The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (readera ebook reader txt) 📕

of the state

seems even more secure.

 

Their association into larger and larger groups was not the result

of the conscious recognition of the benefits of such associations,

as it is said to be in the story of the Varyagi. It was produced,

on one hand, by the natural growth of population, and, on the

other, by struggle and conquest.

 

After conquest the power of the emperor puts an end to internal

dissensions, and so the state conception of life justifies itself.

But this justification is never more than temporary. Internal

dissensions disappear only in proportion to the degree of

oppression exerted by the authority over the dissentient

individuals. The violence of internal feud crushed by authority

reappears in authority itself, which falls into the hands of men

who, like the rest, are frequently or always ready to sacrifice

the public welfare to their personal interest, with the difference

that their subjects cannot resist them, and thus they are exposed

to all the demoralizing influence of authority. And thus the evil

of violence, when it passes into the hands of authority, is always

growing and growing, and in time becomes greater than the evil it

is supposed to suppress, while, at the same time, the tendency to

violence in the members of the society becomes weaker and weaker,

so that the violence of authority is less and less needed.

 

Government authority, even if it does suppress private violence,

always introduces into the life of men fresh forms of violence,

which tend to become greater and greater in proportion to the

duration and strength of the government.

 

So that though the violence of power is less noticeable in

government than when it is employed by members of society against

one another, because it finds expression in submission, and not in

strife, it nevertheless exists, and often to a greater degree than

in former days.

 

And it could not, be otherwise, since, apart from the demoralizing

influence of power, the policy or even the unconscious tendency of

those in power will always be to reduce their subjects to the

extreme of weakness, for the weaker the oppressed, the less effort

need be made to keep him in subjection.

 

And therefore the oppression of the oppressed always goes on

growing up to the furthest limit, beyond which it cannot go

without killing the goose with the golden eggs. And if the goose

lays no more eggs, like the American Indians, negroes, and

Fijians, then it is killed in spite of the sincere protests of

philanthropists.

 

The most convincing example of this is to be found in the

condition of the working classes of our epoch, who are in reality

no better than the slaves of ancient times subdued by conquest.

 

In spite of the pretended efforts of the higher classes to

ameliorate the position of the workers, all the working classes of

the present day are kept down by the inflexible iron law by which

they only get just what is barely necessary, so that they are

forced to work without ceasing while still retaining strength

enough to labor for their employers, who are really those who have

conquered and enslaved them.

 

So it has always been. In ratio to the duration and increasing

strength of authority its advantages for its subjects disappear

and its disadvantages increase.

 

And this has been so, independently of the forms of government

under which nations have lived. The only difference is that under

a despotic form of government the authority is concentrated in a

small number of oppressors and violence takes a cruder form; under

constitutional monarchies and republics as in France and America

authority is divided among a great number of oppressors and the

forms assumed by violence is less crude, but its effect of making

the disadvantages of authority greater than its advantages, and of

enfeebling the oppressed to the furthest extreme to which they can

be reduced with advantage to the oppressors, remains always the

same.

 

Such has been and still is the condition of all the oppressed, but

hitherto they have not recognized the fact. In the majority of

instances they have believed in all simplicity that governments

exist for their benefit; that they would be lost without a

government; that the very idea of living without a government is a

blasphemy which one hardly dare put into words; that this is the—

for some reason terrible—doctrine of anarchism, with which a

mental picture of all kinds of horrors is associated.

 

People have believed, as though it were something fully proved,

and so needing no proof, that since all nations have hitherto

developed in the form of states, that form of organization is an

indispensable condition of the development of humanity.

 

And in that way it has lasted for hundreds and thousands of years,

and governments—those who happened to be in power—have tried it,

and are now trying more zealously than ever to keep their subjects

in this error.

 

So it was under the Roman emperors and so it is now. In spite of

the fact that the sense of the uselessness and even injurious

effects of state violence is more and more penetrating into men’s

consciousness, things might have gone on in the same way forever

if governments were not under the necessity of constantly

increasing their armies in order to maintain their power.

 

It is generally supposed that governments strengthen their forces

only to defend the state from other states, in oblivion of the

fact that armies are necessary, before all things, for the defense

of governments from their own oppressed and enslaved subjects.

