from the fear of foreign invasion; the increase was first caused
by the necessity for putting down all attempts at rebellion on the
part of the subjects of the State. The causes for the expansion of
armies are contemporary, the one depending on the other; armies
are needed against internal attempts at revolt, as well as for
external defense. The one depends upon the other. The despotism of
governments increases exactly in proportion to the increase of their
strength and their internal successes, and their foreign aggression
with the increase of internal despotism.
European governments try to outdo one another, ever increasing their
armaments, and compelled at last to adopt the expedient of a general
conscription as a means of enrolling the greatest number of troops
at the smallest possible expense.
Germany was the first to whom this plan suggested itself. And no
sooner was it done by one nation than all the others were forced
to do likewise. Thus all the citizens took up arms to assist in
upholding the wrongs that were committed against them; in fact, they
became their own oppressors.
General military conscription was the inevitable and logical
consummation at which it was but natural to arrive; at the same
time it is the last expression of the innate contradiction of the
social life-conception which sprang into existence when violence was
required for its support.
General military conscription made this contradiction a conspicuous
fact. Indeed, the very significance of the social life-conception
consists in this,--that a man, realizing the cruelty of the struggle
of individuals among themselves, and the peril that the individual
incurs, seeks protection by transferring his private interests to a
social community; whereas the result of the system of conscription
is that men, after having made every sacrifice to escape from the
cruel struggle and uncertainties of life, are once more called upon
to undergo all the dangers they had hoped to escape, and moreover,
the community--the State for which the individuals gave up their
previous advantages--is now exposed to the same risk of destruction
from which the individual himself formerly suffered. Governments
should have set men free from the cruelty of the personal struggle,
and given them confidence in the inviolable structure of State life;
but instead of doing this they impose on individuals a repetition
of the same dangers, with this difference, that in the place of
struggle between individuals of the same group, it is a case of
struggle between groups.
The establishment of a general military conscription is like the
work of a man who props a crumbling house. The walls have settled,
sloping inward--he braces them; the ceiling begins to hang down--he
supports that; and when the boards between give way, other braces
are supplied. At last it reaches the point when, although the braces
hold the house together, they actually make it uninhabitable.
The same may be said of the general conscription system. The general
military conscription nullifies all those advantages of social life
which it is expected to protect.
The advantages of social life are those guarantees which it offers
for the protection of property and labor, as well as coöperation for
the purposes of mutual advantage; the general military conscription
destroys all this.
The taxes collected from the people for purposes of war absorb the
greater part of the productions of their labor, which the army ought
to protect.
When men are taken from the ordinary avocations of daily life, labor
is practically destroyed. Where war is ever threatening to break
forth, it does not seem worth while to improve social conditions.
If a man had formerly been told that unless he submitted to the
civil authority he would run the risk of being assaulted by wicked
men, that he would be in danger from domestic as well as from
foreign foes, against whom he would be forced to defend himself,
that he might be murdered, and therefore he would find it for
his advantage to suffer certain privations if by that means he
succeeded in escaping all these perils, he might have believed this,
especially as the sacrifices required by the State promised him the
hope of a peaceful existence within the well-established community
in whose name he had made them. But now, when these sacrifices are
not only multiplied, but the promised advantages are not realized,
it is quite natural for men to think that their subjection to
authority is utterly useless.
But the fatal significance of the general conscription, as the
manifestation of that contradiction which dwells in the social
life-conception, lies not in this. Wherever military conscription
exists, every citizen who becomes a soldier likewise becomes a
supporter of the State system, and a participant in whatsoever the
State may do, at the same time that he does not acknowledge its
validity; and this may be called its chief manifestation.
Governments declare that armies are principally required for
external defense; but this is untrue. They are, in the first place,
needed to overawe their own subjects, and every man who yields to
military conscription becomes an involuntary participator in all the
oppressive acts of government toward its subjects. It is necessary
to remember what goes on in every State in the name of order and
the welfare of the community, all the while enforced by military
authority, to be convinced that every man who fulfils military
duty becomes a participant in acts of the State of which he cannot
approve. Every dynastic and political feud, all the executions
resulting from such feuds, the crushing of rebellions, the use
of the military in dispersing mobs, in putting down strikes, all
extortionate taxation, the injustice of land ownership and the
limitations of freedom of labor,--all this is done, if not directly
by the troops, then by the police supported by the troops. He who
performs his military duty becomes a participant in all these acts,
about which he often feels more than dubious, and which are in most
cases directly opposed to his conscience. Men do not wish to leave
the land which they have tilled for generations; they do not wish to
disperse on the bidding of the government; they do not wish to pay
the taxes which are extorted from them; neither do they willingly
submit to laws which they have not helped to make; they do not wish
to give up their nationality. And I, if I am performing military
duty, must come forward and strike these men down. I cannot take
part in such proceedings without asking myself if they be right. And
ought I to coöperate in carrying them out?
General military conscription is the last step in the process of
coercion required by governments for the support of the whole
structure; for subjects it is the extreme limit of obedience. It is
the keystone of the arch that supports the walls, the abstraction
of which would destroy the whole fabric. The time has come when
the ever growing abuses of governments, and their mutual contests,
have required from all their subjects not only material but moral
sacrifices, till each man pauses and asks himself, Can I make these
sacrifices? And for whose sake am I to make them? These sacrifices
are demanded in the name of the State. In the name of the State I am
asked to give up all that makes life dear to a man,--peace, family,
safety, and personal dignity. What, then, is this State in whose
name such appalling sacrifices are demanded? And of what use is it?
We are told that the State is necessary, in the first place, because
were it not for that no man would be safe from violence and the
attacks of wicked men; in the second place, without the State
we should be like savages, possessing neither religion, morals,
education, instruction, commerce, means of communication, nor any
other social institutions; and, in the third place, because without
the State we should be subject to the invasion of the neighboring
nations.
"Were it not for the State," we are told, "we should be subjected to
violence and to the attacks of evil men in our own land."
But who are these evil men from whose violence and attacks the
government and the army saves us? If such men existed three or
four centuries ago, when men prided themselves on their military
skill and strength of arm, when a man proved his valor by killing
his fellow-men, we find none such at the present time: men of
our time neither use nor carry weapons, and, believing in the
precepts of humanity and pity for their neighbors, they are as
desirous for peace and a quiet life as we are ourselves. Hence this
extraordinary class of marauders, against whom the State might
defend us, no longer exists. But if, when they speak of the men
from whose attacks the government defends us, we understand that
they mean the criminal classes, in that case we know that they are
not extraordinary beings, like beasts of prey among sheep, but are
men very much like ourselves, who are naturally just as reluctant
to commit crimes as those against whom they commit them. We know
now that threats and punishments are powerless to decrease the
numbers of such men, but that their numbers may be decreased by
change of environment and by moral influence. Hence the theory of
the necessity of State violence in order to protect mankind against
evil-doers, if it had any foundation three or four centuries ago,
has none whatever at the present time. One might say quite the
reverse nowadays, for the activity of governments, with their
antiquated and merciless methods of punishment, their galleys,
prisons, gallows, and guillotines, so far below the general plane
of morality, tends rather to lower the standard of morals than to
elevate it, and therefore rather to increase than to lessen the
number of criminals.
It is said that "without the State there would be no institutions,
educational, moral, religious, or international; there would be no
means of communication. Were it not for the State, we should be
without organizations necessary to all of us."
An argument like this could only have had a basis several centuries
ago. If there ever was a time when men had so little international
communication, and were so unused to intercourse or interchange
of thought that they could not come to an agreement on matters of
general interest--commercial, industrial, or economical--without
the assistance of the State, such is not the case at present. The
widely diffused means of communication and transmission of thought
have achieved this result,--that when the modern man desires to
found societies, assemblies, corporations, congresses, scientific,
economical, or political institutions, not only can he easily
dispense with the assistance of governments, but in the majority
of cases governments are more of a hindrance than a help in the
pursuit of such objects.
Since the end of the last century almost every progressive movement
on the part of mankind has been not only discouraged, but invariably
hampered, by governments. Such was the case with the abolition of
corporal punishment, torture, and slavery; with the establishment
of freedom of the press and liberty of meeting. Furthermore, State
authorities and governments nowadays not only do not coöperate,
but they directly hinder the activity by means of which men work
out new forms of life. The solution of labor and land questions,
of political and religious problems, is not only unencouraged, but
distinctly opposed, by the government authority.
"If there were no State and government authority, nations would be
subjugated by their neighbors."
It is not worth while to answer this last argument. It refutes
itself.
We are told that the government and its armies are necessary for our
defense against the neighboring States which might subject us. But
all the governments say this of one another; and yet we know that
every European nation professes the same principles of liberty and
fraternity, and therefore needs no defense against its neighbor.
But if one speaks of defense against barbarians, then one per cent
of the troops under arms at the present time would suffice. It is
not only that the increase of armed force fails to protect us from
danger of attack from our neighbors, it actually provokes the very
attack which it deprecates.
Hence no man who reflects on the significance of the State, in
whose name he is required to sacrifice his peace, his safety, and
his life, can escape the conviction that there is no longer any
reasonable ground for such sacrifices.
Even regarding the subject theoretically, a man must realize that
the sacrifices demanded by the State are without sufficient reason;
and when he considers the matter from a practical point of view,
weighing all the different conditions in which he has been placed
by the State, every man must see that so far as he himself is
concerned, the fulfilment of the requirements of the State and his
own subjection to military conscription is indubitably and in every
case less advantageous for him than if he refused to comply with it.
If the majority of people prefer obedience to insubordination, it is
not because they have given the subject dispassionate consideration,
weighing the advantages and disadvantages, but because they are,
so to speak, under the influence of hypnotic suggestion. Men
submit to demands like this without using their reason or making
the least effort of the will. It requires independent reasoning,
as well as effort, to refuse submission,--effort which some men
are incapable of making. But supposing we exclude the moral
significance of submission and non-submission, and consider only
their advantages, then non-submission will always prove more
advantageous than submission. Whoever I may be, whether I belong to
the well-to-do--the oppressing class--or to the oppressed laboring
class, in either case the disadvantages of non-submission are less
numerous than the disadvantages of submission, and the advantages of
non-submission greater than those of submission.
If I belong to the oppressive, which is the smallest class, and
refuse to submit to the demands of the government, I shall be tried
as one who refuses to fulfil his obligations,--I shall be tried, and
in case my trial terminates favorably, I shall either be declared
not guilty, or I may be dealt with as they treat the Mennonites
in Russia--that is, be compelled to serve my term of military
service by performing some non-military work; if, on the contrary,
an unfavorable verdict is rendered, I shall be condemned to exile
or imprisonment for two or three years (I am speaking of cases in
Russia); or possibly my term of imprisonment may be longer. And I
may even be condemned to suffer the penalty of death, although that
is not at all probable. Such are the disadvantages of non-submission.
