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Title: Appeal to Social Reformers Author: Leo Tolstoy Date: 1919 Language: en Topics: appeal, reform Source: Original text from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=10605, 2021. Translated by Helen Chrouschoff Matheson.
In my "Appeal to the Working People" I expressed the opinion that if the
working-men are to free themselves from oppression it is necessary that
they should themselves cease to live as they now live, struggling with
their neighbors for their personal welfare, and that, according to the
Gospel rule, man should "act towards others as he desires that others
should act towards himself."
The method I had suggested called forth, as I expected, one and the same
condemnation from people of the most opposite views.
"It is an Utopia, unpractical. To wait for the liberation of men who are
suffering from oppression and violence until they all become virtuous
would mean—whilst recognizing the existing evil—to doom oneself to
inaction."
Therefore I would like to say a few words as to why I believe this idea
is not so unpractical as it appears, but, on the contrary, deserves that
more attention be directed to it than to all the other methods proposed
by scientific men for the improvement of the social order. I would like
to say these words to those who sincerely—not in words, but in
deeds—desire to serve their neighbors. It is to such people that I now
address myself.
The ideals of social life which direct the activity of men change, and
together with them the order of human life also ​changes. There was a
time when the ideal of social life was complete animal freedom,
according to which one portion of mankind, as far as they were able,
devoured the other, both in the direct and in the figurative sense. Then
followed a time when the social ideal became the power of one man, and
men deified their rulers, and not only willingly but enthusiastically
submitted to them—Egypt, Rome: "Morituri te salutant." Next, people
recognized as their ideal an organization of life in which power was
recognized, not for its own sake, but for the good organization of men's
lives. Attempts for the realization of such an ideal were at one time a
universal monarchy, then a universal Church uniting various States and
directing them; then came forth the ideal of representation, then of a
Republic, with or without universal suffrage. At the present time it is
regarded that this ideal can be realized through an economic
organization wherein all the instruments of labor will cease to be
private property, and will become the property of the whole nation.
However different be all these ideals, yet, to introduce them into life,
power was always postulated—that is, coercive power, which forces men to
obey established laws. The same is also postulated now.
It is supposed that the realization of the greatest welfare for all is
attained by certain people (according to the Chinese teaching, the most
virtuous; according to the European teaching, the anointed, or elected
by the people) who, being entrusted with power, will establish and
support the organization which will secure the greatest possible safety
of the citizens against mutual encroachments on each other's labor and
on freedom of life. Not only those who recognize the existing State
organization as a necessary condition of human life, but also
revolutionists and Socialists, though they regard the existing State
organization as subject to alteration, nevertheless recognize power,
that is, the right and possibility of some to compel others to obey
established laws, as the necessary condition of social order.
Thus it has been from ancient times, and still continues to be. But
those who were compelled by force to submit to certain regulations did
not always regard these regulations ​as the best, and therefore often
revolted against those in power, deposed them, and in place of the old
order established a new one, which, according to their opinion, better
ensured the welfare of the people. Yet as those possessed of power
always became depraved by this possession, and therefore used their
power not so much for the common welfare as for their own personal
interests, the new power has always been similar to the old one, and
often still more unjust.
Thus it has been when those who had revolted against existing authority
overcame it. On the other hand, when victory remained on the side of the
existing power, then the latter, triumphant in self-protection, always
increased the means of its defense, and became yet more injurious to the
liberty of its citizens.
Thus it has always been, both in the past and the present, and there is
special instructiveness in the way this has taken place in our European
world during the whole of the 19th century. In the first half of this
century, revolutions had been for the most part successful; but the new
authorities who replaced the old ones. Napoleon I., Charles X., Napoleon
III., did not increase the liberty of the citizens. In the second half,
after the year 1848, all attempts at revolution were suppressed by the
Governments; and owing to former revolutions and attempted new ones, the
Governments entrenched themselves in greater and greater self-defense,
and—thanks to the technical inventions of the last century, which have
furnished men with hitherto unknown powers over nature and over each
other—they have increased their authority, and towards the end of last
century have developed it to such a degree that it has become impossible
for the people to struggle against it. The Governments have not only
seized enormous riches collected from the people, have not only
disciplined artfully levied troops, but have also grasped all the
spiritual means of influencing the masses, the direction of the Press
and of religious development, and, above all, of education. These means
have been so organized, and have become so powerful, that since the year
1848 there has been no successful attempt at revolution in Europe.
