89
the commission of violence and foriLS justification.
'But there wiU then b nolaws, no proprty, no courts of justice, no
plice, no ppular education,' say pplewho intentionally cnfuse the
uof violence by GovermenLS with various soiaJ activities.
The ablition of the organization of Goverment fonned to do
violence, dos not at all involve the ablition of what is reasonable and
go, and therefore not based on violence, in laws or law courts, or in
proprty, or in plice regulations, or in financial gemenLS, or in
popular education. On the conuary, the absence of the brutal power of
Goverment, which is needed only foriLS own support, will facilitate a
juSleC and more reasonable soial organization, needing no violence.
Courts of justice, and public affairs, and ppular education, will .ll exist
to the extent to which they are really needed by peple, but in a shap
which will not involve the evils contained in the present fonn ofGover
ment. Only that will be destroyed which was evil and hindered the fre
expression of the pople's will.
But evenuwe assume that with the absence of Govements there
would bedisturbancesand civil strife, eventhen the position of the people
would b better mit is at present. The psition now is such that it is
dificult to imagine anything worse. The pople mruined, and their ruin
is boming moreand more complete. The men areall convertedinto war
slaves,and havefomdaytoday toexpectorders to goto killand be killed.
What more? Pthe ruined peoples to die of hunger? Even that is already
bginning in Russia, in Italy and in India. Lare thewomen aswell as the
men to go to b soldiers? Uthe TransvaaJ even that has bgun.
So that evenif the absence ofGoverment reallymeant Anarchyin
the negative, disorderly sense of that word- which is far frombing the
case - even then no anarchical disordecould be worse than the position
to which GovermenLS have alreadyled their peoples, a!ld t which they
mleading them.
And thereforeemancipation from patriotism, and the destuction of
the desptsm ofGovement that resLS upn it, cannot but b beneficial
to mankind.

Men, recollect yourselves! For the sakeofyour well-bing, physical

and spiritual, forthe sake ofyourbrothersandsisters, pause, consider, and
think of what you are doing!
Renect, and youwill understand that your fos mnot the Bors, or
the Egli sh, orthe French, or the Gennans, or the Finns, or the Russians,
but that your fos - your only fos - yourselves, who by paliotism
maintain the GovermenLS that oppress you and make you unhappy.
They have undertaken to protet you fromdanger, and they have
brought that pseudo-protetion to such a pint that you have all bcome