 

That has always been necessary, and has become more and more

necessary with the increased diffusion of education among the

masses, with the improved communication between people of the same

and of different nationalities. It has become particularly

indispensable now in the face of communism, socialism, anarchism,

and the labor movement generally. Governments feel that it is so,

and strengthen the force of their disciplined armies. [See

Footnote]

 

[Footnote: The fact that in America the abuses of

authority exist in spite of the small number of their

troops not only fails to disprove this position,

but positively confirms it. In America there are

fewer soldiers than in other states. That is why

there is nowhere else so little oppression of the

working classes, and no country where the end of the

abuses of government and of government itself seems

so near. Of late as the combinations of laborers

gain in strength, one hears more and more frequently

the cry raised for the increase of the army, though

the United States are not threatened with any attack

from without. The upper classes know that an army of

fifty thousand will soon be insufficient, and no longer

relying on Pinkerton’s men, they feel that the security

of their position depends on the increased strength of

the army.

 

In the German Reichstag not long ago, in reply to a question why

funds were needed for raising the salaries of the under-officers,

the German Chancellor openly declared that trustworthy under-officers were necessary to contend against socialism. Caprivi

only said aloud what every statesman knows and assiduously

conceals from the people. The reason to which he gave expression

is essentially the same as that which made the French kings and

the popes engage Swiss and Scotch guards, and makes the Russian

authorities of to-day so carefully distribute the recruits, so

that the regiments from the frontiers are stationed in central

districts, and the regiments from the center are stationed on the

frontiers. The meaning of Caprivi’s speech, put into plain

language, is that funds are needed, not to resist foreign foes,

but to BUY UNDER-OFFICERS to be ready to act against the enslaved

toiling masses.

 

Caprivi incautiously gave utterance to what everyone knows

perfectly well, or at least feels vaguely if he does not recognize

it, that is, that the existing order of life is as it is, not, as

would be natural and right, because the people wish it to be so,

but because it is so maintained by state violence, by the army

with its BOUGHT UNDER-OFFICERS and generals.

 

If the laborer has no land, if he cannot use the natural right of

every man to derive subsistence for himself and his family out of

the land, that is not because the people wish it to be so, but

because a certain set of men, the landowners, have appropriated

the right of giving or refusing admittance to the land to the

laborers. And this abnormal order of things is maintained by the

army. If the immense wealth produced by the labor of the working

classes is not regarded as the property of all, but as the

property of a few exceptional persons; if labor is taxed by

authority and the taxes spent by a few on what they think fit; if

strikes on the part of laborers are repressesd, while on the part

of capitalists they are encouraged; if certain persons appropriate

the right of choosing the form of the education, religious and

secular, of children, and certain persons monopolize the right of

making the laws all must obey, and so dispose of the lives and

properties of other people—all this is not done because the

people wish it and because it is what is natural and right, but

because the government and ruling classes wish this to be so for

their own benefit, and insist on its being so even by physical

violence.

 

Everyone, if he does not recognize this now, will know that it is

so at the first attempt at insubordination or at a revolution of

the existing order.

 

Armies, then, are needed by governments and by the ruling classes

above all to support the present order, which, far from being the

result of the people’s needs, is often in direct antagonism to

them, and is only beneficial to the government and ruling classes.

 

To keep their subjects in oppression and to be able to enjoy the

fruits of their labor the government must have armed forces.

 

But there is not only one government. There are other

governments, exploiting their subjects by violence in the same

way, and always ready to pounce down on any other government and

carry off the fruits of the toil of its enslaved subjects. And so

every government needs an army also to protect its booty from its

neighbor brigands. Every government is thus involuntarily reduced

to the necessity of emulating one another in the increase of their

armies. This increase is contagious, as Montesquieu pointed out

150 years ago.

 

Every increase in the army of one state, with the aim of

self-defense against its subjects, becomes a source of danger for

neighboring states and calls for a similar increase in their

armies.

 

The armed forces have reached their present number of millions not

only through the menace of danger from neighboring states, but

principally through the necessity of subduing every effort at

revolt on the part of the subjects.

 

Both causes, mutually dependent, contribute to the same result at

once; troops are required against internal forces and also to keep

up a position with other states. One is the result of the other.

The despotism of a government always increases with the strength

of the army and its external successes, and the aggressiveness of

a government increases with its internal despotism.

 

The rivalry of the European states in constantly increasing their

forces has reduced them to the necessity of having recourse to

universal military service, since by that means the greatest

possible number of soldiers is obtained at the least possible

expense. Germany first hit on this device. And directly one

state adopted it the others were obliged to do the same. And by

this means all citizens are under arms to support