XIX.Lyoff N. Tolstoy

XIX LYOFF N. TOLSTOY Lyoff N. Tolstoy, 1828-1911, novelist, social and religious reformer, political non-resistant. Born in the government of Tula, Russia. Educated at University of Kazan; appointed commander of a battery in the Army of the Caucasus in Crimean war, 1855; fought in the battle of the Tchernaya, was in the storming of Sebastopol, and sent as a special courier to St. Petersburg. After liberation of serfs, lived on his estates, working with and relieving the peasants and devoting himself to study and literature. He became a pronounced recluse, living the life of the peasant, and his last years were spent in rigid self-denial, altruism and loneliness. In his attitude toward government Tolstoy was an Anarchist, and his later works reflect his Anarchistic philosophy. His works include War and Peace (1865-68) and Anna Karenina (1875-78), novels; Sevastopol, 1853-55; The Cossacks, Ivan Ilyitch, 1886; Two Pilgrims; Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth; My Religion, 1885; My Confession; A Commentary on the Gospel; Life; The Kreut^er Sonata, 1890; Church and State, and Other Essays, including Money, 1891 (Benj. R. Tucker); The Slavery of Our Times, 1900; War, 1892.

Selections are from Money, The Slavery of our Times, and War. War.—When kings are tried and executed like Charles I, Louis XVI, Maximilian of Mexico, or killed in a palace conspiracy like Peter III, Paul, and all kinds of sultans, shahs, and khans, the event is generally passed over in silence. But when one of them is killed without a trial, and not by a palace conspiracy, like Henry IV, Alexander II, Carnot, the Empress of Austria, the Shah of Persia, and just now King Humbert, then such murder causes great surprise and indignation among kings and emperors, and those attached to them, as if these persons were the great enemies of murder, as if they never profited by murder, never took part in it, and never gave orders to commit it. And yet the kindest of these murdered kings, such as Alexander II or Humbert, were guilty of the murder of tens of thousands of persons killed on the battlefield, not to mention those executed at home; while hundreds of thousands, even millions of people have been killed, hanged, beaten to death or shot, by the more cruel kings and emperors. Kings and emperors should not be indignant when such murders as 314 Liberty and the Great Libertarians that of Alexander II or Humbert occur, but should, on the contrary, be surprised that such murders are rare, considering the continual and universal example of committing murders they themselves set the people. Kings and emperors are surprised and horrified when one of themselves is murdered, and yet the whole of their activity consists in managing murder and preparing for murder. The keeping up, the teaching and exercising of armies with which kings and emperor3 are always so much occupied, and of which they are the organizers, what is it but preparation for murder?

The masses are so hypnotized that, though they see what is continually going on around them, they do not understand what it means. They see the unceasing care kings, emperors, and presidents bestow on disciplined armies, see the parades, reviews, and maneuvers they hold, and of which they boast to one another, and the people eagerly crowd to see how their own brothers, dressed up in bright-colored, glittering clothes, are turned into machines to the sound of drums and trumpets, and who, obedient to the shouting of one man, all make the same movements; and they do not understand the meaning of it all. Yet the meaning of such drilling is very clear and simple. It is preparing for murder. It means the stupefying of men in order to convert them into instruments for murdering. And it is just kings and emperors and presidents who do it, and organize it and pride themselves on it. And it is these same people whose special employment is murder-organizing, who have made murder their profession, who dress in military uniforms, carry weapons (swords at their side), who are horrorstruck and indignant when one of themselves is killed.

It is not because such murders as the recent murder of Humbert are exceptionally cruel that they are so terrible. Things done by the order of kings and emperors, not only in the days of old, such as the massacre of St. Bartholomew, persecutions for faith, terrible ways of putting down peasant riots, but also the present executions, the torture of solitary confineLyoff tf. Totefoy ments and disciplinary battalions, hanging, decapitation, shooting and slaughter at the wars, are incomparably more cruel than the murders committed by Anarchists. It is not on account of their injustice that these murders are terrible. If Alexander and Humbert did not deserve death, the thousands of Russians who perished at Plevna, and Italians who perished in Abyssinia, deserved it even less. No, it is not because of their cruelty and injustice these murders are terrible, but because of the want of reason in those who perpetrate them. If the regicides commit murder under the influence of their feeling of indignation evoked by witnessing the sufferings of the enslaved people, for which sufferings they hold Alexander II, Carnot, or Humbert responsible, or by the personal feeling of desire for revenge, however immoral such person's conduct may be, still it is comprehensible; but how can an organized body of Anarchists by whom, as it is now reported, Bressi was sent out, and by whom another emperor was threatened, how can it, quietly considering means of improvement of the condition of the people, find nothing better to do than to murder people, the killing of whom is as useful as cutting off one of the Hydra's heads?