This phenomenon is quite new and is absolutely peculiar to our time.
However powerful were Nero, Khengiz-Khan, or Charles the Great, they
could not suppress risings on the borders of their domains, and still
less could they direct the spiritual activity of their subjects, their
education, scientific and moral, and their religious tendencies; whereas
now all these means are in the hands of the Governments.
It is not only the Parisian "macadam" which, having replaced the
previous stone roadways, renders barricades impossible during
revolutions in Paris, but the same kind of "macadam" during the latter
half of the 19th century has appeared in all the branches of State
government. The secret police, the system of spies, bribery of the
Press, railways, telegraphs, telephones, photography, prisons,
fortifications, enormous riches, the education of the younger
generations, and above all, the army, are in the hands of the
Governments.
All is organized in such a way that the most incapable and unintelligent
rulers (from the instinctive feeling of self-preservation) can prevent
serious preparations for a rising, and can always, without any effort,
suppress those weak attempts at open revolt which from time to time are
still undertaken by belated revolutionists who, by these attempts, only
increase the power of Governments. At present the only means for
overcoming Governments lies in this: that the army, composed of the
people, having recognized the injustice, cruelty, and injury of the
Government towards themselves, should cease to support it. But in this
respect also, the Governments, knowing that their chief power is in the
army, have so organized its mobilization and its discipline that no
propaganda among the people can snatch the army out of the hands of the
Government. No man, whatever his political convictions, who is serving
in the army, and has been subjected to that hypnotic breaking-in which
is called discipline, can, whilst in the ranks, avoid obeying commands,
just as an eye cannot avoid winking when a blow is aimed at it. ​Boys of
the age of twenty, who are enlisted and educated in the false
ecclesiastic or materialistic and moreover "patriotic " spirit, cannot
refuse to serve, as children who are sent to school cannot refuse to
obey. Having entered the service, these youths, whatever their
convictions, are—thanks to artful discipline, elaborated during
centuries—inevitably transformed in one year into submissive tools in
the hands of the authorities. If rare cases occur—one out of ten
thousand—of refusals of military service, this is accomplished only by
so-called "sectarians" who act thus out of religious convictions
unrecognized by the Governments. Therefore, at present, in the European
world—if only the Governments desire to retain their power, and they
cannot but desire this, because the abolition of power would involve the
downfall of the rulers—no serious rising can be organized; and if any
thing of the kind be organized it will always be suppressed, and will
have no other consequences than the destruction of many light-minded
individuals and the increase of governmental power. This may not be seen
by revolutionists and Socialists who, following out-lived traditions,
are carried away by strife, which for some has become a definite
profession; but it cannot fail to be recognized by all those who freely
consider historical events.
This phenomenon is quite new, and therefore the activity of those who
desire to alter the existing order should conform with this new position
of existing powers in the European world.
The struggle between the State and the people which has lasted during
long ages at first produced the substitution of one power for another,
of this one by yet a third, and so on. But in our European world from
the middle of last century the power of the existing Governments, thanks
to the technical improvements of our time, has been furnished with such
means of defense that strife with it has become impossible. In
proportion as this power has attained greater and greater degree it has
demonstrated more and more its inconsistency: ​there has become ever more
evident that inner contradiction which consists in combination of the
idea of a beneficent power and of violence, which constitutes the
essence of power. It became obvious that power, which, to be beneficent,
should be in the hands of the very best men, was always in the hands of
the worst; as the best men, owing to the very nature of power—consisting
in the use of violence towards one's neighbor—could not desire power,
and therefore never obtained or retained it.
