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The Kingdom of God is within you

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




Meantime the crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives, hustled by the
police, are pressing round the doors to hear whose lad has been
taken, whose is let off. One of the rejected comes out and
announces that Piotr is taken, and at once a shrill cry is heard
from Piotr's young wife, for whom this word "taken" means
separation for four or five years, the life of a soldier's wife as
a servant, often a prostitute.

But here comes a man along the street with flowing hair and in a
peculiar dress, who gets out of his droskhy and goes into the
Zemsky Court-house. The police clear a way for him through the
crowd. It is the "reverend father" come to administer the oath.
And this "father," who has been persuaded that he is specially and
exclusively devoted to the service of Christ, and who, for the
most part, does not himself see the deception in which he lives,
goes into the hall where the conscripts are waiting. He throws
round him a kind of curtain of brocade, pulls his long hair out
over it, opens the very Gospel in which swearing is forbidden,
takes the cross, the very cross on which Christ was crucified
because he would not do what this false servant of his is telling
men to do, and puts them on the lectern. And all these unhappy,
defenseless, and deluded lads repeat after him the lie, which he
utters with the assurance of familiarity.

He reads and they repeat after him:

"I promise and swear by Almighty God upon his holy Gospel," etc.,
"to defend," etc., and that is, to murder anyone I am told to, and
to do everything I am told by men I know nothing of, and who care
nothing for me except as an instrument for perpetrating the crimes
by which they are kept in their position of power, and my brothers
in their condition of misery. All the conscripts repeat these
ferocious words without thinking. And then the so-called
"father" goes away with a sense of having correctly and
conscientiously done his duty. And all these poor deluded lads
believe that these nonsensical and incomprehensible words which
they have just uttered set them free for the whole time of their
service from their duties as men, and lay upon them fresh and more
binding duties as soldiers.

And this crime is perpetrated publicly and no one cries out to the
deceiving and the deceived: "Think what you are doing; this is the
basest, falsest lie, by which not bodies only, but souls too, are
destroyed."

No one does this. On the contrary, when all have been enrolled,
and they are to be let out again, the military officer goes with a
confident and majestic air into the hall where the drunken,
cheated lads are shut up, and cries in a bold, military voice:
"Your health, my lads! I congratulate you on 'serving the Tzar!'"
And they, poor fellows (someone has given them a hint beforehand),
mutter awkwardly, their voices thick with drink, something to the
effect that they are glad.

Meantime the crowd of fathers, mothers, and wives is standing at
the doors waiting. The women keep their tearful eyes fixed on the
doors. They open at last, and out come the conscripts, unsteady,
but trying to put a good face on it. Here are Piotr and Vania and
Makar trying not to look their dear ones in the face. Nothing is
heard but the wailing of the wives and mothers. Some of the lads
embrace them and weep with them, others make a show of courage,
and others try to comfort them.

The wives and mothers, knowing that they will be left for three,
four, or five years without their breadwinners, weep and rehearse
their woes aloud. The fathers say little. They only utter a
clucking sound with their tongues and sigh mournfully, knowing
that they will see no more of the steady lads they have reared and
trained to help them, that they will come back not the same quiet
hard-working laborers, but for the most part conceited and
demoralized, unfitted for their simple life.

And then all the crowd get into their sledges again and move away
down the street to the taverns and pot-houses, and louder than
ever sounds the medley of singing and sobbing, drunken shouts, and
the wailing of the wives and mothers, the sounds of the accordeon
and oaths. They all turn into the taverns, whose revenues go to
the government, and the drinking bout begins, which stifles their
sense of the wrong which is being done them.

For two or three weeks they go on living at home, and most of that
time they are "jaunting," that is, drinking.

On a fixed day they collect them, drive them together like a flock
of sheep, and begin to train them in the military exercises and
drill. Their teachers are fellows like themselves, only deceived
and brutalized two or three years sooner. The means of
instruction are: deception, stupefaction, blows, and vodka. And
before a year has passed these good, intelligent, healthy-minded
lads will be as brutal beings as their instructors.