The disadvantages of submission are as follows:--If I am fortunate
I shall not be sent to murder men, neither shall I run the risk
myself of being disabled or killed; they will simply make a military
slave of me. I shall be arrayed in the garments of a clown; my
superior officers, from the corporal to the field-marshal, will
order me about. At their word of command I shall be put through
a series of gymnastic contortions, and after being detained from
one to five years I shall be released, but still obliged for ten
years longer to hold myself in readiness at any moment I may be
summoned to execute the orders these people give me. And if I am
less fortunate I shall be sent to the wars, still in the same
condition of slavery, and there I shall be forced to slay fellow-men
of other countries who never did me any harm. Or I may be sent to a
place where I may be mutilated or killed; perhaps find myself, as
at Sevastopol, sent to certain death; these things happen in every
war. Worse than all things else, I may be sent to fight against my
fellow-countrymen, and compelled to kill my own brethren for some
matter dynastic or governmental, and to me of foreign interest. Such
are the comparative disadvantages.
The comparative advantages of submission and non-submission are as
follows:--For him who has submitted the advantages are these: after
he has subjected himself to all the degradations and committed all
the cruel deeds required of him, he may, provided he be not killed,
receive some scarlet or golden bauble to decorate his clown's
attire; or if he be especially favored, hundreds of thousands of
just such brutal men like himself may be put under his command, and
he be called field-marshal, and receive large sums of money.
By refusing to submit he will possess the advantages of preserving
his manly dignity, of winning the respect of good men, and, above
all, he will enjoy the assurance that he is doing God's business,
and therefore an unquestionable benefit to mankind.
Such are the advantages and disadvantages, on either side, for
the oppressor, a member of the wealthy class. For a man of the
working-class--a poor man--the advantages and disadvantages
are about the same, if we include one important addition to
the disadvantages. The special disadvantage for a man of the
working-class who has not refused to perform military service is
that, when he enters the service, his participation and his tacit
consent go toward confirming the oppression in which he finds
himself.
But the question concerning the State, whether its continued
existence is a necessity, or whether it would be wiser to abolish
it, cannot be decided by discussion on its usefulness for the men
who are required to support it by taking part in the military
service, and still less by weighing the comparative advantages and
disadvantages of submission or non-submission for the individual
himself. It is decided irrevocably and without appeal by the
religious consciousness, by the conscience of each individual, to
whom no sooner does military conscription become a question than it
is followed by that of the necessity or non-necessity of the State.
CHAPTER VIII
CERTAINTY OF THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF
NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY VIOLENCE BY THE MEN OF OUR WORLD
Christianity is not a legislation but a new life-conception;
hence it was not obligatory, nor has it been accepted by all men
in its full meaning, but only by a few; the rest have accepted
it in a corrupted form--Moreover, Christianity is a prophecy
of the disappearance of the pagan life, and therefore of the
necessity of accepting the Christian doctrine--Non-resistance
of evil by violence is one of the principles of the Christian
doctrine which must inevitably be accepted by men at the present
day--Two methods of solving every struggle--The first method
consists in believing the general definitions of evil to be
binding upon all, and to resist this evil by violence--The
second, the Christian method, consists in not resisting evil
by violence--Although the failure of the first method was
recognized in the first centuries of Christianity, it is still
employed; but as humanity advanced it has become more evident
that there is not, nor can there be, a general definition of
evil--Now this has become evident to all, and if the violence
which is destined to combat evil exists, it is not because it
is considered necessary, but because men do not know how to
dispense with it--The difficulty of dispensing with it is due
to the skilfulness and complexity of political violence--This
violence is supported by four methods: by threats, bribes,
hypnotism, and the employment of military force--Deliverance
from State violence cannot be accomplished by overthrowing
the State--Through experience of the misery of pagan life men
are compelled to acknowledge the doctrine of Christ, with its
non-resistance to evil,--a doctrine which they have hitherto
ignored--To this same necessity of acknowledging the Christian
doctrine we are brought by the consciousness of its truth--This
consciousness is in utter contradiction to our life, and is
especially evident in regard to general military conscription;
but, in consequence of habit and the four methods of State
violence, men do not see this inconsistency of Christianity
with the duties of a soldier--Men do not see it even when the
authorities themselves show them plainly all the immorality of
the duties of a soldier--The call of the general conscription is
the extreme trial for every man,--the command to choose between
the Christian doctrine of non-resistance or servile submission
to the existing organization of the State--Men generally submit
to the demands of the State organization, renouncing all that
is sacred, as though there were no other issue--For men of the
pagan life-conception, indeed, no other issue does exist; they
are compelled to acknowledge it, regardless of all the dreadful
calamities of war--Society composed of such men must inevitably
perish, and no social changes can save it--The pagan life has
reached its last limits; it works its own destruction.
It is frequently said that if Christianity be a truth, it would
have been accepted by all men on its first appearance, and would
straightway have changed and improved the lives of men. One might
as well say that if the seed is alive it must instantly sprout and
produce its flower or its fruit.
The Christian doctrine is not a law which, being introduced by
violence, can forthwith change the life of mankind. Christianity
is a life-conception more lofty and excellent than the ancient;
and such a new conception of life cannot be enforced; it must be
adopted voluntarily, and by two processes, the spiritual or interior
process, and the experimental or external process.
Some men there are--but the smaller proportion--who instantly,
and as though by prophetic intuition, divine the truth, surrender
themselves to its influence, and live up to its precepts;
others--and they are the majority--are brought to the knowledge of
the truth, and the necessity for its adoption, by a long series of
errors, by experience and suffering.
It is to this necessity of adopting the doctrine by the external
process of experience that Christendom has at last arrived.
Now and then one wonders why the mistaken presentment of
Christianity, which even at the present time prevents men from
accepting it in its true significance, could have been necessary.
And yet the very errors, having brought men to their present
position, have been the medium through which it has become possible
for the majority to accept Christianity in its true meaning.
If instead of that corrupted form of Christianity which was given
to the people, it had been offered to them in its purity, the
greater portion of mankind would have refused it, like the Asiatic
peoples to whom it is yet unknown. But having once accepted it in
its corrupted form, the nations embracing it were subjected to its
slow but sure influence, and by a long succession of errors, and
the suffering that ensued therefrom, have now been brought to the
necessity of adopting it in its true meaning.
The erroneous presentation of Christianity, and its acceptance by
the majority of mankind, with all its errors, was then a necessity,
just as the seed, if it is to sprout, must for a time be buried in
the soil.
The Christian doctrine is the doctrine of truth as well as of
prophecy.
Eighteen hundred years ago the Christian doctrine revealed to men
the true conduct of life, and at the same time foretold the result
of disobeying its injunctions and of continuing to pursue their
former course, guided only by the precepts which were taught before
the dawn of Christianity; and it also showed them what life may
become if they accept the Christian doctrine and obey its dictates.
Having taught in the Sermon on the Mount those precepts by which men
should order their daily lives, Christ said: "Therefore whosoever
heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him
unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain
descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon
that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And
every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not,
shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the
sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall
of it" (Matthew vii. 24-27).
And thus, after eighteen centuries, the prophecy has been fulfilled.
As the result of the abandonment of Christ's teachings, having
disregarded the principle of non-resistance to evil, men have
unwittingly fallen into the condition of imminent peril foretold by
Christ to those who refused to follow His precepts.
Men often think that the question of resistance or non-resistance to
evil by violence is an artificial question, which may be evaded. And
yet this is the question that life presents to mankind in general,
and to each thinking man in particular, and it is one that must be
solved. In social life, ever since Christianity was first preached,
this question has been like the doubt that confronts the traveler
when he comes to a place where the road which he has followed
divides, and he knows not which branch to choose. He must pursue
his way, and he can no longer go on without pausing to deliberate,
because there are now two roads from which to choose, whereas before
there was but one; he must make up his mind which he will take.
In like manner, since the doctrine of Christ has been made known to
men, they can no longer say, I will go on living as I did before,
without deciding the question of resistance or non-resistance to
evil by violence. One must decide at the beginning of every fresh
struggle whether one ought or ought not to resist by violence that
which one believes to be evil.
The question of resistance or non-resistance of evil by violence
arose with the first contest among men, for every contest is simply
the resistance by violence of something which each combatant
believes to be an evil. But before the time of Christ men did not
understand that resistance by violence of whatever the individual
believed to be evil--only the same action which seems evil to one
man may seem good to another--is simply one mode of settling the
difficulty, and that the other method consists in not resisting evil
by violence.
Before the appearance of the doctrine of Christ men believed
that there could be but one way of deciding the contest, that of
resisting evil by violence, and acted accordingly, while each
combatant strove to persuade himself and others that what he
regarded as evil was in fact the actual and absolute evil. For this
purpose, dating from the oldest times, men began to invent certain
definitions of evil which should be obligatory for all, and for the
purpose of establishing definitions which should be thus binding,
were issued, either certain laws supposed to have been received in a
supernatural manner, or commands of individuals or of bodies of men
to whom an infallible wisdom was ascribed. Men used violence against
their fellow-men and assured themselves and others that they were
but using such violence against an evil acknowledged by all.
This was the custom from the most ancient times, particularly among
men who had usurped authority, and men have been long in seeing its
baselessness.
But the longer mankind existed the more complex grew its mutual
relations, and the more evident it became that to resist by violence
everything that is considered evil is unwise; that the struggle is
not diminished thereby, and that no human wisdom can ever define an
infallible standard of evil.
When Christianity first appeared in the Roman Empire it had already
become evident to most men that whatever Nero or Caligula called
evil, and sought to overcome by violence, was not necessarily an
evil for the rest of mankind. Even then men had already begun to
realize that the human laws for which a divine origin was claimed
were really written by men; that men cannot be infallible, no
matter with what external authority they may be invested; and that
fallible men will not become infallible because they meet together
and call themselves a Senate, or any other similar name. Even then
this had been perceived and understood by many. And it was then
that Christ preached His doctrine, which not only embodied the
principle of non-resistance, but which revealed a new conception
of life, of which the application to social life would lead to the
suppression of strife among men, not by obliging one class to yield
to whatsoever authority shall ordain, but by forbidding all men, and
especially those in power, to employ violence against others.
The doctrine was at that time embraced by a very limited number
of disciples, while the majority of men, particularly those who
were in authority, although they nominally accepted Christianity,
continued to follow the practice of resisting by violence whatever
they regarded as evil. So it was during the times of the Roman and
Byzantine emperors, and so it went on in later times.
The inconsistency of an authoritative definition of evil and its
resistance by violence, already apparent in the first centuries
of Christianity, had grown still more evident at the time of the
dissolution of the Roman Empire and its subdivision into numerous
independent states hostile to one another and torn by internal
dissensions.
But men were not yet ready to accept the law of Christ, and
the former method of defining an evil to be resisted by the
establishment of laws, enforced by coercion and binding upon all
men, continued to be employed. The arbiter, whose office it was
to decide upon the nature of the evil to be resisted by violence,
was alternately the Emperor, the Pope, the elected body, or the
nation at large. But both within and without the State men were
always to be found who refused to hold themselves bound, either by
those laws which were supposed to be the expression of the divine
will, or by the human laws which claimed to manifest the will of
the people;--men whose views on the subject of evil were quite at
variance with those of the existing authorities, men who resisted
the authorities, employing the same methods of violence that had
been directed against themselves.