Kings and emperors have long established a system resembling the arrangement of the magazine rifle, i. e., as soon as one bullet flies out another takes its place. "The king is dead— long live the king!" Then what is the use of killing them? It is only from a most superficial point of view that the murder of such persons can seem a means of saving the people from oppression and wars, which destroy their lives. We need only remember that the same kind of oppression and war went on quite independent of those who stood at the head of the government, whether it was Nicholas or Alexander, Louis or Napoleon, Frederic or William, Palmerston or Gladstone, McKinley or anyone else, to see that it is not some definite person who causes the oppression and the wars from which the people suffer.

316 Liberty and the Great Libertarians The misery of the people is not caused by individuals, but by an order of society by which they are bound together in a way that puts them in the power of a few, or more often one man: a man so depraved by his unnatural position of having the fate and lives of millions of people in his power that he is always in an unhealthy state, and suffering more or less from a mania of self-aggrandizement, which is not noticed in him only because of his exceptional position. Apart from the fact that such men are surrounded from the cradle to the grave by the most insane luxury and its usual accompaniment of flattery and servility, the whole of their education, all their occupations, are centered on the one object of murder, the study of murder in the past, the best means of murdering in the present, the best ways of preparing for murder. From their earliest years they learn the art of murder in all possible forms, always carry about with them instruments of murder, dress in different uniforms, attend parades, maneuvers, and reviews, visit each other, present orders and commands of regiments to each other. And yet not only does nobody tell them the real name of their actions, not only does nobody tell them that preparing for murder is revolting and criminal, but they hear nothing except praise and words of admiration from all around them for these actions. That part of the press which alone reaches them, and which seems to them to be the expression of the feelings of the best of the people or their best representatives, exalts all their words and deeds, however silly and wicked they may be, in the most servile manner. All who surround them, men and women, whether cleric or laymen, all these people who do not value human dignity, vie with each other in flattering them in the most refined manner, agree with them in everything, and deceive them continually, making it impossible for them to know life as it is. These men might live to be a hundred and never see a real, free man, and never hear the truth.

We are sometimes appalled by the words and deeds of these men, but if we only consider their state we cannot but see that Lyoff N. Tolstoy 317 any man would act in the same way in such a position. A reasonable man can do but one thing in such a position, i. e., leave it. Everyone who remains in such a position will act in the same manner. What must indeed be going on in the head of some William of Germany, a man of limited understanding, little education, and with a great deal of ambition, whose ideals are like those of a German "yunker," when any silly or horrid thing he may say is always met with an enthusiastic "Hoch!" and commented on as if it were something very important by the press of the whole world? He says that the soldiers should be prepared to kill their own fathers in obedience to his command. The answer is "Hurrah!" He says the Gospel must be introduced with a fist of iron. "Hurrah!" He says that the army must not take any prisoners in China, but kill all, and he is not placed in a lunatic asylum, but they cry, * 'Hurrah!" and set sail for China to execute his orders. Or Nicholas who, though naturally modest, begins his reign by declaring to venerable old men, in answer to the desire they express of being allow d to discuss their own affairs, that their hope for selfgovernment is a senseless dream. And the organs of the press that reach him, and the people whom he meets, praise him for it. He proposes a childish, silly, and untruthful project of universal peace at the same time that he is ordering an increase of the army, and even then there are no limits to the laudations of his wisdom and his virtue. Without any reason, he senselessly and pitilessly offends the whole of the Finnish nation, and again hears nothing but praise. At last he starts the Chinese slaughter, terrible by its injustice, cruelty, and its contrast with his project of peace; and he gets simultaneously applauded from all sides, both for his own conquests and for his adherence to his father's policy of peace. What must indeed be going on in the heads and hearts of such men?