"Come, now, suppose your father were arrested and tried to make
his escape?" I asked a young soldier.

"I should run him through with my bayonet," he answered with the
foolish intonation peculiar to soldiers; "and if he made off, I
ought to shoot him," he added, obviously proud of knowing what he
must do if his father were escaping.

And when a good-hearted lad has been brought to a state lower than
that of a brute, he is just what is wanted by those who use him as
an instrument of violence. He is ready; the man has been
destroyed and a new instrument of violence has been created. And
all this is done every year, every autumn, everywhere, through all
Russia in broad daylight in the midst of large towns, where all
may see it, and the deception is so clever, so skillful, that
though all men know the infamy of it in their hearts, and see all
its horrible results, they cannot throw it off and be free.

When one's eyes are opened to this awful deception practiced upon
us, one marvels that the teachers of the Christian religion and of
morals, the instructors of youth, or even the good-hearted and
intelligent parents who are to be found in every society, can
teach any kind of morality in a society in which it is openly
admitted (it is so admitted, under all governments and all
churches) that murder and torture form an indispensable element in
the life of all, and that there must always be special men trained
to kill their fellows, and that any one of us may have to become
such a trained assassin.

How can children, youths, and people generally be taught any kind
of morality--not to speak of teaching in the spirit of
Christianity--side by side with the doctrine that murder is
necessary for the public weal, and therefore legitimate, and that
there are men, of whom each of us may have to be one, whose duty
is to murder and torture and commit all sorts of crimes at the
will of those who are in possession of authority. If this is so,
and one can and ought to murder and torture, there is not, and
cannot be, any kind of moral law, but only the law that might is
right. And this is just how it is. In reality that is the
doctrine--justified to some by the theory of the struggle for
existence--which reigns in our society.

And, indeed, what sort of ethical doctrine could admit the
legitimacy of murder for any object whatever? It is as impossible
as a theory of mathematics admitting that two is equal to three.

There may be a semblance of mathematics admitting that two is
equal to three, but there can be no real science of mathematics.
And there can only be a semblance of ethics in which murder in the
shape of war and the execution of criminals is allowed, but no
true ethics. The recognition of the life of every man as sacred
is the first and only basis of all ethics.

The doctrine of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth has been
abrogated by Christianity, because it is the justification of
immorality, and a mere semblance of equity, and has no real
meaning. Life is a value which has no weight nor size, and cannot
be compared to any other, and so there is no sense in destroying a
life for a life. Besides, every social law aims at the
amelioration of man's life. What way, then, can the annihilation
of the life of some men ameliorate men's life? Annihilation of
life cannot be a means of the amelioration of life; it is a
suicidal act.

To destroy another life for the sake of justice is as though a
man, to repair the misfortune of losing one arm, should cut off
the other arm for the sake of equity.

But putting aside the sin of deluding men into regarding the most
awful crime as a duty, putting aside the revolting sin of using
the name and authority of Christ to sanction what he most
condemned, not to speak of the curse on those who cause these
"little ones" to offend--how can people who cherish their own way
of life, their progress, even from the point of view of their
personal security, allow the formation in their midst of an
overwhelming force as senseless, cruel, and destructive as every
government is organized on the basis of an army? Even the most
cruel band of brigands is not so much to be dreaded as such a
government.

The power of every brigand chief is at least so far limited that
the men of his band preserve at least some human liberty, and can
refuse to commit acts opposed to their conscience. But, owing to
the perfection to which the discipline of the army has been
brought, there is no limit to check men who form part of a
regularly organized government. There are no crimes so revolting
that they would not readily be committed by men who form part of a
government or army, at the will of anyone (such as Boulanger,
Napoleon, or Pougachef) who may chance to be at their head.