Men invested with religious authority would condemn as evil a
matter which to men and institutions invested with a temporal
authority commended itself as desirable, and _vice versa_, and more
and more furious grew the struggle. And the oftener men had recourse
to violence in settling the difficulty, the more evident it became
that it was ill chosen, because there is not, nor can there ever be,
a standard authority of evil to which all mankind would agree.
Thus matters went on for eighteen centuries, and at last arrived at
their present condition, which is, that no man can dispute the fact
that an infallible definition of evil will never be made. We have
reached the point when men have ceased not only to believe in the
possibility of finding a universal definition which all men will
admit, but they have even ceased to believe in the necessity of
such a definition. We have reached the point when men in authority
no longer seek to prove that that which they consider evil is evil,
but candidly acknowledge that they consider that to be evil which
does not please them, and those who are subject to authority obey,
not because they believe that the definitions of evil made by
authority are just, but only because they have no power to resist.
The annexation of Nice to France, Lorraine to Germany, the Czechs
to Austria, the partition of Poland, the subjection of Ireland and
India to the English rule, the waging of war against China, the
slaughter of Africans, the expulsion of the Chinese, the persecution
of the Jews in Russia, or the derivation of profits by landowners
from land which they do not cultivate, and by capitalists from the
results of labor performed by others,--none of all this is done
because it is virtuous, or because it will benefit mankind and is
essentially opposed to evil, but because those who hold authority
will have it so. The result at the present time is this: certain
men use violence, no longer in the name of resistance to evil, but
from caprice, or because it is for their advantage; while certain
other men submit to violence, not because they believe, like those
of former ages, that violence is used to defend them from evil, but
simply because they cannot escape it.
If a Roman, or a man of the Middle Ages, or a Russian, such
a man as I can remember fifty years ago, believed implicitly
that the existing violence of authority was needed to save him
from evil,--that taxes, duties, serfdom, prisons, the lash, the
knout, galleys, executions, military conscription, and wars were
unavoidable,--it would be difficult to find a man at the present
time who believes that all the violences committed saves a single
man from evil; on the contrary, not one could be found who had not
a distinct assurance that most of the violations to which he is
subjected, and in which he himself participates, are in themselves a
great and unprofitable calamity.
There is hardly a man to be found at the present time who fails
to realize all the uselessness and absurdity of collecting taxes
from the laboring classes for the purpose of enriching idle
officials; or the folly of punishing weak and immoral men by exile
or imprisonment, where, supported as they are, and living in
idleness, they become still weaker and more depraved; or, again, the
unspeakable folly and cruelty of those preparations for war, which
can neither be explained nor justified, and which ruin and imperil
the safety of nations. Nevertheless these violations continue, and
the very men who realize and even suffer from their uselessness,
absurdity, and cruelty, contribute to their encouragement.
If fifty years ago it was possible that the wealthy man of leisure
and the illiterate laborer should both believe that their positions,
the one a continual holiday, the other a life of incessant labor,
were ordained by God--in these days, not only throughout Europe, and
even in Russia, owing to the activity of the people, the growth of
education, and the art of printing, it is hardly possible to find
a man, either rich or poor, who in one way or another would not
question the justice of such an order of things. Not only do the
rich realize that the possession of wealth is in itself a fault,
for which they strive to atone by donations to science and art,
as formerly they redeemed their sins by endowing churches; but
even the majority of the laboring class now understand that the
existing order is false, and should be altered, if not abolished.
Men who profess religion, of whom we have millions in Russia, the
so-called sectarians, acknowledge, because they interpret the gospel
doctrine correctly, that this order of things is false and should
be destroyed. The working-men consider it false because of the
socialistic, communistic, or anarchical theories that have already
found way into their ranks. In these days the principle of violence
is maintained, not because it is considered necessary, but simply
because it has been so long in existence, and is so thoroughly
organized by those who profit by it--that is to say, by the
governments and ruling classes--that those who are in their power
find it impossible to escape.
Nowadays every government, the despotic as well as the most
liberal, has become what Herzen has so cleverly termed a Genghis
Khan with a telegraphic equipment, that is, with an organization
of violence, having for basis nothing less than the most brutal
tyranny, and converting all the means invented by science for the
inter-communication and peaceful activities of free and equal men to
its own tyrannous and oppressive ends.
The existing governments and the ruling classes no longer care
to present even the semblance of justice, but rely, thanks to
scientific progress, on an organization so ingenious that it is able
to inclose all men within a circle of violence through which it is
impossible to break. This circle is made up of four expedients, each
connected with and supporting the other like the rings of a chain.
The first and the oldest expedient is intimidation. It consists
in representing the actual organization of the State, whether it
be that of a liberal republic or of an arbitrary despotism, as
something sacred and immutable, which therefore punishes by the most
cruel penalties any attempt at revolution. This expedient has been
put into practice recently wherever a government exists: in Russia
against the so-called nihilists, in America against the anarchists,
in France against the imperialists, monarchists, communists, and
anarchists. Railroads, telegraphs, telephones, photography, the
improved method of disposing of criminals by imprisoning them in
solitary confinement for the remainder of their lives in cells,
where, hidden from human view, they die forgotten, as well as
numerous other modern inventions upon which governments have the
prior claim, give them such power, that if once the authority
fell into certain hands, and the regular and secret police,
administrative officials, and all kinds of procureurs, jailers, and
executioners labored zealously to support it, there would be no
possibility whatsoever of overthrowing the government, however cruel
or senseless it might be.
The second expedient is bribery. This consists in taking the
property of the laboring classes by means of taxation and
distributing it among the officials, who, in consideration of this,
are bound to maintain and increase the bondage of the people. The
bribed officials, from the prime ministers to the lowest scribes,
form one unbroken chain of individuals, united by a common interest,
supported by the labor of the people, fulfilling the will of the
government with a submission proportionate to their gains, never
hesitating to use any means in any department of business to promote
the action of that governmental violence on which their well-being
rests.
The third expedient I can call by no other name than hypnotism.
It consists in retarding the spiritual development of men, and,
by means of various suggestions, influencing them to cling to the
theory of life which mankind has already left behind, and upon
which rests the foundation of governmental authority. We have at
the present time a hypnotizing system, organized in a most complex
manner, beginning in childhood and continued until the hour of
death. This hypnotism begins during the early years of a man's life
in a system of compulsory education. Children receive in school
the same ideas in regard to the universe which their ancestors
entertained, and which are in direct contradiction to contemporary
knowledge. In countries where a State religion exists, children
are taught the senseless and sacrilegious utterances of church
catechisms, with the duty of obedience to authorities; in the
republics they are taught the absurd superstition of patriotism,
and the same obligation of obedience to the government. In maturer
years this hypnotizing process is continued by the encouragement
of religious and patriotic superstition. Religious superstition is
encouraged by the erection of churches built from money collected
from the people, by holidays, processions, painting, architecture,
music, by incense that stupefies the brain, and, above all, by
the maintenance of the so-called clergy, whose duty consists in
befogging the minds of men and keeping them in a continual state
of imbecility, what with the solemnity of their services, their
sermons, their intervention with the private lives of men in time
of marriage, birth, and death. The patriotic superstition is
encouraged by the governments and the ruling classes by instituting
national festivals, spectacles, and holidays, by erecting monuments
with money collected from the people, which will influence men to
believe in the exclusive importance and greatness of their own State
or country and its rulers, and encourage a feeling of hostility
and even of hatred toward other nations. Furthermore, autocratic
governments directly forbid the printing and circulation of books
and the delivery of speeches that might enlighten men; and those
teachers who have the power to rouse the people from its torpor
are either banished or imprisoned. And every government, without
exception, conceals from the masses all that would tend to set them
free, and encourages all that would demoralize them,--all those
writings, for instance, that tend to confirm them in the crudeness
of their religious and patriotic superstition; all kinds of sensual
pleasures, shows, circuses, theaters; and all means for producing
physical stupor, especially those, like tobacco or brandy, which are
among the principal sources of national income. Even prostitution is
encouraged; it is not only recognized, but organized by the majority
of governments. Such is the third expedient.
The fourth expedient consists in this: certain individuals are
selected from among the mass of enslaved and stupefied beings,
and these, after having been subjected to a still more vigorous
process of brutalization, are made the passive instruments of the
cruelties and brutalities indispensable to the government. This
state of brutality and imbecility is produced by taking men in their
youth, before they have yet had time to gain any clear conception
of morality; and then, having removed them from all the natural
conditions of human life, from home, family, birthplace, and the
possibility of intelligent labor, by shutting them up together in
barracks, where, dressed in a peculiar uniform, to the accompaniment
of shouts, drums, music, and the display of glittering gewgaws, they
are daily forced to perform certain prescribed evolutions. By these
methods they are reduced to that hypnotic condition when they cease
to be men and become imbecile and docile machines in the hands of
the hypnotizer. These physically strong young men thus hypnotized
(and at the present time, with the general conscription system,
all young men answer to this description), supplied with murderous
weapons, ever obedient to the authority of the government, and ready
at its command to commit any violence whatsoever, constitute the
fourth and the principal means for subjugating men. So the circle of
violence is completed.
Intimidation, bribery, and hypnotism force men to become soldiers;
soldiers give power and make it possible to execute and to rob
mankind (with the aid of bribed officials), as well as to hypnotize
and to recruit men who are in their turn to become soldiers.
The circle is complete, and there is no possibility of escape from
it.
If some men believe that deliverance from violence, or even a
certain abatement of its energy, may be the result of its overthrow
by the oppressed, who will then replace it by a system which will
require no such violence and subjugation, and if, so believing,
they attempt to bring this about, they only deceive themselves and
others. So far from improving the position, these attempts will only
render things worse.
The activity of such men only strengthens the despotism of
governments by giving the latter a convenient pretext for increasing
their defenses. For even when, following a train of circumstances
highly demoralizing to the government,--take the case of France
in 1870, for example,--a government is overthrown by violence
and the authority passes into other hands, this new authority
is by no means likely to be less oppressive than the former. On
the contrary, obliged to defend itself from its exasperated and
overthrown enemies, it will be even more cruel and despotic than its
predecessor, as has ever been the case in periods of revolution.
If socialists and communists believe that the possession of
individual capital is a pernicious influence in society, and
anarchists regard government itself as an evil, there are, on the
other hand, monarchists, conservatives, and capitalists who look
upon the social and communal state as an evil order of society,
no less than anarchy itself; and all these parties have nothing
better to offer by way of reconciling mankind than violence. Thus,
whichever party gains the upper hand, it will be forced, in order
to introduce and maintain its own system, not only to avail itself
of all former methods of violence, but to invent new ones as well.
It simply means a change of slavery with new victims and a new
organization; but the violence will remain,--nay, increase,--because
human hatred, intensified by the struggle, will devise new means
for reducing the conquered to subjection. This has always been the
result of every revolution and violent overthrow of government. Each
struggle serves but to increase the power of those in authority at
the time to enslave their fellow-men.
One domain of human activity, and only one, has hitherto escaped
the encroachments of the governments--the domain of the family,
the economical domain of private life and domestic labor. But now
even this domain, in consequence of the struggle of socialists and
communists, is gradually passing into the hands of the governments,
so that labor and recreation, the dwellings, clothes, and food of
the people will by degrees, if the desires of the reformers are
accomplished, be determined and regulated by the government.
