Leo Tolstoy

“ VIII In order to free oneself from the evil one should not fight with its consequences : the abuses of Governments, the seizures and plunders of neighbouring nations, — but with the root of the evil; with the relations in which the people have placed themselves towards human authority. If the people recognise human power as higher than the power of God, higher than the law (Tao) , then the people will always be slaves and the more so the more complex their organisation of Power (such as a constitutional one) which they institute and to which they submit. ”

“ The Eastern nations are placed for this purpose in especially happy conditions, not having yet abandoned agriculture, not being yet depraved by military, constitutional and industrial life, and not having yet lost faith in the necessity of the supreme law of Heaven or God, they are standing at the parting of the ways from which the European nations have long ago turned, on to the false way in which liberation from human authority has become particularly difficult. ”

“ The Chinese people, whilst suffering so much from the immoral and coarsely egotistic avarice and cruelty of the European nations, has, until lately, answered all the violence committed against it with a magnanimous and wise tranquillity preferring to suffer rather than to fight against this violence. ”

“ But however dreadful this state of things may be, it does not constitute the essence of the calamity of the Western nations. Their chief and fundamental calamity is that the whole life of these nations who are unable to furnish themselves with food, is entirely based on the necessity of procuring means of sustenance by violence and cunning from other nations, who, like China, India, Russia and others, still preserve a rational agricultural life. ”

“ Constitutions, protective tariffs, standing armies, all this to- gether has rendered the Western nations what they are — people who have abandoned agriculture and become unused to it, occupied in towns and factories in the production of articles for the most part unnecessary, people who with their armies are adapted only to every kind of violence and robbery. ”

“ As it happens with a man who has suddenly come to feel that he can no longer continue a childish life, so also in the life of nations there come periods when societies can no longer continue to live as they did, and they realise the necessity of changing their habits, their organisation and activity. And it is such a period of transition from childhood to manhood that, as it appears to me, all nations are now passing through, the Eastern as well as the Western. ”

“ Methinks the vocation of the Eastern nations, China, Persia, Turkey, India, Russia and perhaps Japan, if she is not yet completely enmeshed in the net of depraved European civilisation, — consists in indicating to all nations that true way towards freedom to which, as you say in your book, there is in the Chinese language no other word than Tao, — the Way, — i.e., an activity in conformity with the eternal and fundamental law of human life. ”

“ For us Russians I know, I most undoubtedly know, what we Russians should not do and what we should do in order to free ourselves from the evils from which we are suffering, and, not to fall into still worse ones. ”

“ But for you, the Chinese, it is particularly obviously impossible, because you remaining with your love of peace in the position of a State without an army amidst armed States, which are unable to exist independently, will inevitably be subject to plunder and seizure which these States are compelled to have recourse to for their maintenance. ”

“ These justifications of power could stand when the evil of ^jower was not much felt by the people ; but now that the majority of men feel all the disadvantages and injustice of power, of the power of one, or a few, over many, these justifications are not effective, and nations have to alter one way or another their attitude to authority. And the Western nations have long ago made this alteration : it is now the turn of the East. It is I think in such a position that Russia and Persia, Turkey and China now find themselves. ”

“ Bogdikhan," should be the wisest and most virtuous man, and that if he be not such, then the subjects may and should cease to obey him. But I think that such a teaching is merely a justification of power, and as unsound as the teaching of Paul circulated amongst the European nations, which affirms that the powers are of God. The Chinese people cannot know whether their Emperor is wise and virtuous, just as the Christian nations could not know whether our power was granted by God to this ruler and not to that other one who fought against him. ”

“ You will free yourselves from your officials by not fulfilling their demands, and, above all, by not obeying, you will cease to con- tribute to the oppression and plunder of each other. You will free yourselves from plunder on the part of Europeans by keeping the Tao, and not recognising yourselves as belonging to any State, or as being responsible for the deeds committed by your Government. ”

“ But in olden times when conquerors seized vast populated spaces they could not do much harm to the subdued : the small number of rulers and great number of ruled, especially when the ways of communication were very primitive, merely produced the result of bringing a small portion of the population into subjection to the violence of the rulers, whereas the majority could live a peaceful life without coming into direct touch with the oppressors. ”

“ The trial which the Chinese have undergone and are now undergoing is a great and hea\y one, but precisely now is it important that the Chinese people should not lose patience, or alter their attitude towards violence, so as not to deprive themselves of all the vast results which must follow the enduring of violence without returning evil for evil. ”

“ This for certain we should not do, because it would necessarily bring us to the same calamitous position in which the Western nations are placed. But we should and can do only one thing, and that the most simple : live a peaceful agricultural life, bearing the acts of violence which may be perpetrated upon us without struggling against them and without participating in them. ”

“ The task which, according to my opinion, is now pending not only for China but for all the Eastern nations, does not merely consist in freeing themselves from the evils they suffer from their own Governments and foreign nations, but in pointing out to all nations the issue out of the transitory position in which they all are. ”

“ And therefore, Eastern nations seeing all the calamity of the West- ern peoples, should naturally endeavour to free themselves from the error of human authority, not by that artificial and delusive method consisting in the imaginary limitation of power, and in representa- tion by which Western nations have endeavoured to free themselves, but should solve the problem of Power by another more radical and simple plan. ”

“ Amongst all these nations there unceasingly proceeds a strife between the destitute, exasperated working people and the Government and wealthy, a strife which is restrained only by coercion on the part of deceived men who constitute the Army ”

“ IX. Individuals and societies are always in a transitory state from one age to another, but there arc times when these transitions both for individuals and for societies are especially apparent and vividly realised. ”

“ This tranquillity and patience of the great and powerful Chinese people elicited only an increasingly insolent aggression from Europeans, as is always the case with coarsely selfish people liviiig merely an animal life as were the Europeans who had dealings with China. ”

“ However brilliant their position may appear at first sight, it is a desperate one, and they must inevitably perish if they do not change the whole, structure of their life, founded as it now is on deceit and the plunder and pillage of the agricultural nations. ”

“ To imitate Western nations, being frightened by their insolence and power, would be the same as if a rational undepraved industrious man were to imitate a spendthrift insolent ruffian who has lost the habit of work and was assaulting him, i,e, in order to successfully oppose an immoral blackguard to become a similar immoral blackguard oneself. ”

“ All these nations have attained the period when they can no longer remain in their former attitude towards their rulers. As was correctly remarked by the Russian writer Gertzen : a Gengis Khan with telegraphs and electric motors is impossible. If Gengis Khans or men similar to them still exist in the East, it is clear that their hour has come and that they are the last. ”

“ The same will inevitably be the case with Wei-hai-Wei and Kiao-chau, surrendered by China to England and Germany.
The success of some robbers elicits the envy of others, and the prey seized becomes an object of dissension ruining the robbers themselves. Such is the case with dogs, so also is it with men who have descended to the level of animals. ”