soldiers-slaves, and mall ruined, orarebeing rui

.
ned mor and more,

d
at any moment may and should expct that the light-stetched cord
snap, and a horrible slaughter of you and your children will commen
c
.
And however great that slaughtrmay b, and howeverthatconfilct
may end, the same state of things will continue. In the same way, with yet
greaterintensity, the GovermenLS w,and ruin, and p you and
your child, and no-one will help you to stop it or loprevent 1Lyou do
not help yourselves.
And thereis only one kind ofhelp pssible - it lies in the abolition of
that terrible linking up into a cone of violence, which enables the prson
or prsns who succed in seizi ngthe Qxto have pwer oveall the rest,
and tohold that pwer the morefmnly the morecruel and inhuman.they
,as we by theofthe Napleons, Nicholas I, Bismarck, ham
brlain, Rhoes and our Russian Dicttors who rule the pple U the
Tsr's name.
And thee is only one way to destoy this binding together - it is by
shaking off the hypnotism ofpatriotism.
Understandthat all the evils fom which you suffer, you yourselves
cause by yielding tothe suggestions bywhich Emprs, Kings, Membrs
ofParliament, Goverors, omces, capitalists, prieLS, authos,artsts, and
all who ned this fudofpatriotism in ordertolive upnyour labour, de
ceiveyou!
Whover you may b - Frenchman, Russian, Pole, Englishman,
Irishman o Bohemian - undestand that 8 your real human interests,
whatever they may b - agricultural, industrial, commercial, artistic or
scientific -as well as your pleasures and joys, inno way run counter to the
interest ofotherpples or States; and that you areunited, by mutual co
opration, by exchange of services, by the joy of wide brotherly inter
course, andby the exchange not merely of gods but also ofthoughLS and
feelings, with the folk ofother lands.
Understand that the question as to who manages to seize Wei-hai
wei, Port Arthur or Cuba - your Goverment or another - donot affect
you, or,rather, that every suchseizuremadebyyourGoverent, injures
you, byinevitably bringing in its tainall sortsofpressureonyou byyour
Goverentto forceyou to takepan in the robbryand violence by which
alone such sizures mmade, or can b retaine when made. Understand
that your mcan in no way b beucred by Alsace bcoming Gennan or
Freoch,and Irelandor Polandbing freorenslaved -whoverholds them,
youmto live where you will, d even you be an Alsatian, anIrishman
or a Pole. Understand, , that by stirring up palriotism you will only
make the worse, forthe subjection inwhich your people mkept
resuJtedsimply fromte stuggle btweenpatriotisms, and every manifes
tation of patiotism in one nation provokes a correspnding reaction in
another. Understand that salvation fm your woes is only pssible when
91
you free yourself from the obsolele idea of pauiotism and from the
obediencetoGovemments that uDupnil, andwhenyoubldly enler
inlO the region of that higher idea, the brotherly union of the peoples,
which has longsince come to life,and fomall sidesiscal ling you 10ilSlf.
U the pple would understand t they a not the sons of some Fa
thelland or other, nor of Goverents, but a sons of L, and can
thererore neitherb slaves nor enemies one t another- those insane. un
ne . wor-out, prcious organizations calledGovements, and
athe sufferings, violations, humiliations and crime which they oca
sion, would c.
92
The T(i ngdom
Or God
Ts Wi t h i n Yol1
THE KINGDOM OF
GOD IS WITHIN
YOU
or Christianity not a Mystical Doctrine
but as a New Conception of Life
(Ib7)
The Circle of Violence
Goverments and the ruling classes now base themselves neithe on
justice nor even on a semblance of right. but on an organization so
cunningly devised by the help of scientifc progress, that men caught
in a circle of violence. fom which there is no pssibility of escap. That
circle is now compsed of four methods of acting upn men methos
connete with and suppning each other. as do lIle links of a chain joined
into a circle.
11left rstandoldest metho is terrorism. Itconsists in repOting the
existng system of Goverment it a mrepublic or the most outa
geous desptism) as somelhing nand immutable, and in punishing in
me most barbarous manner all atlemplS to alter it. This metho hasalways
ben used. and stll continues to b usd wherever there u a Goverment
. in Russia against the so-called Nihilists, in America against Anarchists,
in France against Imperialists, Monarchists, Com munists and Anarchists.
Railways, telegraphs, telephones, photographs and the prfectd methods
of disposing of men without killing them, by confining them for life in
solitary cells where they Bforgotten and die hidden from the eyes of
humanity, and many other new inventions employed by the State more m-
quent1y than by other men, give Goverments such power, that - if once
authority has b n usurped by certain individuals, and if regular and secret
plice, administrators of all sorts, Crown prosecutors, gaolers and execu
tioners work with sufficient zeal - there is no possibility whatever of
overthrowing a Goverment however barbarous or senseless it may be.
The seond method is that of bribery. It consists in extorting the
V9
proprty of the working classes by taxation, and distributing that propty
among officws, who in retu for the payment maintain and increase the
slavey of the pople.
These brib offica1s, from the prime ministers to the humblest
scrib, compse an unbroken chain of individua1s, united by one common
aim of drawing their subsistence from the labur of the pople. They m
remunerated in proprton to their submission to the will of their Gover
ments, and therefore, ma11 forms of activity they maintain by word and
deed, and defend, without hesitating at any measures, the State violence
upon which their wealth depnds.
The third method is what I cancaU by no other name than the 'hypno
tizing of the peple'. It consists in impding the spiritual development of
men and maintaining them, by all manner of influences and suggestons,
in a concepton of mout1ived by humanity, but upon which is founded
the pwer of the State. At the present time this hypnotism is organized m
the most complete manner; it begins its influence in childhood and
continues until the hourof death. It begins in earliest youth in compulsory
schools, instituted specially for the purpose of hypnotism, wherechildren
8taught a conception of the world which, though held years ago by their
ancestors, is directly contrary to the presentconsciousnessofhumanity. In
counties possessing a State religion, children are taught the ridiculous
blasphemies of Church catechism, and are impressed with the necessity of
obedience to amhorily; in Republican States, they a taught the outa
geous suprstition of patriotism and the same imaginary duty of obdience
to the State. Ulate years this hypnotic influence is maintained by the en
couragement of the religious and patriotic superstitions. Te religious
suprstiton is stimulated by pD ions, festivals, monuments and
churches, built with the moneycollecled from the pople, by music,archi
teture, images and incense, which drug men, and espeially by the main
tenance or a so-called clergy, whose ocupation consists in bwildeing
the minds of men, and keeping them in a continual state of stupefacton,
by their stage-play, by the pathos of their services and sennons, by their
interference in men's private lives, in birth, marriage and death. The
patiotic superstition is encouraged by national SOlemnities, festivals,
monuments and pageants, organized by Goverments and the ruling
classes with the money collected from the people, and which encourage
men to believe in the exclusive importance of their own country and te
greatness of their Government and their rulers, and excite unfriendliness
and even halte towards other nations. Besides this, despotic Gover
menlS impratively forbid all specches or letures, all printing and circu
lation of b k which could enlighten the people, and they exile or
imprison 8 those who LO rouse the people from their torpor. A
Gov
erments, withoutexcepLion, conceal from the pople everything that
might further their emancipation, and cncourage all that degrades and
95
demoralies them the writings which maintain themin the follyof their
religious and patotic suprstitions, all manner of amusements of
senss, shows, circuses, theatres,and even physical means of stupfacton,
such as tobaccoand alcohol, the t on which constitutes one of the chief
revenues of the State. Even prostittion is encouraged, and is not only
recognized, but b) most Goverments is even regulated. Tis is the third
metho.
The founhmetho consists in seleting, with the helpof the aforesid
methos, a cenain numb of men fromthe mass of enslaved andstup
fe human bings, and subjeting them to a spially energeticproess of
stupfation and brutalization, converting them into passive inst.Jments
of all the cruelties and brutalities the State may require. This condition of
brutality and idioy is attained by taking men inearly youth, when they
have not yet fanned any clear conception of morality, stng them
fomall the natural conditions of human life . home, family, birthplace
and reasonablelabour and shutting them up together in barracks. Here
they 8dressed up in a peculiar costume, and forced to perfonn certain
spcially appointed movements accompanie by shouts, drums, music
and glittering oraments, by means of which they 8 reduced to a
hypnotzed condition, inwhich theyceaseto be men, andbeomeobedient
and unreasoning machines inthe handsoftheir hypnotizers. These young
men (all young men now onthe Contnent with universal military service
(NOtE No 4)physically strong, anned with weapns of mwer and
reducd toa state of hypnotism, everobedient RState authorty, andready
to commit any violence it may require, constitute the fourth and chief
metho of enslaving men. This metod closes the circle of violence.
Te sm, brbry and hypnotism reduce men to the conditon in
which they willing to bcome soldiers; soldiers give pwerandmake
it psible topunish and to hypnotize men, torob them (andbrib offcials
with the stolen money), and to enlist others as soldiers who in their tum
inc the power of Govements t do all these things.
The circle is closed, and there is no possibility of escapefom it by
force.
Some afflnn that thedeliverance from, or at least the diminution of
violence would beffectediftheoppresscdmasses dcstoyed byforcethe
oppressing Goverments and replaced them with new organizations
which would not require the use of violence or the enslavement of men;
some to intoduce this revolution, but by doing so only deceive
themsel vcs and others, and aggravate rather man improve the condition of
mankind. Their activities only increase the despotism of the State. Their
auempts at emanc ipation onlygive Goverments a convenient pretext for
strengmening their power, and do actually give rise Kits exacerbation.
Even supposing that, owing to some conditions peculiarly disadvanta
geous t the State as in France in 1870 somc Govcrnment were to b
96
overrown by force, and authoritywereto pass into otherhands, this new
power would neverin any case be Icssoppressive than the fi rst; onthecon
g,it would have todefend iLSClf againstall its exasperated and defeated
enemies,andtherefore would al waysbemorecrueland tyrannical thanthe
fonner, as is proved by the history of all revolutions.
Soialists and Communists condemn the individualist and capitalist
system of soiety; Anarchistscondemn all Goverment in itself; Monar
chists, Conservatives and Capitalsts condemnAnarchism, Soialism and
Communism; and these panics have noway of uniting men except by
violence. Whatever party were0tiumph, it would have to use 8 the ex
isting methods of violence i norderto maintain power andto intuce its
own system of m,and would even have to invent new methods. Other
men would been slaved and forcedOdootherthings, butthe violence and
oppression would be the sameandeven more inexorable, because mutual
hatedwould be exasperate bystruggle, and new methodsof enslavement
would be invented and imensified.
This has always been the case in all revolutions and violent subver
sions of Goverment, in all plots and attempts at revolution. Every
struggle only increases the power of oppression in the hands of those
temporarily in authority.
The Signifcance of Military Service
Educated men of the higher cLs t to stfle me evergrowing
consciousnss of the necessi tyof altering the presentsystem oflife; but life
contnues tomove in the same diretion, developing in growth and com
plexity, and increasi ng the contradictions and misery of human existence,
till it brings men to me extreme limit further man which it unot pssible
t go. The utmost limit of contradiction is attained in general militry
service.
Peoplegenerally think that universal mility service with its ever
increasing armaments and the subsequent everjncreasing txes and
nationaldebts, is anincidental phenomenon caused bythepresent plitcal
condition ofEurope, and which can be suppressed by adequate politca1
measures, without alteration of the interal system of life.
This is utterly erroneous. General military service is nothing but the
innennostcontadiction of the social conception of! ife, which has attained
its utmost limits, and becameflagrantlyevident, consequent upn acertain
degreof material development.
The soial conception of life consists in the tansference of the
meaning of life fromthe individual to the community and succession of
97
individuals - family. mb,race and State. The soial conception of m
assumes that as meaning of mis found in the community of human
bings. each individual, of his own mwill, subrdinates his prsonal
interests to the interests of the community. And this was and is really the
case in ce communities, in family and tibe (it is of no imprnce
which preceded the other), and even i n race, and patriarchal Slates. Incon_
sequence of custom, tansmiUed by education and conrrrmed by religious
autority, individuals merged !heir interests in the interests ofthecommu_
nity, and without corcion subordinated the personal to the general.
But !.he mor communities grew in complexity and extent, the more
often violence qconquest drew men into socicties - more individu
Mstove to altain their own ends at the expense of the community; the
greater bame &necessity of reourse to authority - mal is to say,
violence - for the suppression of these rebellious elements.
The defendersof the soial conception of I ife generally try to confuse
the idea of au!.hority, !.hat is, violence, with tat of spiritual influence, but
such assoiation is utterly incongruous.
Spiritual infuence is !.he mens by which a man's desires B
changed, and he voluntarily agrees t what is required of him. A man who
submits to spiritual infuence acts in accordance with his own desiJes.
Authority, on Bat her hand, as the word is generally used, is the means
of forcing a man Hact contrary to his desires. A man who submits to
authority acts not as he wishes, but as he is compelled to act; and in order
tocorcea man into not doing what he wishes, and doing what hedoes not
wish, physical violence or !he threat of physical violence must be em
ployed, such as deprivation of liberty, injuries and blows, or the easily
exeute mof these punishments. That is what constitutes power,
both now and always.
In spite of !he stenuous efforts of men in authority toconceal all this,
and to invest pwer with another meaning, it still remains the application
to man of the ropand chain that shall bind and drag him, of !he whip that
8scourge him, of the knife and the axe !.hat shall cut offhis head, hands,
fet, noseorers; itstill remains the application or the !hrcatof these pun
ishments. So it was in the timeofNero and Khenghis Khan and so it is now,
under the mosllibral Govements, in !.he French and American Repub
Iics. If men submittoau!hority, it is only because !hey Rthe punishment
that would follow their disobedience. All the requirements of te State
payment of taxes, fulfilment of public duties, submission W inflicted
punishments, exile, fines, el. - which people seem to obey of their own
Uwill, are all based on physical violence or the threat of it
The basis of au!hority is physical violence. The possibility of exer
cising physical violence is given by organizations of armed men, wherein
all act munison, submitting to one will. Such assemblies of armed men
submiting to onc will constitute the army. The army has always been and
V
.
stll the basis of power. Power is always in the hands of those who
"
com
mand the anny, therefore all rulers
.
' from Roman Caesars to Gennan
nd
Russian Emprors, are engrosse 1U cares for the army, whom they
alter and cajole, for they know that if the army is wi!h them, pwer also
is in their hands.
Theorganization and increase of troops, indispensable for the main
tenance of power, has brought the element of dissolution into the social
conception of life. The aim and justification of authority consists in con
tolling those who would wish to attain their own interests to thedetiment
of !he interests of soiety. But whether authority was acquired by com
mand of new to ps, by inheritance or eletion, !.he men pssssing
authority by means of the anny did not differ in any way frm other me,
and, !herefore. were just as apt as other men not Vsubrdinate their own
interests to those of the community; on the contary, they were more in
clined than all others LO subordinate public interests t their own, bcause
they pssessed the possibility of doing so. Whatever measures have ben
invented for preventing those in authority from subjecting public interests
to their own, or for entrusting power only to infallible beings, none have
so far succeeded in attaining either goal.
Athe usual methods, such as Divinesanction, eletion. hereditary
succession, voting, congs s, parliaments and senates - all these meth
ohave proved and still prove inadequate. E verybo y knows that not one
of these measures has succeeded eimer in giving pwer to infallible men
or in suppressing its abuses. On the contary, we aU know that men in
authority -b they emperors, ministers, officials or plicemen -arealways.
in consequence of their possession of power, more liable to vice, that is,
to the subjecton of public interests to their personal ones, than men who
do nOl pssess authority; nor can it be otherwise.
The soial conception of life was justified only so long as men vol
untarily subordinated their interests to the interests of the community, but
as son as there appeared men who refused voluntarily to do so, authority
- that is, violence -became nece for their control, and there crept into
the soial concepton onife. and the organization founded upon it, that ele
ment of dissolution - pwer, which means violence of !he few over the
many.
In order that the authority of a few men over their fellows should
accomplish its aim of restraining those who sought !heir own interests V
the detriment of soiety, it was necessary that power should be vested in
the hands of infallible men, as is assumed by the Chinese, or as was
believed in the Middle Ages, and is still held by people who have faith in
the holiness of consecration
.
Only under this condition could the soial
conception of life bjustifed.
But, as this is not the case, and as, on the contrary, men in authority,
just bcause of their possession of power, are always very far fom
VV
infallible or sainliy, the soial organization, founded on pwer, cannot
pssibly have any justification.
There may have been a time when, in consequence of the low level
of morality and the universal tendency of men lOwards mutual violence,
the existence of an authority restraining this violence was bneficial - that
is to say, th at the violence of the State was less than the violence of
individuals toward one another; but no-one can help admitting that this
advantage in favour of the existence of the State versus its non-existence
could not last for ever. In proportion as human nature sofened, and the
tendency of individuals towards violence decreased, authority grew more
and more corrupted by its freedomfromrestaint. and the n ity for its
existence bame proprtionately less and less.
This gadual change in the relations btween the moral progress of
the mand the corruption of Goverments consttuts the entre
histy of the last 2,0years. In its simplest form this is the course of
history: Menlived in families. tribes and races, and fought, pseuted,
mureed and destoyed one another. Violence in greater or lesser degre
was practiced universally: man fought with man, family with family, tibe
with tibe, race with race, nation with nation. The larger and more
pwerful communities swallowed up the weaker ones, and in proporton
as a community became larger and more powerful. the sum of its interal
violence decreased, and the prolongation of its existence seemed more
secure. Among membrs ofa trib or family, united together in one com
munity, contentions B appeased lO a certain extent; the tribe and the
family do not die, like the individual, but continue their existence; among
membrs of one State, subjet to one power, strife is pacified to a stll
greater extent, and the life of the State appears even moresurely guaran
ted.
The union of men into more and morccxtcndc communities was not
brought abut by the consciousness ofthe advantages they might offer, as
is describd in the fableof the calling of the Norsemen (NOTE N045); it
was the result, on the one hand, of natural growth, and of stife and
conquest on the other.
When conquest is accomplished, the authority of the conqueror puts
an end to intera1 dissensions, and the soial conception oflife isjustfied.
But this justification is only temporary. Interal strife is suppressed only
in proportion t the increased weightof authority laidupon the individuals
formerly hostile to each other. The violenceof interal stife, destroyed by
authority, springs to life again through authority. Power is in the hands of
men who, like all others, are always, or at least very often. redy to sub
ordinate public welfareto their personal interests, with the sole difference
that they free from the restaining force of resistance from the
oppr . and open to 8the corrupting innuence of pwer. There
fore. theevil of violence, passing into the hands of authority, must ever go
10
on increasing, and soon bomes worse than the evil it is suppsed to
annihilate; while the same time, among the members of the comm unity,
the tendency towards violence is gradually lessened. and the violence of
power bcomes less and less needed.
State violence, even if it docs annihilate inteal violence, always, in
proportion to its suength and duration, introduces into men's lives new
and ever-increasing forms of violence. Although the violence of State
authority is less obvious than that of individuals towards each other, be
cause it is manifested not by stife but by submission, it nevertheless exists.
and almos.! always in a greater degre than bfore.
Nor cit be otherwise, fl rsli y , bcause the pssession of pwe:cor
rupts men. and seondly, bcause the purpse and even the unconscious
instinct of oppressors is always toreuce their victms to the exteme limit
of exhaustion; bcause the weakerthe oppressed, the less effortis needed
for his corcion.
Therefore, violence against the oppressed is driven to the utmost
limits it attain without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. If
the gose lays no more, like the American Indians, the Fijians and the
Negros, then it is killed, in spite of the sincere protests of philantrophists
against such a course of action.
A prfet confmnalion of this statement is the present condition of
the working cw,who practically are nothing but conquered men.
In spite of 8the pretended eHons of the upp classes to improve
their condition, the workmen of our time subject to the unchangeable
iron law by which they can possess only barely enough to enable them to
labour fortheir masters (that is, thei r conquerors), and are ever forcedby
hunger to unceasing toil.
Thus it has always been. In proportion to the growth of authority in
strength and duration, its benefits arelost and its disadvantages multiplied
for those who submitted to it
Thus it is and ever has been, regardless of the formof goverment
under which nations havc lived. The only difference is that; unde a
desptic form of goverment. Jwer is concentated in the hands of a small
numbr of oppressors and the manifestations of violence more tyran
nical; in constitutional monarchies and republics, like France and Amer
ica, pwer is distributed among a large number of oppressors, and the
forms of its manifestation arc milder; but the substnce of violence, in
which the disadvantages of authority are greater than its benefits - and the
proess by which it reduce the oppressed to the utost limit of exhaus
tion which they can bear forthe benefit of the oppressors - always remain
the same.
Such is and always has ben the condition of the oppressed, but untl
now they were ignorant of it, and ingenuously blieved that Goverments
existed fortheir benefit; that they would perish without the State; that the
11
ide of pople living without a Goverment is a sacrilegious thought that
must not even b put into words, since it would amount to the terrible
teaching of Anarchism, which, forsome unknown Un, is coupled in
men's minds with evey conceivable horror.
Men blieve, as in somethingconclusively provedand notneding
any furtherconfrmation, that bcause hitherto all nations hadevelopd
in the formof the Slate, this moemust foreverremain the indispnsable
condition of human development.
Thus it h gone on for hundreds and thousnds of yers, and
Goverments that is, men p5 ing pwer have alwaysendeavourcd,
and continue doing so morethan eve, to maintain natons inthis delusion.
So it was at the tme of the Roman Emperors, and so it is now. Although
the idea of the uselessness, and even ofthe mischief, ofState violence is
pnetratng moreand moreinto men's consciousness, this orderof things
might continue for ever, but for the neessity Govements mundeto
increase their armies for the maintenance of their power.
Peoplegenerally think that armiesareincreasedforthe defenceofthe
State against othernations; they forgetthat troopsBneededbyGover
ment principally to defend the later fom their own enslaved and op
prssubjects.
This was always neessary, and has continually grown more so in
proprtion to the development of education, the increase of intercourse
btwen men of the sme ordifferentnationalites, and now the spreadof
Communist, Soialist, Anarchist and labour movements have rendered
this necssity urgent Govements kowthis, andmultiply their forceof
disciplineuops.[ ... )
If theworkingman has no land, and dosnot pssessthe most natral
rght of every man to obtain from the soil the means of subsistence for
himself and his fmily, it is not bcause he wishes this, but bauseccrtain
men - t he landowners-have usurd the right of giving or withholding the
pssibility ofps sion fromthe working classes. This unnatural order
of things is maintained bythe army. If the enormous riches, acumulated
by the labour of working men, belong not to a ,but to certain exclusive
individuals; if the pwer of gathering taxes from labour and using that
money for whatever they think fit is accorded to certain persons; if the
suikes of the working classes are suppressed, and the coalitions of
capitalists encouraged; if certain men are invested with the power of
framing laws which mmen must obey, and of disposing of the life and
property of human bings; if certain individuals are entited to chose the
methos of the civil and religious education of children - all this is so, not
because the people desire it, nor in consequence of any natural law, but
bcause Goverments and the ruli ng classes wish it for their own i nterests,
and maintain the system by physical violence and bdily oppression. If
anyby dos not know this, he will fnd it out at the first attempt to resist
I02
orto change theexisting orderofthings. Thereforetroopsare requiredby
every Govement and by the ruling cl for the maintenance of a
systemwhich Bnot gown fomthe neds of the pople. but which. on
I.he
contrary, is often detimental to them, and is advantageous only to
Goverments and the ruli ngclasses.
Trops 8needed by every Govement chieny to keepits subjects
D submission, and to usurp theproucts of their labur. But noGover
ment stands alone; byond its fTontiers is another State which 8U
violence to despil its subjects, and is ever ready to robits neighbur of
the toil ofits enslaved pople. Therefore every Goverment Duan
army not only for interal work, but also for the defence of its plunder
against foreign marauders. Consequently all States BforcedUemulat
each other in the increase of their tops; and the expansion of armies
bcomes contagious, as Montesquieu declared 150 years ago. Every m-
creasein theanny of one State. 0kagainst its own subjects, becomes
dangerousfor its neighbour also, and excitesa similar increase in all other
States. Armies have attained their prescntm ill ions not only because ofthe
menace ofneighbouring States, but principally because of the necessity
forsuppressing all attempts at rebelliononthe partof oppressed subjects.
The increase of armies results simultaneously from two causes which
reciprally call fonhone another: trops Brequired both for defence
against interal enemies and for safeguard against foreign aggressions.
One is the result of the other. The despotism of Goverments gows in
proprtionto their exteral success and the increase and stength oftheir
armies; the aggessiveness of Govements grows in proprtion U the
inCof interal desptism.
Thus Europan Goverments try to suseach other in the contn
incDof their armies, and have come to the unavoidable n ity
of universl mility servtce, bause that is the way ofobtaining, at the
smallest expn se, the geatest numbrof trops in time of war. Germany
was the first to hit upn this plan; and as son as one State bgan. all the
others had to do the sme. Andas soon as this system was intoduced, the
people were forceto take up arms indefenceofthe outages commited
against themselves; and citizens became their own oppressors.
General military service was an inevitable logical necessity which
had to be reached; but it is also the last expression of the interal
contadiction of the soial concepton oflife which arose as soon as vio
lence was needed for its maintenance. In general military service this
contadiction bcame evident. Everyoneis agreedthat the significance of
the soial conception of life consist in this, that the individual, having
realizethe horror ofman's slrife against man. and the tnsitoriness of his
Own existence, tnsfers the meaning of his life to the community of
human bings; whthe result ofgeneral military conscription is that
men, uhaving sacrificedall that was requiredofthem to be deliveed
103
from indiv idual suife and fromthe tansitoriness of their personal lives,
are,afterall their privations, again called upn Rsufferathe dangers they
had hoped to have escaped. Nor is that all: the State - that community in
the name of which men had sacr ced their personal interests - is again
expsed to the same risk of annihilation, t which hitherto the individual
had b n subjected.
Goverments were expected to deliver men from the cruelty of
individual discord and give them the guarantee of the in violable regularity
of Stte life. Instead of which they subject men to the necessityofthe same
suife, only transferring it frompersonal strife to warfare with the inhabi
tantsof other lands, and there remains the same danger of destuction both
RStte and individua1.
The establishment of general military service is like the activity of a
man whowanlS t propuparouen house. The walls are crumbling heputs
rafters to them; the roof slopes inwards, he build up a famework; boards
give w ay between the rafers, he supports them with other beams. At last
it ts out that although the scaffolding keeps the house together, it
rendes it quite uninhabitable.
It is the same with universal military service, which destoys mthe
advantages of that soial life which it is supposed to guarantee.
The benefits of social life consist mte security given to proprty and
labur, and in the mutual co-operation towards general welfare. Militry
service destoys all this.
The taxes levied on the people for armaments and war absorb the
greater part of the products of that labour which the army is called upon
to protect. Taking away the whole male ppulaton from the ordinary oc
cupations of their mdestoys the very possibility oflabour. The menace
of war, ever ready to break out fromone moment Rthe next, renders vain
and profitless all improvements of social life.
When a man used to be told that, unless he submitted to State
authority, he would be in danger of aggressions fom wicked men, fom
interal and exteraJ enemies. and would have to fight with them person
ally at the risk of his Ii fe, and that therefore it was t his advantage R
submit to certain privations morder to be deliveed from these misfortnes
- when a man was told this he might once upon a time have believed it,
bcause the concessions he made to the S tate were only t rifling sacrifices.
and offered him the hopeof a quiet life in an indestructible community for
whose sake he had given up certain advantages. But now that these
sacrces have incr tenfold, while the promised benefits a lacking,
every man natural ly begins to think that his submission to the State is
prfetly useless.
Nor is this the only fatal significance of milil service in the sense
of its manifstation of the contradicton inherent in the social concepton
of life. The chief manifstton of its inconsistency is the fact that every
104
citizen being obliged to enter military service, thereby becomes a sup
prter of the State organizaton. and a partaker in whatever te State may
do, however unlawful he may think it. GovermentsaffIrm that troops are
needed to exteal defence, but that i s not tue. They are needed chiefly
forsubjugation athomc, and every man entering military service involun
tiy becomes a partaker in the Goverment's violence against its sub
jets.
In order to realize that every man who becomes a soldier thereby
participates in all the acts of Goverments which he does not and cannot
endorse, we only have to remember all that is done by Goverments and
exeute by anned f orce in the name of order and publc welfre. All
dynastic and political contentions, all executions consequent upn these
disturbances. all suppressions of riots and recourse to military action in
dispersing crowds and crushing strikes, m the unjust di stibutons of
landed propety, the extortion of taxes and the restictions on labour - all
is done unot directly by the toops, at least by the police supported by
tOps. Every man who bcomes a soldier becomes also a panaker in all
these proedings , about which he is often doubtful, while mmost cases
they aredirectly contrary t his conscience. Labourers do not wish to leave
the land they have ploughed forgenerations; crowds will not disprse as
Goverments want them to; people do not wish to p ay the txes required
of them or toobey laws they have not helped to make; they do not wi sh to
bdeprivedoftheic nationality ,and I whoam fulfilling my military duties,
must come and persecute these people. I cannot help asking myself if these
proee dings in which I am forced to take part, a good or bad, and if I am
right in helping to carry them out.
For Govements, general military service is the uunost limit of
violence required for lhesupportofthe whole system; forsubjects, it is the
uunost limit of possible subjecton. It is the key-stone in the arch which
supprts the walls, whose removal would demolish the whole building.
The time has come when the ever-increasing abuses of Govements
and theirmutuaJ feuds require fom their subjects such material and moral
sacrifices, that every man must necessarily hesitate and 8himself: Can
I make these sacrifices? And for what am I to make tem? They are
required in thenameoftbeStte.ln the name of the Stte I am required R
give up eveything that is dear to man: famil y, safety, a peaceful life and
prsonal self-rt. What is this State that deman ds such temendous
sacrifices? And for what is it so very neessary? We arc told that 'te State
is indispnsable. firstly. because without it we would have no refuge fom
violence and the assaults of wicked men; secondly, we would still be
savages, witho ut any religious, scientfc, eucatonal, commerciaJ, or
other soial institutions, and without means of communication; and
thirdly. we would run the risk ofbcing conquered by neighbouring States.
Without the State, we would be subject t violence and t he aggressions of
105
wicke men in our own county.'
But where are these wickedmen fromwhose attacks and violence we
are guardeby !he State and its armies? They may have existed three or
fourcenturies ago, when men pridedthemselves upon their military skill
and wepns, and thought it heroicto kill !heir fellows, but now thereare
no such men; nobody even caries or uses weapns, and all profess !he
same rules of philanlhropyandmutual sympathy, and desirejust what we
desire - the possibility of a calm and peaceful life. Thus there no longer
exists anypanicular class of men ofviolence fromwhomtheState might
have to defnd us. If by men fomwhom !he State guards us are meant
simply criminals, !henweall kow that criminals are not peculiar bings,
like wild beasts among sheep, but that they are men just as we ,who
have just as lite natural tendency towards crime as those against whom
they trespass. We know that !he number of such men can bediminished
neither by !hreats nor punishments but only by a change Of surroundings
and by moral influence. Thus the attemptexplainthe necessity ofState
violence by !he protection afforded against criminals, if it had any
foundatondor four centuries ago, has now none whatever. It would
b more accuratetosay the contrary. namely, that the activity ofte State,
with its cruel methods of punishment, so far bhind the geneal level of
morality, its prisons, galleys, guillotines and gallows, is moreconducive
to callousness and brutalit than to softness and ben evolence, and
thereforera!her increases tan diminishes thenumber of evildors.
'Without the State,' we aretold, 'we would possess neither means of
communication nor any scientific, educational, religious, orotherinstitu
tions. Withoutthe Stte, men would neverhave beenable toproducesocial
organizati ons nc ary to all.' But tis argument also could have been
plausible only a fewcenturies ago.
If there ever was a time when the means of communication and of
exchange ofthought wereso primitive. andmen wereso i solatedthat they
could nO[ discuss orcome toan agreemcnlconcering any general a
-commercial. ec onomic oreducational- without the helpof the State, that
isolaton no longer exists. Owing tothe wide-spread means ofcommuni
cation and ofintellectual intercourse. men have become perfectlyable to
dispense with Goverments i nthe organizaton of societies, assemblies,
corprations. congresses and scientific, economic and political institu
tons; in most the State hinders rather thanhelps the achievement of
these aims.
Since theend of the last century almost every progressivemovement
of humanity has not be n encouraged. but rather hamperedby Gover
ments. Such as the0with teabolition of slavery, torture and corporal
punishment. and t he establishment of fredomof assembly and of the
Pess. At the presenttme GovermentsandStale authority. farfombeing
an assistance, aa direct hindrance and impediment to the activity by
106
which men work out for themselves new forms of life. The solution of
plitical and religious questions of the problems of land and labour,
instead ofbing encouraged. is prsistentlyfustated by State authorit.
'Without States and Goverments, natons would be conquered by
their neighburs.'
It is hardly necessay torefutethis lastargument It contains its own
refutations.
Wearetoldthat Goverments andtheir armies neededto defend
us against foreignStates who might wish toconquer us. But all Stte say
this of one another, andyet we knowthat all European countie profess
the same principles of librty and f raterity. and therefore cannot ned
defence against each other. Again, we speakofdefenceagainst barbari
ans, the one thousandth partof the to ps under arms at the present tme
would suffice. ThusLuactually contradict the usual statement. Stt eau
thority. instead of guarding us against the aggressions of our neighbours.
actually crates thedanger of such aggressions.
Thus every man ledby compulsory military service torenect upon
thesignificance of the Stte. in whose name he is requiredto sacrificehis
peae, his sfetyand his l, must seeclearly thatat the present time there
is no reasonablefoundaton for such sacrifces.
Theretcally nomcan help seeing thatthe sacrifices demanded by
the State have noplausible foundation, but even froma practical stand
pint, weighing all thepainful circumstances in whichhe is placedby the
Stat, evey man must seethat the fulfilment ofits requirements and sub
mission to military service are in most cases less advantageous for him
than would b a refusal toobey them.
Ifmost men prefersubmission to disobedience, it is not because they
have calmly weighed thebenefits and evils of both, but beause they a
drawn to obdience by the hypnotism to which they are contnually
subjected. Obdience only requires men to submit to certain demands.
without using their reason or making any exertion of will; the refusal to
obey requires indepndent thought and effort, of which not all men a
capable. If we exclude the e!hical significance of submission and non
subm ission, a nd takeinto consideration only their respetti veadvantages.
we shall find that non-submission is always moreadvantageus than sub
mission.
Whover I may be. whether I belong kthe wealthy and oppressing
classes, or to the working and oppressed ones, in both cases the disadvan
tages of non-submission are less thanthose of submission, and the benefits
of non-submission geater thanthose of submission.
If I blong to the oppressing minority, the evils of disobedience to the
requirements of the State will be the following: I shall be tied as a man
who has refused submission to his Goverment. and atbest I shall beac
quiued orb forced todischarge mytermof military service atsome non-
107
miltary ocupation - is done in Russia with the Mennonites - in the
worst event I shall be condemned to exile or imprisonment for two or te
years 0am sg of cases in Russia) or even for a longer t of
punishment; I may be even condemned LO death. although that is most
unlikely. Such are the disadvantages of non-submission. Those of subm is
sion will b the following: in the best case I shall not b sent to murder
pople. nor shall I b expsed kany very gt rs of bing kille or
disbled. l shall have only been enrolled into military slavery. I shaH b
dsup in the garb of a clown; I shall b ordered abut by all my
supriors fom the sergeant to the field-marshal, and at their plesure fo
nOkall sorts of mummeries andgrotesque contortions; and after having
been kept in this condition fom one to five years. I shall breleased under
the obligaton of holding myself in readiness any minute mthe next ten
years to take up Ihe sme ocupatio and oby Ihe same orders. In the worst
case I shall b subjected to all the 8lOnd conditions of slavery. and,
bsides that. 1 shall be sent to war, where I shall have to murder men of
foreign counties who have never done me any harm. I sha II run the rs
ofbing killed or disabled, and of bing sent to certain death, as was the
case at Sebastopol ( NOTE No 46) and in all wars. Most painful of all, I
may be sent against my own countymen and be forced to murder my
brothers for dyna stic or govementl interests totally alien to me. Such
a the comparative evils.
Thccomparative benefits of submission and non-submission are the
following: The man who submits to military service, after having swal
lowed all affronts and committed the cruelties required of him, may,
if he is not killed, receive red and go ld and tinsel gewgaws to put on his
clown's attre. and may even, ifhe b very fortunate. oucommand over
sme hundre Ihousand men as brutalized as himself, b called field
mashal and get a lot of money.
The advantages of the man who has refused military service are the
preservation of hishuman dignity, the respct of 8 honest men, and, chief
of all, the absolute assurance that he u doing God's work, and that
therefore he is indubitably useful kmankind.
There are the respective benefts and evils for a member of the
wealthy and oppressing classes. For a por man of the working classes
they a the same, with a considerable addition of disadvantage. The
special disadvantage for a working man who has n otrefused militry
service consists in the fact that by his participation and seeming consent,
he suengthens and confrms the oppression under which he lives. But
neither general arguments concering the necessity or efficiency of the
State which men a required to maintain by participation in miLilary
service, nor presenlation of the advantages or disad van lages of submission
or non-submission fore ach separate individual. can decide the question
of the necessity of the existence or destuction of the Slate. That question
108
C be decided irrevocably and unconditionally only by the conscience
and religious consciousness of each individual, Vwhom the question of
the existence or non-existence of the Slate presents itself, together with
that of general military service.
109
THE SLAVERY
OF OUR TMES
THE SLAVERY OF
OUR TIMES
(1900)
I
Goods Porters Who Work Thirty-Seven Hours
An acquaintance of mine, who serves on the Moscow
Kursk Railway as a weigher, in the course of conversation
mentioned to me that the men who load the goods onto his scales
work for thirty-six hours on end.
Though I had full confidence in the speaker's Lruthfulness. I was
unable to blieve him. I thought he was making a mistake. or exaggerating,
or that I niisunderslOd something.
But the weigher narrated the conditions under which this work u
done soexatly tat there was no rom left fordoubL He told me that there
a to hundred and fifty such gods-prters the Kursk Staton in
Moscow. They wereaIl divided into gangs offivemen, and weTeOR piece
work. receiving from one rouble (say two shillings) to one rouble fifteen
kopks for every lhousand pods (over sixteen tons) of gods received or
despatched.
Tey come in the moring, work 8day andall nightat unloading the
tucks, and, when the night is ended, they again begin to reload, and then
work on for another day, so tat in two days they get one night's sleep.
Their work consists of unloading and moving bales of seven, eight,
and up to ten pods (say eighteen, twenty, and up to nearly twenty-six
stone). Two men place the bales on the backs of the other thrcc, who carry
them. By such work th ey ea less than a rouble a day. Thcy work
continually, without holidays.
The account given by the weigher was so circumstantial lhar it was
impssible to doubt it; but, nevertheless. I decided to verify it wit my own
eyes, and 1went to the goods station.
Finding my acquaintance at the goods station, I told him I had come
to wwhat hehad told meabout. 'No-one I mention it to believes it', I said.
! I2
Without replying the weigher called to someone in a shed: 'Nikita,
come hee.' From the door appeared a tall, lean workman in a tom coal
'When did you begin work?'
'When? Yesterday moring.'
'And where were you last night?'
'I was unloading, of course.'
'Did you work during the night?' asked I.
'Of course we worked. '
'And when did you bgin work toay?'
'We bgan in themoming- when else should we bgin?' 'And when
will you fnish worlng?'
'When they let us go; then we finish! '
The four other workmen of his gang came up to us. They 8wore tom
coats and wee without overcoats, though the temperature was about
thirtccn degrees Fahrenheit below zero.
I began to ask them about the conditions oflheir work, and eviently
surprised them by taking an interest in such a simple and natural thmg as
teir thirty-six hour work.
They were all villagers; for the most part fellow-countrymen of my
own fom Tula. Some, however, were from Oryol, and some fom
Venesh. They lived in Moscow in lodgings; some of them with their
families, but most of them withoul T hose who have come hee alone send
their eings home to the village.
They bard with contractors. Their fod cosU them ten roubles a
month. They always eat meat, disregarding the fasts.
Their work a1ways kccps them ocupied more than thirty-six hours
running, bu it takes more than half an hour to get to and rom their
lodgings; and bsides, they are often kept at work byon the Ume fixed.
Paying for their own fod. they C by such thuty-seven-hour
continuous work abut twenty-five roubles a month.
To my question, why they did such convict work, they replied:
'Whee is one to go to?'
'But why work thirty-six hours on end? Cannot the work be 8 ged
in shifts?'
'We do what we're told to.'
'Yes; but why do you agree to it?'
.
We agree because we have to feed ourselves. "If you don't like It, be
off." lfyou're even an hour late, you have your ticket thrown at you, an
given your marching orders; and there arc ten men ready to take the place.
The men were all young; only one was somewhat older, perhaps
about forty. Al their faces were lean. and had exhausted, weary eyes, as
though the men were drunk. The lean workman to whom I first spoe
struck me especially by the stran ge weariness of his look. 1 asked hun
whether he had not ben drinking today?
I I J
'I don't drink,' he answered, in the decided way in which men who
really do not drink always reply to that question.
'And I do not smoke,' headded.
'the others drink?' I asked.
'Yes, it's brought here.'
'The work is not light, and a drink al ways adds to one's stength. ' sid
lheolder workan.
This U had been drinking !hat day, but it was not in !.he least
noticeable.
After some more lalk with the workmen, I went to waLh the wor.
Passing long rows of all sorts of goods, I came to some worken
slowly pushing a loaded tuck. l leamedafterwards that the men hve to
shunt the trucks themselves, and to keeptheplatfonn clcarof snow, with
out bing paid forthe w ork. ltis SO Slatedin the 'Conditions of Pay .' There
workmen werejust as lauered as those with whom I had ben lalking.
When they had moved the truck to its place, I went up tothem and asked
when they had begun work, and whenthey had dined.
Iwas told that they slarLd work seven o'clock, and had only just
dine. The work hadprevented their bing let offsooner. 'And when do
you getaway?'
`Ait happens, sometimes not tiil teno'clock.' replied the men, as if
boasting of their endurance. Seing my interest in their position, they
surrounded me, and probably lakingme foran inspetor, several of them,
sg atonce, informed me ofwhal was evidently their chief subject
of complaint, namely that theapartment in which they could sometimes
warm themselves and snatch an hour's sleep betweenthe day-workand the
night-work was crowded. All of them expressed gret dissatsfaction at
dcrowding.
'There may be one hundred men, and nowhere to lie down, even
under the shelves il is crowded,' said dissatisfied voices. 'Have a look
it yourself. It is close by here.'
The rom was certainly not largeenough. In the thirty-six fotrom,
abut fortymen might fnd place t lie down on the shelves.
Some of the men enteredthe room with me, and they vied with ech
other in complaining ofthe scantiness of the accommodation.
'Even under the shelves there is nowhere to lie down,' they said.
Thesemen, who in thirteen degreesoffrost, withoutovercoats,carry
on their backs twenty-stone loads during thirty-six hours; who dine and
sup, not whentheyned food, bul when their overseer allows them to eat;
who live together in conditions far worse than drayhorses, it seemed
stange that these people only complained of insuficient accommodation
in the romwhere they warm themselves. But though thisseemed strange
tomeWfirst, yet, entering further into their position, I understod what a
feeling of torre these men, who never gelenough sleep and who are half-
1 14
fozen, must eprience when instead of resting and bingwarmed, they
ha
ve toslep on the dirty flor under the shelves, and there, in stuffyand
vita
ted8 bcome yet weaker and more brokendown.
Only, prhaps, in that miserable hour of vain attempt to get rest and
sleep
do they painfully realize all thehorror oftheir life-destroying thiny
six hour work, and that is why they mspcially agitated by such an
appa
rently insi gnificantcircumstance as theovercrowding oftheir rom.
Having watched seveal gangsat work, and having talkedwith some
moreof the men, and heard the same story fromthem all, I drove home,
convinced that what my acquaintance had told me was tue.
It was tue, that for a bare subsistence, pople, consideiog them
.selve free men, thought it neessary to give temselves up toworksuch
as, in the days of serfdom,not one siave-owner, however cruel, would have
sent his slaves to. Let alone slave-owners, not one cab proprietor would
send Bu horses to such work, for horses cost money, and it would b
wasteful, by ecessive work, to shorten the life of an ani mal of value.
M
Soiety's Indiference While Men Perish
To oblige men to work for thirty-seven hours continu
ously without sleep, besides being cruel, is also uneconom
ical. And yet such uneconomical expenditure of human lives
continually goes on around us.
Oppsite the house in which I live (NOTENo 47) is a silk-factory,
built with theiatesttehnical improvements. Abutthreethousand women
and sven hundred men work and live there. As I sit in my room now, I her
the unceasi ng din ofthe machinery, and know, for I have been there, what
that din means. Three thousand womenstand, for twelve hours a day, at
the loms, amid a dearening roar; winding, unwinding, B ging the silk
threads to make silk stuffs. All the women, except those who have just
come fromthe village, have an unhealthy appce. Mostofthem lead
a most intemperate and immoral life. Almost all, whether married or
unmarried, as son as achild is br to them, send itoff eitherto the village
or to the Foundlings' Hospital where eighty pcent of these children
prish. For fear oflosing teir places, the mothers resume work the net
day, or on the third day, after their confinement
For twenty years, to my knowledge, tens of thousnds of young,
healthywomen, mothers, have ruined, and are now ruin ing, their lives, and
the lives of their children, in order toproduce velvets and silk stuffs.
I met a beggar yesterday,a young man oncrutches, sturdily built, but
Crippled. He used towork as a navvy, with a wheelbarrow, butslippedand
1 1 5
injured himself inteally. He spent all he had on peasant women eale