Often when one sees conscription levies, military drills and
maneuvers, police officers with loaded revolvers, and sentinels at
their posts with bayonets on their rifles; when one hears for
whole days at a time (as I hear it in Hamovniky where I live) the
whistle of balls and the dull thud as they fall in the sand; when
one sees in the midst of a town where any effort at violence in
self-defense is forbidden, where the sale of powder and of
chemicals, where furious driving and practicing as a doctor
without a diploma, and so on, are not allowed; thousands of
disciplined troops, trained to murder, and subject to one man's
will; one asks oneself how can people who prize their security
quietly allow it, and put up with it? Apart from the immorality
and evil effects of it, nothing can possibly be more unsafe. What
are people thinking about? I don't mean now Christians, ministers
of religion, philanthropists, and moralists, but simply people who
value their life, their security, and their comfort. This
organization, we know, will work just as well in one man's hands
as another's. To-day, let us assume, power is in the hands of a
ruler who can be endured, but to-morrow it may be seized by a
Biron, an Elizabeth, a Catherine, a Pougachef, a Napoleon I., or a
Napoleon III.

And the man in authority, endurable to-day, may become a brute to-
morrow, or may be succeeded by a mad or imbecile heir, like the
King of Bavaria or our Paul I.

And not only the highest authorities, but all little satraps
scattered over everywhere, like so many General Baranovs,
governors, police officers even, and commanders of companies, can
perpetrate the most awful crimes before there is time for them to
be removed from office. And this is what is constantly happening.

One involuntarily asks how can men let it go on, not from higher
considerations only, but from regard to their own safety?

The answer to this question is that it is not all people who do
tolerate it (some--the greater proportion--deluded and submissive,
have no choice and have to tolerate anything). It is tolerated by
those who only under such an organization can occupy a position of
profit. They tolerate it, because for them the risks of suffering
from a foolish or cruel man being at the head of the government or
the army are always less than the disadvantages to which they
would be exposed by the destruction of the organization itself.

A judge, a commander of police, a governor, or an officer will
keep his position just the same under Boulanger or the republic,
under Pougachef or Catherine. He will lose his profitable
position for certain, if the existing order of things which
secured it to him is destroyed. And so all these people feel no
uneasiness as to who is at the head of the organization, they will
adapt themselves to anyone; they only dread the downfall of the
organization itself, and that is the reason--though often an
unconscious one--that they support it.

One often wonders why independent people, who are not forced to do
so in any way, the so-called ÉLITE of society, should go into the
army in Russia, England, Germany, Austria, and even France, and
seek opportunities of becoming murderers. Why do even high-
principled parents send their boys to military schools? Why do
mothers buy their children toy helmets, guns, and swords as
playthings? (The peasant's children never play at soldiers, by
the way). Why do good men and even women, who have certainly no
interest in war, go into raptures over the various exploits of
Skobeloff and others, and vie with one another in glorifying them?
Why do men, who are not obliged to do so, and get no fee for it,
devote, like the marshals of nobility in Russia, whole months of
toil to a business physically disagreeable and morally painful--
the enrolling of conscripts? Why do all kings and emperors wear
the military uniform? Why do they all hold military reviews, why
do they organize maneuvers, distribute rewards to the military,
and raise monuments to generals and successful commanders? Why do
rich men of independent position consider it an honor to perform a
valet's duties in attendance on crowned personages, flattering
them and cringing to them and pretending to believe in their
peculiar superiority? Why do men who have ceased to believe in
the superstitions of the mediaeval Church, and who could not
possibly believe in them seriously and consistently, pretend to
believe in and give their support to the demoralizing and
blasphemous institution of the church? Why is it that not only
governments but private persons of the higher classes, try so
jealously to maintain the ignorance of the people? Why do they
fall with such fury on any effort at breaking down religious
superstitions or really enlightening the people? Why do
historians, novelists, and poets, who have no hope of gaining
anything by their flatteries, make heroes of kings, emperors, and
conquerors of past times? Why do men, who call themselves
learned, dedicate whole lifetimes to making theories to prove that
violence employed by authority against the people is not violence
at all, but a special right? One often wonders why a fashionable
lady or an artist, who, one would think, would take no interest in
political or military questions, should always condemn strikes of
working people, and defend war; and should always be found without
hesitation opposed to the one, favorable to the other.

