 Chapter 6 of the Kingdom of God is within you. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Satko. The Kingdom of God is within you by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garnet. Chapter 6. The attitude of men of the present day to war. People do not try to remove the contradiction between life and conscience by a change of life, but their cultivated leaders exert every effort to obscure the demands of conscience and justify their life. In this way, they degrade society below paganism to a state of primeval barbarism, undefined attitude of modern leaders of thought to war, to universal militarism, and to compulsory service in army. One section regards war as an accidental political phenomenon to be avoided by external measures only. Peace Congress. The article in the Review Day Review. Proposition of Maxime Ducamp. Value of boards of arbitration and suppression of armies. Attitude of governments to men of this opinion and what they do. Another section regards war as cruel but inevitable. Mopassant. Rod. A third section regard war as necessary and not without its advantages. Dusset. Claritie. Zola. Vogue. The antagonism between life and the conscience may be removed in two ways, by a change of life or by a change of conscience. And there would seem there can be no doubt as to these alternatives. A man may cease to do what he regards as wrong, but he cannot cease to consider wrong what is wrong. Just in the same way all humanity may cease to do what it regards as wrong, but far from being able to change, it cannot even retard for a time the continual growth of a clear recognition of what is wrong and therefore ought not to be. And therefore it would seem inevitable for Christian men to abandon the pagan forms of society which they condemn and to reconstruct their social existence on the Christian principles they profess. So it would be were it not for the law of inertia as immutable a force in men and nations as in inanimate bodies. In men it takes the form of the psychological principle so truly expressed in the words of the Gospel. They have loved darkness better than light because their deeds were evil. This principle shows itself in men not trying to recognize the truth, but to persuade themselves that the life they are leading, which is what they like and are used to, is a life perfectly consistent with truth. Slavery was opposed to all the moral principles advocated by Plato and Aristotle, yet neither of them saw that because to renounce slavery would have meant the breakup of the life they were living. We see the same thing in the modern world. The division of men into two castes as well as the use of force in government and war are opposed to every moral principle professed by our modern society, yet the cultivated and advanced men of the day seem not to see it. The majority, if not all of the cultivated men of our day, try unconsciously to maintain the old social conception of life, which justifies their position and to hide from themselves and others its insufficiency, and above all the necessity of adopting the Christian conception of life, which will mean the breakup of the whole existing social order. They struggle to keep up the organization based on the social conception of life, but do not believe in it themselves because it is extinct and it is impossible to believe in it. All modern literature, philosophical, political and artistic is striking in this respect. What wealth of idea, a form of color, what erudition, what art, but what a lack of serious matter, what dread of any exactitude of thought or expression, subtleties, allegories, humorous fancies, the widest generalizations, but nothing simple and clear, nothing going straight to the point, that is, to the problem of life. But that is not all. Besides these graceful frivolities, our literature is full of simple nastiness and brutality of arguments which lead men back in the most refined way to primeval barbarism, to the principles not only of the pagan, but even of the animal life, which we have left behind 5000 years ago. And it could not be otherwise. In their dread of the Christian conception of life, which will destroy the social order, which some cling to only from habit, others also from interest, men cannot but be thrown back upon the pagan conception of life and the principles based on it. Nowadays, we see advocated not only patriotism and aristocratic principles just as they were advocated 2000 years ago, but even the course is epicureanism and animalism only with this difference, that the men who then profess deals views believed in them, while nowadays even the advocates of such views do not believe in them, for they have no meaning for the present day. No one can stand still when the earth is shaking under his feet. If we do not go forward, we must go back, and strange and terrible to say, the cultivated men of our day, the leaders of thought, are in reality with their subtle reasoning drawing society back, not to paganism even, but to a state of primitive barbarism. This tendency on the part of the leading thinkers of the day is nowhere more apparent than in their attitude to the phenomenon in which all the insufficiency of the social conception of life is presented in the most concentrated form, in their attitude, that is, to war, to the general arming of nations and to universal compulsory service. The undefined, if not disingenuous attitude of modern thinkers to this phenomenon is striking. It takes three forms and cultivates its society. One section look at it as an incidental phenomenon arising out of the special political situation of Europe, and consider that this state of things can be reformed without a revolution in the whole internal social order of nations by external measures of international diplomacy. Another section regarded as something cruel and hideous, but at the same time, faded and inevitable, like disease and death. A third party with cool indifference consider war as an inevitable phenomenon, beneficial in its effects, and therefore desirable. Men look at the subject from different points of view, but all alike talk of war as though it were something absolutely independent of the will of those who take part in it, and consequently they do not even admit the natural question which presents itself to every simple man, how about me, ought I to take any part in it? In their view, no question of this kind even exists, and every man, however he may regard war from a personal standpoint, must slavishly submit to the requirements of the authorities on the subject. The attitude of the first section of thinkers, those who see a way out of war in international diplomatic measures, is well expressed in the report of the last peace congress in London, and the articles and letters upon war that appeared in No. 8 of the Review de Review, 1891. The congress, after gathering together from various quarters the verbal and written opinions of learned men, opened the proceedings by a religious service, and after listening to addresses for five whole beginning of quotation days, concluded them by a public dinner and speeches. They adopted the following resolutions, beginning of quotation one, the congress affirms its belief that the brotherhood of man involves as a necessary consequence of brotherhood of nations. Two, the congress recognizes the important influence that Christianity exercises on the moral and political progress of mankind and earnestly urges upon ministers of the gospel and other religious teachers the duty of setting forth the principles of peace and of goodwill toward men. And it recommends that if the third Sunday in December be set apart for that purpose. Three, the congress expresses the opinion that all teachers of history should call the attention of the young to the grave evils inflicted on mankind in all ages by war, and to the fact that such war has been waged for the most inadequate causes. Four, the congress protests against the use of military drill in schools by way of physical exercise, and suggests the formation of brigades for saving life rather than of a quasi military character, and urges the desirability of impressing on the board of examiners who formulate the questions for examination, the propriety of guiding the minds of children in the principles of peace. Five, the congress holds that the doctrine of the rights of man requires that the aboriginal and weaker races, their territories and liberties should be guarded from injustice and fraud, that these races should be shielded against the vices so prevalent among the so-called advanced races of men. It further expresses its conviction that there should be concert of action among the nations for the accomplishment of these ends. The congress expresses its hearty appreciation of the resolutions of the anti-slavery conference held recently at Brussels for the amelioration of the condition of the peoples of Africa. Six, the congress believes that the war-like prejudices and traditions which are still fostered in the various nationalities and the misrepresentations by leaders of public opinion in legislative assemblies or through the press are often indirect causes of war and that these evils should be counteracted by the publication of accurate information tending to the removal of misunderstanding between nations and recommends the importance of considering the question of commencing an international newspaper with such a purpose. Seven, the congress proposes to the inter-parliamentary conference that the utmost support should be given to every project for unification of weights and measures, coinage, tariff, postage and telegraphic arrangements, etc., which would assist in constituting a commercial, industrial and scientific union of the peoples. Eight, the congress in view of the vast social and moral influence of women urges upon every woman to sustain the things that make for peace as otherwise she incurs grave responsibility for the continuance of the systems of militarism. Nine, the congress expresses the hope that the financial reform association and other similar societies in Europe and America should unite in considering means for establishing the equitable commercial relations between states by the reduction of import duties. The congress feels that it can affirm that the whole of Europe desires peace and awaits with impatience the suppression of armaments which under the plea of defense become in their turn a danger by keeping alive mutual distrust and are at the same time the cause of that general economic disturbance which stands in the way of settling in a satisfactory manner the problems of labor and poverty which ought to take precedence of all others. Ten, the congress recognizing that a general disarmament would be the best guarantee of peace and would lead to the solution of the question