and on dotors, and has now for eight years been homeless, beggmg his
bread and cmplaining that Ldos not send him deth.
How many such sacrifices of life there are, that we either know
nothing of, or know of, but hardly notice conSidering them inetable.
I know men working at the blast furnaces ofthe Tula Iron roundry,
who uhave one Sunday free each fortnight, will work for twenty-four
hours; that is, after working all day, they will go on working all night. I
have seen thesemen. They all drink vodka to keep up their energy; and,
obviously, like those goods-prters on the railway, they quickly expnd
not the interest, but the capital of their lives.
And what of the waste of lives among those who employed On
admittedly harmful work: in looking-glass, card, match, sugar, tobacco
and glass factories; in mines, or as cesspool cleaners.
.
Jca English statistics showing that the average length of life
among pople ofthe Upper classes is fifty-five e, and the a

erageof
life among working people in unhealthy occupations 5twenty-mne years.
Knowing this, and we cannot help knowing it, we, who take advan
tage of labur that thus COSts human lives should, one would tink

nless
we Bbasts, not beable to enjoya moment's peace. But the fact IS that
we well-to-do people, liberals and humanitarians, very sensitive t the
sufferings not only of peoplebut also ofanimals unceasingly make use of
such labur, and t t beome more and more rich, that is, to take stiU
geateradvantage of such work. And we remain perfectly tanquil.
For instance, having leed of the thirty-seven hour labour ofthe
gods-prters and of theirbad room, we at once send there an inspector
who reeives a goslary, and we forbid pple towork more mtwelve
hours, leaving the worken who arc thus deprived of one-third o their
eings to fed themselves as best they can; and we compel theRailway
Company 0erect a largeand convenient

oom for th

workmen. Then
with prfectly quiet consciences we contmue V receive

d desp

lCh
gos by that railway, we ourselves continue O receive salanes,
dividends and uUfromhouses or land. Having leed that the women
and girls at the silk faclOry, living far from their families. ruin their Own
lives and those of their children; and that well over half of the washer
women who iron our starched shirts, and of the typ-setters who print the
bo ks and paprsthat whileawa your time, get tubrculosis. weonly shrug
our shoulders and say that weare verysorry things should beso, but that
we can do nothing Kalter it; and we continue with tranquil conscience O
buy silk stffs, t wearstarchedshirts, and toreadour moring paper. We
are much concered about thehours of theshop assistants, and still more
about thelong hours ofourchildren at school; we slrictly forbidcarters to
make their horses drag heavy loads. and we even organize thekilling of
canle in Slaughter-houses so that the animals may feel it as lillie as
1 16
. so
on as the questio
n
pssible. But how wonderfully blmd we

ome as
and often painfuUy,
conc
cmsthosemilJionsofworkerswhopnshslowl',
r convenience an
d

around us, at laburs whose fruits we usc for

U
U
pleasure.
U

Justification e x1stmg ys em
.
OfTh E " S t
__
clence
)I s
people of our
This wonderful blinness which befa
t
t
t
at when people
circle can only be explalfled by the fact
of life which
behave badly they always invent a philos
oJ
ons at ail, but
represents their bad actions to be not bad
<
C
their control. In
m erely results of unalterable laws beyond .
n the theory that
former times such a view of life was found
ch foreordained to
aninscrutable and unalterable will of God existed
others an exalted
some men a humble position and hard work, and
1
L
psilion and theenjoyment of the good things of li(

written, and an in-
On Ihisthemean enormous numb
c
rofbooks w<
Qworked up from
numerable quantity ofsermons preached. Thetheme
akdifferent sorts
everypossible side. It was demonstrated that God v
!
<
satisfied with meu
ofpople: slaves and mast ers; and that bo should
btterforthe slaves
psition. It was furilierdemonstraled that It would
Ithough the slaves
in the next world; and afterwards il was shown tht .
n wouldnotbebad
wereslaves,and oughtLOremain such. yetlheircond
ltJ
texplanation, after
dthe masters would bekind Kthem. Thenthe very19
we
lth isen
ll
s
t
d
the emancipaton of the slaves (NOT
No 48)
was t
t
'l9
f it in god works;
by Lto some pople in order that theym

y u

Pd
others
po
r.
and bthereis no harm in some peoplehemg nch

r (
espcially
t
h
e
These explanations stisfied the rich and the
p l
a
nations bame
rich) for a long tme. BUI the day came when these e
understand meu
unsatisfactory, espcially to the poor, who bgao
@ just at the propr
PSition. Then fesh expla nalions were needed
.
' 'n
ation came in the
time, they wereproduced (NOT N049 ). Theseexp
atithaddisovered
fonnof science: plitical economy, which declared
distibution of t
h
e
thelaws which regulate the division of labour and
,
tothat science, B.
Product oflabour among men. These
.
laws, accord
,
lng
roducts depnd on
that the division of labour and the enjOyments of 1U
values and profits;
supply and demand, on capilal, rent, wages oflabo
u'
om
ic activities.
in general, on unaltemble laws gover
ing man
'
s c
c
O;
i
ue
n and lectures
Soon, as many books and pamphlets wrc
ritten and sermons
deivered on this theme as there had been treatiSes .
g
ly, mountains of
Preached on the former theme; and still, unccasl. J1.
1 17
pamphlets and b k being Wu en, and lectures delivered as
cloudy and unintclligible as thetheological teatses and sermons; and like
the theological teatises to, they fully achieve their appinted purpose,
which uto give such an explanation of the existing order of things as
justifies sme pople in tranquilly refraining fromlabur and in utilizing
0labur of others.
The factis Lforthe investgation of this psudo-sience, there was
takento show the general orderofthings, not the condition of pplein the
whole world, through all historictme, but only the condition of pople in
a smal l county. in mostexcepLionai circumstances, Egland at the end of
the eighteenth and the beginning of thenineteenth centuries. This factdid
not mthe least hinder the acceptance as valid of the results at which the
investgators arrived, any morethan asimilar acceptanceis now hindeed
by dendless disputes and dis ments among those who study that sci
ence are quite unable to agree as t the meaning of rent, surplus value,
profits, and so on. Only the one fundamentl positon of that sience is
acknowledged by all, namely, that the relations among men condi
tioned, not by what people consider right or wrong, but by what is
advantageous for those who ocupy anadvantageous psition.
It is admitted as an undoubted truth, that if in soiety many thieves
and robbers have sprung up, who take fromthe laburers the fuits of their
labur, this happns not beause the thieves and robbrshave acted badly,
but bcause s uch the i nevitable economic laws, which can only be
Mku slowly, by an evolutonary proess indicated by science; and
therefore, acording to the guidance of science, pple blonging to the
ciassofrobbrs, thieves or reeivers of stolen gods, mayquietlycontinue
to utilize the things obtained by theft and robbry.
Though the majorityof people in our world do not know the details
of these tanquillizing scientifc explanations, any more than they for
merl y kew thedetails ofthe theologicalexplanations which justified their
psition, yet they all know that an explanation exists; that scientific men,
wise men, have proved convincingly, and continue to prove, that the
existing order of things is what it ought to be, and that therefore we may
live quietly in this order of things without ourselves trying to alter it.
Only in this way can I explain the amazing blindness ofgood people
of our society, who sincerely desire the welfare of animals, but yet with
quiet consciences devour the lives of their brother-men.
1 1 8
IV
The Asertion OlEconomic Science That All Rural
Labourers Must Enter The Factory System
The theorymit is God's will that some ppleshould own otllers,
stisfied pople for a verylong time. But that thery, by justifying cruelty,
cause such crehy as evoked reistance. and produced doubts as to the
truth of the theory.
Sonow, with the theory that aneonomicevolution,guidedbyinevi
table law, is progressing, in consequence of which some pple must
colletcapital, and others must labour all their Ii vestoincnthat capital,
preparing themsel ves meanwhile for the promised communalizaton of
the means of production; this theory, causing somepople to b yet more
cruel toothers, also begins, especially among common people not stupe
fed by science, to evokecertain doubts.
For instance, you see gods-porters destroying their lives by thirty
seven-hour labour, or women in factories, or laundresses, or type-setters,
or mthose millions of people who live in hard, unnatural conditions of
monotonous, stup efying, slavish toil, and you naturally ask: what has
brought these pople to such a state? and how arethey to be delivered fom
it? And science replies, that these peple Cin this condition bcause the
railway blongs to this Company, Lhe silk factoryto that gentleman, and
all the foundries, factories, printing shops and laundries, to capitalists; and
0this stateof things will come right byworkpoplefonning unions or
co-oprativesoieties, organizing strikes, and taking part inGovement,
and so more and more swaying the masters and the Goverment, mthe
workersobtin first, shorter hours and increase wage, and finally, the
meansofprouction into their hands; and thenall will be well! Meanwhile
all is going on as it should go, and there is noneed to alter anything.
Tanswer must sem t an unleared man, and particularly toour
Russian folk, verysurprising. In the first place, neither in relation to the
gos-prters nor thefctorywomen, northe millions of other labur
ers suffering from heavy, unhealthy, stupefying labour, dos the psses
sion of the means of production by capitalists explain anything. The
agricultural means of production of those men who arenowworking at the
railway have not beenseized by capitalists: theyhave land, and horses, and
ploughs,and harrows, and all that is necessary totill the ground; also these
women working at the factory C not only not forced to it by being
deprived of their implements of production, but, onthecontary, they have
(foc the most part against the wish of theeldcr members of their families)
ieftthehomes whereLheirwork wasmuch wanted,and wherethey had im
plements of production.
Millions of workpeople in Russia, and in oLher countries ace in a
119
similar situaton. So the cause of the miserable position of the workers
cannot b found in the seizureof lhe means ofproduction bycapilalists.
The cause must lie in the first place in lhat which drives lhem fromthe
villages. Secondly, lhe emancipation of the workers from this stte of
things, even in lhat distant futurein which science promises themliberty,
can be acomplished neither by shortening the hours of labour, nor by
increasing wages, nor by the promised communalization of the means of
proucton.
All that cannot improve their position. For the labourers' misery,
whether on lhe railway, in the silk-factory, and in evey other factory or
workshop, consists not in the longer or shorter hours of work (ts
sometimes work eighteen hours a day, and Bmuch as thirty-six hours on
end, and consider their lives happy ones); nor docs it consist in the low rate
of wages, nor in the fact that the railway or the factory is not theirs; but it
consists in lhe fact that they are obliged to work in hannfui, unnatural
conditions. often dangerous and destructive to life, and to live a b k
uin towns, a mfull of temptatons and immorality, and to do compul
sorlabour at another's bidding.
Latterly the hours of labourhave diminished, and the rateof wages
has increased; but this diminution of the hours oflabour and this increase
in wages has not improved the position of the worker, if one takes into
account not their more luxurious habits - watches with chains, silk
kerchiefs, tobacco, vodka,beef and ber, but theirwelfare,their healt and
morality, and above all, their freedom.
At the silkfactorywith which am acquainted, twenty years ago the
workwas chieflydoneby men, who workedfourteen hoursa day, eed
on an average fifteenroubles a month, and sent the money, for the most
to their families in the villages. Now, nearly all the work is done by
women. working elevenhours, someof whom e much as twenty-five
roubles a monlh (over fifteen roubles on an average), and forthe most part,
do not send it home, but spend all they e here, chiefly on dress,
drunkenness and vice. The diminution of the hours of work merely in
creases the time they spend in taverns.
The same thing is happening, toa greater or lesser extent, at all the
factories and works. Everywhere, notwithstanding the diminution of te
hours of labourand the increase of wages, the health oftheoperatives is
wo thanthato f county workers, the averageduration of lifeis shoner.
and morality is sacrificed, as cannot but occur when peple aretomfom
those conditions which most conduce to morality: family life and fee,
healthy, varie and intelligible agricultural work.
It i verypossibly true, as someeconomists assert, that witshorter
hours of labour. morepay and improved sanitary conditions in mills and
factories, the health and morality of theworkers improve, in comparison
with the former co ndition of factory workcrs. H is also possible that
I20
latterly. and in someplaces, theposition of the factoryhands ubenerin
exteral conditions tan the position of the county populaton. But thisis
so (and in someplaces), because theGovemment and society, infuenced
by the a tions of science, do all that is possible to i mprove
.
the
pOsition ofthefactorypopulation attheex

nsc of thecoun populauon.

If thecondition ofthefactoryworkers, Hsomeplaces, ls, thoughonly
in extal aspects. better than that of country people. it only shows that
one can, by knds of restrictions. renderlifemiserable in what should
b the b st exteral conditions; and that there is no position $unnatural
and bathat men may not adapt themselves to it, if they remain in it for
somegeneratons.
Themisery oftheposition of a factoryhand, andin gener;0wn
worker, dos not consist in his long hours and small pay, but in fact that
he u deprived of the natural conditions of life in touch with nature. is
deprived offr eedom, and is compelled to compulsory and monotonous
toil at anotherman's will.
And therefore the reply to the questions, why factory and town
workers 8 in miserable conditions, and how those may be improved,
cannot bethat this aises because capitalists havepossessed themselves of
themeansofproducton,an d that theworkers' conditionwill be improved
bydiminishing theihoursofwork, increasing their wagesandcommunal
izing the means ofproduction
.
The reply to these questions must consist in indicating the causes
which havedeprived theworkersofnatural conditions of lifei ntouchwith
natre, and which havedriven them into factorybondage; and in i ndicat
ing means to fee th e workers from the neessity of foregoing a fee
county life, and from going into slavey at thefactories.
And therefore the queston why town workers are in a miserable
conditon includes, firstofall, thequestion: whalreasons havedriventhem
fomthe villages, wheretheyand theirancestorshavelived andmightlive;
where, in Russia, pople like them do still live? And what it is lhatdrove,
and contnues todrive them, against their wil l, tothe factoriesand works?
If tere areworkmen, i nEngland, Belgium or Germany, whofor
some generations have lived by factory work, even they live so, not by
their own fe will but beause their fathers, grandfathers and great
grandfathers were, in some w ay, compelled toexchange the agiCUltural
life which they loved. for life which seemedtothem hardin towns andat
factories. Firstthecounly peopleweredeprivedof land by violence, says
Karl M,they were evicted and brought tovagabondage; andthen, by
cruel laws, they weretortured with pincers, with red-hot irons. andwere
whipped, tomake themsubmit to the condition of being hired labourers.
Therefore the queston, how to free the workers fom their miserable
position, should, one would think, naturally lead tothe question, howto
removethose causes which havealready driven some, and arcnowlhreat-
I 2I
ening to drive the rest of the peasants from the psition which they
considered go, and aredriving them Ba position which they consider
b.
Economic science, although it indicates in passing the causes that
drove the pts from the village, dos not conce itself with d
question how to remove these causes, but directs 8its auention to the
improvement ofthe wo rkers' psition in theexisting factories andworks,
assuming as it were that the workers' psition in thes fatories and
workshopsis something unalterable, something which must alaI costs b
maintained forthose who are alreadyin the fatories, and must breached
by those who have not left !he villages or abandoned agricultural work.
Moreover, economic science is so sure that all the pts must
inevitably bcome factory operatives in towns, that, though all the sages
and the pts of the world have always placed !he ideal of human
happiness amid conditions ofag ricuhural work, though 8 the workers
whose habits are unprverted have always preferred, and still prefer, ag
ricultural labourtoany o!her, though faclOryworkis always unhealthy and
monotonous, while agriculture is most healthy and varied, though agricul
tural workis free(NOTE No 50) and the peasant alteates toil and rest
at his own will, while factory work, even if the factory blongs to the
workmen, is always enforced, in dependence on the machines, tough
factorywork is derivative, while agricultural workis fundamental, with
out it no factory could exist - yet economic science affirms that all the
county pople are not only uninjured by the tansition frm the county
to the Lwn, but themselves desire it, stive towards it.
V
Why Learned Economists Afirm What Is False
However Obviously unjust may be the assenion of the
men of science that the welfare of humanity must consist in
the very thing that is profoundly repulsive tohuman feelings, in monoto
nous, enforced factorylabour, the men of science were inevitably ledto
make this obviously unjust assertion,just as the theologians of old were
inevitably led to make the equally evidently unjust assertion that slaves
and their masters werecrealures differing in kind, and that the inequality
of their position in this world would be compensate in the next.
Thecause of this ev idcntly unjust assertion is thatthose who have for
mulated, and who areformulating, thelaw ofscience, belong to thewell
to-do classes, and are soacCUSlOmed to te conditions, advantageous for
themselves, in wh ich they live, that they do not admit the thought that
soiety could exist under other conditions. The condition oflife to which
122
pople of the well-to-do classes are accustomed, is that of an abundant
proucton of various articles neessary for their comfort and pleasure;
and thee things are only obtained thanks to the existence offactriesand
works organiz as at present And therefore, when discussing the im
provement of the workers' psition, men of science, blonging to the well
gcl , always have in view only such improvements as will not do
away with dsystem of factory prouction, and the proucts of which
they avail themselves.
Even the most advanced economists, the Soialists, who demand
complete contol of the means of production for the workers, expct
proucton of the same or almost the same articles, as arproucednow,
to contnue in the present, or similar, factories, with the pDt division
oflaour.
Thedifference, as tey imagine it, will only b that, in the future, not
they alone, but all men, will make use of such conveniences as only they
now enjoy. They dimly picture 0themselves that, with thecommun
tion ofthe means of production, they ,men of science, and the ruling
classes in general, will do some work, bmchieny as managers, designers,
scientsts Oartists. To te question, who will have to wear a mask and
make white-lead'? who will be stokers, miners and cesspol cleaners'? they
are either silent, or foretell that all these things will be so improved that
even workat cesspols, and underground, will affordpleasant occupaton.
That is how theyrepresent to themselves f ulure economic conditions, bth
in Utopias such as thatofBellamy (NOTE No 51) and in scientific works.
According to !heir theories, the workers will all join unions and as
soiations, and cultivate solidarity among themselves by unions, slkes
and participation inPrliamenl, till they obtain pssession ofall the means
of proucton, as well as the land; and then they will b so well fe, so well
d8,and enjoy such amusements on holidays that they will preferlife
in town, amid brick buildings and smoking chimneys, to frevillage life
and plants and domestc animals; and monotonous, well.regulated ma
chine workto varied, healthy and freeagricultural labur.
Though this anticipation is as improbable as the anticipation of the
thelogians about a heaven to be enjoyed hereafter by workmen in
compnsation for their hardlabour here, yel learcdand educated people
of our soiety believe thi s Slange teaching, just as fonneriy wise and
leed people believe in a heaven forworkmen in the next world. And
leed men and their disciples, people ofthe well-lo-do classes, believe
this bcause they must believe it. Thisdilemma stands beforethem: either
they must wthat all that they make use ofin their lives, fromrailways to
lu cifr matches and cigaretleS, represents labour which costs the lives of
many of their brother-men, and that they, not Sharing in that toil but
makng use of it, arevery dishonourable men; or they must believe that 8
that takes place, takes place for thegeneral advantage, in accordwith un-
123
alterable laws of economic science. Therein lies the inner psychological
causecompUing men of science. men wise and educalCd but notenlight
ened. to m psitively and tenaciously such an obvious unlruth. as that
the laburers, for their own well-being. should leave a happy and healthy
life in touch with nature, and go to ruin their bodies and souls M factories
and workshops.
VI
Bankruptcy Of The Socialist Ideal
But even allowing the assertion (evidently unfounded as it is, as
contary to the facts of human namre), that it is btter for pople to live in
towns and todocompulsory machine work in factories, rather than live in
villages and work freely at handicrafts, there remains in the very idea itelf,
to which the men of science tell us the economic evolution is leading, an
insoluble contradiction. The ideal is that the workers, having become
masters of all the means of production, are to obtain the comforts and
pleasure now possessed by weJl-to-dopeople. They will all be well clothed
and housed, and well nourished, and will walk on electrically-lighted
asphalt steets. and frequent concerts and theatres, and read paprs and
bo ks, and ride on aulo-cars. But that everybdy may have certain things,
the production of those things must be apportioned. and consequently it
must b decided how long each workman is to work. How is that to b
deided?
Statstics may show, though very imperfectly. what pcoplerequirein
a soiet fettered by capital, by want But nosttistics can show how much
is wanted, and what articles are needed to satisfy the demand in a society
where the mean s of production will belong to the soiety itself, and where
the pople will be free.
The demands in such a soiety cannOt b defined, and they wiU al
ways infinitely exceed the pssibility of stisfying them. Everyby w
wish to have 8that the richest now possess, and therefore it is quite
impssible todefine t he quantity of goods that such a soiety will require.
Furthennore. how are people to be induced to work atanicles which
some consider necessary and Others consider unnecessary or even hann
ful?
lfit be found necessary for everybody to work, say, six hours a day,
in order 10 satisfy the requirements of society, who, in a free society, can
compel aman to work those six hours, ifhe knows that part of the time is
spnt on pro dueing things he considers unnecessary or even hannful?
It is undeniable that under the present slate of things mOst varied
aticles are produced with greal economy of exertion, thanks to machin-
I24
cry ,and thanks espcially to thedivision

flabourwhic has been brought

to an exteme nicety and carried to the highest perfetion; and that these
articlesare profitable to themanuracturers. and that we find them conven
ient and pleasnt to use. But the fact that these aicles arc well made. and
are prouced wilh little expenditureof strength, that they are proftable to
the capitalists and convenient for us, docs not prove that free men would,
without compulsion, continue to produce them. There is no doubt that
Kpp. wit the prcscntdivision ofl
.
abour, makesadmirablecanons very
quickly and artfuUy; N.M. very qUickly and artfully produces Silk mate
rials; X. Y. and Z.produce toilet scents, powder to preserve the complex
ion, or glazed packs of cards; and K. produces whisky of choice flavour,
and, no doubt, bth for those who want these articles and for the owners
of cannons, sents and whisky, all this is very advantageous. Butcannons.
scents and whisky arc wanted by those who wish to obtain contol of the
Chinese market, O who like to get drunk, or arc concered about their
complexions; but there will be some who consider the production of these
articles harmful. And there will always be people who consider that,
besides these aticles, exhibitions, academics, beer and beef are unneces
and even harmful. How arc these people to be made to participate in
the production of such articles?
.
Even if a means could be found to get all to agree to produce certam
articles(though there is no such means, and can benone,exceptcorcion).
who, in a msoiety, without capitalistic producton, comptition and its
law of supp Iy and demand, will decide which ankles are to have the prf
erence? Which mto b made frst, and which after? Awe first to bUild
the Siberian railway and fortify Port Arthur, and then macadamize the
roads inourcounuy disticts, or vice versa? Which is tocome fl rst: electric
lighting or irrigation of the fields? And then comes another qu
.
estion,
insoluble with fe workmen: which men are todo which work? EVidently
awill prefer haymaking or drawing to stoking or cesspol c leani ng. How.
in apprtioning the work, Bpople to b induced to agree?
No statistcs can answer these questions. The solution can only b
theretical: it may bsaid that there will b pople to whom pwer will b
given to regulate all these matters. Some pple will decide these ques
tions, and others wi II oby them.
Besides the questions of apportioning and direting producton and
of selectng work, when the meansof production are communaJi.
will b another and most important question as to the degrc of d
i
VSion
of labour that can est ablishcd in a socialistically organized society. The
present division of labour is conditioned by the needs of the workers. A
workeronly agrees to live all his Ii fe underground, or to make the one-hun
dredth part of one article all his life, or move his hands up and down amid
theroarof machinery all his life, because he willotherwi.enot have means
to live. But it will only be by compulsion that a workman. owning the
I2
.
meansofproductioo and ootsufrering want,can b induced toacceplsuch
stupfying and soul-destroying conditions of labour as those mwhich
pople now work. Division of labur is undoubtedly ve