But one no longer wonders when one realizes that in the higher
classes there is an unerring instinct of what tends to maintain
and of what tends to destroy the organization by virtue of which
they enjoy their privileges. The fashionable lady had certainly
not reasoned out that if there were no capitalists and no army to
defend them, her husband would have no fortune, and she could not
have her entertainments and her ball-dresses. And the artist
certainly does not argue that he needs the capitalists and the
troops to defend them, so that they may buy his pictures. But
instinct, replacing reason in this instance, guides them
unerringly. And it is precisely this instinct which leads all
men, with few exceptions, to support all the religious, political,
and economic institutions which are to their advantage.

But is it possible that the higher classes support the existing
order of things simply because it is to their advantage? Cannot
they see that this order of things is essentially irrational, that
it is no longer consistent with the stage of moral development
attained by people, and with public opinion, and that it is
fraught with perils? The governing classes, or at least the good,
honest, and intelligent people of them, cannot but suffer from
these fundamental inconsistencies, and see the dangers with which
they are threatened. And is it possible that all the millions of
the lower classes can feel easy in conscience when they commit
such obviously evil deeds as torture and murder from fear of
punishment? Indeed, it could not be so, neither the former nor
the latter could fail to see the irrationality of their conduct,
if the complexity of government organization did not obscure the
unnatural senselessness of their actions.

So many instigate, assist, or sanction the commission of every one
of these actions that no one who has a hand in them feels himself
morally responsible for it.

It is the custom among assassins to oblige all the witnesses of a
murder to strike the murdered victim, that the responsibility may
be divided among as large a number of people as possible. The
same principle in different forms is applied under the government
organization in the perpetration of the crimes, without which no
government organization could exist. Rulers always try to
implicate as many citizens as possible in all the crimes committed
in their support.

Of late this tendency has been expressed in a very obvious manner
by the obligation of all citizens to take part in legal processes
as jurors, in the army as soldiers, in the local government, or
legislative assembly, as electors or members.

Just as in a wicker basket all the ends are so hidden away that it
is hard to find them, in the state organization the responsibility
for the crimes committed is so hidden away that men will commit
the most atrocious acts without seeing their responsibility for
them.

In ancient times tyrants got credit for the crimes they committed,
but in our day the most atrocious infamies, inconceivable under
the Neros, are perpetrated and no one gets blamed for them.

One set of people have suggested, another set have proposed, a
third have reported, a fourth have decided, a fifth have
confirmed, a sixth have given the order, and a seventh set of men
have carried it out. They hang, they flog to death women, old
men, and innocent people, as was done recently among us in Russia
at the Yuzovsky factory, and is always being done everywhere in
Europe and America in the struggle with the anarchists and all
other rebels against the existing order; they shoot and hang men
by hundreds and thousands, or massacre millions in war, or break
men's hearts in solitary confinement, and ruin their souls in the
corruption of a soldier's life, and no one is responsible.

At the bottom of the social scale soldiers, armed with guns,
pistols, and sabers, injure and murder people, and compel men
through these means to enter the army, and are absolutely
convinced that the responsibility for the actions rests solely on
the officers who command them.

At the top of the scale--the Tzars, presidents, ministers, and
parliaments decree these tortures and murders and military
conscription, and are fully convinced that since they are either
placed in authority by the grace of God or by the society they
govern, which demands such decrees from them, they cannot be held
responsible. Between these two extremes are the intermediary
personages who superintend the murders and other acts of violence,
and are fully convinced that the responsibility is taken off their
shoulders partly by their superiors who have given the order,
partly by the fact that such orders are expected from them by all
who are at the bottom of the scale.

The authority who gives the orders and the authority who executes
them at the two extreme ends of the state organization, meet
together like the two ends of a ring; they support and rest on one
another and inclose all that lies within the ring.

