Leo Tolstoy

“ Fight the Government, if you cannot refrain; but know that you are fighting for yourselves not for the people, and that in this violent struggle there is not only nothing noble or good, but that your struggle is a very stupid and harmful and, above all, a very immoral affair.
Your activity aims, you say, at making the general condition of the people better. But that the people's condition should be better, it is necessary for people themselves to be better. ”

“ They are the very men who live on the labour of the people, and, conscious of their sin, fear its exposure, and hope that the Government (being bound to them by unity of interest) will protect their wrong-doing by force. For these men, the Government is very necessary, but not for you — the peasantry. For you the Government has always been simply a burden; and now, that it has by its evil rule provoked riots, and brought it to pass that there are two rival Governments, it has become an evident misfortune and a great sin, which you must repudiate for your bodily and spiritual welfare. ”

“ What you need is not a really just order of life: for nothing would be more dangerous for you than an order in which everyone had to do work useful to all.
Only cease to deceive yourselves: consider well the place you hold among the Russian people and what you are doing, and it will be clear to you that your struggle with the Government is the struggle of two parasites on a healthy body, and that both contending parties are equally harmful to the people. ”

“ No; what is necessary is to examine yourselves, and to endeavor to correct your own failings and become better men. If you wish to think of public life, think first of your sins against the people; try to consume as little of their labor as possible, and if you cannot help the peasantry, try at least not to mislead and confuse them, committing the terrible crime many of you now commit by deceiving and provoking them, inciting them to robberies and insurrections, which always end in suffering and the yet greater enslavement for the people. ”

“ Governments were instituted when the nations were savage, cruel and coarse. The Governments set up were equally cruel and coarse. Nearly all the Governments took their laws from the heathen Romans ; and to the present day the Governments remain as coarse as they were in the days before Christianity, with their forcible requisitions, soldiers' prisons and executions- But the people, becoming enlightened, have less and less need of such Governments, and in our day most of the Christian nations have arrived at the stage when Government merely hinders them. ”

“ It alone, deprives you of the labour of your sons, taking them for soldiers and sending them to be killed.
But Government is not some essential condition of human life, which will exist as long as mankind lasts, like the cultivation of the soil, marriage, the family, or human intercourse—Government is a human institution, and like all human institutions, is set up when it is needed and abolished when it becomes unnecessary. ”

“ The mass of the people do not need you at all, but always has regarded and still regards you, and cannot but regard you, as useless grubs who, in one way or another, consume the fruits of its labour and are a burden upon it. Only realize to yourselves clearly the life of this hundred-million Russian agricultural peasantry, who strictly speaking alone constitute the body of the Russian nation ”

“ The acknowledged basis of all Governmental power is solely the promotion of the welfare of the people over whom the power IS exerted.
But what are you who now govern Russia doing? You are fighting the Revolutionists with shifts and cunning such as they employ against you; and, worst of all, with cruelty even greater than theirs. But of two contending parties, the conqueror is not always the more shifty, cunning, cruel, or harsh of the two, but the one that is nearest to the aim towards which humanity is advancing. ”

“ But just because this ideal has nowhere yet been accomplished, it is the true ideal of our day : and, more, it is the nearest ideal, and one which, before it is; accomplished in other countries, should now be accomplished in Russia. Wipe out your sins by a good deed ; while you still have the power, strive to destroy the ancient, crying, cruel injustice of private property in land, which is so vividly felt by the whole agricultural population, and from which they suffer so grievously ; and you will have the support of all the best people — the so-called "intellectuals." ”

“ This lowering of the level of general morality causes the most immoral part of society to come more and more to the top ; and an immoral public opinion is formed which not only permits, but even approves crimes, robberies, debauchery, and murder itself. Thus a vicious circle is set up: the evil elements of society, evoked by the social struggle, throw themselves hotly into public activity corresponding to the low level of their morality, and this activity again attracts to itself yet worse elements of society. ”

“ You, Revolutionists of all shades and denominations, consider the present Government harmful and in various ways—by organizing assemblies (allowed or prohibited by Government) , by formulating projects, printing articles, making speeches, by unions, strikes and demonstrations, and, finally (as a natural and inevitable basis and consequence of all these activities) by murders, executions and armed insurrections—you strive to replace the existing authority by another, a new one. ”

“ Among such nations emancipation is being prepared by socialism. But for you Russian laborers, living mainly an agricultural life, and supplying your own needs, this emancipation is particularly easy. Government for you has long ceased to be a necessity or even a convenience, and has become a great and uncompensated burden and misfortune.
The Government, only the Government, by its power deprives you of land. Only the Government collects from you in taxes and customs-dues a great part of what you obtain by your labour. ”

“ But for you, working people, this is not at all necessary. What you need is something quite else. You only need enough land, and that no one should forcibly take your property, or oblige your sons to go as soldiers, and above all that no one should compel you to do evil deeds. And these evils will cease, if only you refuse to obey the demands of the Government—demands which ruin and destroy both your bodies and your souls.
"But how, without a Government, and when all live in separate Communes, are all large public affairs to be arranged? ”

“ You will have with you all true Constitutionalists; who cannot but see that, before calling on the people to choose representatives, the people must be freed from the land-slavery in which it now lives. ”