This contradiction is so self-evident that it would seem everyone must
have always seen it. Yet such are the pompous surroundings of power, the
fear which it inspires, and the inertia of tradition, that centuries and
indeed thousands of years passed before men understood their error. Only
in latter days have men begun to understand that notwithstanding the
solemnity with which power always drapes itself its essence consists in
threatening people with the loss of property, liberty, life, and in
realizing these threats; and that, therefore, those who, like kings,
emperors, ministers, judges, and others, devote their life to this
activity without any object except the desire to retain their
advantageous position, not only are not the best, but are always the
worst men, and being such, cannot by their power contribute to the
welfare of humanity, but on the contrary have always represented, and
still represent, one of the principal causes of the social calamities of
mankind. Therefore power, which formerly elicited in the people
enthusiasm and devotion, at present calls forth among the greater and
best portion of mankind not only indifference, but often contempt and
hatred. This more enlightened section of mankind now understands that
all that pompous show with which power surrounds itself is naught else
than the red shirt and velvet trousers of the executioner, which
distinguishes him from other convicts because he takes upon himself the
most immoral and infamous work—that of executing people.
Power, being conscious of this attitude towards itself continually
growing among the people, in our days no longer leans upon the higher
foundations of anointed right, popular election, or inborn virtue of the
rulers, but rests solely upon ​coercion. Resting thus merely on coercion,
therefore, it still more loses the confidence of the people, and losing
this confidence it is more and more compelled to have recourse to the
seizure of all the activities of national life, and owing to this
seizure it inspires greater and greater dissatisfaction.
Power has become invincible, and rests no longer on the higher national
foundations of anointed right, election, or representation, but on
violence alone. At the same time the people cease to believe in power
and to respect it, and they submit to it only because they cannot do
otherwise.
Precisely since the middle of the last century, from the very time when
power had simultaneously become invincible and lost its prestige, there
begins to appear among the people the teaching that liberty—not that
fantastical liberty which is preached by the adherents of coercion when
they affirm that a man who is compelled, under fear of punishment, to
fulfill the orders of other men, is free, but that only true liberty,
which consists in every man being able to live and act according to his
own judgment, to pay or not to pay taxes, to enter or not to enter the
military service, to be friendly or inimical to neighboring nations—that
such true liberty is incompatible with the power of certain men over
others.
According to this teaching, power is not, as was formerly thought,
something divine and majestic, neither is it an indispensable condition
of social life, but is merely the result of the coarse violence of some
men over others. Be the power in the hands of Louis XVI, or the
Committee of National Defense, or the Directory, or the Consulate, or
Napoleon, or Louis XVIII, or the Sultan, the President, the chief
Mandarin, or the first Minister,—wheresoever it be, there will exist the
power of certain men over others, and there will not be freedom, but
there will be the oppression of one portion of mankind by another.
Therefore power must be abolished.
But how to abolish it, and how, when it is abolished, to ​arrange things
so that, without the existence of power, men should not return to the
savage state of coarse violence towards each other?
All anarchists—as the preachers of this teaching are called—quite
uniformly answer the first question by recognizing that if this power is
to be really abolished it must be abolished not by force but by men's
consciousness of its uselessness and evil. To the second question, as to
how society should be organized without power, anarchists answer
variously.
The Englishman Godwin, who lived at the end of the 18th and the
beginning of the 19th centuries, and the Frenchman Proudhon, who wrote
in the middle of the last century, answer the first question by saying
that for the abolition of power the consciousness of men is sufficient,
that the general welfare (Godwin) and justice (Proudhon) are
transgressed by power, and that if the conviction were dissseminated
among the people that general welfare and justice can be realized only
in the absence of power, then power would of itself disappear.
As to the second question, by what means will the order of a new society
be ensured without power, both Godwin and Proudhon answer that people
who are led by the consciousness of general welfare (according to
Godwin) and of justice (according to Proudhon) will instinctively find
the most universally rational and just forms of life.
