The cultured people of the higher classes try to drown the
consciousness of the necessity of changing the present order of
things, which is becoming all the time clearer and clearer; but
life, continuing to develop and to become more complex in the former
direction and intensifying the contradictions and sufferings of men,
brings them to that last limit, beyond which it is impossible to
go. Such a last limit, beyond which it is impossible to go, is the
universal military service.
People generally think that universal military service and the ever
increased arming, which is connected with it, and the consequent
increase of taxation and of state debts among all the nations, are
an accidental phenomenon, due to some political condition of Europe,
and may also be removed by some political considerations, without an
internal change of life.
This is quite erroneous. Universal military service is nothing but
an inner contradiction which, having been carried to its utmost
limits and having at a certain stage of material development become
obvious, has stolen its way into the social concept of life.
The social concept of life consists in this very fact, that the
meaning of life is transferred from the individual to the aggregate,
and its consequence is transferred to the tribe, the family, the
race, or the state.
From the social concept of life it follows that, in so far as the
meaning of life is contained in the aggregate of individuals, the
individuals themselves voluntarily sacrifice their interests for
the interests of the aggregate. Thus it has always been in reality
in the case of certain forms of the aggregate, in the family or the
tribe, independently of which preceded, or in the race, or even
in the patriarchal state. In consequence of the habit, which is
transmitted by education and confirmed by religious influences, the
individuals have without compulsion blended their interests with the
interests of the aggregate and have sacrificed their own interests
for the common interest.
But the more societies became complex, the greater they grew,
especially the more frequently conquests were the causes why men
united into societies, the more frequently did individuals strive
after attaining their ends to the disadvantage of the common good,
and the more frequently was there felt the need of the exercise
of power, that is, of violence, for the sake of curbing these
insubmissive individuals.
The defenders of the social concept of life generally try to mix up
the concept of power, that is, of violence, with that of spiritual
influence, but this admixture is quite impossible.
A spiritual influence is an action upon a man, such that in
consequence of it the very desires of a man are changed and coincide
with what is demanded of him. A man who submits to a spiritual
influence acts in accordance with his desires. But power, as this
word is generally understood, is a means for compelling a man to
act contrary to his wishes. A man who submits to power does not act
as he would wish, but as the power compels him to act. Now what
can compel a man to do, not what he wishes, but what he does not
wish, is physical violence, or a threat of using such, that is, the
deprivation of liberty, beating, maiming, or executable menaces that
such actions will be carried out. In this has power always consisted.
In spite of the unceasing efforts made by men in power to conceal
this and to ascribe a different meaning to power, power is the
application of a rope, a chain, by which a man will be bound and
dragged along, or of a whip, with which he will be flogged, or of a
knife, an axe, with which they will cut off his hands, feet, ears,
head,--an application of these means, or a threat that they will be
used. Thus it was in the time of Nero and of Dzhingis-Khan, and thus
it is even now, in the most liberal of governments, in the republic
of America and in that of France. If men submit to power, they do
so only because they are afraid that in case they do not submit
these actions will be applied to them. All governmental demands,
the payment of taxes, the execution of public works, the submission
to punishments imposed upon one, exile, penalties, and so forth,
to which men seem voluntarily to submit, have always had bodily
violence, or a threat that such will be used, for their base.
The basis of power is bodily violence.
The possibility of exerting bodily violence against people is first
of all given by an organization of armed men in which all the armed
men act in agreement, submitting to one will. Such assemblies of
armed men, who submit to one will, are formed by the army. The army
has always stood at the base of power. Power is always found in
the hands of those who command an army, and all potentates--from
the Roman Cæsars to the Russian and German emperors--are more than
anything else concerned about the army, knowing that if the army is
with them, the power will remain in their hands.
It is this formation and increase of the army, which is necessary
for the support of power, that has introduced a decomposing
principle into the social concept of life.