So that it is not Alexanders and Humberts, Williams, Nicholases and Chamberlains who are the cause of oppression and war, even though they do organize them, but those who have placed 318 Liberty and the Great Libertarians them and support them in a position in which they have power over the life and death of men. Therefore it is not necessary to kill Alexanders and Nicholases, Williams and Humberts, but only to leave off supporting the social condition of which they are the product. It is the selfishness and stupefied state of the people who sell their freedom and their honor for insignificant material advantages, which supports the present state of society. Those who stand on the lowest rung of the ladder, partly as a consequence of being stupefied by a patriotic and falsely religious education, partly for the sake of personal advantages, give up their freedom and their feeling of human dignity to those who stand higher, and who offer them material advantages. In a like position are those standing a little higher. They, too, through being stupefied, and especially for material advantages, give up their freedom and sense of human dignity. The same is true of those standing still higher; and so it continues up to the highest rungs, up to the person or persons who, standing on the very summit of the social cone, have no one to submit to, nor anywhere to rise to, and have no motive for action except ambition and love of power. These are generally so depraved and stupefied by their insane power over life and death, and by the flattery and servility from those around them, which is connected with such power, that while doing evil they feel convinced they are the benefactors of the human race. It is the people themselves who, by sacrificing their human dignity for material profits, produce these men, and are afterwards angry with them for their stupid and cruel acts; murdering such people is like spoiling children and then whipping them.

Very little seems needed to stop oppression and useless war, and to prevent any one from being indignant with those who seem to be the cause of such oppression and war. Only that things should be called by their right names and seen as they are; that it should be understood that an army is an instrument of murder, that the recruiting and drilling of armies which Lyoflf N. Tolstoy 319 kings, emperors, and presidents carry on with so much selfassurance are preparations for murder. If only every king, emperor, and president would understand that his work of organizing armies is not an honorable and important duty, as his flatterers persuade him it is, but a most abominable business, i. e., the preparing for and the managing of murder. If only every private individual understood that the payment of taxes which helps equip soldiers, and above all military service, are not immaterial but highly immoral actions, by which he not only permits murder, but takes part in it himself—then this power of the kings and emperors which arouses an indignation, and for which they now get killed, would of itself come to an end. And so the Alexanders, Carnots, Humberts, and others must not be killed, but it ought to be proved to them that they are murderers; and above all, they should not be allowed to kill men: their orders to murder should not be obeyed. If men do not yet act in this manner, it is only because of the hypnotic influence governments for self-preservation so diligently exercised on them. Therefore we can contribute toward stopping people killing kings and each other, not by murder,—murders only strengthen this hypnotic state,—but by awakening men from it. And when the soldiers are enrolled, and hired, and armed, they are subjected to a special training called discipline, introduced in recent times, since soldiers have ceased to share the plunder. Discipline consists in this, that by complex and artful methods, which have been perfected in the course of ages, people who are subjected to this training and remain under it for some time are completely deprived of man's chief attribute, rational freedom, and become submissive, machine-like instruments of murder in the hands of their organized hierarchical stratocracy. And it is in this disciplined army that the essence of the fraud dwells which gives to modern governments dominion over the peoples. As soon as the government has the money and the soldiers, instead of fulfilling their promises to defend their subjects from foreign 320 Liberty and the Great Libertarians enemies, and to arrange things for their benefit, they do all they can to provoke the neighboring nations and to produce war; and they not only do not promote the internal wellbeing of their poeple, but they ruin and corrupt them.

Slavery.—Every kind of oppression of man by man rests on the possibility which a man has of taking another's life and, by keeping a threatening attitude, compelling his obedience. One may assert without fear of being in error that, wherever there is subjection of man,—that is, the doing by one, against his will, in accordance with another's wishes, certain personally undesired acts,—the cause of it is force having for its basis the threat of taking life. Where a man surrenders the whole of his labor to another, goes without sufficient nourishment, consigns his little children to hard labor, and devotes his whole life to repugnant and (to him) useless labor,—as is done before our own eyes in our own world (called civilized by us because we live in it),—it may with certainty be said that he does all this because, for nonfulfilment, he is threatened with the loss of life. Therefore, in our cultured world, where the majority of men, under terrible privations, perform hateful and (to them) useless labor,—the majority of men are in a state of slavery, founded on the threat of loss of life.