Whereas other anarchists, such as Bakunin and Kropotkin, although they
also recognize the consciousness in the masses of the harmfulness of
power and its incompatibility with human progress, nevertheless as a
means for its abolition regard revolution as possible, and even as
necessary, for which revolution they recommend men to prepare. The
second question they answer by the assertion that as soon as State
organization and property shall be abolished men will naturally combine
in rational, free, and advantageous conditions of life.
To the question as to the means of abolishing power, the German Max
Stirner and the American Tucker answer almost in the same way as the
others. Both of them believe ​that if men understood that the personal
interest of each individual is a perfectly sufficient and legitimate
guide for men's actions, and that power only impedes the full
manifestation of this leading factor of human life, then power will
perish of itself, both owing to disobedience of it and above all, as
Tucker says, to nonparticipation in it. Their answer to the second
question is, that men freed from the superstition and necessity of power
and merely following their personal interests would of themselves
combine into forms of life most adequate and advantageous for each.
All these teachings are perfectly correct in this—that if power is to be
abolished, this can be accomplished in nowise by force, as power having
abolished power will remain power; but that this abolition of power can
be accomplished only by the elucidation in the consciousness of men of
the truth that power is useless and harmful, and that men should neither
obey it nor participate in it. This truth is incontrovertible: power can
be abolished only by the rational consciousness of men. But in what
should this consciousness consist? The anarchists believe that this
consciousness can be founded upon considerations about common welfare,
justice, progress, or the personal interests of men. But not to mention
that all these factors are not in mutual agreement, the very definitions
of what constitutes general welfare, justice, progress, or personal
interest are understood by men in infinitely various ways. Therefore it
is impossible to suppose that people who are not agreed among
themselves, and who differently understand the bases on which they
oppose power, could abolish power so firmly fixed and so ably defended.
Moreover, the supposition that considerations about general welfare,
justice, or the law of progress can suffice to secure that men, freed
from coercion, but having no motive for sacrificing their personal
welfare to the general welfare, should combine in just conditions
without violating their mutual liberty, is yet more unfounded. The
Utilitarian egotistical theory of Max Stirner and Tucker, who affirm
that by each following his own personal interest just relations would be
introduced between all, is not only arbitrary, but in ​complete
contradiction to what in reality has taken place and is taking place.
So that, whilst correctly recognizing spiritual weapons as the only
means of abolishing power, the anarchistic teaching, holding an
irreligious materialistic life conception, does not possess this
spiritual weapon, and is confined to conjectures and fancies which give
the advocates of coercion the possibility of denying its true
foundations, owing to the inefficiency of the suggested means of
realizing this teaching.
This spiritual weapon is simply the one long ago known to men, which has
always destroyed power and always given those who used it complete and
inalienable freedom. This weapon is but this: a devout understanding of
life, according to which man regards his earthly existence as only a
fragmentary manifestation of the complete life, connecting his own life
with infinite life, and, recognizing his highest welfare in the
fulfillment of the laws of this infinite life, regards the fulfillment
of these laws as more binding upon himself than the fulfillment of any
human laws whatsoever.
Only such a religious conception, uniting all men in the same
understanding of life, incompatible with subordination to power and
participation in it, can truly destroy power.
Only such a life-conception will give men the possibility—without
joining in violence—of combining into rational and just forms of life.
Strange to say, only after men have been brought by life itself to the
conviction that existing power is invincible, and in our time cannot be
overthrown by force, have they come to understand that ridiculously
self-evident truth that power and all the evil produced by it are but
results of bad life in men, and that therefore, for the abolition of
power and the evil it produces, good life on the part of men is
necessary.
Men are beginning to understand this. And now they have further to
understand that there is only one means for a good life among men: the
profession and realization of a religious teaching natural and
comprehensible to the majority of mankind.
Only by means of professing and realizing such a religious ​teaching can
men attain the ideal which has now arisen in their consciousness, and
towards which they are striving.