profitable

nd
natral upople; but, ifpeople arc free. division oflabour IS only pssible
up to a certain, very limited extent, which has been far oversteppd mo
soiety (NOTE No 52 ) .
If one pasant occupies himself chieny wilh bo t-maki ng, and his
wife weaves, and another pasant ploughs, and a third is a blacksmith, and
they a , having acquired spial dexterity in their own work. afterwards
exchange what they have prouced such division of labur is advanta
geous to 8 ,and free people will naturaly divide their work mthis ay.
Buladivision oflabour by which a man makes one-huth of an acle,
or a stoker works in a temperature of one hundred and forty degrees
Fahrenheit, or is choked with harmful gasses, such division of labour is
disadvantageus, bcause though it furthers the prouction of insignifi
cant articles, it desuoys that which is most precious - the life of man.
Therefore such division of labur as now exists, can only continue whee
there is compulsion, Dobertus ( NOTE No 53) says that communal di
vision of labour unites mankind. That is tue, but it is only free division,
such as people VOluntarily adopt, that unites.
Upople deide to make a road, and one digs, another brings stones,
a thir Uthem, that sort of division of work unites pople.
But if, independently of the wishes, and sometimes against the
wishes. of the workers, a strategic railway is buil, or an Eiffel tower, or
stupidities such as fill the Paris exhibition; and one workman is compelled
to obtain iron, an other todig coal,a third to make castings, a fourth to cut
down trces,anda fifth tosaw them up. without having the least idea of what
the things they are making are wanted for then such division oflabournot
only dos not unite men, but, on the contrary, it divides them.
And, therefore, with communalized implements of production, if
people arc free, they will only adopt division of labour in as far as the god
resultin from it will outweigh the evil itoccasions to the workers. And as
each man natura lIy ses good in extending and diversifying his activities,
such division of labour as now exists Will, evidently, b impossible in a
fee soiety.
To suppose lhat with communalized means of proucton there will
be such an abundance of things as is now prouced by compulsory division
oflabour, is like suppsing that after the emanCipation of the serfs, the do
mestic orchestas a nd theates (NOTE No 54), the home-made carts and
laces. and the elabrate gardens which depended on serf-labour would
contnue to function as before. So the supposition that when the Soialist
ideal is realized, everyone will be free, and will at the same time have at
his dispsal everything, oralmosleverything, that is now made use of by
the well-to-do classes, involves an obvious self-contadiction.
126
VII
Culture Or Freedom
Just what happened when serfdom existed is now being repated.
Then, the majority of the serf-owners and of the pople of the well-to-do
clasSes, if they acknowledged the serfs' psition to b not qui:e S
3
tisfac-
tor. yet recommended 0 nly such alterations as would r.:t denve the
owners of what was essential to their profit Now, pple of the wcl1to
doc\asses, admitting that the position of the workers is not a1togeth
.
sat
isfactory, propose for its amendment only such measures :: 111 not
deprive the well-to-do classes of their advantages. As well-d
I
Sposed
owners then spoke of 'pateral authority', and, like Gogo1 (NOTE N055)
ad vised owners t be kind to their serfs and to lake care of them, but would
ot tolerate the ideaof emancipation (NOTE No 56), considering it harm
ful and dangerous, just so, the majority of well-to-do people advise
employers to lok after the well-being of their workpeoplc, but do nOl
admit the thought of any such alteration of the economic structure of life
as would set thc labourers Quite free.
Andjustasadvanced liberals then, while considering serfdom U
an immutable gement, demanded that thc Govement should hmlt
the power of the owners, and sympathized with the serfs' agitation, sathe
I ibra1s of today , w hi l e considering the cx isti ng order immutable, demand
thal Govemmenlshould limit the powers of capitalists and manufactU.
and they sympathize with unions and strikes and, in general, with the
workers' agitation. Just as the most advanced mcn then demanded the
emancipation of the serfs, but drew up a Project which left the serfs
depndent on private landowners, Ofettered them with tributes and land
taxes so now the most advanced people demand the emancipation of the
worben from the power of the capitalists, and the communaliztion of
the means of production, but yet would leave the workersdepndenton the
prescnt apprtionment and division of labour, which. in their opinion,
must remain unaltered. The teachings of economic science, which are
adopted (though without close examination of their details) by all those of
the well-lo-do classes who consider themsel ves en I ightcned and advanced
(NOTE No 57) ,seem on a superficial examination to be liberal and even
radical,containing they doauackson the wealthy classes

f society; but,
essentially, that leaching is in the highest degree conservative, gross and
cruel. One way or another the men of science. and in theirtrain allte

ell
to-d
ociasscs, wish at all costs to maintain the present system of distibu
tion
and divi sion of labour, which makes possible the producton of that
great quantity of goods which they use. The existing economic order is
127
called culure by the men of science and, following them. by all the well
to-do classes; andin this culture, in its railways, telegraphs. telephones,
photographs, Rontgen rays. clinical hospita1s. exhibitions, and chiefy, in
8the appli of comfort they se something so sacrosanct that they
will not allow even a thought of alterations which might destroy it all, or
but endanger a small part of these acquisitions. Eveything may, according
to the leching of that science, b changed, except what it calls culture. It
bcomes more and moreevident that this culture can only exist while the
workers a complled to work, yet men of science a so sure that this
culture is the greatest of blessings, that they bldly prolaim the contry
of what the purists once said: [//justitia, perea/ munu (NOT No 58).
They now say: fat cultura, perea/justiti a (NOT No 59). They not only
say it, but act on it. Everything may be changed, in practice and in thery,
except CUlture, except all that is going on in workshops and factories. and
espcially what is being sold in the shops.
But 1 think that enlightened people, professing the Christi an law of
brotherhod and love to one's neighbour, should say just the contrary.
Electic lights and telephones and exhibitions are excellent, and so
are all the pleasure-gardens with concerts and perfonnances, and athe
cigars and match-boxes, braces and motor-cars, but may they all go to
perdition, and not the y alone but the railways, and all the factory-made
chintz-stuffs and cloths in the world, ifto produce them it unees that
ninety-nine percent of the peple should remain in slavery. and prish by
thousnds in factories needed for the production of these articles. If in
order that Lndon or Petersburg may be lit by eletricity, or in order to
construct exhibition buildings. or in order that there may b bautiful
paints. or in order to weave beautifl cloths quickly and abundantly. it is
necessar that even a very few lives should be destoyed, or ruined. or
shortened -and statistics show us how many arcdestoyed - let London and
Petersburg rather b lit by gas or oil; let there rather b no exhibition, no
paints or materials. Only let there b no slavery and no destruction of
human lives resulting from it. Themotto fortruly enlightened pople isnot
fat cuitUa, perealjuslitia, butfal justistia, pereat cuitUa
Butculture, useful culture, will not bedestroyed. It will certainly not
be necessary for people to revert to tillage of the land with sticks. or to
lighting-up with torches. It is not for nothing tat mankind, in its slavery,
has ac hieved such great progress in tehnical maiers. Ir only it is
understod that we must not sacrifce the lives of our brother-men for our
own pleasure, it will be possible to apply technical improvements without
destroying men's lives; and to arrange life so as to proft by all those
methods giving us control of nature, that have been devised, and that can
be applied without keeping our brother-men in slavery.
I28
N
Slavery Exists Among Us
.
Imnea n arriving from a country quitedifferer.nt frm our own,
"
:
Ith no Id