In what, then, does this slavery manifest itself, and how is the threat expressed? In ancient times the method of enslavement and the threat of taking life were plain enough; the primitive method of enslaving men consisted of the direct threat of death by the sword. The armed said to the unarmed: "I can kill you, as you saw I did with your brother; but I do not wish to do it; I will spare you, primarily because both for me and for you it will be more profitable if you will consent to work instead of being killed. So do everything I command you; if you refuse, I will kill you." And the unarmed surrendered to the armed and did all that he commanded. The unarmed worked, t!he armed threatened. This was that personal slavery which early appears among Lyoff N. Tolstoy 321 all nations and which is now still to be met with among savage nations. This method of enslaving men is the first to come into vogue, but as life grows complex, this method is modified.

Under complex conditions of life this method presents great inconveniences for the oppressor. In order to profit by the labor of the weak, the oppressor must feed and clothe them,— that is, take such care of them as might make them fit for work, —and this limits the number of the enslaved; moreover, this method forces the oppressor to perpetually guard the enslaved in a threatening attitude. And so a new form of subjection is evolved. Land.—The second form of the enslavement of men is by means of taking away their land; that is, their food. This method of enslavement has also always existed wherever men have been held in subjection; and no matter what changes of form it undergoes, it exists everywhere. In some cases the land all belongs to the emperor, as in Turkey, while the tenth part of the crops is appropriated by the crown; in some cases only a portion of the land is thus owned and the taxes are collected from its products; in some cases, all the land belongs to a small number of persons and taxes are paid for its use, as in England; in some cases, a larger or smaller part belongs to large proprietors, as in Russia, Germany, and France. But where slavery exists there goes with it the appropriation of the land by the enslaver. The screw of this form of slavery is tightened or loosened according to the degree of tightness in which the other screws are held. Thus, in Russia, when the personal slavery was extended over the majority of laborers, the slavery by land monopoly was a superfluity; and the screw of personal slavery was loosened in Russia, only when the land and taxation screws had been tightened. They had arbitrarily made all members of respective communities, made emigration difficult, and had appropriated the land or divided it among private individuals, and then they—gave the peasants freedom! In England, for example, enslavement through land 322 Liberty and the Great Libertarians • . "

monopoly is the predominating form, and the issue of the naturalization of land means simply that the screw of taxation is to be tightened and the land slavery screw loosened. Money.—The third method of enslavement by means of taxes, tribute, has also always existed; and in our time, with the extension of similar money-tokens in different governments and the strengthening of governmental authority, it has become peculiarly strong; it has in fact so developed that it ever tends to supplant the second method, that of land slavery. Money in the proper sense comes in vogue among people only when they are all forcibly made to pay money. Then only does money become indispensable to each as the means to secure immunity from violence; then only does money receive a constant exchange value. And not that which is convenient for exchange receives exchange value, but that which is demanded by government; if the government demands gold, gold will receive the exchange value; if colored stones are demanded, colored stones will have that value. If this is not true, then why has it always been a government prerogative to issue this medium of exchange? A people, say the Fijians, have determined upon a new medium of exchange. Well, leave them in peace to exchange in any manner they choose, and do not interfere with their exchanges, you who have the power. But you coin the tokens, prohibiting others from coining similar ones; or else, as in Russia, you print pieces of paper, put upon them the images of czars, add peculiar signatures, and provide severe punishments for counterfeiters; then you distribute them among your assistants, and demand, under the name of taxes and duties, from the laborers, so many of such coins or papers that the laborer is obliged to sell his labor in order to obtain these coins or papers. And you assure us that this money is necessary as a medium of exchange. Here are all men free; no one oppresses anybody else or keeps him in subjection; no sooner does money appear in the society than there is an Iron Law, thanks to which rent rises while wages Lyoff N. Tolstoy 323 decrease to the minimum. The fact that half, or more than half of the Russian peasants sell themselves to landed proprietors and manufacturers, to get means to pay the direct and indirect taxes of all kinds, by no means signifies (as seems obvious) that the compulsory levying of money taxes for the benefit of the government and its landlord-accomplices, compels the laborers to become the slaves of those who levy the taxes; it signifies that these are: money, a means of exchange, and an iron law.