All other attempts at the abolition of power and at organizing, without
power, a good life among men are only a futile expenditure of effort,
and do not bring near the aim towards which men are striving, but only
remove them from it.
This is what I wish to say to you, sincere people, who, not satisfied
with egotistic life, desire to give your strength to the service of your
brothers. If you participate, or desire to participate, in governmental
activity, and by this means to serve the people, then consider: What is
every Government resting on power? And having put this question to
yourself, you cannot but see that there is no Government which does not
commit, does not prepare to commit, does not rest upon, violence,
robbery, murder.
An American writer, little known—Thoreau,—in his essay on why it is
men's duty to disobey the Government, relates how he refused to pay the
Government of the United States a tax of one dollar, explaining his
refusal on the grounds that he does not desire his dollar to participate
in the activity of a Government which sanctions the slavery of the
negroes. Can not, and should not, the same thing be felt in relation to
his Government, I do not say by a Russian, but by a citizen of the most
progressive State—the United States of America, with its action in Cuba
and the Philippines, with its relation to negroes and the banishment of
the Chinese; or of England, with its opium, and Boers; or of France,
with its horrors of militarism?
Therefore, a sincere man, wishing to serve his fellow-men, if only he
has seriously realized what every Government is, cannot participate in
it otherwise than on the strength of the principle that the end
justifies the means.
But such an activity has always been harmful for those in whose
interests it was undertaken, as well as for those who had recourse to
it.
The thing is very simple. You wish, by submitting to the ​Government and
making use of its laws, to snatch from it more liberty and rights for
the people. But the liberty and the rights of the people are in inverse
ratio to the power of the Government, and in general of the ruling
classes. The more liberty and rights the people will have, the less
power and advantage will the Government gain from them. Governments know
this, and, having all the power in their hands, they readily allow all
kinds of Liberal prattle, and even some insignificant Liberal reforms,
which justify its power, but they immediately coercively arrest Liberal
inclinations which threaten not only the advantages of the rulers but
their very existence. So that all your efforts to serve the people
through the power of governmental administration or through Parliaments
will only lead to this—that you, by your activity, will increase the
power of the ruling classes, and will, according to the degree of your
sincerity, unconsciously or consciously participate in this power. So it
is in regard to those who desire to serve the people by means of the
existing State organizations.
If, on the other hand, you belong to the category of sincere people
desiring to serve the nation by revolutionary, Socialistic activity,
then (not to speak of the insufficiency of aim involved in that material
welfare of men towards which you are striving, which never satisfied
anyone) consider the means which you possess for its attainment. These
means are, in the first place and above all, immoral, containing
falsehood, deception, violence, murder; secondly, these means can in no
case attain their end. The strength and caution of Governments defending
their existence are in our time so great that not only can no ruse,
deception, or harsh action overthrow them — they cannot even shake them.
All revolutionary attempts only furnish new justification for the
violence of Governments, and increase their power.
But even if we admit the impossible—that a revolution in our time could
be crowned with success—then, in the first place, why should we expect
that, contrary to all which has ever taken place, the power which has
overturned another power can increase the liberty of men and become more
beneficent than the one it has overthrown? Secondly, if ​the conjecture,
contrary to common sense and experience, were possible, that power
having abolished power could give people the freedom necessary to
establish those conditions of life which they regard as most
advantageous for themselves, then there would be no reason whatever to
suppose that people living an egotistical life could establish among
themselves better conditions than the previous ones.
Let the Queen of the Dahomeys establish the most Liberal constitution,
and let her even realize that nationalization of the instruments of
labor which, in the opinion of the Socialists, would save people from
all their calamities—it would still be necessary for someone to have
power in order that the constitution should work and the instruments of
labor should not be seized into private hands. But as long as these
people are Dahomeys, with their life-conception, it is evident
that—although in another form—the violence of a certain portion of the
Dahomeys over the others will be the same as without a constitution and
without the nationalization of the instruments of labor. Before
realizing the Socialistic organization it would be necessary for the
Dahomeys to lose their taste for bloody tyranny. Just the same is
necessary for Europeans also.
