Leo Tolstoy

“ Not only does the action of Governments not deter men from crimes; on the contrary, it increases crime by always disturbing and lowering the moral standard of society. Nor can this be otherwise, since always and everywhere a Government, by its very nature, must put in the place of the highest, eternal, religious law (not written in books but in the hearts of men, and binding on every one) its own unjust, man-made laws, the object of which is neither justice nor the common good of all but various considerations of home and foreign expediency. ”

“ If the Russian people who two years ago thought it impossible to disobey or even to criticise the existing power, now not only criticise, but are even preparing to disobey it and to replace it by a new one, why should we not suppose that in the consciousness of the Russian people another change in their relation towards power — more natural to them — is now preparing, a change which will consist in their moral and religious emancipation from power ? ”

“ Any other position may be disputed and argued about ; but " civilisation " — meaning those inventions and those forms of life among which we are living, and all the follies and nastiness which we produce — is an indubitable blessing, beyond all discussion. Everything that disturbs faith in civilisation is a lie; everything that supports this faith is sacred truth.
This faith and its attendant science cause the Western nations not to wish to see or to acknowledge that the ruinous path they are following leads to inevitable destruction. ”

“ People feel that their unhappy position is the result of violence, and are dimly aware that to get rid of their misery they need freedom ; but, strange to say, to get rid of violence and gain freedom, they seek, invent and use all sorts of measures: mutiny, change of rulers, alterations of Government all kinds of Constitutions, new arrangements between different States, Colonial policies, enrolment of the unemployed, trusts, social organisations — everything but the one thing that would most simply, easily, and surely free them from all their distresses : the refusal to submit to power. ”

“ Those who have profited, and expect for long or or ever to continue to profit by the mistakes of the past, are uniting to prevent any modification of existing conditions. Hence these armaments and threats and persecutions ; but look carefully and you will see that all this is quite superficial. It is colossal, but hollow. There is no longer any soul in it — the soul has gone elsewhere ; these millions of armed men who are daily drilled to prepare for a general war of extermination, no longer hate the men they are expected to fight, and none of their leaders dares to proclaim this war. ”

“ Why should we think that men will continue unceasingly and deliberately to torment themselves, some trying to rule over others, others with hatred and envy submitting to the rulers and seeking means themselves to become rulers? Why should we think that the progress men pride themselves on will always lie in the increase of population and the preservation of life, and never in the moral elevation of life? ”

“ It is impossible for the Russian nation to continue to submit to its Government. It is impossible, because having freed itself frorri the prestige which has hitherto enveloped the Russian Government, and having once understood that most of the miseries suffered by the people are caused by the Government, the Russian people cannot cease to be aware of the cause of the calamities they suffer, or cease to desire to free themselves from it. ”

“ The possibility and necessity of ceasing to submit to human power and of returning to the laws of God, is dimly felt by all men, and especially vividly by the Russian people just now. And in this dim consciousness of the possibility and necessity of re-establishing their obedience to the law of God and ceasing to obey human power, lies the essence of the movement now taking place in Russia.
What is happening in Russia is — not, as many people suppose a rebellion of the people against their Government in order to replace one Government by another ”

“ But as, when arranging an easy and pleasant life not only for a Monarch and his Court, but for thousands of little kinglets, many things are needed to embellish and to amuse this idle life, it results that whenever power passes from a despotic to a representative Government, inventions appear, facilitating the supply of objects that add to the pleasure and safety of the lives of the wealthy classes. ”

“ Men have forgotten God, that is to say, they have forgotten their relations to the infinite Source of Life, forgotten the meaning of life which is the outcome of those relations, and which consists, first of all, in fulfilling, for one's own soul's sake, the law given by this Divine Source. ”

“ But is social life possible without power ? Without power men would be continually robbing and killing one another, " say those who believe only in human law. People of this sort are sincerely convinced that men refrain from crime and live orderly lives, only because of laws, courts of justice, police, officials, and armies ; and that without governmental power social life would become impossible. Men depraved by power fancy that as some of the crimes committed in the State are punished by the Government, it is this punishment that prevents men from committing other possible crimes. ”

“ As every creed has a science of Its own, so this faith in "civilisation" has a science — Sociology, the one aim of which is to justify the false and desperate position in which the people of the Western world now find themselves. ”

“ But as the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, from whence the living God had departed, foreboded and prepared the erection of a new city, and a new temple, whitlier the people of all races and of all nations would come together at their own free will — so on the ruins of the temples and towns of to-day, a new city and a new temple will be erected, predestined to become the universal temple and the common fatherland of the human race, disunited till now by teachings hostile to one another, that make brothers into strangers and sow godless hatred and revolting warfare among them. ”

“ Representative Government and Universal Suffrage resulted in every possessor of a fraction of power being exposed to all the evil attached to power : bribery, flattery, vanity, self-conceit, idleness and, above all, immoral participation in deeds of violence. Every member of Parliament is exposed to all these temptations in a yet greater degree. Every Deputy always begins his career of power by befooling people, making promises he knows he will not keep ; and when sitting in the House he takes part in making laws that are enforced by violence. ”