of Ohistory or of our laws, and suppse that, after showing
him the vaous at of our life, we were to ask him wi hat was the chief
difeence he n iced in the lives of pople of our \orld. The chi ef
diffeence which such a man would notice i n the way Pple live is that
some pople - a small numbr - who have clean white haJJlds, and are well
nouished clethed and loged, do ver little and vefry light work, or
eve do not wort at a but only amuse themselves, spnding on these
amusements the results of millions of days devoted by" other pople to
severe labur; blll other pple, always dirty, porly clCthed and loged
and fed, with dirty, hory hands, toil unceasingly from ,.noming to night,
and sometimes allnight long. working for those whodontlot work, but who
contnually amus themselves.
Ifbtween tl:e slaves and slave-owners of today it is . difficult to draw
as sharp a dividing line as that which separated the former" slaves from their
masters, and uamong the slaves of Lday there are sonme who a only
temprily sl aves and then become slave-owners, or me who, at one
and the same tme, a slaves and slave-owners, this blending of the two
classes at their ptnts of contact dos not upset the fact tJhat the people of
our time a 01Y0into slaves and slave-owners as defiJnitely as, in spite
of the twilight, eah twenty-four hours is divided into ctlay and night.
If the slavwne of our time mno slave John w
,'hom he c send
to dcessp l toclear out his excrements, he has fiv stiillings of which
hundreds of Johru a in such need that the slave-ownerQof our times may
chose anyone Oof hundreds of Johns and b a bne:factor to h by
giving him thepnferenceand allowing him. rather than aanother,to climb
down int the ct$p l (NOT No 5).
The slaves Uour times are not only all those facto[l and workshop
hands, who mUSl seJI themselves completely into the powerofthe factory
and foundr oWlers in order to exist; but nearly all the agricultural
labourers a sla\es, working as they do unceasingly ggrow another's
com on another' sfeld, and gathering it inL another's .or tilling their
own fieldsonly morder topay to bankers the interestondebts they cannot
getrid of. Slaves liso are all the i nn umerable footmen, c(ks, housemaids,
Qm,coachmm, bathmen, waiters, and so on, who @their life long
prform duties Jl'st unnatural t a human bing, and .... "hich they them
selves dislike.
Slavery exi& in full vigour, but we do not prc
eive it; just as in
Europ, at theen of the eighteenth century. the slavety' of sefdom was
not prceived.
IZ
Peopleof that day thought that theposition of men obliged to 00
landfortheir lords, and toobythem. was a natural. inevitable. eonomic
conditon of life, and they did not call it slavery.
It is the same among us: people ofour day consider the psiton
of
laburers tob a natural. inevitable, economic condition, and they donot
cal it slavery.
And as, at the end of the eighteenth century, the pople of Europ
bganlittle by little to understand thatwhat had seemeda natural and in
evitable formof economic life, namely, the psition Ofpl LSwho wee
completely in the power of their lords. was wrong. unjust and immoraJ,
and demanded alteration; so now peple today are bginni ng to under
stand that the psition of hiredworkmen, and of the working classes in
general, which formerly semed quite right and quite normal, is not what
it should b, and demands alteration.
The qUe&ton of the slaveryof our times is just in the sme phase now
in which the question of sefdomstodinEurope(NOTE No 61 ) towards
the end of the eighteenth century, and in which the question of serfdom
among Q an d ofslavery in America, stod in the seond quaner ofthe
nineteenth century.
The slavery of the workers in our times isonly beginning to b admit
Rby advancedpople in our society; the majorityas yet 8convinced
0among us no slavery exists.
A thing that helps pople todaykmisunderstand their position in this
matter is the fact that we have, in Russia and in America, only reently
ablished slavery. But in reality the ablition of serfdomand of slavery
was only the abIition of an obsoleteformof slavery that had bcome
unneessary, and the substitution forit ofa firmerformof slavery, and one
thatholdsagreaternumberof people inbondage. Theabolition of serfdom
andofslavery was like the Tartars oftheCrimea did with their prisoners.
They invented the plan of slitting the soles of the prisoners' feet and
sprinkling chopped-up bristles tnhthe wounds. Having performed that
opration,they releasedthem fromtheirweight and chains. Theabolition
of serfdomin Russia and of slavery in America, though it ablished the
former method of slavery. not only did nOt abolish what was essental in
it, but was only accomplished when the bristles had formedsores on the
soles, and one could b quite sure that without chains or weights the
prisoners would not run away, but would have to work. The Northerers
in America boldly demanded the abolition of the formerslavery because.
among them, the new monetary slavery hadalready shown its pwer to
shackle the pple. The Southerners did not yet perceive the plain signsof
the new slavery. and thereforedid not consent kabolish the old form.
Among us in Russia, serfdomwas only abolished when all the land
had be n appropriated. When land was granted to the pL, it was
burdened with payments which took the place of the land slavery. In
130
g taxes that kept the peepl e in bondage began to b ablished only
Ew .
ural
hen
the pple had lost their land. were disaccustomed to agncu t
k and, having acquired town tastes, were quite depndent on the
;;;18L.Only then were the taxes on om abolished
.
in Englan. And
they Wnow bginning, in Germany and mother countes. to abhsh the
es that on the workers, and to shift them on to the rich, only bcaus
: majority of the peple are already in the hands of the capitalts. One
form of slavery is not abol ished untl another has already rep It. There
areseveral such forms, and if not one then another (and someumes several
together) keeps a pople in slavery, by placing it in such a psiton at one
8part of the pople has full power over the labour and the li fe of a
::ger numbr. In this enslavement lies the chief cau of the mirable
condition of the pople. Therefore the means of improvmg the plbOn of
the workers must consist in this: Firsty, in admitting that among us slavery
emts not in some figurative, metaphorical sense, but i n the simplest and
plainet snse; slavery which keeps some ople. e maj
.
ori
.
ty. in e
pwer of others, !he minority; secondly, havmg admitted thiS. In fidmg
!.he causes of the enslavement of some people by others; and thlnily,
having found thes causes, in desuoying them.
1
What Is Slavery?
In what dos the slavery of our time consist? What a the forces that
make some pople the slaves of others? If we all
.
the workers
.
in Russ
and in Europ and in America wherever !hey a. m the factones and U
various situat ions in which they work for hire, i n towns and villages what
has mae them chose the psition in which they a living, they will
reply that they have ben brought to it; either because
.
they had no land on
which they could and wished to live and work (that Will b the reply of 8
the Russian workmen and of very many of the Europeans). or that taxes,
diret and indiret, were demande of them. which they could only pay by
selling their labour. or that they remain at faclO work ensn by te
more luxurious habits they have adopted, and which they can gatify only
by seUing their labur and their librty.
.
The two first conditions, the Jack of land and the taxes, drive man to
compulsory labour, while the third, his increased and unsatsfied neds.
deoy him to it and keep him at it.
. .
We can imagine that the land be DO from the clrums of pnvate
proprietors, by Henry Gerge's plan (NOTE No 62), and tha therefore,
the first caus driving pople into slavery may b done away With. Wecan
also, bsides t he Si ngleTax plan, imagine the direct abliton oftaxes,
1 31
done now in some countries; but underthe present economic organi7.tion,
one cannot even imagine a psition of things underwhich moreand more
luxurious, and oftn hannful, habits of life would not be adopted among
the rich, andthat thes habits should not. litle bylittle, pass to those or d
lower classes who arein contact with the rich, as inevitably as water sinks
into dry ground, and that these habits should not bcome sonecessaryto
the workers that in order to b able to satisfy them, they will b readyto
sll their fe dom.
So ti ti condition, though it is a voluntary one of which it would
sem that a man might resist the temptation, and though sience does not
acknowledgeit tob a cause of the miserable condition of the workers, is
the fumest an d most irremovable cause of slavey.
Workmen living near rich people are always infected with new
requirements, and only obtain means to satisfy these requirements in sofar
as they devote their most intense labourto this satisfaction. So workmen
in England and Ameriea, receiving sometimes ten times as much as is
nefor subsistence, continue to be just such slaves as they were
bfore.
causes, as the workmen themselves explain, produce the
slavery in which they live; and the history of their enslavement and the
facts of their psition confirm the correctness of this explanation.
All the workcrs arebrought to their present state, and arekept in it,
by thes threecauses. Acting on poplefromdiferentsides, theyare such
thatnonecan escap fom theirenslavement The peasant who has noland,
or who has n ot enough, will always b obliged to go into ptual or
temprary slavery to the landowner, in order to have the pssibility of
fe ing himself fom the land. Should he, in one way or another, obtain
land enough to b able to feedhimself from it by his own labur, such
taxes, diretor indirect, aredemanded ofhim, that in ordertopay themhe
has again to go into slavery.
HRescpfromslavery on the land, heceases to cultivate land,and,
living on someone else's land, bgins to occupyhimself with a handicraft.
andVexchange his produce forthe things heneeds, then,on the one hand,
taxes, and , on the othcr hand, the competition of capitalists, producing
simil ar articles to those he maes, but with bcUer implements of produc
tion, compl him to go into temporary or perpetual slavery toa capitalist
Ifhe was working fora capitlist. he might set upfreerelations with him,
and not b obliged t sell his libcny, yet the new requirements which he
assimilates deprive him of any such possibility. So, onc way or another,
the laburer is always in slavery to those who control lhe taxes, the land
and the articles necessary to satisfy his rcquirements.
132
X
Laws Concerning Taxes, Land And Property
The German Soialists have termed the combination of conditions
which put the workes in subjection to the capitalists, the iron law of
wages, implying by the word'iron' that this law is immutable. Butin these
conditions thee u nothing immutabl these conditions merely result
fom human laws conceing taxes, land and,abveall,concering things
which st our requirements, that is, ch ielyconceing pr. Laws
are famed. and red, by human bings. So it is not some siological
'iron' law, but ordinary man-made law, that prouces slavery. Uthe 0
mhand. theslavery of our times is vcryclerly and definitelyproduced,
not by some 'iron' elemental law , but by human enacunents: about land,
abut taxes and about propeny. There is one set of laws by which any
quantity ofland may belong toprivatepeople, and may pass fom one to
anoter by inheritance, or by will. or may b sold; there is another set of
laws by which everyone must paythc taxcsdemanded of him unqueston
ingly; and there is a third set of laws to the effect that any quantity of
artcles, by whatever means acquircd, may become theabsolute property
of the pople who hold them. And in consequence of these laws, slavery
exists.
We ae soaccustomed to all these laws, that they seem to usjust as
nesand natura1 tohumanlifc, as the laws maintaining serfdomand
slavey S ed in former times. No doubts abut their nC ity and
justice seem pssible, a ndwe notice nothing wrong in them. But just as
a time came whenpple, having seenthe ruinous consquences of serf
dom,questone the justice and neessity of the laws which maintained it,
so now, when 0pricious consequences of the pOtcconomic order
havebome evident. one involuntarily questions thejustice and inevit
bility of the legislation about land. taxes and propny, which prouces
these results.
Peopleformerlyasked: Is it right that some people should blong to
othes, and that the formershould have nothing of thei r own, but should
give 8the prouce of their labour to their owners? So now we must
ourselves: Is it ri ght that pople must not usc landaccounted the propeny
of other pple? Is it right that pople should hand over Vothes in the
formof taxes, whatever partof theirlabourisdemandedofthem?Is itright
that pople may not make use of anides consideredto be the propenyof
other pople?
Is it right that people should not have the use oflalld when it is
colIideredtobelollg to a/hers who are 10t cultivating it?
13
It is said t this legislation is instituted bause lande proprty
an essential condition uagiculture ut flourish, and if there were no
private proptypassing by inheritnce, people would drive one another
fom land the y ocupy, and n(H)ne would work or improve the land on
which he is senled. Is this true? The answer is to b found in hislry, and
in the fact of toay. History shows thatpropty in landdidnolarise from
any wish tomakethe culti vator' s tenure moresecure, but reulted fromthe
seizureof communal lands byconquerors, and its distributon 0those who
srved the conquerors. So proprty mland was not established with the
objet of stimulating the psants. Present-<ay fats show 0fallacy of
the a on that landed property enables those who workthe land to be
sure that they will not bedeprivedof the land they cultvate. In relity just
the conty has happened. and is happening, everywhere. The right of
landed property,by which the greatproprietorshaveproftedmost, and a
profiting, has produced the result that the immense majorityof the peas_
ants a now in the position ofpeople who cultivate other people's land,
fromwhich they may bedriven at the whim ofmen who do not cultivate
iL Theexisting rightof landedpropertycertainly does not defendthe rights
of the pt to enjoy thefruitsofthe labour heputs mRthe land, but. on
lhecontrary, ilis a wayofdepriving the peasants oftheland onwhich they
work, and handing it over to those who have not worked it; and therefore
it is certainly not a mens forthe improvement ofagriculture, but, on the
cont, a mens of deterioratng it.
Amtaus it usaid that people ought to pa them Icause they are
inslitUied with the general, even though silent consent oJaf; and are ued
Jorpublic needs, R the advantage ojm ./s this true?
The answer to this question ugiven in history and in prescnt-<ay
facts. HislOry shows that taxes never were instituted bycommon consent,
but. on the conty, always only in consequence of the fact that some
pople, having oblained pwer overother peple by conquest or by olller
mens, impose tibute. not forpublic needs, but for themselves. And the
same thing is still going on. Taxes a takenbythose who have the pwer
0takethem. If nowadays someportion ofthese tributes, called taxes and
duties, is used forpublic purposes, it isforthe mostpart forpublic purses
0a hannful rather than useful Rmost people.
For instance, in Russia one-third of the pasants' whole income is
taken in taxes, but only one-fftieth ofthe State revenue is spent on their
greatest need, the education ofthe pople; and even that amount is spnt
on a kindofedu caton which. bystupefying the people. hanns them more
than it bnefits them. The other fony-ninefftieths a spnt on unnees
s things, harmful to the people, such as equipping the anny building
IJ4
sUkgCrailways. forand prisons, or supprting the priesthod Othe
court. and on salaries for lhose pople who make it pssible Utake this
money fomthe pple.
Thesmething gosonnot onlymPersia. TurkeyandIndia, but also
in 8the Christan and constiwtional States and demoratic Republics:
money is taken fom the majorityofthe pople, quilt: indepndentJyofthe
consent or non-c onsnt of the payers,and the amountcolleted is not what
isreaUy ne, butas much as canb gal (we knowhow Parliamentsare
made up, and how liuJe they respct the will of the pople), and it is u
not for the common advantage. but for things the goveg cw
conside necessaryforthemselves: on warsin Cuba or the Plippine, on
taking and keping the riches of the Transvaa], and % forth. So the
explanaton t people must pay taxes bcause they are institutd with
general consenland areusedforthecommon good, is as untue as theother
explanaton, that prival property in land is established to encourageag
riculture.
/s it true lhal people should not use anicles needfl to satisftheir
requirements, if those articles are the property ojother people?
His wthat the right of propty in acquireartcles is estab
lishe inordertomake the workersurethat no-one will takefromrumthe
produce ofhis laOur. Is it tue?
It is only nesto glance at what is done in our world, where
proprty rights are defended with esp al strictness. in order t b
convinced how completely the factsof! iferun counter to this explanation.
In our soiety, in consequence of the right of proprty in acquired
artcles, the very thing happns which that right is intended to prevent:
namely, all articles which have ben, and continually arebing, prouced
by workng pple. a possessed by, and as they are prouced are
contnually takenby, those who have not produced them.
So llIeas onthat the right ofpropertysecures forthe workersthe
pssibility of enjoying the products oftheir labour is evidently yet more
untruelhanthe assertionconceringpropertyin land, anditisbasedon the
same soph istry. First, the fruit oftheirtoil is unjustly and violently tken
fomthe workers, and then the law steps in, and these very articles are
declared to be the absolute property ofthose who have stolen them.
Proprty, forinstance a factry, acquired by a seriesof fraudsand by
taking advantage of the workmen, is considered a result oflabur. and is
held sacred; but the Jives of those workmen who prish at work in that
factory. and the ulabur, a not considered to be the property of the
fatoryowne. ifhe, tingadvantage ofthenecessities ofd^wo;' "es. has
bund themdown ina manner considered legal. Hund;edsofthousandsof
135
bushels of com, colleted fromthe peasants by usury and by a series of
extortions, 8considered to be the property of the merchant, while the
growing com raise by the peasants is considered to be the property of
someone else, who has inherited the land from a grandfather or great
grandfather who took it from the people. H i s said that the law defends
equally theproprtyof the mill owner, oflhecapitalist, ofthelandowner,
and of the factoryorcounty labourer. Theequality ofthe capitalist and of
the worker is like the equality oftwo fighters, one of whom has his arms
tied whilst the other has weapons, but to both of whom certin rules a
appliedwith stict impartality while they fight. So 8 the explanatonsof
the justice and neessity of the threesetsofla ws which produceslavery are
as untue as were the explanations fonnerly given of te justice and
necessity of serfdom. All those three sets of laws 8 nothing but the
establishment of that new formof slavery which has replaced theoldfonn.
People formerly established laws enabling some people to buy and sell
other pople, and to own them, and to make them work, and slavery
existed. Nowpople have established laws that men may not use land that
uconsidered toblong tosomeone else, must pay the taxes demanded of
them, and must not use articles consideredto be the proprtyofothers and
we have the slaveryof our times.
XI
Laws - The Cause Of Slavery
The slaveryof our times results fromthree sets of laws: those about
land, taxes and property. And thereforeall the attempts ofthose who wish
to improve the psition of the workers are inevitably, though uncon
siously, directed against those threlegislations.
One st of people would repeal taxes weighing on the working
classes, and tnsferthemontothe rich; others propose toabolish the right
of private proprty in land, and auempts mbeing made R put this in
practice bth in New Z eland and in one of the American States: the
limittion of landlords' rights in Ireland is a move in the same direton;
a third set, the Soialists, proposeto communalize the means of produc
ton, to tax incomes and inherilaflces, and to limit the rights of capitalist
employers. It would therefore seemas though the legislative enactments
which cause slavery were being repealed, and that we may therefore
expt slavery to be abolished in this way. But we nee only lok more
closely at the conditions under which the aboliticn of these legislative
enactments is accomplishedorpropsed, tobe convinced that not only the
practical but even the theoretical projects for the improvement of the
workers' psition, are merelyreplacingone legislat:w p ucillgslavery
IJ
by anotherestablishing a newerfonnofslavery. Thus, forinstance, those
who ablish taxes and dutes on the por, first abolishing direct dues, and
then tansferring the burden of taxation fom the poor to the rich,
necessarilyhave to retain, anddo retain, the law creatng private proprty
ofland, of the mens of production, andofother acles on to which the
whole burdenof taxes is shifted. The retention of the Jaw conceringland
and property keeps the workers in slavery to the landowners and the
capitalists, eventhough the workers8feedfromtaxes. Thosewho, like
HenryGeorgeand his supporters, wouldabolish the laws creatingprivat
proprty of land, propose new laws impsing an obligatory rent on the
land. And this obligatory land rent will neessaly creata new form of
slavey; because a man compelled to pay rent or singletx may at any
Lmof the crops or other misrortune, have toborrowmoney froma man
who has some to lend, and he will againlapseinto slavery. Those who, like
the Soialists, want to abolish the legislaton of property in land and in
mens of prouction, not only retain the legislation of taxes, but must,
morever, inevitably intoduce laws of compulsory labour . that is, they
must re-establish slavery in its primitive form.
So, this way or thal, all the practicaland theoretical repeals of certain
laws maintaining slavery in one form, have always replaced it by new
legislaton creating slaveryin another and fesh fonn.
What happens is something like what a jailer might do who shifted
a prisoner'schains fomhis neck tothearms,and from thearms to the legs,
or took them off and substituted blts and bars. All the improvements that
have hitherto taken place in the position of the workers have been of this
kind.
The laws giving a master the right to compel his slaves k do
compulsory workwerereplacedby laws allowing the mastes toown 8
the land. The laws allowing all the landto becometheprivatepropertyof
the masters may b replace d by taxation laws, the contol of the taxes
bing in the hands of the masters. The taxation laws maybe rplaceby
othes defendingthe right ofprivateproperty macles of use andin the
means of production. The laws maintaining propertyinland and inarticles
of use and means ofproduction, may, as is now proposed, b replacedby
the enacunent ofcompulsory labour.
So it is evident that the abolition ofone fonn of legaliztion produc
ing the slavery of our time, whether taxes, or landownership, or propety
marticles of use, or in the means ofproduction, will not destoy slavery
but will onlyrepeal one ofits forms, which will immediately b replaced
by a newone, as was the case with the abolition ofchattel slavery and of
serfdom, and with the repeals of taxes. Even the abliton of mthree
groups of laws togethe will not abolish slavery, but evoke a new and
previously unknownfonnof it, which isnow already bginning toshow
itself and to shackle the feedomor labourby legis;ation concering the
IJ7
hours of work, the age and state of health of the workes, as well as by
demanding obligatory attendance at schols, by deductions for old-age
insu or acidents, by all the measures of faclry inspction, etc. All
this is nothing but tansitional legislaton preparing a new and as yet
umried fonn of slavery.
So it bomes evident that the essence of slavery lie not in thos
te rots of legislation on which it now rests, and not even in this or that
legislatve enacunent, but in the fact that legislation exists - there a
pople who have pwer to dere laws profitable for themselves, and as
long as pople have that pwer, there will b slavery.
Fonnerly. it was profitable for pople to have chattl slaves; and they
mae laws abut chanel slavery. AfterWards it became proftable to own
land, to take taxes, and to keep things one had acquired; and they made
laws correspndingl y. Now it is profitable for pple to maintain the
existng directon and division of labur; and they a devising such laws
as wl compl pople to work under the presnt apprtionment and
division of labour. Thus the fundamental cause of slavery is legislaton:
the fact that thee a pple who have the pwer to make laws. What is
legislaton? and what gives pople !he pwer to make laws?
XI
The Essence Of Legislation Is Organized Violence
What is legislation? And what enables people to make laws? There
exists a whole science,even more ancient, mendacious and confused tan
political economy, the servants of which in the course of centuries have
wrincn millions of b k(for the most part contradicting one anothe) to
answer t hese questions. The aim of this science. as of plitical economy.
is not to explain what now exists and what ought to be, but rater to prve
that what now exists, is what ought to be. So it happens that in this science
of jurisprudence, we find very many dissertations abut rights, abut
objet and subjet, about the idea of a State, and other such maters, which
are unintelligible both to the students and l lhe teachers of this science;
but we get no clear reply to the question: What is legislation?
According to science, legislation is the expression of the will of the
whole people; but as those who break the laws, or who wish to break them
and only refrain fom doing so through fear of being punished, a always
more numerous th at those who wish to carry out the coe. it isevident that
legislaton can certainly not be considered as the expression of the will of
the whole people.
For instance. there a laws about not dareaging telegaph posts;
abut showing respt to certain people; about esch man pronning
IJ8
military service, or serving as a juryman; abut not taking certain gos
byond a certain fonter. Or abut not using land considere to b the
proprt of someone else; about not making money tokens; not using
artcles which are considered to be the property of others, and abut many
matters.
All thes laws and many others a extemely complex, and may have
be passed fom most diverse motives, but notoneof them expresses the
will of the whole pople. There is but one characteristic common to all
these laws. namely, th at ifany man dos not fulfil them. those who have
made these laws will send anne men, and the armed men will bJ
deprive of freedom, or even kill, the man who dos not oby 0law.
If a man dos not wish to give. as taxes, such part of the prouce of
his laburas is demanded of him, anned men will come and take fom hi m
whatis demanded, and ifhe resists he will be beaten, deprived offreedom,
and sometimes even kiled. The same will happn to a man who bgins
to make useofland considered to b the proprty of another. The sme will
happn to a man who makes use of things he wants to satisfy his
requirements or to facilitate his work. If these things are considered to b
the proprt of smene else, armed men will come and will deprive h
of what he has taken, and, ifhe resists, they will beat him, deprive him of
librty. Oeven kill him. The same thing will happn to anyone who will
not show respt to thos whom it u decreed that we a to rt,and to
him who will not oby the demand that he should go as a soldier, or who
makes money tokens.
For every non-fulfLIment of the established laws there is punishment:
the offender is subjeted, by those who make the laws, to blows, impris
onment Oeven loss of life.
Many constitutions have ben devised, bginning with the English
theAmerican, and ending with the Japanese and the Turkish, accord
ing to which pople a to blieve that aU laws established in theircountry
a established at th eir desire. But everyone knows that not only in
desptc counties, but also in thecounties nominally most free -England.
America, France and others - the laws are made not by the will of all. but
by the will of those who have power, and therefore always and everywhere
a such as are profitable to those who have power; be they many, or few,
or only one man. Everywhere and 8ways the laws a enforced by the only
mens that hcompelled, and still compels, some pople toobey the wiU
of others, by blows, bydeprivationoflibcrty and by murder. There can be
no other way.
It cannot b otherwise. For laws a demands to oby certin rules,
and to compel some peple to obey certai n rules can only b done by
blows, by deprivation of librty and by murder. If there a laws. there
must b the force that can compl pople to oby them. There is only one
force that can compl people to obey rules (to conform to the will of
IJ
olhers), and lhat is violence; notthe simple violence which pple use on
one anolher in moments of passion, but the organized violence used by
pople who have pwer, in order tocompl others to oby lhe laws m
lhey, lhepwerful, havemade, i nother words. to do lheir will.
Theessnce of legislature dos not lie i nsubjet or objet, in rights.
or in 0idea ofthedom inion oflhe collectve will of the pople, or in olher
such indefnite and confuse condi tions, but I ies in the fact 0 pple who
wi eld organizedviolence havepwer tocompel olhers to obythem and
do as they like.
So the exact and irrefutable definition of legislation, intelligible to
aU, is that: Lws are rules, made by people who govern b means of
organized vilence , for non-compliance with which lhe rwn-complier is
subjected to blows, to loss ofliberry, or even to being murdred.
This definition furishes the reply to the question: What is it that
renders it pssible for pople to make laws? The same ting makes it
pssible to establish laws, as enforcesobedience to !.hem, namely. organ
ized violence.
XI
What Are Governments? It Possible To Exist
Without Governments?
The cause of Ihe miserable condition ofthe workers is slavery. The
cause of slavery is legislation. Lgislation rests onorganized violence.
It follows that an improvement in the condition of the pople is
pssible only through the ablition of organized violence.
'But organized violence is Goverment, and how can we live wilhout
Goverments? Without Goverents therewill bchaos,anarchy; all the
achievements of civilization will perish and people will revert to their
primitive barbarism.'
Itis usuaJ, not only forthose towhom the existing orderis profitable,
but even for thosetowhom it is evidently unproftable, but who are so ac
customed to it that they cannot imagine life wilhout govermental vio
lence, to say we must not dare to touch the existing order of things. The
destruction of Goverment will, they say, produce the greatest misfor
tunes, riot. theft and murder, tili finaJly the worst men will again seize
pwer and enslave all the good pple. The fact is that all lhese things,
rioi, thefts and murders, followed by the rule of the wicked and the
eslavement ofthe god, is what has happened, and is happning, so the
anlilipation that the disturbance of the existing order will prouce riots
and disorder dosnot prove the present order Ube good.
'Only touch the presentorderand the greatestevils will follow.' Only
140
touch one brick of the thousand bricks piled imoa narrowcolumn, several
yards high, and8thebricks will wmbledown andsmash! But thefactthat
anybrick extacted or any push administered, will destoy such a column
and smash the bricks, certainly dos not prove it to b wise tokeep the
bricks in such an unnatural and inconvenicm posiLion. Ontheconuary, it
shows that bricks should not b pile in such a column, but that they should
b 8 geds that they may lie firmly, and so that they can b made use
of without destroying the whole strucwre. It is the same with the pr
Stat orgaons. The Stte organization is extremely acial and
unstable, and the factthat the least push may destroy it, not only dos not
prove that il is nC ary, but on the conty shows that, if once upn a
time it was neessary. it is now absolutely unneessary, and is therefore
harmful anddangerous.
It is hannful and dangerous bcause the effectof this organization on
aU the evil that exists in society is not to lessen and correct, but rather to
stengthen and conrum, that evil. It is stengthened and confumed, by
being eithe r justified and put in attractive forms, or concealed.
All that well-being of the people which we see in so-caJled well
govere States, ruled by violence, is but an appce. a fiction.
Everything that would disturb the exteraJ apparance of well-being, all
the hungry peple, the sick , the revoltingly vicious, are all hidden away
where they cannot be seen. But the fact that we donotsc them, dos not
show that they donot exist; on Ihecontrary, !.he moretheyBhidden, the
more there will b of them, and lhe more cruel towards thcmwill those b
who Bthe cause of their condition. It is truethat every interrupton, and
yet more every stoppage, of the organ iredviolence ofGoverment acton
distubs this extal appce of well-bing in our life, but such
disturbance dos not pruce the disorder, but ratherdisplays what was
hidden and makes possible its amendment.
Until say almost the end of the nineteenth cemury, pople thought
and blieved that theycould not live without Goverments. But li feflows
onward, and the conditions of life. and people's views, change. Notwith
standing the efforts O f Goverments to kep people in !.hat childish
condition in which an injuredman fee1sas ifit werebetterforhim tohave
someone to complain to, people, especially the labouring people, both in
Europ and in Russia, are more and morc emerging from childhood and
bginning to understand the tue conditions of their life.
'You tell us thatbut for you we shall beconqueredby neighbouring
nations: by the Chinese ortheJapanese', men ofthepple now say, 'but
we read the papers and know that no-one is threatening to attackus, and
thzt it is only you . who gover us, who for some reason unintelligible to
us exasperate each other, and then, under pretence of defending your
people, ruin us with taxes for themaintenance of the neet, forannaments
or forstategic railways. which are only required Kgratify your ambiton
141
end vanity; and men you arrange wars with one another, as you have now
done against me paceful Chinese. You say that you defend landed
proprty for our advantage, but your defence has mis effect: mat all the
land either has ps or is Qmg into the contol of rich banking
companies which do not labour, while we, the immense majority of the
people, bing deprived of land and left in the pwer of thos who g
not labour. You, with your laws of landed propcrty,do not defed landed
propert, but take it from those who work it. You say you secure for each
man me prouce of his labur, but you do just the reverse: all tse who
produce articles of value a, thanks to your pseudo-protection, plaed in
such a psition that they not only never receive me valueoftheilo ,
but a all their lives long in complete subjection to, and in the pwer of,
non-wokers.'
Thus do pple, at theend of the century, bgin to understand and to
spak, and tis awakening from the lethargy in which Goverments have
kept them, is continuing and rapidly growing. Wimin the last fve or $
years, public opinio n among the common folk, not only in the towns but
also in the villages, and not only in Europe but also among us in Russia,
has altere amazingly.
It is sid that without Goverments we should not have thos
enlightening, educational and public institutions, that a ne for all.
But why should we suppse this? Why think that non-ofcial pple
could not arange their life for themselves, as well as Goverment pople
can age it not for themselves but for others?
We ,on the contary, that in the most diverse mauers pple in our
times arrange their own lives incomparably btter than those who gover
them a ge things for them. Without the least help from Govement,
and often in spite Of the interference of Goverment, people organize all
sorts of soial undertakings - workmen's unions, co-oprative soieties,
railway companies, artels ( NOTE No 63) and syndicates. If colletons
for public works are needed, why should we suppse that fe pople could
not, without violence, voluntarily collect the neces means, and carry
out anything m is now carried out by means of taxes, if only the
undertakings in question a relly useful for everyby? Why suppse
that there cannot b tibunals wilhout violence? Trial, by pople tusted
by the disutants, has ai ways existed and will exist, and needs no violence.
Weare sodepraved by long-continued slavery, that wecan hardly imagine
adminisuation without violence. Yet, that is not entirely tue: Russian
communes migrating to distant regions, where our Goverment leaves
them alone, arrange their own taxaton, aministation, tribunals and
plice, and always prospr until govermental violence inter with
their administation. In lhe sme way there is no reason to suppse t
pople could not. by common agrement, decide how the l&nd is to b
apprtoned for use.
I42
I have kown pople-Cossacksoflhe Urals -who have lived without
ackowledging private propny in land. There was such well-bing and
order in their commune as dos not exist in soiety where landed proprty
is defended by violenc e. I know U of communes that live without
acknowledging the rightofi ndi viduals to private propny . Within my re
oIlecton the whole Russian pasamry did not accept the idea of landed
proprty (NOTE No 6 ). The defence of landed propeny by govermen
gviolence notonlydos not abolish the struggle for landed proprty, but
on te contary, intensifies that struggle, and in many cases causes it.
Were it not for the defenceoflanded propny and its ccnseuent rise
in price, pple would not bcrowded into such narrow spacs, but would
sauerover the fe land of which there is still so much in thewok. But,
as it is,co ntnual struggle gos on for landed proprty; a stggle with lhe
weapns Govement furishes by means of its laws of landed proprty.
In this stuggle it is not those who work on the land, but always lhose who
take part in govermental violence, who have te advantage.
It is the same with reference to things produced by labour. Things
really produced by a mans's own labour, and that he needs, a always
protecte by custm, by public opinion, by felings of justice and recipro
ity, and they do not n eed to b protected by violence.
Tens of thousands of acres of forest land belonging to one proprietor,
while thousands of pople close by have no fuel, nee protetion by
violence. So, do factories and works where several generations of
workmen have be n defau ded and arestill bing defrauded. Y etmore do
hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain, belonging to one owner, who
has held them back to sell at triple the price m time of famine. But no man,
howeverdepraved,excepta rich manora Govermentofficiai, would take
from a countyman living by his own labour the harvest he has raised, or
the cow he has bred, and from which he gets milk for his children, or lhe
soks (NOTE No 65), the scythes and spades he has made and uses. U
even a man were found who did lake from another articles the latter h
mae and required, such a man would rouse against himself such indigna
tion from everyone living in similar circumstances, mal he would hardly
find his ation profitable for himself. A man so immoral as to do it under
such circumstances, would be SU to do it under the strictest system of
proprty defence by violence. It is generally said, 'Only au.emptto abolish
the rights of property in land, and in the produce of labour, and no-one will
take the touble to work, lacking assurance thal he will be able to retain
what he has produced.' We should say just Le opposite: the defence by
violence of lhe rights of property immorally obtained, which is now
customary, if it has not quite destroyed. has considerably weakened
pople's natural consciousness of justice ir. the matter of using artcles. It
has weakened lhe natural and innate right of prty, without which hu
manity could not exist, and which has always existed and still e:dsts among
I4J
men.
There is. thererorc.no reasont anticipate that pplewill not b able
to gethcir lives without organized violence. L!course, itmay bsaid
that horss and bulls must be guided by the violence or rational bings.
men; but why must men b guide, not by some higher bings, but by
pple such 8themslves? Why ought popleto b subjet to 0vio lence
of just thosmen whoare in pwerat a given time? What provesthat these
popleare wiser than those on whom they inflict violenc?
The fact that they allow themselves to use violence towards human
bings, indicates that they are not more, but less wise mthos who
submit t them. The examinations in China forthe ofce of Mandarindo
not, we know. ensure that the wisest and bst pople should b plcein
pwer. And this is just as little ensured by inheritance, or the' whole
mahinery of promotions in rank, or the elections i n constitutional
counties. On the contary, power is always seized by those who are less
conscientious and less moral.
It is sid, 'How cpople live without Goverment, without
violence?' But it should ratherbe asked, 'How can rational people live,
acowledging the vital bond of their social lire to be violence, and not
reasonable agrement?'
One or the other: either pple are rational bings or they are
irrational bings. If they are irrational beings, then theyare all irrational,
and then everything among them is decided by violence, and there is no
reason whycerinppleshould, and others should not, have a righl t
us violence. In thatcase, govemental violence has no justification. But
if men arerational bings, thentheir relations should b on nn,
and not on M0violence of those who happnt have seized pwer. In that
case, again, govermental violence hnojustification.
XIV
How Can Governments Be Abolished?
Slavery results from laws, laws W made by Goverments, and
therefore, pple can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of
Goverments, But how canGoverments b abolished?
All attempts to gel rid of Governments by violence have, hitheno,
always and everywhere resulted only in this: that in placeof the deposed
Goverments, new ones established themselves, oftn more cruel than
those theyreplaced.
Besides !hese past attempts to abolish Goverments by violence,
according t the Soialist theory, the coming abolition of the rule of the
capitalists, thecommunali7.tion of the means of pr.ducton and the new
I44
economic orderof soie t is alsoto b instituted bya fesh organizaton
ofviolence, andwill have to b maintainedby thesamemeans. So atempts
toablishviolence by violence, neither have inthe past, nor,evidently, c
in the ft, emancipate people fomviolence, nor, conseuently, fom
slavey.
Hcannot b otherwise.
Apart from outbursts of revenge or anger, violence is
monly in orderVcompl some ppleagainst their own wt do the
will of others. But bing complledtodo what othe pople wish, against
your own w ,is slavery. There foreas long as any violence, deignedto
compl some pple todo thewill of others, exists. there wbslavery.
Athe attempts to ablish slavery byviolence are l i ke extnguishing
mwith m,stopping waterwith water, or nlling up one hole bydigging
anther.
Therefore the means of escapfrom slavery, if such means exist,
must b foundnot in setting up freshviolence, but in abolishing whatever
renders govermental violence possible. The possibility ofgovermental
violence, like every 0 ther violence perpeuated by a small number of
pople upon a larger number, has always depnded, and stll depnds.
simply on the fat that the small numbr are armed, while !he larger
numbr are umed, or that thesmall number are buearmed thanthe
lagernumbr.
T h ben the case in all theconquesLS: in this way the L k,the
Romans, te Knights (NOTENo O)and Pizconquerenatons,and
it is Mumpopleare now conqueredin Africaand Asia In this sme
way.in times ofp,allGovcmenLS holdtheir subjects insubjeton.
As of old so now, poplerule over other popleonly baus sme
are armed and othersare not.
molder tmes, the warriors, with their chiefs, fell upn the defence
les inhabitanLS, subduethemand robbthem; and all divided the spils
in propontotheir participation. courageand cruelty; and each warrior
saw clearlyt hat the violence heprptratedwas profitable to him. Now,
armed men taken chiefly from the working classes attack defenceless
pople: men on strike, rioters or the inhabitants of other counties, and
subdue them, androbthemof the fruitsof theirlabour, not forthemselves,
the assailants, but for the people who do not even take part in the
subjugaton.
The diffeencebetween the conquerorsand theGovemenL is only
that the conquerors themselves with the soldiers attacked the unarmed
inhabitanLS, and, in cases of insubordination, carrie out their 0to
tortreandto\ ,while the GovemmenLS, incases of insubordinaton, do
not themselves toror execute the unarmed inhabitants. but oblige
othes to do it, who have bendeceived and speciruly brutalized for the
pu, and who a chosen rromamong the very popleon whom the
I4
Goverent inficts violence. Thus violence was formerly inflicted by
personal effon. by the courage, cruelty and agility of the conquerors
themselves, but now violence is inflicte by means of faud.
The small number who rule, on obtaining powe fom their predeces
sors insta1led by conquest,say t the majority. 'There Ba 1000fyou, but
you are stupid and uneducated, and cannOleither gove yourselves or or
ganize your pub l ic afairs, and therefore we will assume L'lOse tk
ourselves; we will protet you from foreign foes, and establish and uphold
interal order among you; we will set up courts of justice, ge and
maintain public institutions for you: schools, roads and the pstal sevice;
and, in general, we wil take care of your well-being; and m0fr all
this, you only have kfulfil certain slight demands which we make; and,
among other things, you must give into our complete control a small part
of your incomes, and you must yourselves enter the armies which are
needed for your own safety and goverment.'
Most peple agre to this, not because they have weighed up the
advantages and disdvantages of these conditions, they never have a
chance todo that, but because fromtheir verybih they have found them
selves in conditons such as these.
If doubts suggest themselves to some as to whether a this is
necessary, each thinks only about himself, and fear to suffer ifhe refuses
to accept these conditions; each one hopes to take advantage of them for
his own profit, andcverone agrees, thinking that by paying a small part
of his means t the Goverment, and by consenting to military service, he
cannot do himself very much harm.
But as son as the Govements have the money and the soldiers,
instead of fulfilling their promises to defend their subjects from foreign
enemies, and to arrange things for their benefits, they do all tey can to
provoke the neighbou ring nations and to produce war. They not only do
not promote the inteal well-being of their people, but they ruin and
corrupt them.
In the Arabian Nightsthere is a Story of a traveller who, being cast
upon an desert island, found a little old man with withered legs siUing on
the ground by the side of a stream. The old man asked the traveller to take
him on his shoulders and ca him over the steam. The traveller
consented, but no sooner was the old man settled on the taveller's
shoulders than he twined his legs round the traveller's neck, and would not
get off again. Having contol ofthe traveller, the old man drove him about
as he liked, plucked fruit fromthe trees, and ate himself, not giving any t
his bearer. and abused him in every way.
That is exactly what happens with the people who give soldiers and
money to the Goverments. With the money the Goverments buy guns,
and hire or tin subservient, brutal7.cd, military commanders, who, by
means of an artful system of stupefaction, perfected in the course of ages,
146
and called discipline. tum those who have ben tken as soldiers into a
disciplined army . Disipline consists i n this, that people who are subjeted
t this taining, and remain under it forsome tme, 8completely deprived
of all that is valuable in human life, and of man's chief attibute, rational
feedom. They become submissive, machine-like instuments of murder
in the hands of their organized. hierarchical statoracy. It is in this
discipline army that the essence of the fraud dwells, which gives to
modemGovemmentsdominionover the peples. When theGovemments
have in their pwer this instument of violence and murer, !pssesses
no will of its own, the whole pople are in teir hands, and they do not let
them go again, and not only prey upon them, but also abuse them, instll
ing into te pople, by means of a pseudo-religious and patioti educa
tion, loyalty t, and even adoration of, themselves, the very men who
torment the whole pople by keeping them in slavey.
It unot fornothing that all the kings, emperors and presidents estem
discipline so highly, so ad of any breach of discipline, and attach
the highest imprtance to reviews, manoeuvres, parades, ceremonial
maches and other such nonsense. They know that it all maintains
disipline, and that not only their power but their very existence depends
on discipline.
Disciplined armies 8the mens by which they, without using their
own hands, accomplish the geatest atocites, the possibilityofptat
ing which gives them power over the pople.
Theonly means therefore t destroy Goverments is not by force, but
by theexpsueofthis faud. It isnecessrypopleshould understand two
things. Firstly, that in Christendom there is no need to protect the pople.
one fom ano ther; that the enmity of the pples, one t another, is
produce by the Goverment themselves; and that armies B only
neded for the advantage of the small number who rule; Uthe people it
is not only unnecssary but is in the highest degre harmful. serving as M
inSlUment to enslave them. Seondly, that the discipline which is so
highly esteemed by all the Goverments is the greatest crime that man C
commit, and is a Qcindication of the criminality of the aims of Gover
ments. Discipline is the suppression of reason and of freedom i nman, and
have no aim other than preparation forthe performance of crimes such
as no man Ccommit while ma nonnal condition. It is not even needed
for war when the war isdefensiveand national, as the Bors have reently
shown. It is wanted. and wanted only, for the purpose indicated by
Wilhelm II: for the perpetation of the greatest crimes - faticide and
parricide.
The trrible old man who sat on the taveller's shouldes behaved as
the Goverments do. He mocked him and insulted him, knowing that as
long as he sat on the taveller's neck the latter was in his power.
It is just this fraud, by means of which a small number of unworthy
147
pople, called the Govemmcn
.
l, have pwer over the pop
.
le, and
not
only
impverish them, butdowhatls the most harmful of all acuons,prverting
whole generations fom childhod upwards; it is just this terrible
which should bexpsed in order that the ablition ofGovemmentandor
the slave that results fom it may bcome pssible.
The Gennan writer, Eugen Schmiu, in the newspar OllStQ
which he published in Budapest, wrote an article that was profoundly
and bld, not only in expression but in thought. In it he showed m
Goverments, justfying their existence on the ground that they ensure a
c knd of sfety to their subjects. a like the CaIabrian robbr-chief
who collected a regular l from mwho wished to tavel msfeyalong
the highways. Schmitt was committed for trial for that article, uwas
acquitted by the jury.
We a so hypnotzed by the Goverment that such a compa
seems to us an exaggeration, a paradox or a joke; but in reality it unot a
paradox or a joke. The only inaccuracy in the comparison is that the
activity of all the Gover ments is many times more inhuman, and, abve
all. more hannful, that the activity of the Calabrian robber. He generally
plundeed the rich; they generally plunder the poor and protet those rich
men who assist in their crimes. The robbr doing his work riske his lif,
while the Goverments risk nothing, but base their whole activity on lies
and deepton. The robber did not compel anyone to join his band; the
Goverments generally enrol their soldiers by force. All who paid the W
to the robber had equal security from danger; but in the State, the more
anyone tkes pin the organized fraud. the more he receives not merely
of protetion but a1so reward. Most of all, the emperors. kings and
presidents are protected (with their perpetual bodyguards), and they can
spnd the largest share of the money collected from the tax-paying sub
jets. Next in the scale of participation mgovernmental crimes come the
commandC-in-chief, theministers, the heads of plice. goveors and so
on, down to the plicemen, who are least protected, and who receive the
smallest salaries of all. Those who do not take any pan in the crimes of
Goverent, who refuse to serve, to pay taxes or to go to law , Wsubjeted
U violence, as among the robbrs. The robber dos not intentonally
corrupt pople; but the Goverments. to accomplish their ends, corrupt
whole generations fom childho K manhod with false religious and
paliotic instuction. Above all, nOleven the most cruel robber. no Stenka
Razin (NOTE No 67), no Canouchc (NOTE No 68), can becompared for
cruelty, pitilessness, and ingenuity in tonuring, I will not say with te
villain kngs notorious for their cruelty, John the Terrible, Louis X, the
Elizabeths, etc., but even with the present constitutonal and liberal
Goverments, with their solitary cells, disciplinar battalions. suppres
sions of rev oilS and their massacres in war.
Towards Goverments. as towards Churches. it is impossible to feel

