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The Kingdom of God is within you

L >> Leo Tolstoy >> The Kingdom of God is within you




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 the 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 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 cord, the chain with
which he is bound and fettered, or the knout with which he is to
be flogged, or the ax with which he is 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 Ghenghis Khan, and so it is
to-day, even under the most liberal government in the Republics of
the United States or of France. If men submit to authority, it is
only because they are liable to these punishments in case of non-
submission. All state obligations, payment of taxes, fulfillment
of state duties, and submission to punishments, exile, fines,
etc., to which people appear to submit voluntarily, are always
based on bodily violence or the 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 in 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, and 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 has introduced into the social
conception of life the principle that is destroying it.

The object of authority and the justification for its existence
lie in 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, and therefore no more disposed 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 interests
to their own. Whatever means men have devised for preventing
those in authority from over-riding public interests for their own
benefit, or for intrusting power only to the most faultless
people, they have not so far succeeded in either of those aims.

All the methods of appointing authorities that have been tried,
divine 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
the aim either of intrusting power only to the incorruptible, or
of 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 interests to their personal aims than 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
all men voluntarily sacrificed their personal interests to the
public welfare. But so soon as there were individuals who would
not voluntarily sacrifice their own interests, and 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
it.

For the authority of one set of men over another to attain its
object of restraining those who override public interests for
their personal ends, power ought only to be put into 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 by 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 organization based on power has no
justification.

Even if there was once a time when, owing to the low standard 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 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 of restraint, this advantage disappeared.

The whole history of the last two thousand years is nothing but
the history of this gradual change of relation between the moral
development of the masses on the one hand and the demoralization
of governments on the other.

This, put simply, is how it has come to pass.

Men lived in families, tribes, and races, at feud with one
another, plundering, outraging, and killing one another. These
violent hostilities were carried on on a large 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 feuds
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 individuals 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 the story of the Varyagi. 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 disappear 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, and thus they are exposed
to all the demoralizing influence of authority. And thus the evil
of violence, when it passes into the hands of authority, is always
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 the society becomes weaker and weaker,
so that 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 power is less noticeable in
government than when it is employed by members of society against
one another, because it finds expression in submission, and not in
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, for the weaker the oppressed, the less effort
need be made to keep him in subjection.

And therefore the oppression of the oppressed always goes on
growing up to the furthest limit, beyond which it cannot go
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 protests 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 conquest.

In spite of the pretended efforts of the higher classes to
ameliorate the position of the workers, all the working classes of
the present day are kept down by the inflexible iron law by which
they only get just what is barely necessary, so that 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 increasing
strength of authority its advantages for its subjects disappear
and its disadvantages increase.

And this has been so, independently of the forms of government
under which nations have lived. The only difference is that under
a despotic form of government the authority is 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 assumed by violence is less crude, but its effect of 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 has been and still is the condition of all the oppressed, but
hitherto they have not recognized the fact. In the majority of
instances they have believed in all simplicity that 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 organization is an
indispensable condition of the development of humanity.

And in that way it has lasted for hundreds and thousands of years,
and governments--those who happened to be in power--have tried it,
and are now trying more zealously than ever to keep their subjects
in this error.

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 necessity of constantly
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. It has become particularly
indispensable now in the face of communism, socialism, anarchism,
and the labor movement generally. Governments feel that it is so,
and strengthen the force of their disciplined armies. [See
Footnote]

[Footnote: 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 in other states. That is why
there is nowhere else so little oppression of the
working classes, and no country where the end of the
abuses of government and of government itself seems
so near. Of late as the combinations of laborers
gain in strength, one hears more and more frequently
the cry raised for the increase of the army, though
the United States are not threatened with any attack
from without. The upper classes know that an army of
fifty thousand will soon be insufficient, and no longer
relying on Pinkerton's men, they feel that the security
of their position depends on the increased strength of
the army.


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 aloud 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 to-day so carefully distribute the recruits, so
that the regiments from the frontiers 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 incautiously 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,
but because 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 land-owners, have appropriated
the right of giving or refusing admittance to the land to the
laborers. And this abnormal order of things is maintained by the
army. If the immense wealth produced by the labor of the working
classes is not regarded as the property of all, but as the
property of a few exceptional persons; if labor is taxed by
authority and the taxes spent by a few on what they think fit; if
strikes on the part of laborers are repressesd, while on the part
of capitalists they are encouraged; if certain persons appropriate
the right of choosing the form of the education, religious and
secular, of children, and certain persons monopolize the right of
making the laws all must 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 classes 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 the people's needs, is often in direct antagonism to
them, and 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 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 in the increase of their
armies. This increase is 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 from neighboring states, but
principally through the necessity of subduing every effort at
revolt on the part of the subjects.

Both causes, mutually dependent, contribute to the same result at
once; troops are required against internal forces and also to keep
up a 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 in constantly increasing their
forces has reduced them to the necessity of having recourse to
universal military service, since by that means the greatest
possible number of soldiers is obtained at the least possible
expense. Germany first hit on this device. And directly one
state adopted it the others were obliged to do the same. And by
this means all citizens are under arms to support the iniquities
practiced upon them; all citizens have become their own
oppressors.

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 transitoriness of personal life itself, and the transference
of the aim of life to 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 they had
meant to avoid. And in addition to this the state, for whose sake
individuals renounced 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 in the permanence of the state order of
existence. But instead of doing that they expose 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
leave just 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 associated action 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 of the state, 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 that 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 the hope of a tranquil existence in a permanent state.
But now, when the sacrifices have been increased tenfold and
the promised advantages are disappearing, it would be a natural
reflection that submission to authority is absolutely useless.

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 this 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. They are needed principally
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,
and 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, while very often they are directly opposed to his
conscience. People are unwilling to be turned out of the land
they have cultivated for generations, or they are unwilling to
disperse when the government authority orders them, or they are
unwilling to pay the taxes required of them, or to recognize laws
as 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 of 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."

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