which now most divide states expresses the wish that a congress of representatives of all the states of Europe may be assembled as soon as possible to consider the means of affecting a gradual general disarmament. Eleven, the congress in consideration of the fact that the timidity of a single power might delay the convocation of the above mentioned congress is of opinion that the government which should first dismiss any considerable number of soldiers would confer a signal benefit on Europe and mankind because it would by public opinion oblige other governments to follow its example and by the moral force of this accomplished fact would have increased rather than diminished the conditions of its national defense. Twelve, the congress considering the question of disarmament as a piece in general depends on public opinion and recommends the peace society as well as all friends of peace to be active in its propaganda especially at the time of parliamentary elections in order that the electors should give their votes to candidates who are pledged to support peace, disarmament and arbitration. Thirteen, the congress congratulates the friends of peace on the resolution adopted by the International American Conference held at Washington in April last by which it was recommended that arbitration should be obligatory in all controversies whatever their origin except only those which may imperil the independence of one of the nations involved. Fourteen, the congress recommends this resolution to the attention of European statesmen and expresses the ardent desire that similar treaties may speedily be entered into between the other nations of the world. Fifteen, the congress expresses its satisfaction at the adoption by the Spanish Senate on June 16th last of a project of law authorizing the government to negotiate general or special treaties of arbitration for the settlement of all disputes except those relating to the independence or internal government of the states affected. Also at the adoption of resolutions to a like effect by the Norwegian store thing and by the Italian chamber. Sixteen, the congress resolves that a committee be appointed to address communications to the principal political, religious, commercial and labor and peace organizations requesting them to send petitions to the government authorities, praying that measures be taken for the formation of suitable tribunals for the adjudicature of international questions and so as to avoid the resort to war. Seventeen, seeing one that the object pursued by all peace societies is establishment of judicial order between nations and two that neutralization by international treaties constitutes a step toward this judicial state and lessens the number of districts in which war can be carried on. The congress recommends a larger extension of the rule of neutralization and expresses the wish, one that all treaties which had present the sure to certain states the benefit of neutrality remain in force or if necessary be amended in a manner to render the neutrality more effective. Either by extending neutralization to the whole of the state or by ordering the demolition of fortresses which constitute rather a peril than a guarantee for neutrality. Two, that new treaties in harmony with the wishes of the population's concern be concluded for establishing the neutralization of other states. Eighteen, the subcommittee proposes one that the annual peace congress should be held either immediately before the meeting of the annual sub-parliamentary conference or immediately after it in the same town. Two, that the question of an international peace emblem be postponed CNADA. Three, that the following resolution be adopted. A, to express satisfaction at the official overtures of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, addressed to the highest representatives of each church organization in Christendom, to unite in a general conference to promote the substitution of international arbitration for war. Four, B, to express in the name of the Congress its profound reverence for the memory of Aurelio Safi, the great Italian jurist, a member of the Committee of the International League of Peace and Liberty. Four, that the memorial adopted by this Congress and signed by the President to the heads of the civilized states should as far as practicable be presented to each power by influential deputations. Five, that the following resolutions be adopted. A, a resolution of thanks to the Presidents of the various sittings of the Congress. B, a resolution of thanks to the Chairman, the Secretaries, and the members of the Bureau of the Congress. C, a resolution of thanks to the conveners and members of the sectional committees. D, a resolution of thanks to Reverend Cannon Scott Holland, Reverend Dr. Ruin Thomas, Reverend J. Morgan Gibbon, for their pulpit addresses before the Congress, and also to the authorities of St. Paul's Cathedral, the City Temple, and Stanford Hill Congregational Church for the use of these buildings for public services. E, a letter of thanks to Her Majesty for permission to visit Windsor Castle. F, and also a resolution of thanks to the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress to Mr. Passmore Edwards and other friends who have extended their hospitality to the members of the Congress. 19, the Congress places on record a heartfelt expression of gratitude to Almighty God for the remarkable harmony and conquered which have characterized the meetings of the assembly in which so many men and women of varied nations, creeds, tongues, and races have gathered in closest cooperation and for the firm conclusion of the labors of the Congress and expresses its firm and unshaken belief in the ultimate triumph of the cause of peace and of the principles advocated at these meetings, end of quotation. The fundamental idea of the Congress is the necessity, one, of diffusing among all people by all means the conviction of the disadvantages of war and the great blessing of peace and two, of rousing governments to the sense of the superiority of international arbitration over war and of the consequent advisability and necessity of disarmament to attain the first aim the Congress has recourse to teachers of history to women and to the clergy with the advice to the latter to preach on the evil of war and the blessing of peace every third Sunday in December. To attain the second object the Congress appeals to governments with the suggestion that they should disband their armies and replace war by arbitration to preach to men of the evil of war and the blessing of peace but the blessing of peace is so well known to men that ever since there have been men at all their best wish has been expressed in the greeting, peace be with you. So why preach about it? Not only Christians but pagans thousands of years ago all recognize the evil of war and the blessing of peace so that the recommendation to ministers of the gospel to preach on the evil of war and on the blessing of peace every third Sunday in December is quite superfluous. The Christian cannot but preach on the subject every day of his life. If Christians and preachers of Christianity do not do so there must be reasons for it and until these have been removed no recommendations will be effective. Still less effective will be the recommendations to governments to disband their armies and replace them by international boards of arbitration. Governments too knowing very well the difficulty and burdensomeness of raising and maintaining forces and if in spite of that knowledge they do at the cost of terrible strain and effort raise and maintain forces it is evident that they cannot do otherwise and the recommendation of the Congress can never change it but the learned gentlemen are unwilling to see that and keep hoping to find a political combination through which government shall be induced to limit their powers themselves. Can we get rid of war asks a learned writer in the review de revue beginning of quotation all are agreed that if it were to break out in Europe its consequences would be like those of the great inroads of barbarians existence of whole nationalities would be at stake and therefore the war would be desperate bloody and atrocious. This consideration together with the terrible engines of destruction invented by modern science retards the moment of declaring war and maintains the present temporary situation which might continue for an indefinite period except for the fearful cost of maintaining armaments which are exhausting the European states and threatening to reduce nations to a state of misery hardly less than that of war itself. Struck by this reflection men of various countries have tried to find means for preventing or at least for softening the results of the terrible slaughter with which we are threatened. Such are the questions brought forward by the peace congress shortly to be held in Rome and the publication of a pamphlet sur les désarmements. It is unhappily beyond doubt that with the present organization of the majority of European states isolated from one another and guided by distinct interests the absolute suppression of war is an illusion with which it would be dangerous to cheat ourselves. Wiser rules and regulations imposed on these duels between nations might however at least limit its horrors. It is equally chimerical to reckon on projects of disarmament the execution of which is rendered almost impossible by consideration of a popular character present to the mind of all our readers in brackets. This probably means that France cannot disband its army before taking its revenge in the bracket. Public opinion is not prepared to accept them and moreover the international relations between different peoples are not such as to make their acceptance possible. Disarmament imposed on one nation by another in circumstances threatening its security would be equivalent to a declaration of war. However one may admit that in exchange of ideas between the nations interested could aid to a certain degree in bringing about the good understanding indispensable to any negotiations and would render possible a considerable reduction of the military expenditure which is crushing the nations of Europe and greatly hindering the solution of the social question which each individually must solve on pain of having internal war as the price of escaping it externally. We might at least demand the reduction of the enormous expenses of war organized as it is at present with the view to the power of invasion within 24 hours and a decisive battle within a week of the declaration of war. We ought to manage so that states could not make the attack suddenly and invade each other's territories within 24 hours. End of quotation. This practical notion has been set forth by Maxime Ducamp and his article concludes with it. The propositions of Monsieur Ducamp are as follows. 