Iher
wise than with veneraton or aversion. Until a man has undersLo

hat a
Goverment is, and until he has understood what a Church is, he
W
annot
but feel a venerat ion for those institutions. Along as he is guided
y them
, his vanity makes it neessary for him think that what guides
him
is
something primal, geat and holy; butasson as he understands that
what
guides him is not something primal and holy, but that it ua faud
carried out by unworthy people, who, under the pretence of guiding him,
make use of him for their own prsonal ends, he cannot but @once feel
aversion towards these pople; and the more impnant the partof his m
that Nben guided, the more aversion will he feel.
Peoplecannot but fel this when they have undersLwnalGver
ments are. People must feel that their participation in the criminal activity
'
of Goverents, whether by giving part of their work in the form of
money. orby diret participation in militry service, is not, as is generally
suppse, an indiffe rent acton but bsides bing harmful to oneself and
one's brothers, is a partcipation in the crimes unceasingly committ by
all Goverments, and a preparation for new crimes which Governments,
by maintaining disciplined armies, are always planning.
The age of veneration for Goverments, despite all the hypnotc
influence they enjoy to maintain their psition, is, more and more, pass
ing away. And it is time for people to undersumd that Goverments not
only are not necessary , butare harmful and highly immoral institutions. in
which an honest, self-respecting man cannot and must not take part, and
the advantages of which he cannot and should not enjoy.
And as son as people clearly understand that. they will naturally
cease to take p in such deeds, Le., cease to give the Goverments
soldiers and money. And as soon as a majority of people ceases to do this,
the fraud which enslav es people will be abolished.
Only in this way can people b freed from slavery.
XV
What Should Each Man Do?
'But all these are general considerations, and. whether
they are corret or not, they are inapplicable to life,' wilJ be the remark
made by people accustomed to their position, and who do not consider it
pssible or desirable to change iL
'Tell us what to do, and how to organizcsociety?' is what pople of
the well-to-do classes usually say.
They a so accustomed to their role of slave-owners that when there
is tk of improving the workers' condition. they at once begin. like our
serf-owners before the emancipation, to devise all sarIS of plans for their
V
slaves, but it neveocurs Vt thattheyhavenoright todisps of other
pple; and that, if they relly wish Vdo goto pople, the only thing
they can and should do is toc to do the evil they a now doing. That
evil is very defmiteand clear. Itis not merely thattheyemploycompulsory
slave-labur,anddonot wish Vc from employing it, but that they also
take part in establishing and maintaining this compulsion oflabur. That
is what they should cease todo.
The working poplea also prvertebytheir compulsory slaver
t it semstomostofthem thatiftheirpsition isa bad one, ituthefault
of the mastes, who pay them toliuie, and who own the mens of
prouton. It dos notenle thei r headsthat their psition depsentrely
on themslves, and that, if only they wish toimprove muown ther
brothes' psiton, and not merely each todo the bst hecan mhimslf,
themain thing forthem to do uthemselves toceas todoevil. And the evil
they do is that, desiring to improve their material psiton by the vey
means which havebrought themintobndage, the workers, forthe sake
of satisfing the habits they haveadopted, sacrifice their human dignity
and fe dom, and accept humiliating and immoral employment, or p
duce unnesand harmful artcles, and, above,theymaintain Gov
emments, takngpart in them bypaying taxes, and by diret service, and
tu enslave themslves.
Inorderthat thestate ofthings may b improved, bth thewell-to-do
clsand the workers must undestand that improvements cannot b
effeteby safeguding one's own intrests. Service involve sce,
and thef, if po pie really wish t improve the psition of their
brothr-men, andnotmerel y their own. they must be redy not onlyto alter
theway oflifet which they are accustomed, andto lose thoseadvanlages
which they haveheld, but they must b prepaedfor an intense sbggle,
not against Govements, but against themselves and their families. and
must b readyto suffer prseution fornon-fulfilment ofthe demands of
Govemenl
Thefore, the answer to the question: What mut we d? uver
simple, and not merely theoretcal, but always in the highest dege
applicable and practicable forech man, though it is not what is expctd
fom thosewho, like popleofthe well-to-do classes, are fuUy convinced
that they a appinted tocorret, notthemselves, they a alreadygod,
butotherpople; and fromthose who, like theworkmen, a sure that, not
they but only the capitalists, are Vblame that their position is sobad, and
think that things can only be put right by tking fromthe capitlists the
things they us, and arranging it so that all may make use of those
conveniences of life which a now used only by the rich. The answer is
very defnite, applicableand practicable, forit demandstheactvity of t
one prson, over whomeach of us has real. rightful and unquestonable
pwer, namely, oneself; and it consists in this, that if a man, whether slave
150
or slave-owner, really wishes to btter not his psiton alone, but the
psition of pople in general, he must himself not do tose wrong things
which enslave h and his brothers. In order not to do the evil which
prouces mis forhimself and forhis brothers, heshould frstly neil/er
willingly. nor Jlder comulsion, rakany part in Goverl1nt activity,
mshould therefore be neither a soldier, nor a Field-Marshal, nor a
Ministr-of-State, nor a tax-collector, nor a witness, nor a."I alderman, nor
ajuryman, nor a governor, nor a MemberofParliament, nor, infact, hold
any ofce connected with vilence. That is one thing.
Seondly, such a man should not volJltarilypay taxes KGovern
ments, either direcllyor indirectly; nor should heaccep: money collected
b taxs. either salary, or pension. or 0a reward, nor slwuld h e
mak ue ofGovernment instilulions suported by taxes collected b
vilence fomthe people.That is the second thing.
Thirdly, such a man should not appeal 10 Goverment violence for
the protection ofhis possessions in ln or in other things, nor to defend
him mhis near ones . but shouldonly possessland and all products ofhis
own orother people's toil, insofar0others donot claim Ihemfrom him.
'But such an actvity is impossible: Krefuseall participation in Gover
menta , means to refusetolive' - is what people will say. A man who
refuss military sevice will b imprisoned; a man whodos not paytxes
will b p unished, and the t will b cIIoKfom his proprty; a man
who, having no other means of livelihoo, refuses Goverment service
will prish of hunger with his family; the same will bfall a man who re
jets Goverment protetionforhis propertyand his prson; not t make
u of things that are taxed, or of Goverment institutions, is quite
impssible, as the most necessaryarticles a often laxed; and just in the
sameway it is impossible to do without Goverment institutions, such 3
thepst and the roads.'
It is quite true that it is difficult for a man of our time to stand aside
from m participation in Goverment violence. But the fact that not
eveyone can so arrange his life as not to participate, in some degree, in
Govement viol ence, dos notat all show that it is not pssible to fre
oneself fromit moreand more. Not every man will have the stngth to
refuseconscription, thoughthereare, andwill be, such men, but eachman
can abstain fom voluntarily entering the army, the Jlicc force, or the
judicial or revenue service, and can give the preference Ka worse paid
private servicerather than to a better paid public service.
Not everyman will havethestngth torenounce his landed estates,
though there are pople who dothat, but every mancan, understanding the
wrongfulness of such property, diminish its extent. Not every man can
renounce the psscssi onof capital, though there a some who do, or the
us of articles defended by violence, but eah man can, bydiminishing his
own requirements. b less and lessin ned of articles which provoke other
151
pople to envy. Not every offcial can renounce his Goverment salary,
!.hough !.here are men who prefer hunger to dishonest Goverment em
ployment, but everyone can prefer a smaller s to a larger one, for the
ske of having duties less bund up with violence. Not every one can
refuse to make us of Goverment schols ( NOTE No 69) !.hough there
aresome who do, but everyone can give !.he preference to private schols,
(NOTE No 70) and each can make less and less use of aticles !.hat are
taxed, and of Goverment institutions.
BelWen the existing order, base on brute ,and the idel of a
siety Don reasonable agrement confirmed by custom, arean
inftnite numbr ofsteps, which mankind is ascending. and the approah
to the idel is only acomplished to the extent to which ppl b
themslves from participation in violence, fromtakingadvantageofit, and
fom bing accustome to it.
We do not know, and cannot guess, and still less can we like the
psudo-scientific men foretell, in what way this gradual weakening of
Goverments and emancipation of the people will come abut; nor do we
know what new forms man's lif e will take as the graual emancipaton
progs s, but we do know cerinly that thelife of pople who, having
understo the crimina1ity and harmfulness of the activity of Gover
ments, stive not to make use of themor to takepanin them, will b quite
diffeent, and more in accord with the law of tife and with our own
consiences, than the pt D, in which pople white themselves
partcipting mGoverment violence, and taking advantage of it, make a
pretence of stuggling against it, andt todestoy the old violence by new
violence.
The chief thing uthat the present gement of uis bad; abut
,all are a . The cause of the mconditions and of the existng
slavey lies in the violence used by Goverments. Theeuonly one way
to ablish GovOe nt violence; it is that pople should abstain fom
pipting in violence. Therefore, whether it bdifcult or not to abstain
fom partcipating mGoverment violence, and whether the go results
of such abstinence will, or will not, b son apparent, are suprfluous
questions: bcause to librate pople fom slavery, there uonly that one
way, and no other!
To what extent, and when, voluntary agreement confUedby cus
tom will replace violence in each soiety and in the whole world, will
depnd on thestength and cleess of pople's consciousness, and on the
numbr of individuals who make this consciousness their own. Eachof us
is a separate prson, and each b a participatant in the general
movement of humanity by his greater or lessecleess of recognition of
the aim bfore us, orhecanb an oppnent of progress. Ech will have to
make his choice; either to oppsethe will of God, building upn thesands
the unstable house of his brief and illusive life, or to join in the eter
I52
deathless movement oftue lifein accord with Go's will.
But prhaps I a mistaken, and the right conclusions to draw fom
human history 8 not these, and the human race is not moving towards
emancipaton D slavery; prhaps it can b proved t violence is a
necessary fator of progres s, and that the State with its violence is a
necessay form of u,and that it will b worse forpople ifGovemments
areablished, and ifthedefenceof our prsons and proprty is ablishe.
Lus gant it to b so, and sy that 8the foregoing ning is
wrong; but bsides the general considerations abut the mof humanity ,
eah man also t facethe question of his own life, and. notwithstanding
any consdea tions about the general laws of life, a man cannot do what
he admits to be, not merely harmful, but wrong.
'Very pssibly the reasonings showing the State to b a necessary
form of the development of the individual, and Goverment violence to b
nesforthe goodof society, canall bededuced fromhistory, and are
aUcorret. echhonestand sincere man of our time will reply. 'butmurder
is an evil. That I know more certainly than any reasonings; by demanding
t I should enter the army, or pay for hiring and equipping soldiers. or
for buying cannons and building battleships, you wish to make me an
accomplice in murder, and that I cannot and not will b. Neitherdo I wish
to, nor can I, make use of money you havecolleted fromhungy pople
with 0U of murder; nor do I wish to make use of land or capital
defendedby you, bcauseI knowthat yourdefence of itrests on murde.
I could do thes things when I did not understand 8 their ci
ity, bUlonce I have sen it, l cannot avoid seeingit. and can no longer take
pmdthings.
I kow that we are all so bund up by violence that it is difficult t
avoid it altogether, but I will, nevertheless, do aI can, not to takepart in
it: I will not b an accomplice to it. and will qnot to make use of what
is obtained and defendedby murder.
I have but one life, and why should I, in this brief life of mine. at
contry to the voice of conscience and bcome an accomplice in your
abminable deds? I cannot. and I will nOl
Wht will come of this, I do not know. Only, I think no hresult
fom acting Qmy conscience demands.'
So, in our tme, should each honest and sincere man reply to mthe
arguments about the neessity of Goverments and of violence. and to
every demand or invitation to take part in them.
The conclusion to which general reasoning should bring us, is thus
confUedReach individual, by that suprcme and unimpeachable judge,
the voice of conscience.
I5J
XVI
An Aferword
'But this is againthe same old sennon: on the one hand, urging the
destuction of the present order of things without puting anything in its
place. and, on the other hand, exhorting t non-action,' is what many will
say anreadingwhat I have wrilen. 'Govement action is bad, so is the
acton of the landowner and of the businessman; equally badis the activity
of the Soialist and of the revolutionary Anarchist; that uusy. 8 n,
practcal activites B bad, and only some son of moral, mh,
indefinite actvity. which brings everything t utter chaos and inaton, is
god.' Thus, I know, many serious and sincere people will think and
speak!
What seems t pople most disturbing in theidea of non-violence, i
that propertywill not b proteted, and that each man will, therefore, b
able to take from another man what he neds or merely likes, and go
unpunished. TopeopleaccUSLmcd to thedefenceofpropertyand person
by violence, it seems that without such defence there will b perpetual
disorder, a constant struggle ofeveryone against everyone else.
I will not repeat what I have said elsewhere to show that the defence
of propertyby violence dos not lessen, but increases. this disorder. But
allowing that in the absence of defence disorder may ocur, what a
people todo who have understoodthe cause of thecalamities fromwhich
they are sufering?
If we have understood that we aill fromdrunkenness, we must not
contnue V drink hoping V mend matters by drinking moderately, or
taking medicines that shortsighted dotors give us.
It is the same with our soci al sickness. If we have understodthat we
are ill because some people use violence onothers, we cannot improve the
position of society either by continuing to support the Goverment
violence that exists, or by introducing a fresh kind of revolutionary or
Soialist violence. That might have been done long as the fundamentaJ
causeof peple' s miserywas not clerlyseen. But soon it has become
indubitably clear that other people sufferfromthe violence done bysome
to others, it becomes impossible toimprove the position bycontinuing the
old violence, or byintoducing a new kind. As thesick mansufferingfom
alcoholism has only one way to be cured byrefrainingfromintoxicants
which mthecause ofthis illness, so thereis only one way Vfreemen from
the evil arangement ofsociety, and that is to refain fomviolence, te
cause of the suffering, from preaching violence, and from in any way
justifying violence.
Not only is this the only way to deliver people fromtheir ills. but we
must also adopt it, because it coincides with !.he moral consciousness of
I4
eachindividual man of our time. If a man of our dayhas once understod
that every defence ofproprty or prson by violence is obtained only by
threatening t murder or by murdering, he can no longer, with a quiet
conscience, makeuse ofthat which is obtained by murder orby threat of
murde. and stll lescan he takepart in the murder, or in threatening t
murder. So, what is wantedVfreepple fomthei misey is also needed
for the satisfaction of the moral consciousness of every individual. For
eachindividual. therefore. therecanb no doubt thatbth forthegeneral
god. and t fl the lawof his life, he must neithertakeprt inviolence.
nor justif it, nor make use of it.
I
On Soci al i sm,
St nt e and Chri st i an
ON SOCIALISM,
STATE AND
CHRISTIAN
(1900)
L /ng Backardi s excellent (NOTENo 71). One lhing i s m,
namely, the Soialist, Marxian idea that if one dos wrong fora very long
time, go will ensue of its ow n accord. 'Capital is accumulated in the
mdof a few; it will end by bing held byone. All tades-unions will b
united into one. Therearecapital and labur - divided. Autority or
revolution will unite them, and all will be well.' The chief p int is that
nolliing in our civilization will diminish, nothing recede;there will b the
sme mansions. the same gasuonomic dinners. sweets, wines, carriages,
horss - only eveything will b acessible to all.
Jtis incmprehensible that they donotsee this to beimpossible. Take
forinstance the luxuries of thehouse ory asoaya Polyana, and divide them
among the p. It can't b done. They would b of no use to them.
Luxury mu Sb given up. NOthing will do long as violence. capital and
invention are directed towards that which is unnecessary (NOTENo 72).
And in order to get at what is necessary for the masses, everything must
b tested.
But the chief thing is that we must b ready to renounce all the
improvements of our civilization, rather than allow those cruel inequali.
ties which constitute our scourge. If I really love my brother, then I shall
not hesitate to deprivemyself of a drawing-room, in order to shelter him
when he i homeless. As it is, we say that we wish to sheJter our brother,
but only on condition that our drawing-rom remain freefor reeptions.
We must dcide whom we will serve - Go or mamm on. To serve both is
impssible. U we areto serve Go, we must b preparedto give up luxury
and civilization; bing readyto introduce them again tomorrow, but only
for the common and equal use of all.
The most profitable soial arrangement (economically and other
wise) is one in which each thinks of thegod of all. and devotes himself
Wrvedly to the service of that welf. If all wereso disposed, eah
I8
would derivethe greatest possible amount of good.
The most unprofitable grouping of pople(economically and other
wis) is 0inwhich each works for himself only, depends andprovides
for himself only . If thi s wereuniversally the case, if there werenotat least
family gups in which people workforone another. I do not think men
could live.
However, pple have not this yeing forthe welfre of others; on
the conty .eh is striving forhis own welfare.to te detriment of others.
But this state of affairs is so unprofitable that men spedily growweak in
th e struggle. And now, by the verynature of things, it ocurs that one man
overpwers others and makes them serve him. And the result is a more
proftable labur of men instead of the unproftable individual one.
But in such associations of men thereappear inequality a'd oppres
sion. And therefore people are making attempts at equalization (such as
the attempts 8co-opratves, communes) and at the liberation of men
(such 8plitical rights). Equalization always leads todisadvantage of the
work done. In order to equali7,c the remuneration. the best workman is
brought down to the level of the worse; things in use aredivided in such
a manner that no-one may have more, or btter, than a nother, as in the
distibution ofland; and this is why the divisions of land arebeing made
smaller and smaller, a practice disadvantageous to all. Liberation from
oppression bypolitical rights is leading toevengrcaterexcitementand ilI
will. Thus at tempts at equalization and deliverance fom oppression are
made, though without success; while the unification, the subjugation of
ever greater and greaternumbers of men byone is always increasing. The
geater the centralization of labour, the more prof itable it is, but also the
more striking and revolting is the inequality.
What, then. is to be done? Individual labour is unproftable; cental
ized labur is more profitable, but the inequality and oppression are
terrible.
Soialists wish to remove inequality and oppression byassigning 311
capital to the nation, to humanity, so that the centralized unit will become
humanity itself. But, in the frst place, not only humanity, but even nations
do not as yet admit the nec essit)' for this, and until they do. this system
cannot badopted byall humanity; scondly,among men striving each for
his own welfare, it would b impossible to fnd men sufficiently disinter
ested to manage the capitl of humanity without taking advantage of their
power - men who would not again introduce into the world inequality and
opprssion.
And so humanity stands unavoidably faceto face with this dilemma:
either the forwardmovement attained by the centralization of labour must
b renounced - there must even be retogression rather than an infringe
mentof equality or allowance of oppre ssion - or else it should be boldly
admitted that inequality and oppression must exist, that 'when wod is
1JV
choppd, splinterS will ny,' that there must b victims, and that Strug
gle
is the law of humanity. And this view is, in fact, adopted and suPprte
d
by certain pople. But, side by side with it, there resounds ever louder
and
loude the protests of the dispsss, the moans of the oppressed and the
voices of the indignant raise in the name of the ideal of Christ, oflruth
and
god; an ideal which is acknowledged by our society only officially.
But any child can wthat the greatest advantage would reult to
Heveryone were Kinterest himself in the common cause, and therefore V
bprovidedforasamemberofthe whole. As, however, tis is notthepra_
tce, as it is impssibl e to enter into the soul of everyone and contol it, and
as Uprsuade everybodY is also impossible, or would tke infinitly long,
there remains but one other course: to assist the centralzation of labou,
resulting from the subjugation of the many by the few, and atthe sme time
to conceal from the dispossessed their ineuality with the fortunate, to
ward off their attacks, and to help and afford charity Kthe oppressed. And
this is bing done; but lhe concentation of capital i ncreases more and mo
re, and the inequality and oppression grow ever more cruel. And side by
side with this, enlightenment bcomes more general, and the inequality
and the cruelty of oppression more evident bth to opprs and oppres
sors.
Furthermovementin this direction is bcoming impssibl so thos
who litle, who do not lok to the logical conclusion, prop
imaginary remedies, consisting in the educaton of men in the conscious
ness of the nQity of co-opration for t he ske of greater advantage.
This is absurd. Bthe aim b gret avantage, then everyone will get g
advantage for himself in the capitalistic organizations. And therefore
nothing ecept talk results fom these attempts.
The organizaton most proftable for all will b auained not while
everyone's aim is profit, material welfare, but only when the aim of all is
t welfare which is indepndent of earthly well-bing - when everyone
wsay fom his hert, 'Blessed are & ,blessed are those that wee,
those who are prseuted.' Only when everyone secks, not material but
sriritual welfare, which always coincides with sacrifice. is verifed by sc
iZi.e - only then will result the greatest welfare of all.
Take this simple illustration: peple live IDgether; if they tidy up
regularly,clean upaflr lhemselves.everyone has todo very little in order
to preserve the general cleanliness. But everyone is accustomed to have
things tidied and cleaned up aft er him; what, then, has he to do who wishes
to keep the place clean? He must work for all, must b immersed in dirt.
And ifhe will not do this, will work only forhimsclf, he will notalain his
aim. Of course it would beeasier to order athe others; but there is no-one
who C s order. There remains but one course - oneself 0work for
others.
And, indeed, ja worldwhereall are living forthemselves, to bgin