Slaves.—We have in Russia, within our own recollection, passed through two changes in the form of slavery. When the serfs were liberated and the proprietors left in possession of a large part of the land, the latter feared that their power over the former would vanish; but, as experience has now shown, they simply had to let go the old chain of personal slavery, and take hold of another,—the land-monopoly chain. The peasant lacked bread to feed himself, while the proprietor had the land and the stores of products; hence the peasant remained the same slave. The next transformation was when the government tightened the screw of taxation and the majority of laborers were compelled to sell themselves to the proprietors and manufacturers. This new form is holding the people still tighter, so that ninetenths of the Russian laboring population work for the landed proprietors and manufacturers because they are driven to it by the demand of the government for land and other taxes. This is so obvious that, were the government to refrain for one year from demanding direct, indirect and land taxes, all the work on the landlords' fields and in the factories would stop entirely. Ninetenths of the Russian people hire themselves out at the time taxes are wanted and solely on account of the taxes.

The three methods of enslaving men have always existed and exist today; but people are apt to overlook them the moment a new excuse for them is provided; and, the strangest thing of all is that just that method upon which today every324 Liberty and the Great Libertarians thing is rested, which sustains all,—is not noticed at all. When in the ancient world the entire economic fabric rested on personal slavery, the greatest minds could not see it. To Xenophon and Plato, and Aristotle, and the Romans it seemed that things could not be different, and that slavery was the inevitable and natural result of wars, without which, in turn, humanity was inconceivable. Similarly, in the Middle Ages, and until very recently, people could not perceive the significance of landed property and the slavery consequent upon it, which upheld the entire economic structure of the Middle Ages. . . And even so, today, nobody sees, or wishes to see, that in our time the enslavement of the majority of men is based on the money-taxes, levied upon land and otherwise, which are collected by government from the subjects,—taxes collected by the administration and the army, the very administration and army which subsist upon these taxes. There has long existed and still exists a terrible superstition, which has done men more harm, perhaps, than the most awful religious superstitions, and it is this superstition, which with all its might and perseverance the so-called political science upholds. The superstition is similar in every respect to religious superstitions.

It consists in the affirmation that, besides the duties of man to man, there are still more important obligations to an imaginary being. In theology the imaginary being is God, and in political sciences the imaginary being is Government. The religious superstition consists in the belief that the sacrifices, often of human lives, made to the imaginary being are essential, and that men may and should be brought to that state of mind by all methods, not excluding violence. The political superstition consists in the belief that, besides the duties of man to man, there are more important duties to the imaginary being, Government, and that the sacrifices—often of human lives—made to the imaginary being are also essential, and that men may and should be brought to that state of mind by all possible means, not excluding violence. This superstiLyoff N. Tolstoy 325 tion it is, formerly maintained by the priests of various religions, which the so-called political science now maintains.

Men are subjected to the most terrible and worst kinds of slavery; but political science endeavors to assure them that it is all necessary and cannot be different. Government must exist for the good of the people and to execute its affairs,—to rule the people and defend it from enemies. To do this, government needs money and an army. Money should be provided by all the citizens of the government, and hence all the relations of men must be considered in their relation to the necessary conditions of governmentalism. Government,—that is, armed and aggressive men, determine how much they want from those whom they invade (as the English in their relation to the Fijians); they determine how much labor they want of the slaves; determine how many assistants they need to collect the products; organize these assistants as soldiers, as landed proprietors, and as taxcollectors. And the slaves surrender their labor and at the same time think that they surrender it, not because their masters want it so, but because for their own liberty and welfare are needed services and sacrifices to the diety called Government; and that, aside from their services to the deity, they are free. This they believe because they have been told so, formerly by religion, priests, and latterly by political science, learned people.