1. A diplomatic congress to be held every year. 2. No war to be declared till two months after the incident which provoked it. This difficulty here would be to decide precisely what incident did provoke the war since whenever war is declared there are very many such incidents and one would have to decide from which to reckon the two months interval. 3. No war to be declared before it has been submitted to a plebiscitum of the nations preparing to take part in it. 4. No hostilities to be commenced till a month after the official declaration of war. No war to be declared, no hostilities to be commenced, etc. But who is to arrange that no war is to be declared? Who is to compel people to do this and that? Who is to force states to delay their operations for a certain fixed time? All the other states, but all these others are also states which want holding in check and keeping within limits and forcing to. Who is to force them and how? Public opinion. But if there is a public opinion which can force governments to delay their operations for a fixed period the same public opinion can force governments not to declare war at all. But, it will be replied, there may be such a balance of power, such a ponderation de force as would lead states to hold back of their own accord. Well, that has been tried and is being tried even now. The Holy Alliance was nothing but that. The League of Peace was another attempt at the same thing and so on. But it will be answered. Suppose all were agreed. If all were agreed there would be no more war certainly and no need for arbitration either. At the beginning of quotation, a court of arbitration. Arbitration should replace war. Question should be decided by a court of arbitration. The Alabama question was decided by a court of arbitration. And the question of the Caroline Islands was submitted to the decision of the Pope. Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark and Holland have all declared they prefer arbitration to war. End of quotation. I daresay Monaco has expressed the same preference. The fortunate thing is that Germany, Russia, Austria and France have not so far shown the same inclination. It is amazing how men can declare themselves when they find it necessary. Governments consent to decide their disagreements by arbitration and to disband their armies. The differences between Russia and Poland, between England and Ireland, between Austria and Bohemia, between Turkey and the Slavonic States, between France and Germany to be sued away by amiable conciliation. One might as well suggest to merchants and bankers that they should sell nothing for a greater price than they gave for it, should undertake the distribution of wealth for no profit and should abolish money, as it would thus be rendered unnecessary. But since commercial and banking operations consist in nothing but selling for more than the cost price, this would be equivalent to an invitation to suppress themselves. It is the same in regard to governments to suggest to governments that they should not have recourse to violence but should decide their misunderstanding in accordance with equity, is inviting them to abolish themselves as rulers and that no government can ever consent to do. The learned men form societies, there are more than a hundred such societies, assemble in congresses, such as those recently held in London and Paris and shortly to be held in Rome, deliver addresses, eat public dinners and make speeches, publish journals and prove by every means possible that the nations forced to support millions of troops are strained to the furthest limits of their endurance, that the maintenance of these huge armed forces is in opposition to all the aims, the interests and the wishes of the people and that it is possible moreover by writing numerous papers and uttering a great many words to bring all men into agreement and to arrange so that they should have no antagonistic interests and then there will be no more war. When I was a little boy they told me if I wanted to catch a bird I must put salt on its tail. I ran after the birds with the salt in my hand but I soon convinced myself that if I could put salt on a bird's tail I could catch it and realize that I had been hoaxed. People ought to realize the same fact when they read books and articles on arbitration and disarmament. If one could put salt on a bird's tail it would be because it could not fly and there would be no difficulty in catching it. If the bird had wings it did not want to be caught it would not let one put salt on its tail because the specialty of a bird is to fly. In precisely the same way the specialty of government is not to obey but to enforce obedience and a government is only a government so long as it can make itself obeyed and therefore it always strives for that and will never willingly abandon its power. But since it is on the army that the power of government rests it will never give up the army and the use of the army and war. The error arises from the learned jurists deceiving themselves and others by asserting that government is not what it really is. One set of men banded together to oppress another set of men. But as shown by science is the representation of the citizens in their own collective capacity. They have so long been persuading other people of this that at last they have persuaded themselves of it and thus they often seriously suppose that government can be bound by considerations of justice. But history shows that from Caesar to Napoleon, from Napoleon to Bismarck government is in its essence always a force acting in violation of justice and that it cannot be otherwise. Justice can have no binding force on a ruler or rulers who keep men diluted and drilled in readiness for acts of violence, soldiers and by means of them control others and so governments can never be brought to consent to diminish the number of these drilled slaves who constitute their whole power and importance. Such is the attitude of certain learned men to the contradiction under which our society is being crushed and such are their methods of solving it. Tell these people that the whole matter rests on the personal attitude of each man to the moral and religious question put nowadays to everyone. The question it is whether it is lawful or unlawful for him to take his share of military service and these learned gentlemen will shrug their shoulders and not condescend to listen or to answer you. The solution of the question in their idea is to be found in reading addresses, writing books, electing presidents, vice presidents and secretaries, meeting and speaking first in one town and then another. From all this speechifying and writing it will come to pass according to their notions that governments will cease to levy the soldiers on whom their whole strength depends, will listen to their discourses and will disband their forces, leaving themselves without any defense not only against their neighbors but also against their own subject as though a band of brigands who have some unarmed travelers bound and ready to be plundered should be so touched by their complaints of the pain caused by the cords they are fastened with as to let them go again. Still there are people who believe in this, busy themselves over peace congresses, read addresses and write books and governments. We may be quite sure express their sympathy and make a show of encouraging them in the same way they pretend to support temperance societies while they are living principally on the drunkenness of the people and pretend to encourage education when their whole strength is based on ignorance and to support constitutional freedom when their strength rests on the absence of freedom and to be anxious for the improvement of the condition of the working classes when their very existence depends on their oppression and to support Christianity when Christianity destroys all government. To be able to do this they have long ago elaborated methods of encouraging temperance which cannot suppress drunkenness, methods of supporting education which not only fail to prevent ignorance, but even increase it, methods of aiming at freedom and constitutionalism which are no hindrance to despotism and methods of protecting the working classes which will not free them from slavery and the Christianity too they have elaborated which does not destroy but supports governments. Now there is something more for the government to encourage peace. Now there is something more for the government to encourage peace. The sovereigns who nowadays take counsel with their ministers decide by their will alone whether the butchery of millions is to be begun this year or next. They know very well that all these discourses upon peace will not hinder them from sending millions of men to butchery when it seems good to them. They listen even with satisfaction to these discourses, encourage them and take part in them. All this far from being detrimental is even of service to governments by turning people's attention from the most important and pressing question. Aught or ought not, each man called upon for military service to submit to serve in the army. Beginning of quotation. Peace will soon be arranged thanks to alliances and congresses, to books and pamphlets. Meantime go and put on your uniform and prepare to cause suffering and to endure it for our benefit. End of quotation. Is the government's line of argument and the learned gentlemen who get up congresses and write articles aren't perfect agreement with it. This is the attitude of one set of thinkers. And since it is that most beneficial to governments, it is also the most encouraged by all intelligent governments. Another attitude to war has something tragical in it. There are men who maintain that the love for peace and the inevitability of war form a hideous contradiction that such is the fate of man. These are mostly gifted and sensitive men who see and realize all the horror and imbecility and cruelty of war, but through some strange perversion of mine, neither see nor seek to find any way out of this position, and seem to take pleasure in teasing the wound by dwelling on the desperate position of humanity. A notable example of such an attitude to war is to be found in the celebrated French writer Guy de Monson. Looking down from his yacht at the drill and firing practice of the French soldiers, the following reflections occur to him. Beginning of quotation. When I think only of this word war, a kind of terror seizes upon me, as though I were listening to some tale of sorcery, of the Inquisition, some long past remote abomination, monstrous unnatural. When cannibalism is spoken of, we smile with pride, proclaiming our superiority to these savages, which are the savages, the