In order that men may live a common life without oppressing each other,
there is necessary, not an organization supported by force, but a moral
state in accordance with, which people, from their inner convictions and
not by coercion, should act towards others as they desire that others
should act towards them. Such people do exist. They exist in religious
Christian communities in America, in Russia, in Canada. Such people do
indeed, without laws supported by force, live the communal life without
oppressing each other.
Thus the rational activity proper to our time for men of our Christian
society is only one: the profession and preaching by word and deed of
the last and highest religious teaching known to us, of the Christian
teaching; not of that Christian teaching which, whilst submitting to the
existing order of life, demands of men only the fulfillment of external
ritual, or is satisfied with faith in and the preaching of salvation
through redemption, but of that vital Christianity the ​inevitable
condition of which is, not only nonparticipation in the action of the
Government, but disobedience to its demands, since these demands—from
taxes and custom-houses to law courts and armies—are all opposed to this
true Christianity. If this be so, then it is evident that it is not to
the establishment of new forms that the activity of men desirous of
serving their neighbor should be directed, but to the alteration and
perfecting of their own characters and those of other people.
Those who act in the other way generally think that the forms of life
and the character of life-conception of men may simultaneously improve.
But thinking thus, they make the usual mistake of taking the result for
the cause and the cause for the result or for an accompanying condition.
The alteration of the character and life-conception of men inevitably
brings with it the alteration of those forms in which men had lived,
whereas the alteration of the forms of life not only does not contribute
to the alteration of the character and life-conception of men, but, more
than anything else, obstructs this alteration by directing the attention
and activity of men into a false channel. To alter the forms of life,
hoping thereby to alter the character and life-conception of men, is
like altering in various ways the position of wet wood in a stove,
believing that there can be such a position of wet fuel as will cause it
to catch fire. Only dry wood will take fire independently of the
position in which it is placed.
This error is so obvious that people could not submit to it if there
were not a reason which rendered them liable to it. This reason consists
in this: that the alteration of the character of men must begin in
themselves, and demands much struggle and labor; whereas the alteration
of the forms of the life of others is attained easily without inner
effort over oneself, and has the appearance of a very important and
far-reaching activity.
It is against this error, the source of the greatest evil, that I warn
you, men sincerely desirous of serving your neighbor by your lives.
"But we cannot live quietly occupying ourselves with the profession and
teaching of Christianity when we see around us suffering people. We wish
to serve them actively. For this we are ready to surrender our labor,
even our lives," say people with more or less sincere indignation.
How do you know, I would answer these people, that you are called to
serve men precisely by that method which appears to you the most useful
and practical? What you say only shows that you have already decided
that we cannot serve mankind by a Christian life, and that true service
lies only in political activity, which attracts you.
All politicians think likewise, and they are all in opposition to each
other, and therefore certainly cannot all be right. It would be very
well if everyone could serve men as he pleased, but such is not the
case, and there exists only one means of serving men and improving their
condition. This sole means consists in the profession and realization of
a teaching from which flows the inner work of perfecting oneself. The
self-perfecting of a true Christian, always living naturally among men
and not avoiding them, consists in the establishment of better and even
more loving relations between himself and other men. The establishment
of loving relations between men cannot but improve their general
conditions, although the form of this improvement remains unknown to
man.
It is true that in serving through governmental activity, parliamentary
or revolutionary, we can determine beforehand the results we wish to
attain, and at the same time profit by all the advantages of a pleasant,
luxurious life, and obtain a brilliant position, the approval of men,
and great fame. If those who participate in such activity have indeed
sometimes to suffer, it is such a possibility of suffering as in every
strife is redeemed by the possibility of success. In the military
activity, suffering and even death are still more possible, and yet only
the least moral and the egotistic choose it.
On the other hand, the religious activity, in the first place, does not
show us the results which it attains; and secondly, ​this activity
demands the renunciation of external success, and not only does not
afford a brilliant position and fame, but brings men to the lowest
position from the social point of view — subjects them not only to
contempt and condemnation, but to the most cruel sufferings and death.