The long experiment of Christian life by nation after nation, during
eighteen centuries, has inevitably brought men to the necessity
of deciding whether the doctrine of Christ is to be accepted or
refused, and of deciding, too, the question of social life dependent
thereupon,--the resistance or non-resistance of evil by violence.
But there is this difference,--that formerly men could either accept
or reject the decision given by Christianity, whereas now it has
become imperative, because it affords the sole means of deliverance
from that condition of slavery in which, as in a net, men find
themselves entangled.
Nor is it alone this sad plight that brings them to this necessity.
Parallel with the negative proof of the falsehood of the pagan
order of things there has been positive proof of the truth of the
Christian doctrine.
Indeed, in the course of the eighteen centuries, the best men in all
Christendom, through an inner spiritual medium, having recognized
the truths of the doctrine, have borne witness of it, regardless of
threats, privations, miseries, and torture. These nobler men, by
their martyrdom, have sealed the truth of the doctrine.
Christianity penetrated into human consciousness, not alone by the
method of negative proof, that, namely, it had become impossible to
go on with the pagan life; but by its simplifying process, by its
explanation of, and its deliverance from, superstition, and by its
consequent spread among all classes of society.
Eighteen centuries of the profession of Christianity have not
passed in vain for those who accepted it, even if it were but in
outward form. These eighteen centuries have made men realize all
the miseries of the pagan state, even though they have continued
to lead a pagan existence, out of harmony with an age of humanity;
and at the bottom of their hearts they believe now (and herein
lies the only reason for living at all) that salvation from such
an existence can be found in the fulfilment of the Christian
doctrine in its true sense. As to when and where this salvation is
to be accomplished, opinions differ, according to the intellectual
development of men and the prejudices among which they live; but
every educated man recognizes that our salvation is to be found
in the fulfilment of the Christian doctrine. Certain believers,
those who consider the Christian doctrine divine, affirm that this
salvation will be accomplished when all men believe in Christ and
the time of the second advent approaches; others, who also have
faith in the divinity of Christ's doctrine, believe that this
salvation will come through the churches, which, having got all
men within the fold, will implant in their hearts those Christian
virtues which will transform their lives. Others, again, who do
not accept the divinity of Christ, believe that the salvation of
men will be accomplished by means of a slow, continuous progress,
during which the groundwork of pagan life will be gradually replaced
by the groundwork of liberty, equality, and fraternity--that is,
by the basis of Christianity. Still others there are who preach a
new social organization, and who believe that this salvation will
be brought about when, by means of a violent revolution, men are
forced to a community of goods, to the abolition of governments, to
collective rather than individual labor--that is, by the realization
of one of the aspects of Christianity. Thus, after one fashion
or another, all men of our epoch not only renounce the existing
order of life as no longer suited to the times, but acknowledge,
often without realizing it, and regarding themselves as enemies of
Christianity, that our salvation lies only in the adaptation to life
of a whole or a part of the Christian doctrine in its true sense.
For the majority of men Christianity, as its Teacher has expressed
it, could not be comprehended at once, but was to grow, like unto a
huge tree, from the tiniest seed. "The kingdom of heaven is like to
a grain of mustard seed, ... which indeed is the least of all seeds:
but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh
a tree." And thus it has grown and continues to grow, if not in
manifestation, then in human consciousness.
It is no longer reserved for the minority of men, who have
always understood Christianity by its veritable truth; but it is
acknowledged by the great majority, who, if we are to judge by their
social life, are far removed from it.
Look at the private life of individuals, listen to their estimation
of human actions as they pronounce judgment on each other; listen
not only to public sermons and orations, but to the precepts which
parents and teachers offer to their charges, and you will see that,
however far removed from the practice of Christian truths may be the
political or social existence of men who are in bonds to violence,
yet Christian virtues are admired and exalted by all; while, on the
contrary, the anti-Christian vices are unhesitatingly condemned
as harmful to all mankind. Those who sacrifice their lives in the
service of humanity are looked upon as the better men; while those
who take advantage of the misfortune of their neighbors to further
their own selfish interests are universally condemned.
There may still be men who, insensible to Christian ideals, have set
up for themselves other ideals, such as power, courage, or wealth;
but these ideals are passing away; they are not accepted by all, nor
by the men of the better class. Indeed, the Christian ideals are the
only ones which are recognized as obligatory for all.
The position of our Christian world, looked at from without, with
its cruelty and slavery, is indeed appalling. But if we consider
it from the standpoint of human consciousness, it presents a very
different aspect. All the evil of our life seems to exist only
because it always has existed from all ages, and the men whose
actions are evil have had neither the time nor the experience to
overcome their evil habits, although all are willing to abandon
them. Evil seems to exist by reason of some cause apparently
independent of the consciousness of men.
Strange and contradictory as it may seem, modern men hate the very
order of things which they themselves support.
I believe it is Max Müller who describes the astonishment of an
Indian converted to Christianity, who, having apprehended the
essence of the Christian doctrine, came to Europe and beheld the
life of Christians. He could not recover from his astonishment in
the presence of the reality, so different from the state of things
he had expected to find among Christian nations.
If we are not surprised at the contradiction between our convictions
and our actions, it is only because the influences which obscure
this contradiction act upon us. We have but to look at our life
from the standpoint of the Indian, who understood Christianity in
its true significance, without any concessions or adaptations, and
to behold the barbarous cruelties with which our life is filled, in
order to be horrified at the contradictions in the midst of which we
live, without noticing them.
One has but to remember the preparations for war, the
cartridge-boxes, the silver-plated bullets, the torpedoes, and--the
Red Cross; the establishment of prisons for solitary confinement,
experiments with _electrocution_, and--the care for the welfare of
the prisoners; the philanthropic activity of the rich, and--their
daily life, which brings about the existence of the poor, whom they
seek to benefit. And these contradictions arise, not, as it might
seem, because men pretend to be Christians while they are actually
heathens, but because they lack something, or because there is some
power which prevents them from being what they really desire to
be, and what they even conscientiously believe themselves to be.
It is not that modern men merely pretend to hate oppression, the
inequality of class distinctions, and all kinds of cruelty, whether
practised against their fellow-men or against animals. They _are_
sincere in their hatred of these abuses; but they do not know how
to abolish them, or they lack the courage to alter their own mode
of life, which depends upon all this, and which seems to them so
important.
Ask, indeed, any individual if he considers it praiseworthy or
even honorable for a man to fill a position for which he receives
a salary so high as to be out of all proportion to the amount of
his labor, as, for instance, that of collecting from the people,
often from beggars, taxes which are to be devoted to the purchase
of cannon, torpedoes, and other instruments for murdering the men
with whom we wish to live in peace, and who wish to live in peace
with us; or, to receive a salary for spending his life either
in perfecting these instruments of murder, or in the military
exercises by which men are trained for slaughter? Ask whether it
be praiseworthy or compatible with the dignity of man, or becoming
to a Christian, to undertake, also for money, to arrest some
unfortunate man, some illiterate drunkard, for some petty theft not
to be compared with the magnitude of our own appropriation, or for
manslaughter not conducted by our advanced methods; and for such
offenses to throw people into prison, or put them to death? Ask
whether it be laudable and becoming in a man and a Christian, also
for money, to teach the people foolish and injurious superstitions
instead of the doctrine of Christ? Whether, again, it be laudable
and worthy of a man to wrench from his neighbor, in order to
gratify his own caprice, the very necessaries of life, as the great
landowners do; or to exact from his fellow-man an excessive and
exhausting toil for the purpose of increasing his own wealth, as
the mill-owners and manufacturers do; or to take advantage of human
necessities to build up colossal fortunes, as the merchants do?
Every individual would reply not, especially if the question
regarded his neighbor. And at the same time the very man who
acknowledges all the ignominy of such deeds, when the case is
presented to him, will often, of his own accord, and for no
advantage of a salary, but moved by childish vanity, the desire to
possess a trinket of enamel, a decoration, a stripe, voluntarily
enter the military service, or become an examining magistrate, a
justice of the peace, a minister of state, an _uriadnik_, a bishop,
accepting an office whose duties will oblige him to do things, the
shame and ignominy of which he cannot help realizing.
Many of these men will, I am sure, defend themselves on the ground
of the lawfulness and necessity of their position; they will argue
that the authorities are of God, that the functions of State are
indispensable for the good of mankind, that Christianity is not
opposed to wealth, that the rich youth was bidden to give up his
goods only if he wished to be perfect, that the present distribution
of wealth and commerce is beneficial to all men, and that it
is right and lawful. But however much they may try to deceive
themselves and others, they all know that what they do is opposed to
the highest interests of life, and at the bottom of their hearts,
when they listen only to their consciences, they are ashamed and
pained to think of what they are doing, especially when the baseness
of their deeds has been pointed out to them. A man in modern life,
whether he does or does not profess to believe in the divinity
of Christ, must know that to be instrumental either as a czar,
minister, governor, or policeman, as in selling a poor family's last
cow to pay taxes to the treasury, the money of which is devoted to
the purchase of cannon or to pay the salaries or pensions of idle
and luxurious officials, is to do more harm than good; or to be
a party to the imprisonment of the father of a family, for whose
demoralization we are ourselves responsible, and to bring his family
to beggary; or to take part in piratical and murderous warfare;
or to teach absurd superstitions of idol-worship instead of the
doctrine of Christ; or to impound a stray cow belonging to a man
who has no land; or to deduct the value of an accidentally injured
article from the wages of a mechanic; or to sell something to a poor
man for double its value, only because he is in dire necessity;--the
men of our modern life cannot but know that all such deeds are
wrong, shameful, and that they ought not to commit them. They do all
know it. They know that they are doing wrong, and would abstain from
it, had they but the strength to oppose those forces which blind
them to the criminality of their actions while drawing them on to do
wrong.
But there is nothing that demonstrates so vividly the degree of
contradiction to which human life has attained as the system that
embodies both the method and the expression of violence,--the
general conscription system. It is only because a general armament
and military conscription have come imperceptibly and by slow
degrees, and that governments employ for their support all the means
of intimidation at their disposal,--bribery, bewilderment, and
violence,--that we do not realize the glaring contradiction between
this state of affairs and those Christian feelings and ideas with
which all modern men are penetrated.
This contradiction has become so common that we fail to see the
shocking imbecility and immorality of the actions, not only of
those men who, of their own accord, choose the profession of murder
as something honorable, but of those unfortunates who consent to
serve in the army, and of those who, in countries where military
conscription has not yet been introduced, give of their own free
will the fruits of their labor to be used for the payment of
mercenaries and for the organization for murder. All these men are
either Christians or men professing humanitarianism and liberalism,
who know that they participate in the most imbecile, aimless, and
cruel murders; yet still they go on committing them. But this
is not all. In Germany, where the system of general military
conscription originated, Caprivi has revealed something that has
always been carefully hidden: that the men who run the risk of
being killed are not only foreigners, but are quite as likely to
be fellow-countrymen,--working-men,--from which class most of the
soldiers are obtained. Nevertheless, this admission neither opened
men's eyes nor shocked their sensibilities. They continue just as
they did before, to go like sheep, and submit to anything that
is demanded of them. And this is not all. The German Emperor has
recently explained with minute precision the character and vocation
of a soldier, having distinguished, thanked, and rewarded a private
for killing a defenseless prisoner who attempted to escape. In
thanking and rewarding a man for an act which is looked upon even
by men of the lowest type of morality as base and cowardly, Wilhelm
pointed out that the principal duty of a soldier, and one most
highly prized by the authorities, is that of an executioner,--not
like the professional executioners who put to death condemned
prisoners only, but an executioner of the innocent men whom his
superiors order him to kill.