tolive for others a little is impssible; one must give oneself up entirely.
And it is just this that the conscience, enlightened by Christ, demands.
Why is it that the kingdom of Go upn ccan b realized neither
bymeans of the existing govermental violence, nor by a revolution and
State Soialism, nor yet bythosemeans preached byChristian Soialists:
propagandathe gradually increas ingconsciousnessofmen that it will
b advantagCus?
So long as Man's aim is the welfare ofthe prsonal life, no-one can
stophimself in this stifeforhis welfareat the pint where he gets his just
share-and at such demands frommenwhich call forthewelJ-bing of all.
No-one do this, firstly , bcause it is impssible to 1mthe pint of
prfet justce in theses requests - men will always exaggerate their
demands; and secondly. beause, even if it were possible to find the
measure of the just demands, man cannot put forwardthe demand for t hat
which is only just, forhe will never get it, but infinitely less. Te demands
of those around him being regulated, not byjustice, but by personal profit,
it is evident that as a matter offact the pssession ofmaterial welfarewilJ
b attained by e vey separate individual rather through comptton and
stuggle (as indeed is at present the case) than by just demands.
In order to attain justice, while pople are stiving after prsonal
welfe. it would b necessary to be have people able0definethe measure
ofworldly goods which should injustice fall tothe share of ech; and also
pople with pwerto prevent men profiting bymorethantheir just H.
There are, and always have b n, men who have undetaken both these
duties; they are our rulers. But uptothe present time neither inmonarchies
nor in republics have there ben found men who, in defining the measure
of gos and distibuting them amongst men, have not tansgressed this
measure forthemselves and their assistants, and thus spoilt the workthey
W(e called D, and undertook to d. So that this men s is already recog
mby all to b unsatisfactory. And now some peple say that it is
nesKabolish these Goverments and to establish Govements of
another knd, chieny for the purpse of suprvising eonomic affairs -
L'leeGovemments, ackno wledging that all caital and land arecommon
proprty, will administer the laburofmen and distibute earthly welfre,
according Vtheir labour, or, as some sy. according to their neds.
All attempts at this kind of organization, hitherto made, have been un
successful. But even without such expriments, one can confident!y assert
0with men striving aft personal welfare, such anorganizon cannot
b realized, bause those men - very many of them - who will suprvise
ecnomic affairs, will b men with strivings afterprsonal welfare, and
will have to 0 with similar men, and therefore in organizng and
maintaining the new economic order, they will inevitably promote their
own prsonal advantage as much as the fonner administrators. and will
II
thus destoy the mening of the very work they arecalled 0do.
Some will say, 'Choose men who are wise and pure.' But nonebut the
wis and purecanchose the wise and pure. Andif all menwerewiseand
pure, there would b no need of any organization, consequently the
impssibility ofthat which the revolutionary Soialists profs is feltby
all,even by themselves; and thatis why itisoutof dateandh no success.
And herewe come 0the third tehing - thatofChrislan Soialism,
which propses propaganda aiming at infuencing lIle consiousness of
men. But lIle success of this teaching is evidently pssible only when a1
men will have the same clear consious ness of the avantages of
community of labour, and whenthis consiousness will have simultane
ously developedinIButas it is evident that neither theOnothe other
can take place, the economic organization founded, not on comptition
and suuggl e, but on community of interest cannot be realize.
Thereforethere cannot bea beuerorganization thanthe present one,
so long as the aim of man is personal welfare.
The error of those who preach Christian Socialism consists in this,
that they drawfromthe Gospels only that practical conclusion of general
welfare which is not te aim pointed out by the Gospels, but only the
vercation of the correctness of the means. The Gospls teachthe way of
life, and by advancing alongthis path, it happns mImaterial welfareis
reached. It is indeed attained, but it is not the aim. If the aimof the gospl
teching were limited to the attainment of material welfare, th en this
material welfarewould not b alained.
The aimis higher and more distant. The aim of mis teaching is not
depndent on material welfare; it is the slvation of the soul, i.e. of that
divine element which has be n enclosed in man. usalvaton is attained
by renouncing prsonal lifeand therefore, also, material well-bing, and
by stiving after the welfare of one's neighburs - by love. And it is only
by this endeavour that men will, incidentaly ,altain the greatstwelfareof
a1 the kingdomof God upn .
By striving after prsonal welfare, neither prsonal nor general
welfareis attained. By strivingafterself-forgetfulness, bthprsonaland
geneal welfare areattained.
Thcoreticall y , thre organizations of human soiety are possible. The
frst is this: people- the best people, God's people - will give such a law
to men aswill ensurethegreatesthappiness Kmankind, and the authori ties
will enforcethe fulfilment of this law. This has been tied, but hasresulted
in the authorities. those who adm inistred the law, abusingtheir powerand
infringingthe law, and this is done not only by the administrators but also
by their assistants. who are many. Then app a second scheme,
'Lisser /aire, laisser passer' , the idea being mat there is no need of
authorities, but that by all men striving each for his own welfare, justice
will brelize. Butthisdos notsucccd for two reasons. Firstly, bcause
162
authority is not ablished, and poplethink it cannot bablished bcause
opprssionwould still continue, for the Goverment wouldrefuse0use
its authority to arrest the robbr, whereas the robbr would not desist .
While there areauthorities, the condition of men fightng for welfare is
unequal, not only bcause some arestrongerthan others, but also bcaus
men make useof authority to helpthem inthe stuggle. Secondly. bause
in the incC t stuggle of aI I, each for his own welfar, the slighrest
advantage of one gives him a multiplied advantage, and i. "lequality must
inevitably resulLTherestill remains a thirdthery, that men will comeLO
understandthat it isprofitabletolive for the welfareof othe and thata1
will strive afler0.And it is just this that theChristian faith fuishes. In
thefi rst place, there Cbeno exteral obstacles to theri on of d
thery; whether or not lIlere exist Goverment, capital 8 the whole
presn t order of things, the objet would b attained in the event of such
a development of men's conception of life. Secondly, one need expt no
spcial termforthecommencemenlof therealization. forevery single in
dividual who has attainedthis life conception, andgives himself upto the
welfareof others, is alreadycontributing to that welfare. And thirdly, this
has b n going on ever since we have known anything about the life of
men.
Soialists say, 'It is not nesfor us who enjoy the blessing of
culture and civtion 0bedeprivedof these blessings, and to descend
to the level of the rough crowd, but the men who are now deprived of
matrial welfare must be raised 0 our level, and given a share in the
blessings of cultre and civilization. Te means foraccomplishing this is
sience. Science teahes us 0 conquer nature; it is able infmilely to
inc the prouctivity ofnature; it mayby electicity avail itself of the
pwer of dNiagara Falls, of rivers, of winds. The sun will work. And
thee wb plenty of everything foreveryby. At present only a sma1
faction of mankind, the one in pwer, profts by the blessings of civiliz
tion, whereas the rest is dep ri vedof them. Increasethe welfare, and then
it will suffce for all. But the fact is that those in pwe have long b n
c:asuming not what they need,but what theydonot ned; all they can gel
Therefore, however much benefitsmay increase, thosewho a re at thetop
will appropriate thcm for themselves.
One cannot consume more thana certainquar.tity of necessities, but
to luxury there is no limit. Thousands of bushels of breadmay be used for
horses and dogs; millions of acres ofland tured into parks, and so on, as
is nowthe case. So, no incr easeofproductivity and wealth will augment
one jot the welfareof the lower classes, so long as the uppr classes have
the pwer and the desire K spnd the surplus wealth on luxury. On the
conty, dincreasein productivity, the greatermastery of the forces of
natre, only gives greaterpower to the upperclasses, to thosein authority
163
.
- pwer to kep this authority over the lowe working classes.
And every attempt on the part ofthe lower classes to make the rich
share with them, revolutons, strikes - cause strife, and the stife a
useless wasteofweahh. 'Beuer letno-one haveit, in cannot,' saythecon
tending parties.
conquest of nature and the increaseproduction of material
wealth in orderthatit may overnow the world, that every one may have
his share, is as unwise a proeedingas would be toincOthequanuty
of wo throwninto a stove, in order to increasethe warmth of a house in
which the stoves have nodampers. Howevermuch you may build up the
D,the cold air boming heated will rise, andfresh cold will at once
take its place; and thereforenoequal distibution of warmth :nmhou se
wb attained. This will continue as long as there is acess for the cold
mand an outlet for the hot.
Of the three remedies which haveso far be n invented, it is difficult
to say which is themost folish, so foolish are they all.
The flfSt remedy, that ofthe revolutionist, consists in the abolition of
the upprclasses, bywhom all thewealth is consumed. This is the same
as if aman wereto break thechimney throughwhich the heatis disappr
ing, suppsing that when therei s nochimney theheat will notpass away.
But the heat will pass out through the hole left by the chimney, as it did
through the chimney itself, if the current be the same. In the same way,
wealth will go 0the men in authority, as long as authority e xists.
Another remedy, at presentbing put into practicebyWilhelm II, is,
without changing the existing order, to take fromthe upper classes, who
pssess the wealth and pwer, a small prtion of this wealth and throw it
inlO the bttomless abyss of pver ty; as if one were to a nge on the top
of the chimney. through which theheat is passing. fans, and tofan the heat,
tying todrive itdown to the cold layers. Anocupation obviously difficult
and useless, bause, while the heatascends fomblow. h owever much
one may drive it down (andone cannot drive down much), it will at once
again rise up, and all the exertion will b wasted.
The third,and Iast,remedy isat present preachedespcially inAmer
ica. It consists inreplacing the comptitve andindividualistic basis of life
by a communistic principle, bya principle of assoiations, co-optives.
This remedy ,as state in Dawn and theNatinafi,t , consists inpreching
co-option byword and deed, in inculcating and explainingtomen that
comptition, individualism and strife a re destoyingmuch stength and
conseuently wealth, andthat fargreateradvantage is derived fomtheca.
oprative principle. i.e. every one working for the common good. and
receiving vhis share of the common wealth - that 0wprove
moreadvanrageous foreverybody. Athis is exceilenl, but the worst of it
is that, to bgin with, no-one knows what each man's share wb when
8 is divided equally; and above all, whatever his share may be, it will
1
apparinf cient fortheir welfaretomen livingas theydoat prescnl`A
will b well off, and you will enjoy thesameas the others.' - 'But I don't
want tolive like all the rest, I want to livebter. I havealways lived bt
tethanothesandam usedtoit.' - ' Andas forme. J havelong lived worse
than all, and nowwant tolivejust as othershavelived.' Thisremedyis the
worst of8 ,bcause it suppses that duringthe existng upwardcurrent,
Le. the motive of stiving after bst, it is pssible to prsuade the
partcles Qr ar not 0rise in proprtion to the heal.
1one means is IOreveal to men theirtruewelfare,and toshow !hem
that wealth not only is not a blessing but even diverts men fom welfare,
by hiding fom themtheir tue welfare. Thereis only one means, and that
is0stop up the holeof worldly desire. This alone would give eually dis
tibute heal And this is exactly the oppositeof whatthe Soialists say and
do - tying to augment production, and therefore the general ra S of
wealth.
Gronlund (NOTENo73) is arguing with Spencer (NOTENo 74) and
all those who deny the needofGovemmentor 5its destination only in
the scwity of the individual. Gronlund considers that the foundation of
mora1ity lies in i ation. As a model, or rather as an embryo, of a n
sialistic Govement, hebringsforwardtdes-unions, which, bycorc
ing the individual, by inducing him to sacrifice his personal interests,
subrdinate him to the service of the common cause.
This, I think, is not true. He says that the Goverment organizes
labur. That would b well; but he forgets that Govements are always
corcing and exploiting labour unde the pretext of defence. How much
more would it then exploit labour under the pretext of organizing it? It
would indeedb well if Govement werelorganizelabur, but todo that
it must b disinterested, saintly. But where are they, these saints?
It is true that individualism, as they call it, meaning by this the ideal
of individual welfareforeachseparateman, isa mostpemicious principle;
but the principle of the welfare of many people together is equally
picious. Only its periciousn ess is not at once evident.
The atainment of thatco-opration - soial communism - in placeof
individualis, will not result from organization. We shall never guess
what will b the organiztion of the future: we will discover it only by
everyone following the unpervertedimp ulse ofhean, conscience, reason,
faith; the law of liCe, call it what you will.
Bees and ants live socially, not because theyknowwhat organization
is most avantageous for them, and follow it - they have no idea of
expdiency. hannony, the wisdom of the hive or anthill. as they apparto
us - but bcause they give themselves u p to what we Othe instinct
inheent in them, they submit, not philosophizing cunningly, but stight
forwardlyto their law oflife (NOTE No 75). I an imagine thatifbcs, in
I
addition 0theirinslinct, we call it, in addition 0the consc iousness of
their law, wereableUinvent the bst organization ofLheir soial life, they
would invent such a life that they would perish.
In this tendency of the law of m, there is something less and
smething more than reasoning. And it alone led to that way of truth.
which is theright one for man and for humanity.
I
SOURCES
TH END OF THE AGE (1905)
(first twO chapters on the Russo-Japanese war omitted)
Translated by Vladimir Tcherlkoff, fom Essays fom Tufa, Sheppard
Ps, London 1948.
AN APPEAL TO SOIAL REFORMRS (1903)
Translatedby Vladimir Tchertkoff. fomEssaysfom Tula, which
omiue Chapter U, no doubt due t pst-war legislation on seition.
Chapter 11wasuken fromtheshonerversion oftheessaypuhlished under
the ttle of Address to 'he Working Class in Leo T ols/oy - his lieand work,
Jack Robinson, Freedom Anarchist Pamphlets No. 6, Freedom Press,
London u ndated (circa 1971), npDnIc from Reynolds News, August
1903.
ON ANARCHY (1900)
Translated by Vladimir Tchertkoff from Tolstoy' s manu
script diary. published in Some Social Remedies Free AgePress, Christ
church, Hants. undated.
THOU SHALT NOT KILL (190)
(two paragraphs on Wilhelm and Nicholas omitted)
Translated by Aylmer Maude, fom Essays and Letters , Henry
FrowdeHumphrey Milford,London 1904, reprintedin Writings on Civil
Disobedience and Non-violence, New Soiety Publ ishers, Philadephia
1987.
PATRIOTISM AND GOVERNMNT (1900)
(ten paragraphs on the Boer War, contemporary rulers
and the Franco-Prussian war omitled) Translated by Aylmer
Maude, from Essays and Letters reprinted in The Kingdom a/God and
Peace Essays World's Classics series, Oxford University Press, 19 80.
TH KJNGDOM OFGOD IS WITHIN YOU (1893)
The Circle of Violence - extact fromChapter 8
The Significance of Military Service - Chapter 7 (oneparagraphon
contemporary rulers omitted) Translated by Vladimir Tchertkoff, from
Laler Wor. o/TolslOY, Free Age Press, Christchurch, Hants, 190.
SLAVERY OF OUR TIMS (190)
Translated by Aylmer Maude, fromssaysjom Tula
I8
ON SOIALISM, STATE AND CHRISTIAN (190)
Translated by Vladimir Tchertkoff from Tolstoy' s manu
script diary, published in Some Social Remedies
DV
FURTHER READING ON TOLSTOY
Tolstoy's political essays
Unfortunately, most of Tolstoy's political essays are now
out of prinl However, the books listed on the sources page and
those given below can usually be found through a book search
by a good secondhand bookshop. Other sources for Tolstoy's
essays are listed in L o Tolstoy, an annotated bibliography ofEngUsh
language sources to 1978 D. R. and M. A. Egan, Scarerow Press Inc,
Metuchen NJ and London 1979.
TheRussianRevofutioll. Free Age Press, Christchurch. Hants 1907
(Britsh Library shelfmark 8094f 4 7).
Social Evils and their Remedies. Methuen. London 1911.
Recollections and Essays, World's Cia<sics series, Oxford Univer
sity Pess, Intpubli shed 1937.
What must we then do? World's Classics series, Oxford University
,1950.
The Kingdom afGod and Peace Essays , World's Classics series,
Ollford University Press, 1980.
Tolstoy's political essays in pit
Th Inevitable Revolution, transl. Ronald Sampson, Housmans,
London 1981.
The Kingdm ofGod is Within You, tans!. Constance GARNEI,
University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
The lowofviolence and the law oflove Unicor Press, London 1959;
Concord Grove Press, USA 1986
Writi ngs on Civil Disobedience and Non-violence, New Soiety
Publishers, Philadephia 1987.
I70
Icannot msilenl- selected non-fction" ed. W. Gareth Jones, Bristol
Classical Pess, 1989.
Commentaries on Tolstoyas a political thinker
The artist turned prophet: Leo Tolstoy afer 1880. W. B. Edgerton,
in American Contibutions to the Sixth Intational Conference of SIav
iSiS (PragU 7-13 August 1968). Vol 2: Literary Contributons, Mouton,
The Hague, 1968, pgs 61-85.
TolslOY, the discovery ofpeaceJ, Ronald Sampson, Heinemann,
London 1973.
N Essays on Tolstoy, ed. Malcolm Jones, Cambridge University
W , 1978.
Tolstoy mGandhi: Men ofPeace. Martin Gren, Basic Books,
Hr and Row, New York 1983.
Tolstoyon the Causes ofWor, Ronald Sampson. Peace Pledge Union,
London 1987.
Tolstoy on education
Tolstoy schoolmaster, E. T. Crosby, London 190.
Tolstoy on Education, trans!. L. Wiener, into. R. D. Archambault,
University of Chicago Press, London 1972.
us ides pedago giques deT olstoi Dominique Maroger , Collection
Siavica, Editons L' Age d'Homme, Lausanne 1974.
Primeroflibertarian educationJoeJ Spring, FreeLife Editions, New
York 1975.
Tolstoy on Education - Educational Writings 1861-2, ed Pinch and
Annstong, Athlone Press, London 1982.
Anarchistische Padagogik . Lernen und Freiheit in der
Bildungslnzeptin L. N. Tolstojs, Ulrich Klemm, Windduckverlag,
Siegtalst. 20, 0-590 Siegen-Eiserfld, W. Germany, 1984.
I7I
P
Studien ZRPadagogik TolslD)s Minerva Pubhkation, K. G. Saur
Verlag, Pf. 7110, 80Munchen 71, 1988.
Works on anarcho-pacirasmby other authors
Tk Gentle Anarchists - a study ofthe leadrs ofthe SQrvodaya
movernl for IWn-violefll revolution in India G. Ostrgaard and M.
Cu l, OxfordUniversity Press, 1971.
Democratic Values. Vinoba Shave (the clearest expnent of anar
chism in pst- Gandhian India), Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan, Vanasi
1977. CromGandhi Book Centre. 299 TardeoRd, NanaChowk, Bombay
4007.
TheKingdoma/God and lheSlale , J. Maninsons. author's edition,
Lakemha, NSW. Australia, 1979 (ISBN 0 9599374 6 3).
Society without the Stale - the anarchist basis forpacifsm. Ronald
Sampson. PPV, 1986.
Resisting the Nation Slale - the pacifst and anarchist tradition,
GeoffreyOstergaard, PeacePledge Union, London 1982.
Uprootil1g War, Brian Martin, FreedomPress, London 1984.
NOI-violel1t revolution in lrmmGeoffreyOstergaard, Gandhi Peace
Foundation, NewDelhi 1985, dislribuLd by Housmans (see blow).
Anarcho-paci[lSm: Questions and Answers, Derrick A. Pike, au
thor's edition, I Market Place, Glastonbury, Somerset, 1987.
TheConquest ofViolence, Bade Ligt, Routledge, London 1937,re
plilished PluL Press, London 1989.
Other works on anarchism and on pacifism respectively are too
numr.rous toname here; catalogues can b obtained from:
Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, London N !.
Freedom Bookshop, 84bWhitcchapcl High 5t.London El.
172
121 Bokshop, 121 Railton Rd, London SE24.
AK Press, 3 Balmoral Place, Stirling, Scotland.
For information on international actlYltles by radical
antimilitarists, CORlact the War Resisters' International,
S5 Dawes St, London SEI7.
For details of librtarian education toay. conract LbEd, The Cot
tage, The Green. Leite, Lulerworth. Lcicestershire.
Federation of Anarcho-pacifists, c/o Derrick A. Pike, 1
Market Place, Glastonbury. Somerset.
173
NOTES
All un attributed notes are the editor's; those marked
(Translator) were written by Vladimir Tchertkoff or Aylmer
Maude.
1) For details of Tolstoy's visit to Europe in 1860-61,
S Tolstoy in London, Victor Lucas. Evans Brothers, London 1979" d
Auswahlbibliograhie 7W Rezeptiofl ter Padgogi/ uo TolstoJs I
DeUlschld von 1890bis 1986 Ulrich KJemm in Studien zur Padgoglk
Tolsrojs Minerva Publikalion, K. G. Saue Velag, W. 7110, 80
Munchen 71, 1988.
2) From On the signifcance of public education (1862) in Jubile
Edition of TolslOy's works, Moscow 1928-1958. vol. 8 pg 405 (editor's
tnslaton fom the French published in Memoires sur vie. P-J
Proudhon. LDeouverte, Paris 1983). For Proudhon's acount of the
meting. S his letter to GustaveChaudey of Aprl 7 , 1861 in Corres