Without the conviction that there is a person or persons who will
take the whole responsibility of his acts, not one soldier would
ever lift a hand to commit a murder or other deed of violence.

Without the conviction that it is expected by the whole people not
a single king, emperor, president, or parliament would order
murders or acts of violence.

Without the conviction that there are persons of a higher grade
who will take the responsibility, and people of a lower grade who
require such acts for their welfare, not one of the intermediate
class would superintend such deeds.

The state is so organized that wherever a man is placed in the
social scale, his irresponsibility is the same. The higher his
grade the more he is under the influence of demands from below,
and the less he is controlled by orders from above, and VICE
VERSA.

All men, then, bound together by state organization, throw the
responsibility of their acts on one another, the peasant soldier
on the nobleman or merchant who is his officer, and the officer on
the nobleman who has been appointed governor, the governor on the
nobleman or son of an official who is minister, the minister on
the member of the royal family who occupies the post of Tzar, and
the Tzar again on all these officials, noblemen, merchants, and
peasants. But that is not all. Besides the fact that men get rid
of the sense of responsibility for their actions in this way, they
lose their moral sense of responsibility also, by the fact that in
forming themselves into a state organization they persuade
themselves and each other so continually, and so indefatigably,
that they are not all equal, but "as the stars apart," that they
come to believe it genuinely themselves. Thus some are persuaded
that they are not simple people like everyone else, but special
people who are to be specially honored. It is instilled into
another set of men by every possible means that they are inferior
to others, and therefore must submit without a murmur to every
order given them by their superiors.

On this inequality, above all, on the elevation of some and the
degradation of others, rests the capacity men have of being blind
to the insanity of the existing order of life, and all the cruelty
and criminality of the deception practiced by one set of men on
another.

Those in whom the idea has been instilled that they are invested
with a special supernatural grandeur and consequence, are so
intoxicated with a sense of their own imaginary dignity that they
cease to feel their responsibility for what they do.

While those, on the other hand, in whom the idea is fostered that
they are inferior animals, bound to obey their superiors in
everything, fall, through this perpetual humiliation, into a
strange condition of stupefied servility, and in this stupefied
state do not see the significance of their actions and lose all
consciousness of responsibility for what they do.

The intermediate class, who obey the orders of their superiors on
the one hand and regard themselves as superior beings on the
other, are intoxicated by power and stupefied by servility at the
same time and so lose the sense of their responsibility.

One need only glance during a review at the commander-in-chief,
intoxicated with self-importance, followed by his retinue, all on
magnificent and gayly appareled horses, in splendid uniforms and
wearing decorations, and see how they ride to the harmonious and
solemn strains of music before the ranks of soldiers, all
presenting arms and petrified with servility. One need only
glance at this spectacle to understand that at such moments, when
they are in a state of the most complete intoxication, commander-
in-chief, soldiers, and intermediate officers alike, would be
capable of committing crimes of which they would never dream under
other conditions.

The intoxication produced by such stimulants as parades, reviews,
religious solemnities, and coronations, is, however, an acute and
temporary condition; but there are other forms of chronic,
permanent intoxication, to which those are liable who have any
kind of authority, from that of the Tzar to that of the lowest
police officer at the street corner, and also those who are in
subjection to authority and in a state of stupefied servility.
The latter, like all slaves, always find a justification for their
own servility, in ascribing the greatest possible dignity and
importance to those they serve.

It is principally through this false idea of inequality, and the
intoxication of power and of servility resulting from it, that men
associated in a state organization are enabled to commit acts
opposed to their conscience without the least scruple or remorse.
Under the influence of this intoxication, men imagine themselves
no longer simply men as they are, but some special beings--
noblemen, merchants, governors, judges, officers, tzars,
ministers, or soldiers--no longer bound by ordinary human duties,
but by other duties far more weighty--the peculiar duties of a
nobleman, merchant, governor, judge, officer, tzar, minister, or
soldier.

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