The end of power and its justification consists in the limitation
of those men who might wish to attain their interests to the
disadvantage of the interests of the aggregate. But whether the
power has been acquired by the formation of a new power, by
inheritance, or by election, men who possess power by means of an
army have in no way differed from other men, and so have, like
other men, been prone not to subordinate their interests to those
of the aggregate, but, on the contrary, having in their hands the
possibility of doing so, have been more prone than any one else to
subordinate the common interests to their own. No matter how much
men have devised means for depriving men in power of the possibility
of subordinating the common interests to their own, or for
entrusting the power only into the hands of infallible men, there
have so far been discovered no means for doing either.
All methods employed, either of divine sanction, or of election, or
of heredity, or of suffrage, or of assemblies, or of parliaments, or
of senates, have proved ineffective. All men know that not one of
these methods attains the aim of entrusting the power into none but
infallible hands, or of preventing its being misused. All know that,
on the contrary, men in power, be they emperors, ministers, chiefs
of police, policemen, become, by the very fact of having power, more
prone to commit immoralities, that is, to subordinate the common
interests to their own, than men who have no power, as indeed it
could not be otherwise.
The social concept of life justified itself only so long as all men
voluntarily sacrificed their interests to the common interests; but
the moment there appeared men who did not voluntarily sacrifice
their interests, and power was needed, that is, violence, for the
purpose of limiting these individuals, the decomposing principle
of power, that is, violence exerted by one set of people against
another, entered into the social concept of life and the structure
which is based upon it.
For the power of one set of men over another to attain its end of
limiting men who strove after their individual interests to the
disadvantage of those of the aggregate, it was necessary to have
the power vested in the hands of infallible men, as is assumed to
be the case by the Chinese, and as has been assumed in the Middle
Ages and at the present time by men who believe in the sanctity
of anointment. It was only under this condition that the social
structure received its justification.
But since this does not exist, and men in power, on the contrary,
by the very fact of their possession of power, are never saintly,
the social structure, which is based on power, should not have any
justification.
Even if there was a time when, with a certain low level of morality
and with the universal tendency of men to exert violence against
each other, the existence of the power which limited this violence
was advantageous, that is, when the violence of the state was not
so great as that exerted by individuals against each other, it is
impossible to overlook the fact that such a superiority of the state
over its absence could not be permanent. The more the tendency of
individuals to exert violence was diminished, the more the manners
were softened, and the more the power was corrupted in consequence
of its unrestraint, the more did this superiority grow less and less.
In this change of the relation between the moral development of the
masses and the corruption of the governments does the whole history
of the last two thousand years consist.
In the simplest form the case was like this: men lived by tribes,
families, races, and waged war, committed acts of violence, and
destroyed and killed one another. These cases of violence took
place on a small and on a large scale: individual struggled with
individual, tribe with tribe, family with family, race with race,
nation with nation. Larger, more powerful aggregates conquered the
weaker, and the larger and the more powerful the aggregate of people
became, the less internal violence took place in it, and the more
secure did the continuance of the life of the aggregate seem to be.
The members of the tribe or of the family, uniting into one
aggregate, war less among themselves, and the tribe and the family
do not die, like one man, but continue their existence; between the
members of one state, who are subject to one power, the struggle
seems even weaker, and the life of the state seems even more secure.
These unions into greater and ever greater aggregates did not
take place because men consciously recognized such unions as more
advantageous to themselves, as is described in the story about the
calling of the Varangians, but in consequence, on the one hand, of
natural growth, and on the other, of struggle and conquests.
When the conquest is accomplished, the power of the conqueror
actually puts an end to internecine strife, and the social concept
of life receives its justification. But this confirmation is only
temporary. Internal strifes cease only in proportion as the pressure
of the power is exerted upon individuals who heretofore have been
warring against one another. The violence of internal struggle,
which is destroyed by the power, is conceived in the power itself.
The power is in the hands of just such people as all men are, that
is, of such as are always or frequently prepared to sacrifice the
common good for the sake of their personal good, with this one
difference, that these men do not have the tempering force of the
counter-action of the violated, and are subjected to the full
corrupting influence of power. Thus the evil of violence, passing
over into the hands of power, keeps growing more and more, and
in time comes to be greater than the one which it is supposed to
destroy, whereas in the members of society the proneness to violence
keeps weakening more and more, and the violence of power grows less
and less necessary.
The governmental power, even if it destroys inner violence,
invariably introduces new forms of violence into the lives of
men, and this grows greater and greater in proportion with its
continuance and intensification.