Yet more. In 1891 this same Wilhelm, the _enfant terrible_ of State
authority, who expresses what other men only venture to think, in a
talk with certain soldiers, uttered publicly the following words,
which were repeated the next day in thousands of papers:--
"Recruits! You have given _me_ the oath of allegiance before the
altar and the servant of the Lord. You are still too young to
comprehend the true meaning of what has been said here, but first of
all take care ever to follow the orders and instructions that are
given to you. You have taken the oath of allegiance to _me_; this
means, children of my guards, that you are now _my_ soldiers, that
you have given yourselves up to me, body and soul.
"But one enemy exists for you--_my_ enemy. With the present
socialistic intrigues _it may happen that I shall command you to
shoot your own relatives, your brothers, even your parents_ (from
which may God preserve us!), _and then you are in duty bound to obey
my orders unhesitatingly_."
This man expresses what is known, but carefully concealed, by all
wise rulers. He says outright that the men who serve in the army
serve _him_and _his_ advantage, and should be ready for that purpose
to kill their brothers and fathers.
Roughly but distinctly he lays bare all the horror of the crime
for which men who become soldiers prepare themselves,--all that
abyss of self-abasement into which they fling themselves when they
promise obedience. Like a bold hypnotizer, he tests the depth of the
slumber; he applies red-hot iron to the sleeper's body; it smokes
and shrivels, but the sleeper does not awaken.
Poor, sick, miserable man, intoxicated with power, who by these
words insults all that is sacred to men of modern civilization!
And we, Christians, liberals, men of culture, so far from feeling
indignant at this insult, pass it over in silence. Men are put to
the final test in its rudest form; but they hardly observe that a
test is in question, that a choice is put before them. It seems
to them as if there were no choice, but only the one necessity
of slavish submission. It would seem as if these insane words,
offensive to all that a civilized human being holds sacred, ought
to rouse indignation,--but nothing of the kind happens. Year after
year every young man in Europe is subjected to the same test, and
with very few exceptions they all forswear what is and should be
sacred to every man; all manifest a readiness to kill their brothers
and even their fathers, at the order of the first misguided man who
wears a red and gold livery, asking only when and whom they are to
be ordered to kill--for they are ready to do it.
Even by savages certain objects are held sacred, for whose sake
they are ready to suffer rather than submit. But what is sacred for
the man of the modern world? He is told: Be my slave, in a bondage
where you may have to murder your own father; and he, oftentimes a
man of learning, who has studied all the sciences in the university,
submissively offers his neck to the halter. He is dressed in a
clown's garments, ordered to leap, to make contortions, to salute,
to kill--and he submissively obeys; and when at last allowed to
return to his former life, he continues to hold forth on the dignity
of man, freedom, equality, and brotherhood.
"But what is to be done?" we often hear men ask in perplexity. "If
every man were to refuse, it would be a different matter; but, as it
is, I should suffer alone without benefiting any one." And they are
right; for a man who holds the social life-conception cannot refuse.
Life has no significance for him except as it concerns his personal
welfare; it is for his advantage to submit, therefore he does so.
To whatever torture or injury he may be subjected he will submit,
because he can do nothing alone; he lacks the foundation which
alone would enable him to resist violence, and those who are in
authority over him will never give him the chance of uniting with
others.
It has often been said that the invention of the terrible military
instruments of murder will put an end to war, and that war will
exhaust itself. This is not true. As it is possible to increase the
means for killing men, so it is possible to increase the means for
subjecting those who hold the social life-conception. Let them be
exterminated by thousands and millions, let them be torn to pieces,
men will still continue like stupid cattle to go to the slaughter,
some because they are driven thither under the lash, others that
they may win the decorations and ribbons which fill their hearts
with pride.
And it is with material like this that the public
leaders--conservatives, liberals, socialists, anarchists--discuss
the ways and means of organizing an intelligent and moral society,
with men who have been so thoroughly confused and bewildered
that they will promise to murder their own parents. What kind of
intelligence and morality can there be in a society organized from
material like this? Just as it is impossible to build a house
from bent and rotten timber, however manipulated, so also is it
impossible with such materials to organize an intelligent and moral
society. They can only be governed like a drove of cattle, by the
shouts and lash of the herdsman. And so, indeed, they are governed.
Again, while on the one hand we find men, Christians in name,
professing the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, on
the other hand we see these same men ready, in the name of liberty,
to yield the most abject and slavish obedience; in the name of
equality, to approve of the most rigid and senseless subdivision of
men into classes; and in the name of fraternity, ready to slay their
own brothers.[14]
[14] The fact that some nations, like the English and American, have
no general conscription system (although one hears already voices in
its favor), but a system of recruiting and hiring soldiers, nowise
alters the case as regards the slavery of the citizens under the
government. In the former system every man must go himself to kill
or be killed; in the latter, he must give the proceeds of his labor
to employ and drill murderers.
The contradiction of the moral consciousness, and hence the misery
of life, has reached its utmost limit, beyond which it can go no
further. Life, based on principles of violence, has culminated in
the negation of the basis on which it was founded. The organization,
on principles of violence, of a society whose object was to insure
the happiness of the individual and the family, and the social
welfare of humanity, has brought men to such a pass that these
benefits are practically annulled.
The first part of the prophecy in regard to those men and their
descendants who adopted this doctrine has been fulfilled, and now
their descendants are forced to realize the justice of its second
part.
CHAPTER IX
THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE-CONCEPTION DELIVERS MEN FROM
THE MISERIES OF OUR PAGAN LIFE
The external life of Christian nations remains pagan, but they
are already penetrated by the Christian life-conception--The
issue from this contradiction is in the acceptance of the
Christian life-conception--In it alone is every man free, and
it alone frees him from all human authority--This deliverance
is brought about, not by a change of external conditions,
but only by a change in the conception of one's life--The
Christian life-conception demands the renunciation of violence,
and, in delivering the man who accepts it, it frees the world
from all external authority--The issue from the present
apparently hopeless position consists in every man accepting
the Christian life-conception and living accordingly--But
men consider this method too slow, and see their salvation
in change of the material conditions of life made with the
aid of the authority of the State--This method will have no
issue, because men themselves cause the evil from which they
suffer--This is especially evident in regard to the submissive
acceptance of military duty, for it is more advantageous for
a man to refuse than accept--Human freedom will be brought
about only through the liberation of each individual man, and
already there are signs of this liberation, which threatens to
destroy State organization--The repudiation of the un-Christian
demands of governments undermines their authority and makes
men free--Therefore instances of such refusals are feared by
governments more than conspiracies or violence--Instances, in
Russia, of refusals to take the oath of allegiance, to pay
taxes, to accept passports or positions in the police, to take
part in courts of law, or to be drafted as soldiers--Similar
instances in other countries--Governments know not how to
dispose of men who refuse to obey their requirements because of
the Christian doctrine--These men destroy without a struggle
the foundations of governments from the inside--To punish them
would mean for governments to deny Christianity themselves, and
to contribute to the diffusion of that consciousness from which
such refusals spring--Hence the position of governments is a
desperate one, and men who preach the uselessness of personal
deliverance only arrest the destruction of the existing system
of government founded on violence.
The Christian nations of the present day are in a position no less
cruel than that of pagan times. In many respects, especially in the
matter of oppression, their position has grown worse.
A contrast like that of modern and ancient times may be seen in the
vegetation of the last days of autumn as compared with that of the
early days of spring. In the autumn the outward decay and death
correspond to the interior process, which is the suspension of life;
in the spring the apparent lifelessness is in direct contradiction
to the real vitality within, and the approaching transition to new
forms of life.
And thus it is as regards the apparent resemblance between pagan
life and that of the present day. It exists only in appearance. The
inner lives of men in the times of paganism were quite unlike those
of the men of our days.
In the former the external aspect of cruelty and slavery
corresponded with the inner consciousness of men, a conformity which
only increased as time went on; in the latter the external condition
of cruelty and slavery is in utter contradiction to the Christian
consciousness of men, a contradiction which grows more and more
striking every year.
The misery and suffering resulting therefrom seem so useless. It is
like prolonged suffering in child-labor. Everything is ready for the
coming life, and yet no life appears.
Apparently the situation is without deliverance. It would indeed
be so were it not that to men, and therefore to the world, there
has been vouchsafed the capacity for a loftier conception of life,
which has the power to set free, and at once, from all fetters,
however firmly riveted.
And this is the Christian life-conception presented to men 1800
years ago.
A man has but to assimilate this life-conception and he will be set
free, as a matter of course, from the fetters that now restrain him,
and feel free as a bird who spreads his wings and flies over the
wall that has kept him a prisoner.
They talk of setting the Christian Church free from the State, of
granting freedom to or withholding it from Christians. Such thoughts
and expressions are strangely misleading. Liberty can neither be
granted to nor withheld from a Christian or Christians.
But if there is a question of granting or withholding liberty, then
evidently it is not the true Christians who are meant, but only men
who call themselves by that name. A Christian cannot help being
free, because in the pursuit and attainment of his object no one can
either hinder or retard him.
A man has but to understand his life as Christianity teaches him to
understand it; that is, he must realize that it does not belong to
himself, nor to his family, nor to the State, but to Him who sent
him into the world; he must therefore know that it is his duty to
live, not in accordance with the law of his own personality, nor of
that of his family or State, but to fulfil the infinite law of Him
who gave him life, in order to feel himself so entirely free from
all human authority that he will cease to regard it as a possible
obstacle.
A man needs but to realize that the object of his life is the
fulfilment of God's law; then the preëminence of that law, claiming
as it does his entire allegiance, will of necessity invalidate the
authority and restrictions of all human laws.
The Christian who contemplates that law of love implanted in every
human soul, and quickened by Christ, the only guide for all mankind,
is set free from human authority.
A Christian may suffer from external violence, may be deprived of
his personal freedom, may be a slave to his passions,--the man who
commits sin is the slave of the sin,--but he cannot be controlled
or coerced by threats into committing an act contrary to his
consciousness. He cannot be forced to this, because the privations
and sufferings that are so powerful an influence over men who hold
the social life-conception have no influence whatever over him. The
privations and sufferings that destroy the material welfare which is
the object of the social life-conception produce no effect upon the
welfare of the Christian's life, which rests on the consciousness
that he is doing God's will--nay, they may even serve to promote
that welfare when they are visited upon him for fulfilling that will.