real savages, those who fight to eat the conquered, or those who fight to kill for nothing but to kill. The young recruits moving about in lines yonder destined to death like the flocks of sheep driven by the butcher along the road. They will fall in some plane with a saber cut in the head or a bullet through the breast, and these are young men who might work be productive and useful. Their fathers are old and poor. Their mothers who have loved them for twenty years and worshiped them as none but mothers can will learn in six months' time or a year, perhaps, that their son, their boy, the big boy reared with so much labor, so much expense, so much love has been thrown in a hole like some dead dog, after being disemboweled by a bullet and trampled, crushed to a mass of pulp by the charges of cavalry. Why have they killed her boy, her handsome boy, her one hope, her pride, her life? She does not know. Ah, why? War, fighting, slaughter, massacres of men, and we have now in our century with our civilization with the spread of science and the degree of philosophy which the genius of man is supposed to have attained schools for training to kill, to kill very far off, to perfection, great numbers at once, to kill poor devils of innocent men with families and without any kind of trial. And what is most bewildering is that the people do not rise against their governments for what difference is there between monarchies and republics? The most bewildering thing is that the whole of society is not in revolt at the word war. We shall always live under the burden of the ancient and odious customs, the criminal prejudices, the ferocious ideas of our barbarous ancestors, for we are beasts, and beasts we shall remain dominated by instinct and changed by nothing. Would not any other man than Victor Hugo have been exiled for that mighty cry of deliverance today? Force is called violence and is being brought to judgment. War has been put on its trial. At the plea of the human race, civilization arranges warfare and draws up the general list of crimes laid at the charge of conquerors and generals. The nations are coming to understand that the magnitude of a crime cannot be its extenuation, that if killing is a crime, killing many can be no extenuating circumstance, that if robbery is disgraceful, invasion cannot be glorious. Let us proclaim these absolute truths. Let us dishonor war. Vain wrath continues, Mopson, a poet's indignation. War is held in more veneration than ever. A skilled proficient in that line, a slaughterer of genius, Van Maltke, in reply to the peer delegates once uttered these strange words. War is holy, war is ordained of God. It is one of the most sacred laws of the world. It maintains among men all the great and noble sentiments, honor, devotion, virtue, and courage, and saves them in short time, falling from the most hideous materialism. So then, bringing millions of men together into herds, marching by day and by night without rest, thinking of nothing, studying nothing, learning nothing, reading nothing, being useful to no one, wallowing in filth, sleeping in mud, living like brutes in a continual state of stupefaction, sacking towns, burning villages, ruining whole populations, then meeting another mass of human flesh, falling upon them, making pools of blood, and planes of flesh, mixed with trodden mire and red with heaps of courses, having your arms or legs carried off, your brains blown out for no advantage to anyone, in dying in some corner of a field while your old parents, your wife, and children are perishing of hunger. Notice what is meant by not falling into the most hideous materialism. Warriors are not the scourge of the world. We struggle against nature and ignorance and obstacles of all kind to make our wretched life less hard. Learned men, benefactors of all, spend their lives in working and seeking what can aid, what can be of use, what can alleviate a lot of their fellows. They devote themselves unsparingly to their task of usefulness, making one discovery after another, enlarging the sphere of human intelligence, extending the bounds of science, and adding each day some new store to the sum of knowledge, gaining each day prosperity, ease, strength for their country. War breaks out, and six months the generals have destroyed the work of twenty years of effort, of patience, and of genius. That is what is meant by not falling into the most hideous materialism. We have seen it, war. We have seen men turn to brutes, frenzied, killing for fun, for terror, for bravado, for ostentation. Then what is right is no more, law is dead, every notion of justice has disappeared. We have seen men shoot innocent creatures found on the road and suspected because they were afraid. We have seen them kill dogs, chain at their master's door to try their new revolvers. We have seen them fire on cows, lying in a field for no reason, whatever, simply for the sake of shooting, for a joke. That is what is meant by not falling going into a country, cutting the man's throat who defends his house because he wears a blouse and has not a military cap on his head, burning the dwellings of wretched beings who have nothing to eat, breaking furniture and stealing goods, drinking the wine found in the cellars, violating the women in the streets, burning thousands of Frank's worth of powder, and leaving misery and cholera in one's track. That is what is meant by not falling into the most hideous materialism. What have they done, these warriors, those warriors that proves the least intelligence? Nothing. What have they invented? Cannons and muskets. That is all. What remains to us from Greece? Books and statues. Is Greece great from her conquest or her creations? Was it the invasions of the Persians which saved Greece from falling into the most hideous materialism? Were the invasions of the barbarians what saved and regenerated Rome? The great intellectual movement started by the philosophers of the end of the last century. Yes indeed, since government assumes the right of annihilating peoples thus, there is nothing surprising in the fact that people assume the rights of annihilating governments. They defend themselves. They are right. No one has an absolute right to govern others. It ought only to be done for the benefit of those who are governed and it is as much the duty of anyone who governs to avoid war as it is the duty of a captain of a ship to avoid shipwreck. When a captain has let his ship come to ruin he is judged and condemned if he has found guilty of negligence or even incapacity. Why should not the government be put on its trial after every declaration of war? If the people understood that if they themselves passed judgment on murderous governments if they refused to let themselves be killed for nothing. If they would only turn their arms against those who have given them to them for massacre on that day war would be war but that day will never come. End of quotation. Footnote Sir Lo pages 71 through 80. The author sees all the horror of war. He sees that it is ceased by governments forcing men by deception to go out to slaughter and be slain without any advantage to themselves. And he sees too that the men who make up the armies could turn their arms against the governments and bring them to judgment but he thinks that that will never come to pass and that there is therefore the present position. Beginning of quotation. I think war is terrible but that it is inevitable. That compulsory military service is as inevitable as death and that since government will always desire it war will always exist. End of quotation. So writes this talented and sincere writer who is endowed with that power of penetrating the innermost crust of the subject which is the essence of the poetic faculty. He brings before us all the cruelty of the inconsistency between man's moral sense and their actions but without trying to remove it seems to admit that this inconsistency must exist and that it is the poetic tragedy of life. Another no less gifted writer, Edward Rodd paints in still more vivid colors the cruelty and madness of the present state of things. He too only aims at presenting its tragic features without suggesting or foreseeing any issue from the position. Beginning of quotation. What is the good of doing anything? What is the good of undertaking any enterprise and how are we to love men in these troubled times when every fresh day is a menace of danger. All we have begun the plans we are developing our schemes of work the little good we may have been able to do will it not all be swept away by the tempest that is in preparation. Everywhere the earth is shaking under our feet and storm clouds are gathering on our horizon which will have no pity on us. Ah if all we had to dread were the revolution which is held up as a specter to terrify us. Since I cannot imagine a society more detestable than ours I feel more skeptical than alarmed in regard to that which will replace it. If I should have to suffer from the change I should be consoled by thinking that the executioners of that day were the victims of the previous time and the hope of something better would help us to endure the worst but it is not that remote peril which frightens me I see another danger near and far more cruel. More cruel because there is no excuse for it because it is absurd because it can lead to no good. Every day one balances the chances of war on the morrow every day they become more merciless. The imagination revolts before the catastrophe which is coming at the end of our century as the goal of the progress of our era and yet we must get used to facing it for 20 years past every resource of science has been exhausted in the invention of engines of destruction and soon a few charges of canon will suffice to annihilate a whole army no longer a few thousand of poor devils who were paid a price for their blood are kept under arms but whole nations are under arms to cut each other's throats they are robbed of their time now by compulsory service that they may be robbed of their lives later to persuade them for the work of massacre their hatred is kindled by persuading them that they are hated and peaceful men let themselves be played on thus and go and fall on one another with the ferocity of wild beasts furious troops of peaceful citizens taking up arms at an empty word of command for some ridiculous question of frontiers or colonial trade interests heaven only knows what they will go like sheep to the slaughter knowing all the while where they are going knowing that they are leaving their wives knowing that their children will want for food full of misgivings yet intoxicated by the fine sounding lies that are dinned into their ears they will march without revolt passive resigned though the numbers and the strength are theirs and they might