Thus, although the violence is less perceptible in the state than
the violence of the members of society against one another, since it
is not expressed by struggle, but by submission, the violence none
the less exists and for the most part in a much more powerful degree
than before.
This cannot be otherwise, because the possession of power not only
corrupts men, but the purpose or even unconscious tendency of the
violators will consist in bringing the violated to the greatest
degree of weakening, since, the weaker the violated man is, the less
effort will it take to suppress him.
For this reason the violence which is exerted against him who is
violated keeps growing to the farthest limit which it can attain
without killing the hen that is laying the golden eggs. But if
this hen does not lay, as in the case of the American Indians,
the Fijians, the Negroes, it is killed, in spite of the sincere
protestations of the philanthropists against such a mode of action.
The best confirmation of this is found in the condition of the
labouring classes of our time, who in reality are nothing but
subjugated people.
In spite of all the hypocritical endeavours of the higher classes
to alleviate the condition of the working people, all the working
people of our world are subject to an invariable iron law, according
to which they have only as much as they need to be always incited
by necessity to work and to have the strength for working for their
masters, that is, for the conquerors.
Thus it has always been. In proportion with the duration and
increase of power, its advantages have always been lost for those
who subjected themselves to it, and its disadvantages have been
increased.
Thus it has been independently of those forms of government under
which the nations have lived. The only difference is this, that
in a despotic form of government the power is concentrated in a
small number of violators, and the form of the violence is more
pronounced; in the constitutional monarchies and republics, as in
France and in America, the power is distributed among a larger
number of violators, and its forms are less pronounced; but the
matter of violence, with which the disadvantages of the power are
greater than its advantages, and its process, which brings the
violated to the extreme limit of weakening to which they can be
brought for the advantage of the violators, are always one and the
same.
Such has been the condition of all the violated, but before this
they did not know it, and in the majority of cases they believed
naïvely that governments existed for their good; that without
government they would perish; that the thought that men could live
without governments was a blasphemy which ought not even be uttered;
that this was for some reason a terrible doctrine of anarchism, with
which is connected the conception of everything terrible.
Men believed, as in something absolutely proved and so needing no
further proofs, that, since until now all the nations have developed
in a governmental form, this form was for ever an indispensable
condition of the development of humanity.
Thus it went on for hundreds and for thousands of years, and the
governments, that is, men in power, have tried, and now try more and
more, to keep the nations in this error.
Thus it was in the time of the Roman emperors, and thus it is at
present. In spite of the fact that the idea of the uselessness
and even harm of the governmental violence more and more enters
into the consciousness of men, this would last for ever, if the
governments were not obliged to increase the armies for the purpose
of maintaining their power.
People generally think that the armies are increased by the
governments for the purpose of defending the states against
other states, forgetting the fact that armies are needed by the
governments for the purpose of protecting themselves against their
own crushed and enslaved subjects.
This has always been indispensable, and has become more and more
necessary in proportion as culture has been developed among the
nations, in proportion as the intercourse among the men of the same
and of different nations has been increased, and it has become
particularly indispensable now in connection with the communistic,
socialistic, anarchistic, and universal movements among the
labouring classes. The governments feel this, and so increase their
main force of the disciplined army.[13]
[13] The fact that in America there exist abuses of power, in spite
of the small number of troops, not only does not contradict, but
even supports this proposition. In America there is a smaller army
than in other countries, and so there is nowhere a lesser oppression
of the oppressed classes, and nowhere can we foresee so soon the
abolition of the abuses of power and of the power itself. But in
America itself there have of late, in proportion as the labouring
classes become more unified, been heard voices asking more and more
frequently for an increase of the army, although America is not
threatened by any external attack. The higher ruling classes know
that fifty thousand soldiers will soon be insufficient, and, no
longer depending on Pinkerton's army, they feel that the security
of their position lies only in an increase of the army.--_Author's
Note._
Answering lately to a question why money was needed for the increase
of the wages of under-officers, the German chancellor declared
frankly in the German Reichstag that there was a need of reliable
under-officers, in order to fight against socialism. Caprivi only
said in the hearing of all what everybody knows, though it is
carefully concealed from the nations; he explained why guards of
Swiss and Scotchmen were hired out to French kings and Popes, and
why in Russia they carefully shuffle up the recruits in such a
way that the regiments which are located in the centre are made up
of recruits from the outlying districts, while the regiments in
the outlying districts are completed by soldiers from the centre
of Russia. The meaning of Caprivi's speech, translated into simple
language, is this, that money was not needed for counteracting the
foreign enemies, but for bribing the under-officers, so as to make
them willing to act against the oppressed labouring masses.