But one needs only to cease to believe blindly what other people who call themselves priests or political scientists say, to have the senselessness of these assertions made evident. Men, oppressing others, assure them that the compulsion is necessary in the interest of the government, while the government is indispensable to the liberty and welfare of men:— according to this, the oppressors force men for their own freedom and do them wrong for their own good. But men are rational beings and hence ought to understand wherein is their good, and to have liberty to do that. Things, therefore, the beneficence of which is not clear to men and to the oerformance 326 Liberty and the Great Libertarians of which they have to be driven by force, cannot be for their good. That can alone be a good to a rational being which his intelligence perceives as such. If men, in consequence of passion or unwisdom, show preference for evil, then all that men who are wiser than their fellows may do is to try to persuade these to do that which is for their good. It is possible to persuade men that their welfare will be greater if they will serve as soldiers, if they will be deprived of land, if they will give away their labor in the shape of taxes; but until all men consider this their good and do it voluntarily, it cannot be called men's welfare. The sole indication of the beneficence of a thing is that men freely perform it. And of such things the life of men is full.

Ten laborers organize an association to work together, and in doing this they undoubtedly do something that is for their common benefit; but it is impossible to imagine that these laborers, compelling another laborer to join them and work with them against his will, should assert that the eleventh member's interests are identical with their own. The same applies to gentlemen giving a dinner to some friend of theirs; it cannot be affirmed that the dinner will be a good to the man forced to pay ten roubles for it. The same with peasants who might think the existence of a pond a greater good than the labor expended on it; for them the digging would be a common benefit. But for him who should think the existence of a pond a lesser good than the getting in of his crops, in which he was tardy, the digging of the pond could not be a benefit. The same with roads built by men, with a church, with a museum, and with all the different social and governmental affairs.

All these affairs can be beneficial for those only who think them so and freely and voluntarily perform them, as the purchase of tools for the cooperative workshop, the dinner given by the masters, the pond dug by the peasants. But things to which men must be driven by force, cease to be, thanks to the force, for the common good. All this is so Lyoff N. Tolstoy 327 clear and simple that, if men had not been deceived so long, it would not be necessary to make them plain. The abolition of slavery has gone on for a long time. Rome abolished slavery, America abolished it, and we did, but only the words were abolished, not the thing. Slavery means the freeing themselves, by some, of the necessity of labor for the satisfaction of their needs and the throwing of this labor upon others by means of physical force; and where there is a man who does not labor because another is compelled to work for him, there slavery is. And where, as in all European societies, men by force exploit the labor of thousands of men and regard it as their prerogative, while the latter submit to force and regard it as their duty, there we have slavery in terrible proportions. Slavery exists. Where, then, do we find it? Where it has always been and without which it cannot be: in the compulsion exercised by the strong and armed upon the weak and unarmed. Slavery has three fundamental methods: direct personal violence, militarism, land-taxes, upheld by the military power, and direct and indirect taxes upon citizens, also upheld by the military power. The three methods exist today as much as formerly. Only, we do not see it, because each of these three forms of slavery has received a new excuse which veils its real significance. The personal violence of the armed upon the unarmed is justified on the ground of defence of fatherland against imaginary enemies; in reality, it has the same old function—the subjection of the conquered to the invaders. The indirect force of the appropriation of the lands of those who work on them is justified as compensation for services to the alleged common welfare and sanctioned by the right of inheritance; in reality, it is the same land-robbery and enslavement which was once carried out by the military power. The last, the money-taxation species of force, the most powerful and popular at the present time, has received the most wonderful justification,—namely, that the denial of liberty, property, and every good to men is in the 328 Liberty and the Great Libertarians interest of the common liberty and welfare. In reality it is nothing else than slavery, only impersonal.

Where force is set up as law, there will slavery be. Whether it is princes and their warlike bands who invade, kill wives and children, and burn down the village; whether slaveholders demand money or labor from the slaves for the land, and in case of non-compliance call the armed bands to their aid; or whether the Ministry of Internal Affairs is collecting money through the governors and police officials, and, in case of nonsuccess, sending armed regiments,—as long as there shall be tyranny supported by the bayonet there will be no distribution of wealth among men, but all the wealth will go to the tyrants. A striking illustration of the truth of this position is afforded by Henry George's project of nationalizing land. George proposes to declare all land government property, and to substitute a rent-tax for all direct and indirect taxes. That is, every one using land should pay the government its rental value. What would be the outcome? Land would belong to the government: to the English, the land of England, to the Americans the land of that country, and so forth; that is, there would be slavery, determined by the quantity of land in use. Perhaps the condition of some laborers (such as agricultural) would be improved; but since there would remain the forcible collection of the tax of the rental values, there would also remain slavery. The land cultivator, in a bad year, not being able to pay the rent exacted from him by force, would have to enslave himself to the man with money in order to keep his land and not lose everything.