if they knew how to cooperate together establish the reign of good sense and fraternity instead of the barbarous trickery of diplomacy they will march to battle so deluded so duped that they will believe slaughter to be a duty and they will ask the benediction of god on their lust for blood they will march to battle trampling underfoot the harvests they have sown burning the towns they have built with songs of triumph festive music and cries of jubilation and their sons will raise statues to these who have done most in their slaughter the destiny of a whole generation depends on the hour in which some ill-fated politician may give the signal that will be followed we know that the best of us will be cut down and our work will be destroyed in embryo we know it and trouble with rage but we can do nothing we are held fast in the toils of officialdom and red tape and to root a shock would be needed to set us free we are enslaved by the laws we set up for our protection which have become our oppression we are but the tools of that autocratic abstraction the state which enslaves each individual in the name of the will of all who would all take an individually desire exactly the opposite of what they will be made to do and if it were only a generation that must be sacrificed but there are graver interests at stake the paid politicians the ambitious statesmen who exploit the evil passions of the populace and the imbeciles who are deluded by fine sounding phrases have so embittered national feuds that the existence of a whole race will be at stake in the war of the morrow one of the elements that constitute the modern world is threatened the conquered people will be wiped out of existence and whichever it may be we shall see a moral force annihilated as if there were too many forces to work for good we shall have a new Europe formed on foundation so unjust so brutal so sanguinary stained with so monstrous a crime that it cannot but be worse than the Europe of today more iniquitous more barbarous more violent thus one feels crushed under the weight of an immense discouragement we are struggling in a cul-de-sac with muskets aimed at us from the housetops our labor is like that of sailors executing their last task as the ship begins to sink our pleasures are those of the condemned victim who has offered his choice of a quarter of an hour before his execution thought is paralyzed by anguish and the most it is capable of is to calculate interpreting the vague phrases of ministers spelling out the sense of the speeches of the sovereigns and ruminating on the words attributed to diplomatists reported on the uncertain authority of the newspapers whether it is to be tomorrow or the day after this year or the next that we are to be murdered so that one might seek to remain in history an epoch more insecure more crushed under the weight of suffering end of quotation footnote the song to the V pages 208 through 213 here it is pointed out that the force is in the hands of those who work their own destruction in the hands of the individual men who make up the masses it is pointed out that the source of the evil is the government it would seem evident that the contradiction between life and conscience has reached it cannot go and after reaching this limit some solution of it must be found but the author does not think so he sees in this the tragedy of human life and after depicting all the horror of the position he concludes that human life must be spent in the midst of this horror so much for the attitude to war of those who regarded as something tragic and faded by destiny the third category consists of men who have lost all conscience and consequently all common sense and feeling of humanity to this category belongs Moltke whose opinion has been quoted above by Moltke son and the majority of military men who have been educated in this cruel superstition lived by it and consequently are often in all simplicity convinced that war is not only an inevitable even a necessary and beneficial thing this is also the view of some civilians some so-called educated and cultivated people here is what the celebrated academician Camille Duce can reply to the editor of the review they review where several letters on war were published together beginning of quotation dear sir when you ask the least war like of academicians whether he is a partisan of war his answer is known beforehand alas sir you yourself speak of the pacific ideal inspiring your generous compatriots as a dream during my life I have heard a great many good people protest against this frightful custom of international butchery which all admit in deplor but how is it to be remedied often to there have been attempts to suppress dueling one would fancy that seemed an easy task but not at all all that has been done hitherto with that noble object has never been and never will be of use all the congresses of both hemispheres may vote against war and against dueling to but above all arbitrage conventions but above all arbitrations conventions and legislations there will always be the personal honor of individual men which is always demanded dueling and the interest of nations which will always demand war I wish nonetheless from the depths of my heart that the congress of universal peace may succeed at last in its very honorable and difficult enterprise I am dear sir et cetera end of quotation the upshot of this is that personal honor requires men to fight and the interest of nations require them to ruin and exterminate each other as for the efforts to abolish war they call for nothing but a smile the opinion of another well known akim addition joules claritie is of the same kind beginning of quotation dear sir he writes for a man there can be but one opinion on the subject of peace and war humanity is created to live live free to perfect and ameliorate its fate by peaceful labor the general harmony preached by the universal peace congress is but a dream perhaps but at least it is the fairest of all dreams man is always looking toward the promised land and there the harvest are to ripen with no fear of their being torn up by shells or crushed by cannon wheels but ah but since philosophers and philanthropists are not the controlling powers it is well for our soldiers to guard our frontier and homes and their arms skillfully used are perhaps the surest guarantee of the peace we all love peace is a gift only granted to the strong and to the resolute I am dear sir et cetera joule claritie end of quotation the upshot of this letter is that there is no harm in talking about what no one intends or feels obliged to do but when it comes to practice we must fight and here it now is the view lately expressed by the most popular novelist in europe emil zola I regard war as a fatal necessity which appears inevitable for us from its close connection with human nature and the whole constitution of the world I should wish that war could be put off for the longest possible time nevertheless the moment will come when we shall be forced to go to war I am considering it at this moment from the standpoint of universal humanity and making no reference to our misunderstanding with Germany a most trivial incident in the history of mankind I say that war is necessary and beneficial since it seems one of the conditions of existence for humanity war confronts us everywhere not only war between different races and peoples but war too in private and family life it seems one of the principle elements of progress and every step in advance that has taken hitherto has been attended by bloodshed men have talked and still talk of disarmament while disarmament is something impossible to which even if it were possible we ought not to consent I am convinced that a general disarmament throughout the world would involve something like a moral decadence which would show itself in general feebleness and would hinder the progressive advancement of humanity a war like nation has always been strong and flourishing the art of war has led to the development of all the other arts history bears witness to it so in Athens and in Rome commerce manufacturers and literature never attained so high a point of development as when these were masters of the whole world by force of arms to take an example from times near our own we may recall the age of Louis Catoise the wars of the grand monarch were not only no hindrance to the progress of the arts and sciences but even on the contrary seem to have promoted and favored their development end of quotation so war is a beneficial thing but the best expression of this attitude is the view of the most gifted of the writers of this school the accomedition du vogue this is what he writes in an article on the military section of the exhibition of 1889 beginning of quotation on the esplanade des invalides among the exotic and colonial encampments of building in a more severe style overraus the picturesque bazaar all these fragments of the globe have come to gather around the palace of war and in turn our guests mount guards submissibly before the mother building but for whom they could not be here fine subject to the antithesis of rhetoric of humanitarians who could not fail to whimper over this juxtaposition and to say that footnote phrase quoted from Victor Hugo Notre Dame du Paris end of footnote that the union of the nations through science and labor will overcome the instinct of war let us leave them to cherish the chimera of a golden age which would soon become if it could be realized an age of mud all history teaches us that the one is created by the mother that blood is needed to hasten and cement the union of the nations natural science has ratified in our day the mysterious law revealed to Joseph de mestre by the intuition of his genius and meditation on fundamental truths he saw the world redeeming itself from hereditary degenerations by sacrifice science shows it advancing to perfection through struggle and violent selection there is the statement of the same law in both expressed in different formulas the statement is disagreeable no doubt but the laws of the world are not made for our pleasure they are made for our progress let us enter this inevitable necessary palace of war we shall be able to observe there how the most tenacious of our instincts without losing any of its vigorous transformed and adapted to the varying exigencies of historical epochs end of quotation Monsieur de Vogue finds the necessity of war according to his views well expressed by the two great writers Joseph de mestre and Darwin he likes so much that he quotes them again beginning of quotation dear sir he writes to the editor of the review de revue you ask me my view as to the possible success of the universal congress of peace I hold with Darwin that violent struggle is a law of nature which over rules all