Caprivi accidentally gave utterance to what everybody knows, or
feels, if he does not know, namely, that the existing structure
of life is such as it is, not because it naturally must be such,
because the nation wants it to be such, but because it is maintained
as such by the violence of the governments, by the army with its
bribed under-officers, officers, and generals.
If a labouring man has no land, no chance of making use of the
right, so natural for every man, to obtain from the land his own
means of support and those of his family, this is not so because
the nation wants it to be so, but because certain men, the owners
of land, are granted the right to admit, or not to admit, the
labouring people to it. And this unnatural order of things is
maintained by means of the army. If the immense wealth, accumulated
by the labouring people, is not considered as belonging to all men,
but to an exclusive number of men; if the power to collect taxes
from labour and to use the money for anything they may see fit is
entrusted to a few men; if a few men are permitted to select the
method of the religious and civil instruction and education of the
children; if strikes of the labourers are opposed and strikes of the
capitalists are encouraged; if a few men are granted the right to
compose laws, which all must obey, and to dispose of men's property
and life,--all this does not take place because the nation wants it
so, but because the governments and the ruling classes want it so,
and by means of bodily violence establish it so.
Every person who does not know this will find it out in every
attempt at not conforming or at changing this order of things.
Therefore armies are first of all indispensable to the governments
and the ruling classes, in order to maintain the order of things
which not only does not result from the necessity of the nation,
but is frequently opposed to it and is advantageous only to the
government and to the ruling classes.
Every government needs armies, first of all, in order to keep its
subjects in submission, and to exploit their labours. But the
government is not alone; side by side with it there is another
government, which exploits its subjects by means of the same
violence, and which is always ready to take away from another
government the labours of its already enslaved subjects. And so
every government needs an army, not only for internal use, but also
for the protection of its booty against neighbouring ravishers.
Every government is in consequence of this involuntarily led to
the necessity of increasing its army in emulation with the other
governments; but the increasing of armies is contagious, as
Montesquieu remarked 150 years ago.
Every increase of an army in a state, directed against its subjects,
becomes dangerous even for its neighbours, and evokes an increase in
the neighbouring states.
The armies have reached their present millions not merely because
the neighbours threatened the states; this resulted above all from
the necessity of crushing all attempts at revolt on the part of
the subjects. The increase of armies arises simultaneously from
two causes, which provoke one another: armies are needed against
domestic enemies and for the purpose of defending one's position
against one's neighbours. One conditions the other. The despotism of
a government always increases with the increase and strengthening of
armies and external successes, and the aggressiveness of governments
is increased with the intensification of the internal despotism.
In consequence of this, the European governments, in emulating
one another in the greater and ever greater increase of the army,
arrived at the inevitable necessity of the universal military
service, since the universal military service was a means for
obtaining in time of war the greatest quantity of soldiers at the
least expense. Germany was the first to hit upon this plan, and
the moment one government did it, all the others were obliged to
do the same. The moment this happened, it happened that all the
citizens were put under arms for the purpose of maintaining all that
injustice which was committed against them; what happened was that
all the citizens became oppressors of themselves.
The universal military service was an inevitable logical necessity,
at which it was impossible not to arrive; at the same time it is the
last expression of the inner contradiction of the social concept of
life, which arose at a time when violence was needed in order to
maintain it. In the universal military service this contradiction
became obvious. Indeed, the meaning of the social concept of life
consists in this, that a man, recognizing the cruelty of the
struggle of individuals among themselves and the perishableness of
the individual himself, transfers the meaning of his life to the
aggregate of individuals; but in the universal military service it
turns out that men, having brought all the sacrifices demanded of
them, in order to free themselves from the cruelty of the struggle
and the insecurity of life, are, after all the sacrifices which they
have made, again called to bear all those dangers from which they
thought they had freed themselves, and, besides, that aggregate,
the state, in the name of which the individuals renounced their
advantages, is again subjected to the same danger of destruction to
which the individual himself was subjected before.