“ If one man with the aid of his helpers rules over all, it is unjust, and in all likelihood such rule will be harmful to the people.
The same will be the case when the minority rules over the majority. But the power of the majority over the minority also fails to secure a just rule ; for we have no reason to believe that the majority participating in government is wiser than the minority that avoids participation. ”

“ Whether the Russian nation will accomplish the great task now before it (the task of liberating men from human power substituted for the will of God) or whether, following the path of the Western nations, it will lose its opportunity and leave to some other happier Eastern race the leadership in the great work that lies before humanity, there is no doubt that at the present day all nations are becoming more and more conscious of the possibility of changing this violent, insane and wicked life, for one that shall be free, rational and good. ”

“ To picture such life to ourselves, one need not imagine any kind of cunning or out-of-the-way arrangement, but need only imagine to oneself men acknowleding no other supreme law but the universal law expressed alike in the Brahmin, Buddhist' Confucian, Taoist and Christian religions — -the law of love to God and to one's neighbour. ”

“ What now moves the Russian people is a dim recognition of the wrongness and unreasonableness of all violence, and of the possibility and necessity of basing one's life not on coercive power, as has been the case hitherto among all nations, but on reasonable and free agreement. ”

“ For the Russian people to follow the path the Western nations have trodden, would be as though a traveller followed a path on which those who went before him had lost their way, and from which the most far-seeing of them were already returning. ”

“ That the amount of crime committed in a society does not at all depend on the punitive action of governments, is quite clearly proved by the fact that when society is in a certain mood, no increase of punitive measures by Government is able to prevent the perpetration of most daring and cruel crimes, imperilling the safety of the community, as has been the case in every Revolution, and as is now the case in Russia to a most striking degree. ”

“ Our age is a revolutionary one in the best sense of the word— not of physical but moral revolution. Higher ideas of the social state, and of human perfection, are at work. I shall not live to see the harvest, but to sow in faith is no mean privilege or happiness. ”

“ And as there is no end to the caprices of men when they are met not by their own labour but by that of others, industry is more and more diverted to the production of the most unnecessary, stupid, depraving products, and draws people more and more from reasonable work ”

“ Max Stirner and Kropotkin — who prove with indisputable correctness and justice the unreasonableness and harmfulness of power, as soon as they begin to speak of the possibility of establishing a society without that human law which they reject, fall at once into indefiniteness, verbosity, rhetoric, and quite unfounded and fantastic hypotheses.
This arises from the fact that none of these theoretic anarchists accept that law of God common to all men, which it is natural for all to obey ; and without the obedience of men to one and the same law — human or divine— human society cannot exist. ”

“ And these people, who do not know wherein the welfare of a single man lies, imagine that they know, and know beyond all doubt, what is needed for the welfare of society as a whole : know it so certainly, that to attain that welfare, as they understand it, they commit deeds of violence, murders and executions, which they themselves admit to be evil. ”

“ This blind belief that the life we have arranged for ourselves is the best possible life, also causes all the chief agents of civilization — its Government officials scientists, artists, merchants, manufacturers, and authors— while making the workers support their idle lives — to overlook their own sins and to feel perfectly sure that their activity is, not an immoral and harmful activity (as it really is) , but a very useful and important one, and that they are, therefore, very important people and of great use to humanity ”

“ And those in power always become depraved : firstly, because such people, immoral by nature, and preferring idleness and violence to work, having grasped power and used it to satisfy their lusts and passions, give themselves up more and more to these passions and vices; and secondly, because lusts and passions, which in the case of ordinary men cannot be gratified without meeting with obstacles, not only do not meet such obstacles and do not arouse any condemnation in the case of those who rule, but on the contrary are applauded by all who surround them. ”

“ Therefore, where force-using power exists, a moment must inevitably come when the relation of the people towards that power must change. This moment may come sooner or later according to the degree and the rapidity of the corruption of the rulers, to the amount of their cunning, to the quieter or more restless temperament of the people, and even from their geographical position helping or hindering the intercourse of the people among themselves ”

“ It is said that if men cease to obey Governments and return to an agricultural life, all the industrial progress they have attained will be lost, and that, therefore, to give up obeying Government and to return to an agricultural life would be a bad thing. But there is no reason to suppose that a return to agricultural life, free from Government, would destroy such industries and achievements as are really useful to mankind, and do not require the enslavement of men. ”

“ We know, without the least doubt, that in order to make those conditions the very best, we must first of all abstain from acts of violence which the existing power demands of us, as well as from those to which men fighting against the existing power to establish a new one, invite us ; and we must therefore not obey any power. We must refuse to submit, not because we know how our life will shape itself in consequence of our ceasing to obey power, but because submission to a power that demands that we should break the law of God, is a sin. ”

“ A time must come when love, which forms the fundamental essence of the soul; will take the place natural to it in the life of mankind, and will become the chief basis of the relations between man and man. ”

“ For nothing so interferes with the straight current of their lives as this fancied knowledge of what the future life of humanity ought to be. The life of individuals as well as of communities consists only in this — that men and communities continually move towards the unknown ; changing not because certain men have formed brain-spun plans as to what these changes should be, but in consequence of a tendency inherent in all men to strive towards moral perfection, attainable by the infinitely varied activity of millions and millions of human lives. ”