The German Socialists have termed the combination of conditions which puts the worker in subjection to the capitalists the iron law of wages, implying by the word "iron" that this law is immutable. But in these conditions there is nothing immutable. These conditions merely result from human laws concerning taxes, land, and, above all, concerning things which satisfy our requirements—that is, concerning property. Laws Lyoff N. Tolstoy 329 are framed and repealed by human beings. So that it is not some sociological "iron law," but ordinary, man-made law that produces slavery. In the case in hand the slavery of our times is very clearly and definitely produced, not by some "iron" elemental law, but by human enactments about land, about taxes, and about property. There is one set of laws by which any quantity of land may belong to private people, and may pass from one to another by inheritance, or by will, or may be sold; there is another set of laws by which every one must pay the taxes demanded of him unquestioningly; and there is a third set of laws to the effect that any quantity of articles, by whatever means acquired, may become the absolute property of the people who hold them. And in consequence of these laws slavery exists.

Many constitutions have been devised, beginning with the English and the American, and ending with the Japanese and the Turkish, according to which people are to believe that all laws established in their country are established at their desire. But every one knows that not in despotic countries only, but also in the countries nominally most free—England, America, France—the laws are made nob by the will of all, but by the will of those who have power; and, therefore, always and everywhere are only such as are profitable to those who have power, whether they are many, a few, or only one man. Everywhere and always the laws are enforced by the only means that has compelled, and still compels, some people to obey the will of others—that is, by blows, by deprivation of liberty, and by murder. There can be no other way. It cannot be otherwise; for laws are demands to execute certain rules; and to compel some people to obey certain rules (that is, to do what other people want of them) cannot be done except by blows, by deprivation of liberty, and by murder. If there are laws there must be the force that can compel people to obey them, and there is only one force that can compel people to obey rules (that is, to obey the will of others), and that is 330 Liberty and the Great Libertarians violence; not the simple violence wnich people use to one another in moments of passion, but the organized violence used by people who have power, in order to compel others to obey the laws they (the powerful) have made; in other words, to do their will. And so the essence of legislation does not lie in the subject or object, in rights or in the idea of the dominion of the collective will of the people, or in other such indefinite and confused conditions; but it lies in the fact that people who wield organized violence have the power to compel others to obey them and to do as they like. So that the exact and irrefutable definition of legislation, intelligible to all, is that: Laws are rules made by people who govern by means of organized violence, for non-compliance with which the non-complier is subjected to blows, to loss of liberty, or even to being murdered.

This definition furnishes the reply to the question, Whafc is it that renders it possible for people to make laws? The same thing makes it possible to establish laws as enforces obedience to them—organized violence. The cause of the miserable condition of the workers is slavery. The cause of slavery is legislation. Legislation rests on organized violence. It follows that an improvement in the condition of the people is possible only through the abolition of organized violence. "But organized violence is government, and how can we live without governments? Without governments there will be chaos, anarchy; all the achievements of civilization will perish, and the people will revert to their primitive barbarism." But why should we suppose this? Why think that non-official people could not arrange their life themselves as well as government people arrange it, not for themselves, but for others? We see, on the contrary, that in the most diverse matters people in our times arrange their own lives incomparably better than those who govern them arrange for them. Without the least help from government, and often in spite of the interference of government, people organize all sorts of social undertakings—workmen's unions, Lyoff N. Tolstoy 331 cooperative societies, railway companies, and syndicates.