The governments were to have freed men from the cruelty of the
struggle of individuals and to have given them the assurance of the
inviolability of the order of the state life; but, instead, they
impose upon the individuals the necessity of the same struggle,
except that the struggle with the nearest individuals is transferred
to the struggle with the individuals of other states, and they leave
the same danger of the destruction of the individual and of the
state.
The establishment of the universal military service is like what
would happen if a man were to brace up a dilapidated house: the
walls bend inwards--supports are put up; the ceiling is sagging
down--other supports are put up; boards hang down between the
supports--some more supports are put up. A point is finally reached
when the supports indeed hold the house together, but it is
impossible to live in the house because there are so many supports.
The same is true of the universal military service. It destroys all
those advantages of the social life which it is called to preserve.
The advantages of the social life consist in the security of
property and labour and in the coöperation in the aggregate
perfection of life,--the universal military service destroys all
that.
The taxes which are collected from the masses for war preparations
swallow the greater share of the production of labour which the army
is supposed to protect.
The tearing away of the men from the habitual course of life impairs
the possibility of the work itself.
The menaces of a war that is likely to break out at any time make
all the perfections of the social life useless and in vain.
If a man was formerly told that if he did not submit to the power
of the state he would be subjected to the attacks of evil men, of
external and internal enemies; that he would be compelled himself
to struggle with them and to subject himself to being killed;
that therefore it would be advantageous for him to bear certain
privations, in order to free himself from these calamities,--he was
able to believe it all, because the sacrifices which he made for
the state were only private sacrifices and gave him the hope for
a peaceful life in an imperishable state, in the name of which he
made these sacrifices. But now, when these sacrifices have not only
increased tenfold, but the advantages promised to him are absent, it
is natural for any one to imagine that his submission to power is
quite useless.
But not in this alone lies the fatal significance of the universal
military service, as a manifestation of that contradiction which
is contained in the social concept of life. The main manifestation
of this contradiction consists in the fact that with the universal
military service every citizen, upon becoming a soldier, becomes a
supporter of the state structure, and a participant in everything
which the government does and the legality of which he does not
recognize.
The governments assert that the armies are needed mainly for the
purpose of external defence; but that is not true. They are needed
first of all against their subjects, and every man who does military
service involuntarily becomes a participant in all the violence
which the state exerts over its own subjects.
To convince himself that every man who does his military service
becomes a participant in such deeds of the government as he does
not acknowledge and cannot acknowledge, let a man only remember
what is being done in every state in the name of order and of the
good of the nation, things which the army appears as the executor
of. All the struggles of dynasties and of the various parties, all
the executions, which are connected with these disturbances, all
the suppressions of revolts, all the employment of military force
for the dispersion of popular crowds, the suppression of strikes,
all the extortions of taxes, all the injustice of the distribution
of the ownership of land, all the oppressions of labour,--all this
is produced, if not directly by the armies, at least by the police,
which is supported by the armies. He who does military service
becomes a participant in all these matters, which in some cases
are doubtful to him and in many cases are directly opposed to his
conscience. Some people do not wish to leave the land which they
have been working for generations; people do not wish to disperse,
as they are commanded to do by the government; people do not want
to pay the taxes which are exacted of them; people do not wish to
recognize the obligatoriness for them of laws which they have not
made; people do not wish to be deprived of their nationality,--and
I, by doing military service, am obliged to come and beat these
people. Being a participant in these deeds, I cannot help but
ask myself whether these deeds are good, and whether I ought to
contribute to their execution.
Universal military service is for the government the last degree of
violence, which is necessary for the support of the whole structure;
and for the subjects it is the extreme limit of the possibility of
their obedience. It is that keystone which holds the walls and the
extraction of which causes the building to cave in.