“ Only let the town workmen, as well as the villagers cease to obey or serve Government, and, with the abolition of its power, the slavish conditions in which you live will vanish of themselves, for they are maintained only by governmental violence. And the violence the Government employs is supplied by yourselves. It is that power alone which places customs-duties on goods imported or exported; it alone collects taxes on articles made in the country . ”

“ It is all because among a small group of people, hardly one ten-thousandth of the whole nation, some have decided that what is needed for the very best organization of the Russian Empire is the continuation of the Duma which lately sat; while others say that what is needed is a Duma chosen by universal, secret, and equal voting; a third party say that what is needed is a Republic : and yet a fourth party declare that what is needed is not an ordinary Republic, but a Socialist Republic. ”

“ That people may become better, it is necessary that they should turn their attention ever more and more to their inner life. But external public activity, and especially public strife, always diverts men's minds from the inner life; and, therefore, by perverting people, always and inevitably lowers the level of general morality, as has everywhere been the case, and as we now see most strikingly exemplified in Russia. ”

“ But to join the Revolutionists means to do the same: to kill people, throw bombs, burn, rob, fight with soldiers, execute and hang.
Therefore, laboring Christian people : now that the Tsar's Government calls on you to fight against your brothers, and the Revolutionists call on you to do the same, you evidently, not for your own benefit alone, but before God and your consciences, must and should join neither the old nor the new Government, and take no part in the unchristian doings either of the one or the other. ”

“ People are so accustomed to see the Government control all public affairs, that it seems to them that the work itself is done by Government, and that without Government it is impossible to organize High Schools, ways of communication, post-offices, libraries, or commercial relations. ”

“ They promise to arrange for you an elected Government such as exists in the freest countries. But wherever such elected Governments exist, in the countries that have most freedom, in the French and American Republics for instance, just as among ourselves, the chief ills of the people are not remedied: as among us, or to an even greater degree, the land is in the hands of the rich; just as among us the people are laden with taxes and customs-duties without being asked, and as among us, armies are maintained and wars declared when those in power desire it, without the people being consulted. ”

“ You say you do it for the people's sake, and that your chief aim is the welfare of the people. But the hundred-millions for whom you do it, do not ask it of you, and do not want all these things which you, by such evil means, try to obtain. ”

“ The intricate and difficult circumstances amid which we live in Russia demand of you, especially at the present time, not newspaper articles, nor speeches in assemblies, nor promenading in the streets with revolvers, nor the (often dishonest) incitement of the peasants while you evade responsibility yourselves ; but a frank and strict relation to yourselves and to your own lives, which alone are in your power, and the improvement of which is the sole means by which you can improve the general condition of the people. ”

“ The general irritation cannot be overcome by force, but the Government, i.e., those people who constitute the Government, are bound before God, before men, and before themselves, to cease all acts of violence — to do all that which is demanded of them, to relieve themselves of their responsibility ”

“ The Revolutionists, too, will be on your side, for the revolution which you will be accomplishing by freeing the land from private ownership, is one of the chief points in their program. On your side, above all, will be the whole hundred- million agricultural peasantry, which alone represents the real Russian people. Only do what you, occupying the place of Government, are bound to do, and, while there is yet time, make it your business to establish the real welfare of the people ”

“ What is necessary for your good and sincere life is, first of all, not to deceive yourselves by supposing that by yielding to your petty passions : vanity, ambition, envy and bravado, or desiring to find an outlet for your spare energy, or to improve your own position, you can serve the people. ”

“ Only imagine vividly to yourselves these millions, ever patiently laboring, and supporting your unnatural and artificial lives on their shoulders ; imagine them possessed of all these reforms you are hoping to obtain, and you will see how foreign to this people is all that professedly for their advantage, you are aiming at. They have other tasks, and see more profoundly that you do the aim that is before them ”

“ Not only is it not to your advantage to join either Government, but you cannot do it conscientiously before God. To defend the old Government means to do what was done recently in Odessa Sevastopol, Kiev, Riga, the Caucasus, and Moscow, i.e. to capture, kill, hang, burn alive, execute, and shoot in the streets, killing children and women. ”

“ Governments not only do not aid these voluntarily organized unions, but when they take part in them they always hinder them.
"But if you do not obey the Government, and do not pay taxes or supply soldiers, foreign nations will come and conquer you," add those who wish to rule over you. ”

“ The Socialists, too, will have to admit that they are with you, for the ideal which they set before themselves : the nationalization of the implements of labour — is attainable first of all by the nationalization of the chief implement of labour—the land. ”

“ Only live acknowledging the land to be common property; not going as soldiers, and not paying taxes (except such as you voluntarily give for public works) and peacefully settling your disagreements through your village Communes—and other nations, seeing your good life, will not come and conquer you; or, if they come, on getting to know your good life they will adopt it and, instead of fighting you, will unite with you. For all the nations, like you your- selves, have suffered and now suffer from Governments ”

“ Whether the form of social organisation under which you hold power has or has not outlived its day, so long as you still hold power, use it not to multiply the evil you have already done, and the hatred you have already provoked ”

“ Whether the Revolutionists rightly or wrongly define the aim towards which they strive, they certainly aim at some new arrangement of life ; while your only desire is to maintain yourselves in the profitable position in which you are established. ”