A Christian, therefore, who submits to the inner, the divine law,
is not only unable to execute the biddings of the outward law when
they are at variance with his consciousness of God's law of love,
as in the case of the demands made upon him by the government; but
he cannot acknowledge the obligation of obeying any individual
whomsoever, cannot acknowledge himself to be what is called a
subject. For a Christian to promise to subject himself to any
government whatsoever--a subjection which may be considered the
foundation of State life--is a direct negation of Christianity;
since an individual who promises beforehand to obey implicitly every
law that men may enact, by that promise utters an emphatic denial of
Christianity, whose very essence is obedience in all contingencies
to the law which he feels to be within him--the law of love.
With the pagan life-conception it was possible to promise to obey
the will of temporal authorities without violating the laws of
God, which were supposed to consist in carrying out such customs
as circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, the utterance of
prayer at certain periods, abstinence from certain kinds of food,
etc. The one did not contradict the other. But Christianity differs
from paganism inasmuch as its requirements are not of an external
or negative character; on the contrary, they are such as reverse
man's former relations toward his fellow-men, and may call for
acts on his part which could not be anticipated, and consequently
are not defined. Hence it is that a Christian can neither promise
to obey nor to disobey the will of another, ignorant as he must
be of the nature of its requirements; not only must he refuse to
obey human laws, but he cannot promise to do or abstain from doing
anything definite at any given time, because he can never tell at
what hour or in what manner the Christian law of love, on which his
life-conception is based, will demand his coöperation. A Christian,
promising in advance to obey unconditionally the laws of men, admits
by that promise that the inner law of God does not constitute for
him the sole law of his life.
When a Christian promises to obey the commands or laws of men, he
is like a craftsman who, having hired himself out to one master,
promises at the same time to execute the orders of other persons. No
man can serve two masters.
A Christian is freed from human authority by acknowledging
the supremacy of one authority alone, that of God, whose law,
revealed to him through Christ, he recognizes within himself, and
obeys,--that and no other.
And this deliverance is accomplished neither by means of a struggle,
nor by the destruction of previous customs of life, but only through
a change in his life-conception. The deliverance proceeds, in the
first place, from the Christian's acknowledgment of the law of love,
as revealed to him by his Teacher, which suffices to determine the
relations of men, and according to which every act of violence seems
superfluous and unlawful. Secondly, because those privations and
miseries, or the anticipations of such, which influence a man who
holds the social life-conception and reduces him to obedience, seem
to him no more than the inevitable consequences of existence, which
he would never dream of opposing by violence, but bears patiently,
as he would bear disease, hunger, or any other misery; which,
indeed, have no possible influence over his actions. The Christian's
only guide must be the divine indwelling element, subject neither to
restriction nor to control.
A Christian lives in accordance with the words spoken by the Master:
"He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice
in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax
shall he not quench, _till he send forth judgment unto victory_."[15]
[15] Matthew xii. 19, 20.
A Christian enters into no dispute with his neighbor, he neither
attacks nor uses violence; on the contrary, he suffers violence
himself without resistance, and by his very attitude toward evil not
only sets himself free, but helps to free the world at large from
all outward authority.
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free."[16] If there were any doubt of the truth of Christianity
there could be no more indubitable proof of its authenticity than
the complete freedom, recognizing no fetters, which a man feels as
soon as he assimilates the Christian life-conception.
[16] John viii. 32.
Human beings in their present condition may be likened to bees in
the act of swarming, as we see them clinging in a mass to a single
bough. Their position is a temporary one, and must inevitably be
changed. They must rise and find themselves a new abode. Every bee
knows this, and is eager to shift its own position, as well as that
of the others, but not one of them will do so until the whole swarm
rises. The swarm cannot rise, because one bee clings to the other
and prevents it from separating itself from the swarm, and so they
all continue to hang. It might seem as if there were no deliverance
from this position, precisely as it seems to men of the world who
have become entangled in the social net. Indeed, there would be no
outlet for the bees if each one were not a living creature possessed
of a pair of wings. Neither would there be any issue for men if
each one were not a living individual, being gifted with a capacity
for assimilating the Christian life-conception.
If among these bees who are able to fly not one could be found
willing to start, the swarm would never change its position. And it
is the same among men. If the man who has assimilated the Christian
life-conception waits for others before he proceeds to live in
accordance with it, mankind will never change its attitude. And as
all that is needed to change a solid mass of bees into a flying
swarm is for one bee to spread its wings and fly away, when the
second, the third, the tenth, and the hundredth will follow suit; so
all that is needed to break through the magic circle of social life,
deliverance from which seems so hopeless, is, that one man should
view life from a Christian standpoint and begin to frame his own
life accordingly, whereupon others will follow in his footsteps.
But men think that the deliverance of mankind by this method is
too slow a process, and that a simultaneous deliverance might be
effected by some other method. Just as if bees, when the swarm was
ready to rise, were to decide that it would be too long a process if
they waited for each bee to spread its wings and rise separately,
and that some means must be devised whereby the swarm may rise all
at once, whenever it pleases. But that is impossible. Not until the
first, second, third, and hundredth bee has unfolded its wings and
flown away can the swarm take flight and find for itself a new home.
Not until each individual man adopts the Christian life-conception,
and begins to live in conformity with its precepts, will the
contradictions of human life be solved, and new forms of life become
established.
One of the most striking events of our time is the propaganda
of slavery which is spread among the masses, not only by the
government, to whom it is of use, but by those exponents of
socialistic theories who consider themselves the champions of
freedom.
These men preach that the amelioration in the conditions of life,
the reconciliation between actuality and consciousness, will not be
brought about by the personal efforts of individual men, but that it
will evolve itself out of a certain forced reorganization of society
by some unknown influence. Their theory is that men should not
proceed of their own accord to the place where they wish to go, but
that they should have a platform built under their feet, upon which
they may be carried to the spot they desire to reach. Hence they
must not move as far as their strength will permit, but all their
efforts must be directed toward building this imaginary platform
without stirring from their position.
There is a theory in economics preached in these days of which the
essential principle is this: the worse the condition of affairs,
the better the prospect; the greater the accumulation of capital
and oppression of the working-man resulting therefrom, the nearer
the day of deliverance; and therefore any effort on the part of
the individual to free himself from the oppression of capital is
useless. In regard to the government it is declared that the greater
its authority, which, according to this theory, should include the
domain of private life, hitherto uninvaded, the better it will be,
and hence one should solicit the interference of governments with
private life. In regard to international politics, it is declared
that the increase of armies and modes of extermination will lead
to the necessity of a general disarmament through the agency of
congresses, arbitration, etc. And the most surprising part of all is
that human lethargy is so profound that men credit these theories,
although the whole structure of life, and every stage in human
progress, demonstrate their fallacy.
Men suffer from oppression, and by way of deliverance certain
expedients are suggested for the improvement of their condition,
these means of relief to be administered by authority, to which they
continue to submit. This will naturally tend to augment authority
and to increase the consequent oppression of government.
Of all the errors of humanity there is none that so retards its
progress as this. Men will do anything in the world to achieve their
purpose save the one simple deed, which it is every man's duty to
perform. Men will invent the most ingenious devices for changing the
position which is burdensome to them, but never dream of the simple
remedy of abstaining from the acts which cause it.
I was told of an incident which happened to an intrepid _stanovoy_,
who, on arriving in a village where the peasants had revolted, and
whither troops had been sent, undertook, like the Emperor Nicholas
I., to quell the disturbance by his personal influence. He ordered
several loads of rods to be brought, and having gathered all the
peasants into the barn, he entered himself, shut himself in with
them, and so terrified them by his shouts and threats that in
compliance with his commands they began to flog each other. And so
they went on flogging one another until some fool revolted, and,
shouting to his comrades, bade them leave off. It was not until then
that the flogging ceased, and the _stanovoy_ escaped from the barn.
It is this very advice of the fool that men who believe in the
necessity of civil government seem unable to follow. They are unable
to stop punishing themselves, and setting an absurd example for
others to imitate. Such is the consummation of merely human wisdom.
Is it possible, indeed, to imagine a more striking imitation of
those men flogging one another than the meekness with which the
men of these days fulfil those social duties that lead them into
bondage, especially the military conscription? It is clear that men
enslave themselves; they suffer from this slavery, and yet they
believe it inevitable; they also believe that it will not affect
the ultimate emancipation of mankind, which they declare the final
outcome, in spite of the fact that slavery is ever increasing.
The man of modern times, whoever he may be (I do not mean a true
Christian), educated or ignorant, a believer or an unbeliever, rich
or poor, married or single, does his work, takes his pleasures, and
dreads all restrictions and privations, all enmity and suffering.
Thus he is living, peaceably. Suddenly men come to him and say:
"First, promise on your oath that you will obey us like a slave
in all that we command; believe that whatever we tell you is
unquestionably true, and submit to all that we shall call laws. Or,
secondly, give us a share in the product of your labor, that we
may use it to keep you in bondage, and prevent you from revolting
against our commands. Or, thirdly, choose, or be chosen among, the
so-called officials of the government, knowing that the government
will go on quite regardless of the foolish speeches which you, or
others like you, may utter; that it will be carried on in accordance
with our wishes and the wishes of those who control the army.
Or, fourthly, come to the law-courts, and take part in all the
senseless cruelties which we commit against men, who are erring and
depraved men, and who have become so through our fault,--in the
form of imprisonment, exile, solitary confinement, and execution.
Or, lastly, although you may be on the most friendly terms with
men who belong to other nations, you must be ready at a moment's
notice, whenever the command is issued, to look upon such of them
as we shall indicate as your enemies, and either personally or by
substitute contribute to the ruin, robbery, and murder of these men,
of old men, women, and children--even, if we require it, of your
fellow-countrymen and your parents."
One would think that in these days there could be but one reply from
any man in his senses.
"Why must I do all this? Why must I promise to obey all the orders
of Salisbury to-day, those of Gladstone to-morrow; Boulanger to-day,
and to-morrow the orders of an assembly composed of men like
Boulanger; Peter III. to-day, Catharine to-morrow, and the next day
Pugatchov; to-day the insane King of Bavaria, to-morrow the Emperor
William? Why should I promise this to men whom I know to be wicked
or foolish, or men whom I know nothing at all about? Why should I,
in the form of taxes, hand over to them the fruits of my labor,
knowing that this money will be used to bribe officials, to support
prisons, churches, and armies, to pay for the execution of evil acts
destined for my oppression? In other words, why should I apply the
rod to my own back? Why should I go on wasting my time, averting
my eyes, helping to give a semblance of legality to the acts of
wrong-doers, play a part in elections, and pretend to participate
in the government, when I know perfectly well that the country is
ruled by those who control the army? Why should I go into the courts
and be a party to the infliction of tortures and executions upon
my erring fellow-beings, knowing, if I am a Christian, that the
law of love has been substituted for the law of vengeance, and if
I am an educated man, that punishment, so far from reforming its
victims, serves only to demoralize them? Why should I, in person or
in substitute, go and kill and despoil, and expose myself to the
dangers of war, simply because the key of the temple of Jerusalem
happens to be in the keeping of one bishop rather than in that
of another; because Bulgaria is to be ruled by one German prince
instead of another; or because the privileges of the seal fishery
are reserved for the English to the exclusion of the American
merchants. Why should I regard as my enemies the inhabitants of a
neighboring country, with whom up to the present day I have lived,
and still wish to live, in peace and amity,--why should I go myself,
or pay for soldiers, to murder and ruin them?