The time came when the growing abuses of the governments and their
strifes among themselves had this effect, that from every subject
there were demanded, not only material, but also moral sacrifices,
when every man had to stop and ask himself, "Can I make these
sacrifices? And in the name of what must I make these sacrifices?
These sacrifices are demanded in the name of the state. In the name
of the state they demand of me the renunciation of everything which
may be dear to man, of peace, of family, of security, of human
dignity. What is that state in the name of which such terrible
sacrifices are demanded of me? And why is it so indispensably
necessary?"
"The state," we are told, "is indispensably necessary, in the first
place, because without the state, I and all of us would not be
protected against violence and the attack of evil men; in the second
place, without the state all of us would be savages, and would have
no religious, nor educational, nor mercantile institutions, nor
roads of communication, nor any other public establishments; and, in
the third place, because without the state we should be subject to
enslavement by neighbouring nations."
"Without the state," we are told, "we should be subject to violence
and to the attacks of evil men in our own country."
But who among us are these evil men, from the violence and attacks
of whom the state and its army save us? If three, four centuries
ago, when men boasted of their military art and their accoutrements,
when it was considered a virtue to kill men, there existed such
men, there are none now, for no men of the present time use or
carry weapons, and all, professing the rules of philanthropy and
of compassion for their neighbours, wish the same as we,--the
possibility of a calm and peaceful life. There now are no longer
those particular violators against whom the state should defend us.
But if, by the people, from whose attack the state saves us, we are
to understand those men who commit crimes, we know that they are
not some especial beings, like rapacious animals among the sheep,
but just such people as we are, who are just as disinclined to
commit crimes as those against whom they commit them. We know now
that threats and punishments cannot diminish the number of such
men, and that it is only the change of surroundings and the moral
influence upon people that diminish it. Thus the explanation of the
necessity of governmental violence for the purpose of defending men
against violators may have had a basis three or four centuries ago,
but has none at the present time. Now the contrary would be more
correct, namely, that the activity of the governments, with their
morality which has fallen behind the common level, with their cruel
methods of punishments, of prisons, of hard labour, of gallows,
of guillotines, rather contributes to the brutalization of the
masses than to the softening of their manners, and so rather to the
increase than to the diminution of the number of violators.
"Without the state," they also say, "there would not be all those
institutions of education, of learning, of religion, of roads of
communication, and others. Without the state men would not be able
to establish the public things which are indispensable for all men."
But this argument, too, could have a basis only several centuries
ago.
If there was a time when men were so disunited among themselves
and the means for a closer union and for the transmission of
thought were so little worked out that they could not come to any
understanding nor agree upon any common mercantile, or economical,
or cultural matter without the medium of the state, there now no
longer exists such a disunion. The widely developed means for
communion and for the transmission of thought have had this effect,
that, for the formation of societies, assemblies, corporations,
congresses, learned, economic, or political institutions, the men of
our time can get along without any government, and the governments
in the majority of cases are more likely to interfere with the
attainment of these ends than to coöperate with it.
Beginning with the end of the last century, almost every forward
step of humanity has not only not been encouraged by the government,
but has always been retarded by it. Thus it was with the abolition
of corporal punishment, of torture, of slavery, and with the
establishment of the freedom of the press and of assemblies. In
our time the power of the state and the governments not only fail
to coöperate with, but are distinctly opposed to, all that activity
by means of which men work out new forms of life. The solutions of
labouring, agronomic, political, religious questions are not only
not encouraged, but directly interfered with by the power of the
state.
"Without the state and the government, the nations would be enslaved
by their neighbours."
It is hardly necessary to retort to this last argument. The retort
is found in itself.
The governments, so we are told, are necessary with their armies
for the purpose of defending us against our neighbours, who might
enslave us. But this is what all the governments say of one another,
and at the same time we know that all the European nations profess
the same principles of freedom and of brotherhood, and so are in no
need of defending themselves against one another. But if protection
against barbarians is meant, then one-thousandth of all the armies
now under arms would suffice. Thus the contrary to what is asserted
is what actually happens: the power of the state, far from saving
us from the attacks of our neighbours, on the contrary causes the
danger of the attacks.