If collections for public works are needed, why should we suppose that free people could not without violence voluntarily collect the necessary means, and carry out all that is carried out by means of taxes, if only the undertakings in question are really useful for anybody? Why suppose that there cannot be tribunals without violence? Trial by people trusted by the disputants has always existed and will exist, and needs no violence. We are so depraved by long-continued slavery that we can hardly imagine administration without violence. And yet, again, that is not true: Russian communes migrating to distant regions, where our government leaves them alone, arrange their own taxation, administration, tribunals, and police, and always prosper until government violence interferes with their administration. And in the same way, there is no reason to suppose that people could not, by common consent, decide how the land is to be apportioned for use.

The robber generally plundered the rich, the governments generally plunder the poor and protect those rich who assist in their crimes. The robber doing his work risked his life, while the governments risk nothing, but base their whole activity on lies and deception. The robber did not compel anyone to join his band, the governments generally enrol their soldiers by force. All who paid the tax to the robber had equal security from danger. But in the state, the more any one takes part in the organized fraud the more he receives not merely of protection, but also of reward. Most of all, the emperors, kings and presidents are protected (with their perpetual bodyguards), and they can spend the largest share of the money collected from the taxpaying subjects; nexb in the scale of participation in the governmental crimes come the commander in chief, the ministers, the heads of police, governors, and so on, down to the policemen, who are least protected, and who receive the smallest salaries of all. Those who do not take any part in the crimes of government, who refuse to serve, to pay 332 Liberty and the Great Libertarians taxes, or to go to law, are subjected to violence, as among the robbers. The robber does not intentionally vitiate people, but the governments, to accomplish their ends, vitiate whole generations from childhood to manhood with false religions and patriotic instruction.

How Can Governments Be Abolished?—Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore, people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments. But how can governments be abolished? All attempts to get rid of governments by violence have hitherto, always and everywhere, resulted only in this: that in place of the deposed governments new ones established themselves, often more cruel than those they replaced. Not to mention past attempts to abolish governments by violence, according to the Socialist theory, the coming abolition of the rule of the capitalists—that is, the communalization of the means of production and the new economic order of society—is also to be carried out by a fresh organization of violence, and will have to be maintained by the same means. So that attempts to abolish violence by violence neither have in the past nor, evidently, can in the future emancipate people from violence, nor, consequently, from slavery. It cannot be otherwise. Apart from outbursts of revenge or anger, violence is used only in order to compel some people, against their own will, to do the will of others. But the necessity to do what other people wish against your own will is slavery. And, therefore, as long as any violence, designed to compel some people to do the will of others, exists, there will be slavery. All the attempts to abolish slavery by violence are like extinguishing fire with fire, stopping water with water, or filling up one hole by digging another. People must feel that their participation in the criminal activity of governments, whether by giving part of their work in the form of money, or by direct participation in military service, is not, as is generally supposed, an indifferent action, but, besides being harmful to one's self and to one's Lyoff N. Tolstoy 333 brothers, is a participation in the crimes unceasingly committed by all governments and apreparation for new crimes, which governments are always preparing by main taming disciplined armies.

The age for the veneration for governments, notwithstanding all the hypnotic influence they employ to maintain their position, is more and more passing away. And it is time for people to understand that governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions, in which a self-respecting, honest man cannot and must not take part, and the advantages of which he cannot and should not enjoy. And as soon as people clearly understand that, they will naturally cease to take part in such deeds—that is, cease to give the governments soldiers and money. And as soon as a majority of people ceases to do this the fraud which enslaves people will be abolished. Only in this way can people be freed from slavery. And in order not to do the evil which produces misery for himself and for his brothers, he should, first of all, neither willingly nor under compulsion take any part in governmental activity, and should, therefore, be neither a soldier, nor a field-marshal, nor a minister of state, nor a taxcollector, nor a witness, nor an alderman, nor a juryman, nor a governor, nor a member of Parliament, nor, in fact, hold any office connected with violence. That is one thing. Secondly, such a man should not voluntarily pay taxes to governments, either directly or indirectly; nor should he accept money collected by taxes, either as salary, or as pension, or a3 a reward; nor should he make use of governmental institutions, supported by taxes collected by violence from the people. That is the second thing. Thirdly, a man who desires not to promote his own wellbeing alone, but to better the position of people in general, should not appeal to governmental violence for the protection of his own possessions in land or in other things, nor to defend him and his near ones; but should only possess land and all products of his own or other people's toil in so far as others do not claim them from him.