n
dancetP-l Proudhon ,A. LacroixetCie,Paris 1874-5. vol. lO,repnmed
in Cahiers du mmrusse et sovietique, Pas 1971. vol. 12 pg 183 and
paially quoted in HenriTroyat'sTolstoy, W. H. Allen.London 198. Th
meting was also the subjet of adissertaton by Jean Bancal. professor at
the Sobnne, entitled L rencontre de du cultures: Proudhon et T ols toi,
Academie de Besancon reords, vol. 181, years 1974-5, pgs 6-14.
3) On Tolstoy's educational activities, 5funher reading section.
4) An account of the Tsarist secret plice's imerest in Tolstoy b
found in The Extraordinary Adventures of Secret Agent Shipov in Pursuit
of Count Leo Tolstoy in the Year 1862, Bulat Okudzhava. Ablard
Schuman, London 1973.
5) On Vladimi r Tchertkoff. S TchertkJf and the Tolstoyans at
Tueln, Claudia Clark m Britain-USSR, September 1984. no 68, pps6-
lOand The Purleigh Colony: Tolstoyan togetherness in the late 1890s. M.
J.Ct7.Holman inNEssason Toistoy,ed. Malcolm Jones,Cambridge
University Pres. 1918, pgs 194-222. For the correspndence btwen
Tchertkoff and Tolstoy. $note 9. T chertkorr chronicled Tolstoy's death
in The last dys oJTolstoy, Heinemann, London 1922. For accounts of the
prscutionofTolstoyans after the Russian Revolution and under Swin,
I74

sceLes anarchites dans Ja revolution russe. Anatole Gorelik, Tete de
feuille, W1973. and 20th Century and Peace, magazine of the Soviet
Committe for the Dfence of Peace, No 1/89 pgs 30-33.
6) For a moem academic approach to this quetion. S Community,
Anarchyand Liberr, Michael Taylor, Cambridge University | ,1982.
7) Anarchism, George Wocok, fIrst published Penguin 1963, pg
208, in which Wocok devotes a chapter to Tolstoy.
8) An unpublished essay on Leo Tolstoy by Peter Kropotkin. D.
Novak, Can Slavonic Paprs, 1958 vol. 3. pgs 7-26.
9) Lkfrom TolslY to Tchertkof of June 19 (O.S.). 1897 mvol.
88 pgs 30-32 of the Jubilee Edition of Tolstoy's works. The correspn
dence btween Tolstoy and TchertkoCf is colleted inL. N. Tolstoi j V. G.
TchertkJfpo ikhperepisk. M V MuralDv, Moscow 1934.
10) Anarchism, David Miller, Om 1984. pg 119, which includes a
usful discussion on anarchi sm and violece. Also S The Anarchist
Prince, G. Woocok and I. Avakumovic, Schocken Books. New York,
1971, pgs 246-9. An excellent account of the anarchist leorism or the
1895 with many contemprary photographs Cb found in Rck
Kedward'sThe Anarchists, Library or the 20th Century, Macdonald.
London 1971. A cntemporary anarchist criticism of terrorist tactics
b found mAnarchism and Violence. L. S. Bevingtn. Libty W ,
Chiswick.London 1896.
11) Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, e. Roger N. Baldwin,
Dover Publicatons, New York 1970, pgs 283 - 30.
12) Berkman toGoldman of June 25, 1928; Goldman to Berkman of
June 29 and July 3. 1928.Quoted by Richard Drinnon in Anarchy, no 114
(vol 10, n088), August 1970. Berkman was at this time finishing his ABC
of Anarchism, which conlins two chapters on anarchi sm and violence.
13) Histoire d l' anarchie, MNettlau, Henri Veyrier, Paris 1986,
pg 232 (editor's tnslation).
14) With an intoduction by Gandhi inRecollectionsandEssays.Le
Tolstoy. World's Classics series. Oxford University Wc .first published
1937, which also contains some of the letters btween Tolstoy and Gandhi.
I7
The complete colletion can b found in Tolstoi et Gandhi, Marc Se
menoff. Pensegandhienne, Denol, Paris 1958. Also see Tolstoy and
Gandhi: Meno/Peace, mGreen, Basic Boks, Harprand Row, New
York 1983, and Gandhi- his lif and message/or theworld Louis Fischer,
Me.ntor/NewAmerican Library, 1954, pgs39-1. Gandhi'sseor.dashram
in South Afca, afterthePhonix Colony, was named the Tolstoy Fann.
Outof twenty b ks that Gandhi recommended to his readersin his Indian
HOfMRule. six werebyTolstoy, i ncluding utter to a Hindu, TheSlavery
olOw Times and 1Kingdom olGod is Within You
15) The Vaangians were Swedish Vikings, whoseleaderRurik was
invited by the Slavonic tribes ofRussi a to rule over them B862.
16) Tolstoy is thinking panicularly of the Doukhobors, cruelly
prsecuted for their refusal to oby the State, particularly in relation to
military service. Helped by Tolstoy, over seven thousand Doukhobrs
emigrated from00Caucasus toCanada in 1898.
Kropdn also to k up 00 ucause.
17) Tolstoy had evidendy not heard of the Diggers, a dissident
religious group during Cromwell's Commonwealth who also interpretd
Christianity from a humanist and anarchist angle. In his b k The New
L0/Righteousness, the Diggers' leder, Gerrard Winstanley. ca1led
upndpo r to ocupy farm the common land, and auemptedt put
0into practiceby ocupying St Gerge's nearWalton-on-Thames
in 169, a move that was quickly repressed by Cromwell's army.
18) See H. G. Wells' Uofa World State in Men like God and
The Shae o/Things to Come
19) Again, it would b pssible tomisunderstand Tolstoy'S inten
tions Mdsethis passge as a sign of a complete lack of concerforcivil
libnies. Tolstoy however wrote many leners R the Tsar and other
officials abut theprsecuton of conscientious objetorsand against the
dea4h pnalty for those condemned for revolutonary acts. His intenton
here, and in many of his otheressys, is to show that the constitutional or
refor:nistapproach-hoping to pressurethe State into conceding political
librties is domed to failure, as the State will not give up its pwer
voluntarily. andinparticular will not allow public contol of its stongest
ann, the seret plice. Tolstoy arguesin the final chapterof thisessay that
there is only one fundamental feedom - the fe om to live without
Goverment corcion, it is the State, and not private individuals, which
mot violatedfeedomand securityof the citizen. Ou recentpast h
176

confl!lTed that the vast majority of violations of human nghts and civil
librties throughout the world B committed by official (but usually
deniable or unaccountable) Stt bies, fomthe death squads of Latn
America t the sut and intelligence agencies ofthe pwerfulWester
natons. Asthesebiesarethe ultimatesummit of the Statepyramid, and
cly contol and manipulate the eleted goverments, it is futile to
expt paliamentar pressure to succeed in curbing the violatons of
human rightsand civil libertes - such violations bing in0verynatre
of the State.
2) Rwas in visiting such communities in Cenuai Asia tht K
pt develophis theries later published in Mutual Af(192), in
which Kroptkn referred to Tolstoy'S conception of village comm uni
ties. Such primitve anarchist soietes still exist: in April 1990, oil
prospctors exploring China's remote Taklcmakan desert in Xinjiang
province discovered a tibe which had remained i solatefrom the outside
world uover 350 years. The tibe, numbring over 20 pople, lived
withoutgovemmem. money or privateproperty: see press rcportsof April
26th. 1990.
21) When asked what he thought of Wester civilization, Ld
replied: 'I think it would b a very god idea'.
2)A Rw10 miles south of Moscow. cnteof the region that
included Yasnaya Polyana, whereTolstoy spnt most of his life.
23) Tolstoy's mention of 'the secret police, the system of
spies, briby of theW,railways, telegraphs, telephone, photogaphy'
is a prophetc anticipation of o world of State disinformation and
destabilizton, surveil e cme, bugs and telephone taps; since his
tme, 0State malso added the awesome pwer ofthe computer t its
Mof repression.
2)See Alex Comfort's studyonthe psychology of pwer, Authority
and Delinquency, Zwan, London 1988.
25) Tolstoy's understanding of other anarchist thinkers was clarified
by Pul Eltzbaher's Anarchism published in 190. Tolstoy wrote to
Eltzbacher,saying: Y o book pleasedme immensely. It is very objective
andlucid. and - as far as I amable tojudge - it analyses thesourcetextsin
an excellent manne'.
26) However, see Tolstoy's comments on Kroptkin's attitude to
violence in the letter RVladimir Tcheckoff quotedin the IntroductO!l.
I77
27) 'The lack of belief in theLawof Go is the cause of the a tly
curious phenomenon 0 8the theretica1anarchists - fm Bakuninand
Proudhon to Reclus, Max Stimer and Kropt- who prove with
undisputable corretess and justice the unableness and h

ness of pwer, as son as they bgin to qof the pssibility of

establishing a soiety without 0human law which they reject, fall
once into indefinitenes, verbsity, rhetoric, and quit unfunded
fantastc hypthess. This fomthe fat that none of dcm
Bhists acept 0l.wofGo common t all men, which isnaturalfor
to oby; and without te obedience of men to one and the sme law -
human or divine - human soietycannot exist. Dliverance fm human
law is only pssible on condition that one acknowledge a divine law
common to all men' - Tolstoy, from The meaning o/the Russian
Revolution (l907).
28) The essy referredto is Thoreau's On the Dut o/Civil Disobe
djence (1849). Tolstoy gives only one of Thoreau's reasons forrefusl of
taxes - another impulseforThoreau's action was the Ameri can-Mexican
wl.
29) Tsar AlexanderII, assassinated by 'The People's Will' in 1881.
30) Elisbth ('Sissi'), stabbd to death by the anarchist Luigi
Luccheni in 1898.
31) Humbrt (Umbrto) I of Italy, sinated by the anarchist
Gaetano Bresi in 190.
32) Pidet Sadi-Camot of France, stabbdto death by the anar
chist Santo Caserio in 1894.
33) President McKinley of lIle USA was to be assssinated
by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz the following year, 1901.
Tolstoy omits to mention two earlier outrages against politi
cal leaders: the bombing of the French Parliament by !he anarchist
Aue'JSl Vaillant in 1893, and the assassination of the Spanish Prime
Mini5ter Antonio Canovas by lhe anarchist Michele Angiolillo in 1897.
34) The Mordva and Tchouvash [ibes mof Finni sh origin, and
inhabit chieny the govements of the MiddleVolga (Translator).
35) Like many moem anarchists and pacifists, Tolstoy was a
convi nced vegetarian and wrote the essay The Fjrst Stepto aJvoate
178
giving upmeal Aagedrelatve, whenvisiting Tolstoy, madeit cler that
she d tohave meat forhersuppr. Tolstoy said thatuherconscience
would allow il, she could eat meat, but that he would haveno partin il L
coming down tothe dinner-table. she founda live chicken and an axe ted
t h c.
36 e.g. theseizureoftheFalklands byBritain in 1833. Theemphasis
pla by Tolstoy onthe their creation of enemy images wasof
stg relevanceduring the Falklands War.
31) Pol/ice Verso (thumbs down) was the sign given in the Roman
amphithetes by the spectators who wished a defeted glaiator to
slain (Translator).
38) T passage, writtenbfore lIle advent of the aeroplane, show
s
0the mrace didnot bgin with the atomic bmb - indeed. beinga
consequence of the existence of Govements, the arms race can be said
to have st with the birth of lIle State concepl The inventon of the
atomic bmb changed only the destuctive potential of theanns race,not
its natue, as the continuing relevanceof this passage shows.
39) The Hague Conference of 1899, set up by Tsar Nicolas ),the
BorWar of 1899 - 1902.
Y)Tis confmnein mm times by the notable failure of
dient mto make any significant reducton i nnuclea M
despit media hyp, the negotiations ha veagreedtodetoy only 3% of the
suprpwers' 5ileof shonrangemissiles -all other nuclear, chemi
0convetonal weapns bing excluded.
41) The word 'goverment' is frequentlyusedinanindefinite sense
asalmost equivalent to management or diretion; but inthe sense in which
the word is usd in the present article. the characteristc featre of a
Goverentis that it claims a moralrightto innict physical pnalties, and
by its decreto makemurder a god action (Translator).
42) The Cis ians, when surrounded, used to te themselves to
getherlegto leg, so thatnone may escapebut all die fightng. Instances of
mocurredwhen theircounty was being annexedby Russia (Transla
m)
43) J sme image was used by Wilhelm Reich in his exceUent
Listen, Little Man. Penguin, London 1982.
I7
4)In Britain, pple lend to forgetthat military service stll exists
in every othe European country, East and West, and that the right
conscientious objection is not even recognized by a fewSttes. Te %
0`Britain has proved that Tolstoy was over-optimistic in imagining d
uablition of military service would weaken the State - if anything, it
8 ws the State to use the anny for more overtly plitical intevention _
yt _\:s essy remains of the greatest relevance tothose who, at the age
of ,:ghteen, must still suffer degradaton and often imprisonment fOr
refusing to do military service.
45) See note 15.
46) As a young ofccr, Tolstoy witnessed the siege of Se1:astopl
during the !mWar of 1854-5.
47) This evidently refers to hi s house in Moscow, where Tolstoy
spnds the winte months (Translator).
48) The serfs in Russi a and the slaves in the United States were
emancipated Wthe same time - 1861-6 (Translator).
49) Te fIt volume of Karl Man's Kapjtal appin 1867
(Translator).
50) In Russia, as in many other countries, the greater part of the
agicultural workis still doneby pts working their own land ontheir
own acount (Translator).
51) EdwardBellamy (185098), Americanwriter and social rcfonner
who advanced communi stic theories in his UtopiaLolng Backards -
ZM- 1887 (1888) and its sequel Equality (1897).
52) In her anarchist Utopia, The Dispossessed (Granada, London
1975), UrsulaLeGuin identifies the division oflaourasa factorthatcould
lead to the rebirth of Authority in an anarchist soiety.
53) (1805-75), a leader ofGennan scientific socialism (Translator).
54) Beforethe emancipation of the serfs :uRussia, some proprietors
had private theates of their own and toups of musicians and actors
compsed of their own serfs. Onmany eSlates the serfsproduceda variety
of handmade luxuries, as well as necessities, for the proprietors (Transla
tor).

55) N. V. Gogol (1809-52), an admirable writer anda most worthy

man (Translator).
56) Tolstoy himself set an example by VOluntarily emancipating all
his serfs (Translator).
57) It should b bre in mind that educated Russians, though
JliticallY much less free, are intellectually far morefreethan the corre
spnding setion ofthe English ppulation. Views on economics andon
religion, which mheld hereonly by very 'advanced' people, have been
popular among Russian university students for a generation past. In
particular, the dotines ofKarl M,and of Germanscieltifc soialism
in general, have hada much wider acceptance there than he(T:anslator).
58) Let justice b done, though the world prish (Translator).
59) Let culture be preserved, though justice perish (Translator).
5)Mosow has a very defective system of drainage, and a large
numb of pople are engaged, every night, in pumping and bailing the
contents of cessp ls into huge barrels, and incarting itaway fromthecity
(Translator).
61) The distinction between Europe and Russia (quite natural and
customary to a Russian writer) has been left as it stands in the original
(Translator).
62) Henry George (1839-97), American soial reformer andauthor
of ProgressandPoverty (1879), in which he propsedthe nationalizaton
of land and its taxation according to agricultural value (this Single Ta
replacing 8 others) as a means of abolishing private land ownership.
Tolstoy disussed George's theries in many of his essays. A more
moem proponent of George's ideas was Aldous Huxley.
63) The artel, in its most usual form, is anassoiation of workmenor
employees, for each ofwhom the ar/efs collectively responsible (Trans
lator).
64) Serfdom was legali zed about 1597 by Boris Godunof, who
forbade the pts to leave the land on which they were settled. Te
pts' theory ofthe mater was that THEY blonged to the proprietors,
but the LAN belonged to them. 'We yours, but the land 'o".:;rs' was
acommon saying amongst them until theiremancipalionunder Alexander
II, when many of them fell d0lraud0d by Ih0 arrangement +ni0n gave

4)In Britain, pople lend to forget that military service still exists
in every other Europan county, East and West, and that the right to
consientious objection is not even recognized by a fewStates. The
Britain h proved that Tolstoy was over-optimistic in imagining that
Uablition of military service would weaken State - if anything, it
8$the State to us the army for moreovenly plitical intervention
yt::tu essy remains of the grt relevance to those who, at the age
of 'cghreen, must still suff degadaton and often imprisonment for
refusing todo military service.
45) See note 15.
46) As a young officer, Tolstoy witnessed the siege of Se.:astopl
during the Crimean War of 1854-5.
47) This evidently refers to his house in Moscow, where Tolstoy
spnds the winter months (Translator).
48) The serfs in Russia and the slaves in the United States were
emancipated at the same time - 1861-6 (Translator).
49) The flfSt volume of Karl Marx's Kapi/al app in 1867
(Translator).
50) In Russia, B in many other counties, the greater part of the
agricultural work is still done by peasants working their own land on their
own acount (Translator).
51) Eward Belamy (1850-98), American writer and so ial reformer
who advance<communi stic theories in his UtopiaLooking Backwards-
20- oZ(1888) and its sequel Equality (1897).
52) In her anarchist Utopia, Dispssessed (Granada, London
1975), Ursula LeGuin identifies thedivision onabur asa factor that could
lead to the rebirth of Authority in an anarchist society.
53) (1805-75), a leader of German scientific socialism (Translator).
54) Before the emancipation of the serfs :LRussia, some proprictors
had private theates of !heir own and toupes of musicians and actors
composed of their own serfs. On many estates the serfs produced a variety
of handmade luxuries, as well as necessities, forthe proprieLfS (Transla
tor).
I80
55) N. V. Gogol (1809-52), an admirable writer and a most worthy
man (Translator).
56) Tolstoy himself set an example by voluntarily emancipating
his serfs (Translator).
57) H should b bre in mind that educated Russians, though
plitcally much less fee, are inlCUectually far more freethan the corre
spnding sction of the English ppulation. Views on economics and on
religion, which Bheld here only by very 'advanced' pople, have b n
ppular among Russian university students for a generation past. In
particular, !he dotines of Karl Marx, and of German scientfic soialism
in general, have had a much wider acceptance there than here (T:anslator).
58) Let justice b done, though !he world perish (Translator).
59) Let culture be preserved, though juslice perish (Translator).
5) Moscow has a very defective system of drainage, and a large
numbr of pople are engaged, every night, in pumping and bailing te
contents of cesspo ls into huge barrels, and in carting itaway from the city
(Translator).
61) The distnction between Europe and Russia (quite natural and
customary to a Russian writer) has ben left B it stands in the original
(Translator).
62) Henry George (1839-97), American soial reformer and author
of ProgressantPoverty (1879), in which he propsed !he nationalizaton
of land and its laXaton according to agricuhural value (this Single Ta
replacing o!hers) as a means of abolishing private land ownership.
Tolstoy discussed George' s !heries in many of his essays. A more
modem proponent of George's ideas was Aldous Huxley.
63) Thear/el, in its most usual fonn, is an assoiation of workmen or
employees, for each of whom the artels COlletively responsible (Trans
lato).
64) Serfdom was legalized about 1597 by Boris Godunof, who
forbade the peasants to leave the land on which they were settled. Te
peasants' thcoryof!he mallcr was that THEY belonged to the proprietors,
but the LAN belonged to them. 'We arc yours, but the land :s z.!rs' was
acommonsaying amongsl!hem until theiremaocipation under Alexander
II, when many of them felt defrauded by the arrangement w..cn gave
I8I
much land Rthe proprietors {Translator).
65) Te sola is a light plough, such as the Russian pasnts make
andU(Translator).
6)This referstotheKnighlS Templar, who fought in theCrusades.
67) The Cossack leader of a formidable insurction in the seven
tenth centuy, exeuted mMoscow m 1671 (Translator).
68) The chief of a Paris band of robbrs m the early years of the
eighteenth centy (Translator).
69) With reference t schols, the circumstnces B different m
Russia fom what they are in England. FreEngland h compulsoy
educaton; Russia has not. But Russia, the Govement hinders the
establishment ofprivate schols, and reduces eventheuniversites to the
psition ofGoverment institutions, watchedby spies (Translator).
70) i.e. shols run byeducatonal rermers, feeschols, which m
Tolstoy's tme (and, overwhelmingly, stll today) have to fncton as
privateshols.
71) See footnote 51.
7) This m bcome increasingly relevant since the rise of the
advertising industry, theconsumer soiety and the birth of the concept of
planned obsolescence: seeVance Packard's The WasteMalrs, Pelican,
London 196, and TheHiden Persuaders, Pelican, London 1982.
73) LaurenceGronlund (1846-99), American wvand leture on
soialism, and author of TCooperative Comonwealth in its outlies
(I8).
74) HerbrtSpncer(1820 1903),English philosophe and fiend of
Din, who coined the phrase 'surviva1 of the fittest' and wrote Man
versusthe State (1884).
75) Tolstoyoftenrefers Rtheexample of soial organizationgiven
byband W, Kropolkin was VRlakeup the theme in his Mutual
Aid(J9).
I82