Thus a man, who by means of his military service is placed under
the necessity of thinking about the significance of the state, in
the name of which the sacrifice of his peace, his security, and his
life is demanded of him, cannot help but see clearly that for these
sacrifices there no longer exists any basis in our time.
But it is not only by theoretical reflections that any man may see
that the sacrifices demanded of him by the state have no foundation
whatever; even by reflecting practically, that is, by weighing all
those hard conditions in which a man is placed by the state, no
one can fail to see that for him personally the fulfilment of the
demands of the state and his submission to military service is in
the majority of cases more disadvantageous than a refusal to do
military service.
If the majority of men prefer submission to insubmission, this is
not due to any sober weighing of the advantages and disadvantages,
but because the men are attracted to submission by means of the
hypnotization to which they are subjected in the matter. In
submitting, men only surrender themselves to those demands which are
made upon them, without reflection, and without making any effort of
the will; for insubmission there is a need of independent reflection
and of effort, of which not every man is capable. But if, excluding
the moral significance of submission and insubmission, we should
consider nothing but the advantages, insubmission would in general
always be more advantageous to us than submission.
No matter who I may be, whether I belong to the well-to-do,
oppressing classes, or to the oppressed labouring classes, the
disadvantages of insubmission are less than the disadvantages of
submission, and the advantages of insubmission are greater than the
advantages of submission.
If I belong to the minority of oppressors, the disadvantages of
insubmission to the demands of the government will consist in this,
that I, refusing to comply with the demands of the government,
shall be tried and at best shall be discharged or, as they do
with the Mennonites, shall be compelled to serve out my time at
some unmilitary work; in the worst case I shall be condemned to
deportation or imprisonment for two or three years (I speak from
examples that have happened in Russia), or, perhaps, to a longer
term of incarceration, or to death, though the probability of such a
penalty is very small.
Such are the disadvantages of insubmission; but the disadvantages
of submission will consist in this: at best I shall not be sent
out to kill men, and I myself shall not be subjected to any great
probability of crippling or death, but shall only be enlisted as a
military slave,--I shall be dressed up in a fool's garments; I shall
be at the mercy of every man above me in rank, from a corporal to
a field-marshal; I shall be compelled to contort my body according
to their desire, and, after being kept from one to five years, I
shall be left for ten years in a condition of readiness to appear
at any moment for the purpose of going through all these things
again. In the worst case I shall, in addition to all those previous
conditions of slavery, be sent to war, where I shall be compelled
to kill men of other nations, who have done me no harm, where I
may be crippled and killed, and where I may get into a place, as
happened at Sevastopol and as happens in every war, where men are
sent to certain death; and, what is most agonizing, I may be sent
out against my own countrymen, when I shall be compelled to kill my
brothers for dynastic or other reasons, which are entirely alien to
me. Such are the comparative disadvantages.
The comparative advantages of submission and of insubmission are
these:
For him who has not refused, the advantages will consist in this,
that, having submitted to all the humiliations and having executed
all the cruelties demanded of him, he may, if he is not killed,
receive red, golden, tin-foil decorations over his fool's garments,
and he may at best command hundreds of thousands of just such
bestialized men as himself, and be called a field-marshal, and
receive a lot of money.
But the advantages of him who refuses will consist in this, that he
will retain his human dignity, will earn the respect of good men,
and, above all else, will know without fail that he is doing God's
work, and so an incontestable good to men.
Such are the advantages and the disadvantages on both sides for
a man from the wealthy classes, for an oppressor; for a man of
the poor, working classes the advantages and disadvantages will
be the same, but with an important addition of disadvantages. The
disadvantages for a man of the labouring classes, who has not
refused to do military service, will also consist in this, that, by
entering upon military service, he by his participation and seeming
consent confirms the very oppression under which he is suffering.
But it is not the reflections as to how much the state which men
are called upon to support by their participation in the military
service is necessary and useful to men, much less the reflections
as to the advantages or disadvantages accruing to each man from his
submission or insubmission to the demands of the government, that
decide the question as to the necessity of the existence or the
abolition of the state. What irrevocably and without appeal decides
this question is the religious consciousness or conscience of every
individual man, before whom, in connection with the universal
military service, involuntarily rises the question as to the
existence or non-existence of the state.