other loas I hold with Joseph de mestre that it is a divine law two different ways of describing the same thing if by some impossible chance a fraction of human society all the civilized west let us suppose to succeed in suspending the action of this law some races of stronger instincts would undertake the task of putting it into action against us those races would vindicate nature's reasoning against human reason they would be successful because of the certainty of peace I do not say peace I say the certainty of peace would in half a century engender a corruption and a decadence more destructive for mankind than the worst of wars I believe that we must do with war the criminal law of humanity as with all our criminal laws that is soften them put them in force as rarely as possible use every effort to make their application unnecessary all the experience of history teaches us that they cannot be all together suppressed so long as two men are left on earth with bread and money and a woman between them I should be very happy if the congress would prove me an error but I doubt if it can prove history, nature and god in error also I am deerser etc I am de vogue end of quotation to saying that history, human nature and god show us that so long as there are two men and bread, money and women there will be war that is to say that no progress will lead men to rise above the savage conception of life which regards no participation of bread, money, money is good in this context and women possible without fighting they are strange people these men who assemble in congresses and make speeches to show us how to catch birds by putting salt on their tails though they must know it is not impossible to do it and amazing are they too who like Mont-Pouceau road and many others see clearly all the horror of war all the inconsistency of men not doing what is needful right and beneficial for them to do who lament over the tragedy of life and do not see that the whole tragedy is at an end directly men ceasing to take account of any necessary considerations refuse to do what is hateful and disastrous to them they are amazing people truly but those who like de vogue and others professing a doctrine of evolution regard war is not only inevitable but beneficial and therefore desirable they are terrible hideous in their moral perversion the others at least say that they hate evil and love good but these openly declare that good and evil do not exist all the discussion of the possibility of reestablishing peace instead of everlasting war is the pernicious sentimentality of phrase mongers there is a law of evolution by which it follows that I must live and act in an evil way what is done I am an educated man I know the law of evolution and therefore I will act in an evil way there is the law of evolution and therefore there is neither good nor evil and one must live for the sake of one's personal existence leaving the rest to the action of the law of evolution this is the last word of refined culture and with it of that overshadowing of conscience which is come upon the educated classes of our time the desire of the educated classes to support the ideas they refer and the order of existence based on them has attained its furthest limits they lie and delude themselves and one another with the subtlest forms of deception simply to obscure to dead in conscience instead of transforming their life into harmony with their conscience they try by every means to stifle its voice but it is in darkness that the light begins to shine and so the light is rising upon our epoch the end of chapter 6 chapter 7 of the kingdom of god is within you this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Willem the kingdom of god is within you by Leo Tolstoy translated by Constance Garnet chapter 7 significance of compulsory service educated people of the upper classes are trying to stifle the ever-growing sense of the necessity of transforming social order but life which goes on growing more complex and developing in the same direction and increases the inconsistencies and the sufferings of men brings them to the limit beyond which they cannot go this furthest limit of inconsistency is universal compulsory military service it is usually supposed a universal military service and the increased armaments connected with it as well as the resulting increase of taxes and national debts are a passing phenomenon produced by the particular political situation of Europe and that may be removed by certain political combinations without any modification of the inner order of life this is absolutely incorrect universal military service is the only internal inconsistency inherent in the social conception of life carried to its furthest limits and becoming evident when a certain stage of material development is reached the social conception of life we have seen consists in the transfer of the aim of life from the individual to groups in their maintenance to the tribe family race or state in the social conception of life it is supposed since the aim of life is found in groups of individuals individuals will voluntarily sacrifice their own interest for the interest of the group and so it has been and still is in fact in certain groups the distinction being that they are the most primitive forms of association in the family or tribe or race or even in the patriarchal state through tradition handed down by education and supported by religious sentiment individuals without compulsion merge their interests in the interest of the group and sacrifice their own good for the general welfare but the more complex and larger societies became and especially the more often conquest becomes the cause of amalgamation of people into a state the more often individuals strive to attain their own aims at the public expense and the more often it becomes necessary to restrain these insubordinate individuals by recourse to authority that is to violence the champions of the social conception of life usually try to connect the idea of authority that is of violence with the idea of moral influence but this connection is quite impossible the effect of moral influence on a man is to change his desires and to bend them in the direction of the duty required of him the man who is controlled by moral influence acts in accordance with his own desires authority in a sense in which the word is ordinarily understood is a means of forcing a man to act in opposition to his desires the man who submits to authority does not do so as he chooses but as he is obliged by authority nothing can oblige a man to do what he does not choose except physical force or the threat of it that is deprivation of freedom, blows imprisonment or threats easily carried out of such punishments this is what authority consists of and always has consisted of in spite of the unceasing efforts of those who happen to be in authority to conceal this and attribute some other significance to it authority has always meant for man the chord, the chain which he has bound and feathered or the note which he has to be flogged or the ax with which he has had to have hands, ears, nose or head cut off or at the very least the threat of these terrors so it was under Nero and Genghis Khan and so it is today even under the most liberal government and the rubrics of the United States or of France if men submit to authority it is only because they are liable to these punishments in the case of non-submission all state obligations, payment of taxes fulfillment of state duties and submission to punishments, exiles, fines etc to which people appear to submit voluntarily are always based on the bodily violence or threat of it the basis of authority is bodily violence the possibility of applying bodily violence to people is provided above all by an organization of armed men trained to act in unison and submission to one will these bands of armed men submissive to a single will are what constitute the army the army has always been and still is the basis of power power is always in the hands of those who control the army and all men in power from the Roman Caesars to the Russian and German emperors take more interest in their army than in anything in court popularity in the army knowing that if that is on their side their power is secure the formation and aggrandizement of the army indispensable to the maintenance of authority is what is introduced into the social conception of life the principle that is destroying it the object of authority and the justification for its existence by and the restraint of those who aim at attaining their personal interests to the detriment of the interests of society but however power has been gained those who possess it are in no way different from other men those than others to subordinate their own interests to those of the society on the contrary having the power to do so at their disposal they are more disposed than others to subordinate the public interest to their own whatever means men of devise for preventing those in authority from overriding public interest for their own benefit for entrusting power only to the most faultless people they have so far not succeeded in either of those aims all the methods of appointing authorities that have been tried in right and election and heredity and balloting and assemblies and parliaments and senate have all proved ineffectual everyone knows that not one of these methods attains either the aim of entrusting power only to the incorruptible or a preventing power from being abused everyone knows on the contrary that men in authority be they emperors ministers, governors or police officers are always simply from the possession of power more liable to be demoralized that is to subordinate public interest to their personal aims for those who have not the power to do so indeed it could not be otherwise the state conception of life could be justified only so long as men voluntarily sacrifice their personal interest to the public welfare but so soon as there were individuals who would not voluntarily sacrifice their own interests an authority that is violence was needed to restrain them then the disintegrating principle of the coercion of one set of people by another set entered into the social conception of the organization based on for the authority of one set of men or another to attain its object of restraining those who override public interest for their personal ends power ought only to be put in the hands of the impeccable as it is supposed to be among the Chinese and as it was supposed to be in the middle ages and is even now supposed to be by those who believe in the consecration of anointing only under those conditions could the social organization be justified but since this is not the case and on the contrary men in power are always far from being saints through the