"And, above all, why should I contribute, whether in person or by
paying for military service, to the enslavement and destruction of
my brothers and parents? Why should I scourge myself? All this is
of no use to me; on the contrary, it does me harm. It is altogether
degrading, immoral, mean, and contemptible. Why, then, should I do
all this? If I am told that I shall be made to suffer in any event,
I reply that in the first place, there can be no possible suffering
greater than that which would befall me were I to execute your
commands. And in the second place, it is perfectly evident to me
that if we refuse to scourge ourselves, no one else will do it for
us. Governments are but sovereigns, statesmen, officials, who can
no more force me against my will, than the _stanovoy_ could force
the peasants; I should be brought before the court, or thrown into
prison, or executed, not by the sovereign, or the high officials,
but by men in the same position as myself; and as it would be
equally injurious and disagreeable for them to be scourged as for
me, I should probably open their eyes, and they would not only
refrain from injuring me, but would doubtless follow my example.
And in the third place, though I were made to suffer for this, it
would still be better for me to be exiled or imprisoned, doing
battle in the cause of common sense and truth, which must eventually
triumph, if not to-day, then to-morrow, or before many days, than
to suffer in the cause of folly and evil. It would rather be to my
advantage to risk being exiled, imprisoned, or even executed, than
remain, through my own fault, a life-long slave of evil men, to be
ruined by an invading enemy, or mutilated like an idiot, or killed
while defending a cannon, a useless territory, or a senseless piece
of cloth called a flag. I have no inclination to scourge myself,
it would be of no use. You may do it yourselves if you choose--I
refuse."
It would seem as though not only the religious and moral element
in human nature, but ordinary common sense and wise counsel, would
influence every man of the present day thus to make reply, and
to suit the action to the word. But no. Men who hold the social
life-conception consider such a course not only useless, but even
prejudicial to the object in view,--the deliverance of mankind from
slavery. They advise us to go on, like the peasants, punishing
one another, comforting ourselves with the reflection that our
chatter in parliaments and assemblies, our trade unions, our First
of May demonstrations, our conspiracies and covert threats to the
governments that scourge us, must result in our final deliverance,
even though we go on strengthening our fetters. Nothing so hampers
human liberty as this wonderful delusion. Instead of making
individual efforts to achieve freedom, every man for himself
devoting all his energies to that object, through the attainment of
a new life-conception, men are looking for a universal scheme of
deliverance, and are in the meanwhile sinking deeper and deeper into
slavery. It is as if a man were to declare that in order to obtain
heat one must merely place every lump of coal in a certain position,
never minding whether it kindled or not. And yet that the liberation
of mankind can only be accomplished by means of the deliverance of
the individual grows more and more evident.
The liberation of individuals from the dominion of the State, in
the name of the Christian life-conception, which was formerly an
exceptional occurrence and one that attracted but little attention,
has attained in these days a menacing significance for the authority
of State.
If in the days of ancient Rome it happened that a Christian,
professing his faith, refused to take a part in sacrifices, or in
the worship of the emperors or the gods, or in the Middle Ages
refused to worship ikons or to acknowledge the temporal authority of
the Pope, such refusals were the exception; a man might be obliged
to confess to his faith, but he might perhaps live all his life
without being forced to do so. But now all men, without exception,
are subjected to trial of faith. Every man of modern times is
obliged, either to participate in the cruelties of pagan life, or
to repudiate them. And secondly, in those days any refusal to bow
before the gods, the ikons, or the Pope was of no consequence to the
State. Whether those who bowed before the gods, the ikons, or the
Pope were many or few, the State lost none of its power. Whereas
at the present time every refusal to execute the un-Christian
demands of the government undermines the authority of the State,
because the authority of the State rests on the fulfilment of these
anti-Christian requirements.
Temporal authority, in order to maintain itself, has been forced by
the conditions of life to demand from its subjects certain actions
which it is impossible for men who profess true Christianity to
perform. Therefore at the present time every man who professes
it helps to undermine the authority of the government, and will
eventually pave the way for the liberation of mankind.
Of what apparent importance are such acts as the refusal of a score
or two of fools, as they are called,--men who decline to take the
oath of allegiance, to pay taxes, or to take part in courts of law,
or to serve in the army? Such men are tried and condemned, and life
remains unchanged. These occurrences may seem unimportant, and
yet these are precisely the factors that undermine the authority
of the government more than any others, and thus prepare the way
for the liberation of mankind. These are the bees who are the
first to separate themselves from the swarm, and, still hovering
near, they wait for the whole swarm to rise and follow them. The
governments are aware of this, and look upon such occurrences with
more apprehension than upon all the socialists, anarchists, and
communists, with their conspiracies and their dynamite bombs.
A new _régime_ is inaugurated. Each subject, according to custom,
is required to take the oath of allegiance to the new government.
A proclamation is issued, and all are bidden to assemble in the
cathedral to take the oath. Suddenly one man in Perm, another in
Tula, a third in Moscow, a fourth in Kaluga, refuse to take the
oath and (without preconcerted action) justify their refusal by
the same argument,--that the Christian law forbids the oath; but,
even were the oath not forbidden, they could not, according to the
spirit of this law, promise to perform such evil deeds as the oath
requires,--such as reporting those antagonistic to the interests
of the government, defending that government by armed force, or
attacking its enemies. They are summoned to appear before the
_stanovoys_, _spravniks_, priests, governors; they are reasoned
with, coaxed, threatened, and punished; yet they adhere to their
determination, and refuse to take the oath. They are asked, "Is it
true that you never took the oath?"
"It is."
"And what was done to you?"
"Nothing."
Every subject is required to pay his taxes, and the taxes are paid.
But one man in Charkov, another in Iver, and a third in Samara,
refuse to comply, and, as by one accord, each man alleges the same
reason. One of them says that he will pay after he has learned the
object for which his money is to be used. "If it is to be used for
charity, he will give of his own free will, and even more than is
demanded of him. But if it is to be applied to evil purposes, he
will give nothing of his own free will, because, according to the
law of Christ, which he obeys, he can take no part in doing evil."
And the others who refuse to pay taxes, except on compulsion,
express the same idea, perhaps in other words. Those who have
property are forced to pay, and those who have none are simply let
alone.
"Then you have not paid your tax?"
"No."
"And what was done to you?"
"Nothing."
The passport system is instituted. Every man who leaves his home
must apply for one, and pay a tax for it. Suddenly, in different
places, are to be found those who declare that passports should
not be used, that a man should not acknowledge his dependence upon
the State, which is supported by violence; and these men take no
passports, consequently they pay no tax for them. And again, there
are no means of coercing them to comply with the demand. They are
imprisoned, but when after a time they find themselves at liberty
again, they go on living without passports.
Every peasant is expected to perform police duty as _sotsky_ or
_dessiatsky_,[17] etc.; but some peasant in Charkov refuses to
fulfil this duty, because, as he says in explanation of his refusal,
the law of Christ, which he professes, forbids him to arrest,
imprison, or transport his fellow-men. Another peasant in Iver or
in Tambov makes the same statement. The peasants are threatened,
beaten, and imprisoned, but they adhere to their resolution, and
refuse to perform actions contrary to their religious belief. And
they cease to be elected _sotsky_, and are gradually left in peace.
[17] Petty rural police.--TR.
It is the duty of every citizen to serve on the jury. All at once
men of widely different classes,--carriage-makers, professors,
merchants, peasants, nobles,--as if moved by a single impulse,
refuse to fulfil this duty, not for reasons valid in the eyes of
the law, but because the tribunal itself is, in their opinion,
illegal and un-Christian, and ought not to exist. These men are
fined, and false reasons are ascribed for their refusal, the true
ones meanwhile remaining hidden from the public. The same treatment
is employed in regard to those who, for similar reasons, refuse to
appear as witnesses in courts of law. These, too, are finally left
undisturbed.
Every man at the age of twenty-one must draw lots. Suddenly there
is found a man in Moscow, another in Iver, another in Charkov, and
still another in Kiev, who, as it were by agreement, go to the
department and declare that they will neither take the oath of
allegiance nor serve in the army, because they are Christians. Here
are the details of an affair which was among the earlier cases,--of
late these refusals have begun to multiply,--a case with which I am
myself familiar,[18] which is but one example among many.
[18] The details of this case are authentic.
In the City Hall of Moscow a young man of average education gives
his reasons for refusing to comply. His words are not heeded, and
he is bidden to repeat the words of the oath with the other men.
He still persists in his refusal, and quotes a certain passage in
the Bible that forbids men to take an oath. No attention is paid
to his arguments, and again he is ordered to take the oath, which
he declines to do. Whereupon it is taken for granted that he is
a sectarian, and therefore misunderstands Christianity; in other
words, that he differs from the priests paid by the State. He is
then sent under guard to the priests that they may convince him,
which they endeavor to do; but the arguments uttered in the name
of Christ, by which they strive to persuade him to deny Christ,
evidently have no effect on the young man. So they declare him
incorrigible, and send him back to the army. Still he openly refuses
to take the oath and to fulfil his military duties.
It is a case not anticipated by the law. A refusal to comply
with the demands of the government cannot be overlooked, neither
can this case be called one of ordinary insubordination. After
conferring, the military authorities decide that, in order to rid
themselves of this objectionable youth, the better way will be
to consider him as a rebel and forward him under military escort
to the Department of the Secret Police. The police officials and
the gendarmes question the young man, but his replies will not
serve to classify his offense under the heading of any crime that
comes within their jurisdiction; they cannot either accuse him of
revolutionary motives, or of conspiracy, because he declares that
he has no desire to destroy anything whatsoever; on the contrary,
he opposes all violence. He says that he has nothing to conceal;
he desires only an opportunity for saying and doing all things in
the most open manner. And as it resulted with the clergy, so also
with the gendarmes, who, though rarely embarrassed as to how to put
the law in operation, can find no pretext for an accusation against
the young man, and send him back to the ranks. Once more there is a
conference, and his superiors decide that, although he has not taken
the oath of allegiance, he is to be regarded as a soldier. He is put
into uniform, his name is entered on the lists, and he is sent under
convoy to his post. Here his immediate superiors once more order
him to perform his military duty, and still he refuses to obey, and
in the presence of the other soldiers he states his reasons, saying
that, as a Christian, he cannot of his own free will prepare himself
to commit murder, which was forbidden even by the law of Moses.
All this takes place in a provincial city. The occurrence excites
the interest and the sympathy, not only of outsiders, but even of
the officers, and therefore there is hesitation about employing
the usual punishment for contumacy. However, for the sake of
appearances, he is thrown into jail, and a request is sent to the
higher military authorities for further instructions in the case.
From an official standpoint this refusal to take part in a military
organization, in which the Czar himself serves, and which is
blessed by the Church, must be regarded as insanity, and therefore
the message is received from St. Petersburg that the young man is
probably insane, and that before any violent measures are used
against him he must be sent to the insane hospital. Thither he is
sent in the hope that he will remain there, as happened some ten
years ago in the case of a young man from Iver, who also refused
to serve, and who was tortured in the hospital until at last he
was subdued. But in the present instance even this measure fails
to relieve the military authorities from this troublesome young
man. The doctors examine him, become interested in him, and,
discovering no symptoms of insanity, they return him to his post.