very fact of their possession of power the social power has no justification even if there was once a time when owing to the low standards of morals and the disposition of men to violence the existence of an authority to restrain such violence was an advantage because the violence of the government was less than the violence of individuals one cannot but see that this advantage could not be lasting as the disposition of individuals to violence diminished and as the habits of the people became more civilized and as power grew more social organization demoralized through lack the whole history of the last 2,000 years is nothing but the history of this gradual change of relation between the moral development of the masses on one hand and the demoralization of governments on the other this put simply as ours has come to pass men lived in families tribes and races at few from another plundering out raging and killing one another these violent hostilities were carried on on a large scale and on a small scale man against man family against family tribe against tribe race against race and people against people the larger and stronger groups conquered and absorbed the weaker and the larger and stronger they became the more internal views disappeared and the more the continuity of the group seemed assured the members of a family or tribe united into one community are less hostile among themselves and families and tribes do not die like one man but have a continuity of existence between the members of one state subject to a single authority the strife between the individual seems still less and the life 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 a story in the very agi 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 we are 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 unless they are exposed to all the demoralizing influence of authority and thus the evil of violence when it passes into society is 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 society becomes weaker and weaker so 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 authority is less than the violence of authority in the members of society against each other because it finds expression in submission and not its 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 the weaker the oppressed the less effort need be made to the greater extent of the population and the lack of the power to fight the oppressed 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 protest 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 the flexible iron law by which they only get just what is barely necessary so 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 the increasing strength of authority it's advantage for its subjects to appear as disadvantages increase and this has been so independently of the form of government under which nations have lived 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 of violence is less crude but it's effective 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 as been and still is the condition of all the oppressed but hitherto they have in the majority of instances they have believed in all simplicity the 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 is an indispensable condition of the development of humanity and in that way it is lasted for hundreds and thousands of years and governments those who happen to be in power have tried it and are now trying more zealously than ever to keep their subjects in this air 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 constant 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 particularly indispensable now in the face of communism, socialism, anarchism and the labored movement generally governments feel that it is so and strengthen the force of their discipline armies see footnotes footnotes 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 other states that is why there is nowhere else so little oppression of the working classes where the end of the abuses of government and of government itself seems so near of late the combinations of labor is gained in strength one hears more and more frequently the cry of race for the increase of the army as though the United States are not threatened with any attack from without the upper classes know that an army of 50,000 will soon be insufficient and no longer rely on Pinkerton's men they feel that the security of their position depends on the increased strength of the army in footnote 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 a lot 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 today so carefully distribute the recruits so that the regiments from the frontier that 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 unconsciously 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 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 land to the laborers and this abnormal order of things is maintained by the army if he admits wealth produced by the labor of working classes is not regarded as a property of all but as a property of a few exceptional persons if labor is taxed by authority and the tax is spent by a few on what they think fits if strikes on the part of the laborers are repressed while on the part of capitalists they are encouraged if certain persons appropriate the right of choosing the form of education religious and secular of children and certain persons monopolize the right of making the laws almost 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 class 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 people's needs is often indirect antagonism to them 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 are 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 to the increase of their armies this increases 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 of neighboring states but principally through the necessity of subduing every effort at revolt on the part of the subjects both causes mutually dependent and contribute to the same result at once troops are required against internal forces and also to keep up 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 and constantly increasing their forces has reduced them to the necessity of having recourse to universal military service since by that means the greatest possible soldiers is obtained at the least possible expense germany hit first on this device and directly one state adopted that the others were obliged to do the same and by this means all citizens are under arms to support the inequities practiced upon them all citizens have become their own impressors universal military service was an inevitable logical necessity to which we were bound to come but it is also the last expression of the inconsistency inherent in the social conception of life when violence is needed to maintain it this inconsistency has become obvious in universal military service in fact the whole significance of the social conception of life consists in man's recognition of the barbarity of strife between individuals and the transitoryness of personal life itself and the transference of the aim of life the groups of persons but with universal military service it comes to pass that men after making every sacrifice to get rid of the cruelty of strife and the insecurity of existence are called upon to face all the perils to avoid and in addition to the state for whose sake individuals renounce their personal advantages is exposed again to the same risks of insecurity and lack of permanence as the individual himself was in previous times governments were to give men freedom from the cruelty of personal strife and security and the permanence of the state order of existence but instead of doing that they exposed the individuals to the same necessity of strife substituting strife with individuals of other states for strife with neighbors and the danger of destruction for the individual and the state too they just leave as it was universal military service may be compared to the efforts of a man to prop up his falling house who so surrounds it and fills it with props and buttresses and planks and scaffolding that he manages to keep the house standing only by making it impossible to live in it in the same way universal military service destroys all the benefits of the social order of life which it is employed to maintain the advantages of social organization are security of property and labor and protection for the improvement of existence universal military service destroys all this the taxes raised from the people for war preparations absorb the greater part of the produce of labor which the army ought to defend the withdrawing of all men from the ordinary course of life destroys the possibility of labor itself the danger of war ever ready to break out renders all reforms of life social life vain and fruitless in former days if a man were told that if he did not acknowledge the authority he would be exposed to attack from enemies domestic and foreign that he would have to resist them alone and would be liable to be killed and therefore it would be to his advantage to put up with some hardships to secure himself from these calamities he might well believe it seeing that the sacrifices he made to the state were only partial and gave him hope of tranquil existence in a permanent state but now when the sacrifices have increased tenfold and the promise advantages are disappearing it would be a natural reflection but the fatal significance of universal military service as the manifestation of the contradiction inherent in the social conception of life is not only apparent in that the greatest manifestation of his contradiction consists in the fact that every citizen in being made a soldier becomes a prop of the government organization and shares the responsibility of everything the government does even though he may not admit its legitimacy governments assert that armies are needed above all for external defense but that is not true it is not simply against their subjects and every man under universal military service becomes an accomplice in all the acts of violence of the government against the citizens without any choice of his own to convince oneself of this one need only remember what things are done in every state in the name of order and the public welfare of which the execution always falls to the army all civil outbreaks for dynastic or other party reasons all the executions that follow on such disturbances all repression of insurrections military intervention to break up meetings and to suppress strikes all forced extortion of taxes all the iniquitous distributions of land all the restrictions on labor are either carried out directly by the military or by the police with the army at their back anyone who serves his time in the army shares the responsibility of all these things about which he is in some cases dubious all very often they are directly opposed to his conscience people are unwilling to be turned out of the land they have cultivated for generations they are unwilling to disperse when the government authority orders them or they are unwilling to pay the taxes required of them or recognize losses binding on them when they have had no hand in making them or to be deprived of their nationality and I in the fulfillment of my military duty must go and shoot them for it how can I help asking myself when I take part in such punishments whether they are just and whether I ought to assist in carrying them out universal service is the extreme limit of violence necessary for the support of the whole state organization and it is the extreme limit to which submission on the part of the subjects can go it is the keystone on the whole edifice and its fall will bring it all down the time has come when the ever-growing abuse of power by governments and their struggles with one another has led to their demanding such material and even moral sacrifices from their subjects that everyone is forced to reflect and ask himself can I make these sacrifices and for the sake of what am I making them I am expected for the sake of the state to make these sacrifices to renounce everything that can be precious to man peace, family, security, and human dignity what is this state for whose sake such terrible sacrifices have to be made and why is it so indispensably necessary the state they tell us is indispensably needed in the first place because without it we should not be protected against the attacks of evil disposed persons and secondly except for the state we should be savages and should have neither religion, culture, education nor commerce nor means of communication nor other social institutions and thirdly without the state to defend us we should be liable to be conquered and enslaved by neighboring peoples except for the state they say we should be exposed to the attacks of evil disposed persons in our own country but who are these evil disposed persons in our midst from whose attacks we are preserved by the state and its army even if three or four centuries ago when men prided themselves on their war-like prowess when killing men was considered a heroic achievement there were such persons we know very well that there are no such persons now that we do not nowadays carry or use firearms but everyone professes humane principles and feels sympathy for his fellows and wants nothing more than we all do that is to be left in peace to enjoy his existence undisturbed so that nowadays there are no special malefactors from whom the state could defend us if by these evil disposed persons is meant the men who are punished as criminals we know very well that they are not a different kind of being like wild beasts among sheep but are men like ourselves and no more naturally inclined to crimes than those against whom they commit them we now know that threats and punishments cannot diminish their number that that can only be done by change of environment and moral influence so that this justification of state violence on the ground of the protection it gives us from evil disposed persons even if it had some foundation three or four centuries ago has none whatever now at present one would rather say on the contrary that the action of the state with its cruel methods of punishment behind the general moral standard of the age galley's gibets and guillotines tends rather to brutalize the people than to civilize them and consequently rather to increase the diminished number of malefactors except for the state they tell us we should not have any religion, education, culture means of communication and so on without the state men would not have been able to form the social institutions needed for doing anything this argument too was well founded only some centuries ago if there was a time when people were so disunited when they had so little means of communication and the interchange of ideas they could not cooperate and agree together in in common action in commerce, economics or education without the state as a center this want of common action exists no longer the great extension of means of communication and interchange of ideas has made men completely able to dispense with state aid in forming societies, associations corporations and congresses for scientific, economic and political objects indeed government is more often an obstacle than an assistance in attaining these aims from the end of the last century there has hardly been a single progressive movement of humanity which has not been retarded by the government so it has been with abolition of corporal punishment of trial by torture and of slavery as well as the establishment of the liberty of the press and of the right of public meeting in our day governments not only failed to encourage but directly hinder every movement by which people try to work out new forms of life for themselves every attempt at the solution of problems of labor, land, politics and religion meets with direct opposition on the part of government without governments nations would be enslaved by their neighbors it is scarcely necessary to refute this last argument it carries its reputation on the face of it the government they tell us with its army is necessary to defend us from neighboring states who might enslave us but we know this is what all governments say of one another and yet we know that all the european nations profess the same principles of liberty and fraternity and therefore stand in no need of protection against one another and if defense against barbarous nations is meant one thousandth part of the troops now under arms would be amply sufficient for that purpose we see that it is really the very opposite of what we have been told the power of the state far from being a security against the attacks of our neighbors exposes us on the contrary to much greater danger of such attacks so that every man who is led through his compulsory service in the army to reflect on the value of the state for whose sake he is expected to be ready to sacrifice his peace security and life there is no kind of justification in modern times for such a sacrifice and it is not only from the theoretical standpoint that every man must see that the sacrifice is demanded by the state have no justification even looking at it practically weighing that is to say all the burdens laid on him by the state no man can fail to see that for him personally to comply with the state demands and serve in the army would in the majority of cases be more disadvantageous than to refuse to do so if the majority of men choose to submit rather than to refuse the lack of sober balancing of advantages and disadvantages but because they are induced by a kind of hypnotizing process practiced upon them in submitting they simply yield to the suggestions given them as orders without thought or effort of will to resist would need independent thought and effort of which every man is not capable even apart from the moral significance of compliance or non-compliance considering material advantage only non-compliance will be more advantageous in general whoever I may be whether I belong to the class of the oppressors or the working class of the oppressed in either case the disadvantages of non-compliance are less and its advantages greater than those of compliance if I belong to the minority of oppressors the disadvantages of non-compliance will consist of my being brought to judgment for refusing to perform my duties to the state and if I am lucky being acquitted or as is done in the case of the Mennonites in Russia being set to work out my military service as some civil occupation for the state while if I am unlucky I may be condemned to exile or imprisonment for two or three years I judge by the cases that have occurred in Russia possibly to even longer imprisonment or possibly to death though the probability of that ladder is very remote so much for the disadvantages of non-compliance the disadvantages of compliance will be as follows if I am lucky I shall not be sent to murder my fellow creatures and shall not be exposed to great danger of being maimed or killed but shall only be enrolled into military slavery I shall be dressed up like a clown I shall be at the beck and call of every man of a higher grade than my own from Corporal to Field Marshal shall be put through any bodily contortions at their pleasure and after being kept from one to five years I shall have ten years afterward to be in readiness to undertake all of it again at any minute if I am unlucky I may in addition be sent to war where I shall be forced to kill men of foreign nations who have done me no harm where I may be maimed or killed or sent to certain destruction as in the case of the Garrison or Sevastopol and other cases in every war or what would be most terrible of all I may be sent against my own compatriots and have to kill my own brothers for some dynastic or other state interests which have absolutely nothing to do with me so much for the comparative disadvantages the comparative advantages of compliance and non-compliance are as follows the man who submits the advantages will be that after exposing himself to all the humiliation and performing all the barbarities required of him he may, if he escapes being killed, get a decoration of red or gold tensile in his clown's dress he may, if he is very lucky, be put in command of hundreds of thousands of others as brutalized as himself, be called a field marshal and get a lot of money the advantages of a man who refuses to obey will consist in preserving his dignity as a man gaining the approbation of good men and above all knowing that he is doing the work of God and so undoubtedly doing good to his fellow men so much for the advantages and disadvantages of both lines of conduct for a man of a wealthy class and oppressor for the poor working class the advantages and disadvantages will be the same but with a great increase of disadvantages the disadvantages of the poor man who submits will be aggravated by the fact that he will be taking part in it and as it were assenting to it strengthen the state of the subjection in which he has held himself but no considerations as to how far the state is useful or beneficial to the men who help to support it by serving in the army nor the advantages or disadvantages for the individual of compliance or non-compliance with the state demands to decide the question of the continued existence or the abolition of government this question will be finally decided beyond appealed by the religious consciousness or conscience of every man who is forced whether he will or no through universal conscription to face the question whether the state is to continue to exist or not End of Chapter 7