He is received, and pretending that his refusal and its causes are
forgotten, he is once more invited to join the drill, and again he
refuses, in the presence of other soldiers, stating his reasons
for his refusal. The affair attracts more and more notice from
soldiers as well as from civilians. Again the question is referred
to St. Petersburg, and thence comes the order to transfer the young
man to the frontier, where the troops are in active service, and
where, if he refuses to obey orders, he may be shot without exciting
attention, as there are but few Russians and Christians in that
far-away territory, the majority being foreigners and Mohammedans.
This is done. The young man is ordered to join the Trans-Caspian
troops, and with other criminals he is delivered into the hands of
commanders noted for their severity and determination.
Meanwhile, during all these transportations from place to place,
the young man has suffered from harsh treatment, from cold, hunger,
and filth, and his life has been made miserable. Yet all these
trials do not weaken his resolution. In the Trans-Caspian province,
where he is once more ordered to serve as a sentry under arms, he
refuses to obey. He consents to stand where he is sent, beside the
hayricks, but declines to take a weapon in his hand, declaring that
on no account will he use violence against any one whomsoever.
All this occurs in the presence of the soldiers. Such contumacy
cannot go unpunished; consequently he is court-martialed for an
infringement of military discipline, convicted, and sentenced to two
years' confinement in a military prison. And once again, with the
criminals, he is sent by _étape_ to the Caucasus and then thrown
into prison, his fate being left to the discretionary power of the
jailer. There he is tortured for a year and a half, but still his
resolution to avoid the use of weapons remains unchanged, and he
continues to explain to every one whom he meets the reasons for his
refusal. Toward the end of the second year, before his term has
really expired, he is set at liberty; and although not in accordance
with the law, they are so anxious to rid themselves of him, that his
imprisonment is accepted as an equivalent of further active service.
And in various parts of Russia others are found who, as if by a
concerted plan, imitate his example, and in every case the action
of the government is undecided, vacillating, and underhanded.
Some of these men are confined in the insane hospitals, some are
appointed military clerks and sent to serve in Siberia, some are
made foresters, others are thrown into prison, others are fined.
At the present time several of these men are imprisoned, not for
their substantial offense, denying the legality of the acts of
the government, but for disobeying the particular orders of their
superiors. For instance, an officer of the reserve recently failed
to give information of the place of his residence, and declined
to serve further in the army; he was fined thirty roubles for
disobeying the orders of the authorities,--and this he declined to
pay, except under compulsion. Several peasants and soldiers who
refused to take part in a drill and to use weapons were put under
arrest for disobedience and contention.
Such instances of a refusal to comply with the demands of the
State when opposed to Christianity, especially refusals to perform
military service, occur not only in Russia, but everywhere. I
know that in Servia, men from the so-called sect of Nazarenes
steadily refuse to enter the army, and the Austrian government has
for several years made futile attempts to convert them by means
of imprisonment. In 1885 there were 130 refusals of this kind. I
know that in Switzerland, in 1890, there were men in confinement in
the castle of Chillon for refusing to perform military duty whose
determination was not to be influenced by punishment. Such refusals
have occurred in Sweden; the men there also were imprisoned, and the
government carefully concealed the affairs from the people. Similar
instances occurred in Prussia. I know of one subaltern officer in
the guards who, in 1891, in Berlin, announced to his superiors that
he, as a Christian, could not continue his military service, and in
spite of all remonstrances and threats he adhered to his resolution.
In the south of France a community of men called the Hinschist has
recently been established (my information is derived from the _Peace
Herald_ of July, 1891), who, as professing the Christian doctrine,
refuse to perform military duty. At first they were told off to
serve in hospitals, but now, with the increase of the sect, they are
punished for insubordination, while they still refuse to bear arms.
Socialists, communists, and anarchists, with their bombs and their
revolutions, are far less dangerous to governments than these men,
who from different places proclaim their refusals, all based upon
the same doctrine, familiar to all. Every government knows how to
defend itself from revolutionists; it holds the means in its own
hands, and therefore does not fear these external foes. But what can
a government do to protect itself from men who declaim against all
authority as useless, superfluous, and injurious, offering, however,
no opposition to authority, merely rejecting its offices, dispensing
with its services, and therefore refusing to participate in it?
The revolutionists say: "State organization is bad, either for one
reason or for another; it should be destroyed, and replaced by such
and such a system." But a Christian says: "I know nothing of State
organization, whether it be good or bad, and it is for this very
reason that I do not wish to support it. And I cannot undertake
submission, because such submission is contrary to my conscience."
All the institutions of the State are opposed to the conscience of a
Christian: the oath of allegiance, taxation, courts of law, armies;
while the whole authority of government is dependent upon them.
Revolutionary foes struggle against the government, but Christianity
enters not into this contest; internally, it destroys the principles
on which government is based.
With the Russian people, in whose midst, particularly since the
time of Peter I., the protest of Christianity against the State has
never ceased; in the midst of this people, where the conditions
of life are such that whole communes emigrate to Turkey, China,
and uninhabited portions of the globe, who, so far from needing
the government, always consider it an unnecessary burden, and
only endure it as a calamity, whether it be Russian, Chinese, or
Turkish,--the cases of isolated individuals who, from Christian
motives, have liberated themselves from the control of government
have grown more and more frequent in these latter days. Such
manifestations are particularly dreaded by the government at the
present time, because the men who protest often belong not to the
so-called lower, the uneducated classes, but are men of average
and even superior education, and because these men explain their
refusals, not by some mystical belief peculiar to the individual,
as in olden times, nor do they complicate them with superstition
and fanaticism, like the sects of the Self-burners or Bieguni, but
assign as the reason for their refusals the simplest, most obvious
of truths, patent to and admitted by all the world.
Thus men refuse to pay taxes of their own free will, because the
money is used to promote violence; in other words, to pay the wages
of the violators in the army, for building prisons and fortresses,
or for manufacturing cannon,--in all of which, as Christians, they
consider it wrong and immoral to take a part.
They refuse to take the oath of allegiance, for were they to promise
to obey the authorities,--that is, men who use violence,--they must
contradict the sense of the Christian doctrine.
They refuse to swear in court, because an oath is distinctly
forbidden by the gospel.
They decline police duties, because in that office they would be
compelled to use violence against their brethren and to distress
them, and a Christian cannot do this.
They refuse to take part in courts of law, because they look upon
every tribunal as a vehicle for the law of vengeance, and therefore
incompatible with the Christian law of forgiveness and love.
They decline to have anything to do with military preparations, or
to enter the ranks of the army, because they neither can nor will be
executioners, nor prepare themselves for such an office.
And the reasons alleged for these refusals are of such a nature
that, however arbitrary the governments may be, they cannot punish
openly those who refuse.
Were the governments to punish men for such refusals, they would be
forced to abjure forever both justice and virtue, those principles
by which, as they assure us, all their authority is supported.
What are governments to do with these men? Of course they have the
power to execute, to imprison, and to condemn to transportation
and penal servitude all enemies who attempt to overthrow them by
violence; they can obtain by bribery half the men they need, and
have at their command millions of armed soldiers, who are ready to
put to death all the enemies of authority. But what can be done with
men who wish neither to destroy nor to establish anything, whose
sole desire is to avoid in their own private lives any act that
may be opposed to the Christian law, and who consequently refuse
to perform duties which are regarded by the government as the most
natural and obligatory of all?
If they were revolutionists, preaching violence and practising it,
it would be an easy matter to oppose them. Some might be bribed,
some deceived, others intimidated, and those who could neither be
bought, deceived, nor intimidated would be manifestly criminals,
enemies of society who, as such, could be executed or beaten to
death; and the people would approve the acts of the government. If
they were fanatics belonging to some particular sect, one might, in
view of the superstitions inherent in their doctrine, refute at the
same time what truth their arguments contained. But what is to be
done with men who neither preach rebellion nor any special dogmas,
who wish to live in peace with all mankind, who refuse to take the
oath of allegiance or to pay taxes, or to take part in tribunals,
to perform military service, and the various duties of a similar
nature, on which the whole organization of the State is founded?
What is to be done with them? They cannot be bribed. The very risk
they are willing to take shows their integrity. Neither can they be
deceived when these things are represented as the commands of God,
because their refusal is based on the indubitable law of God, by
which the very men who are trying to coerce them to disobey this law
profess to hold themselves bound. It is vain to hope to intimidate
them by threats, because the very suffering and privations which
they endure for righteousness' sake serve but to strengthen their
devotion to their faith, whose law distinctly commands them first of
all to obey God, to fear not them that kill the body, but to fear
those who can kill both body and soul. Neither can they be executed
or imprisoned for life. Their past lives, their thoughts and
actions, their friends, speak for them; every one knows them to be
gentle, kindly, and harmless men, and it is impossible to represent
them in the light of criminals whose suppression is needed for the
salvation of society. Moreover, the execution of men acknowledged
by all to be virtuous would arouse defenders who would endeavor to
explain the causes for their disobedience. And when all men are
made to recognize the reasons why these Christians refuse to obey
the demands of the State, they cannot fail to acknowledge the same
obligation, and to admit that all men should long since have refused
obedience.
Confronted with these insubordinations, governments find themselves
in a desperate plight. They realize that the prophecies of
Christianity are about to be fulfilled, that it is loosening the
fetters of them that are in bonds and setting men free; they realize
that such freedom will inevitably destroy those who have held
mankind in bondage. Governments realize this; they know that their
hours are counted, that they are helpless to resist. All that they
are able to do is to retard the hour of dissolution. And this they
try to do; but their position is still a desperate one.
It is like the predicament of a conqueror who wishes to preserve the
town set on fire by the inhabitants. No sooner does he put the fire
out in one place than two other fires break out; when he separates
the burning portion from the main body of a large building the
flames burst out at both extremities. These outbreaks are not, as
yet, of frequent occurrence, but the spark has been kindled, and the
fire will burn steadily until all is consumed.
The position of governments in the presence of men who profess
Christianity is so precarious that very little is needed to shake
to pieces their power, built up through so many centuries, and
apparently so solid in structure. And it is now that the sociologist
comes forward, preaching that it is useless, and even hurtful and
immoral, for the individual to emancipate himself alone.
Let us suppose that men have been working for a long time to divert
the course of a river; they have at last succeeded in digging a
canal, and all that remains now is to make an opening and let the
water flow through it into the canal; suppose now certain other men
arrive upon the scene and suggest that, instead of letting the water
flow into the canal, it would be much better to erect over the river
some form of machinery, by means of which the water would be poured
from one side to the other.
But things have gone too far. Governments are aware of their
weakness and helplessness, and men of the Christian faith are
awakening from their torpor, beginning already to realize their
power.
"I am come to send fire on the earth," said Christ.
And this is the fire that begins to burn.
CHAPTER X
USELESSNESS OF VIOLENCE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF EVIL. THE MORAL
ADVANCE OF MANKIND IS ACCOMPLISHED, NOT ONLY THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE
OF TRUTH, BUT ALSO THROUGH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PUBLIC OPINION