Thus, in our time of universal conscription, religious activity compels
every man who is called to the service of murder to bear all those
punishments with which the Government punishes for refusal of military
service. Therefore, religious activity is difficult, but it alone gives
man the consciousness of true freedom, and the assurance that he is
doing that which he should do.
Consequently, this activity alone is truly fruitful, attaining not only
its highest object, but also, incidentally and in the most natural and
simple way, those results towards which social reformers strive in such
artificial ways.
Thus there is only one means of serving men, which consists in oneself
living a good life. And not only is this means not visionary—as it is
regarded by those to whom it is not advantageous,—but all other means
are visionary, by which the leaders of the masses allure them into a
false way, distracting them from that method which alone is true.
"But if this be so, when will it come to pass?" say those who wish to
see the realization of this ideal as quickly as possible.
It would, of course, be much better if one could do this very quickly,
immediately.
It would be very well if one could quickly, immediately, grow a forest.
But one cannot do this; one must wait till the seeds shoot, then the
leaves, then the branches, and then the trees will grow up.
One can stick branches into the ground, and for a short time they will
resemble a wood, but it will be only a resemblance. The same with a
rapid establishment of good social order among men. One can arrange a
resemblance of good order, as do the Governments, but these imitations
​only remove the possibility of true order. They remove it, firstly, by
cheating men, showing them the image of good order where it does not
exist; and, secondly, because these imitations of order are attained
only by power, and power depraves men, rulers as well as ruled, and
therefore makes true order less possible.
Therefore, attempts at a rapid realization of the ideal not only do not
contribute to its actual realization, but more than anything impede it.
So that the solution of the question whether the ideal of mankind—a
well-organized society without violence—will be organized soon, or not
soon, depends upon whether the rulers of the masses who sincerely wish
the people good will soon understand that nothing removes men so much
from the realization of their ideal as that which they are now
doing—namely, continuing to maintain old superstitions, or denying all
religions, and directing the people's activity to the service of the
Government, of revolution, of Socialism. If those men who sincerely wish
to serve their neighbor were only to understand all the fruitlessness of
those means of organizing the welfare of men proposed by the supporters
of the State, and by revolutionists—if only they were to understand that
the one means by which men can be liberated from their sufferings
consists in men themselves ceasing to live an egotistic heathen life,
and beginning to live a universal Christian one, not recognizing, as
they do now, the possibility and the legality of using violence over
one's neighbors, and participating in it for one's personal aims; but
if, on the contrary, they were to follow in life the fundamental and
highest law of acting towards others as one wishes others to act towards
oneself—then very quickly would be overthrown those irrational and cruel
forms of life in which we now live, and new ones would develop
corresponding to the new consciousness of men.
Think only what enormous and splendid mental powers are now spent in the
service of the State — which has outgrown its time—and in its defense
from revolution; how much youthful and enthusiastic effort is spent on
attempts at revolution, on an impossible struggle with the State; how
much ​is spent on unrealizable Socialistic dreamings. All this is not
only delaying but rendering impossible the realization of the welfare
towards which all men are striving. How would it be if all those who are
spending their powers so fruitlessly, and often with harm to their
neighbors, were to direct them all to that which alone affords the
possibility of good social life—to their inner self-perfection?
How many times would one be able to build a new house, out of new solid
material, if all those efforts which have been and are now being spent
on propping up the old house were used resolutely and conscientiously
for the preparation of the material for a new house and the building
thereof, which, although obviously it could not at first be as luxurious
and convenient for some chosen ones as was the old one, would
undoubtedly be more stable, and would afford the complete possibility
for those improvements which are necessary, not for the chosen only, but
also for all men.
So that all I have here said amounts to the simple, generally
comprehensible, and irrefutable truth: that in order that good life
should exist among men it is necessary that men should be good.
There is only one way of influencing men towards a good life: namely, to
live a good life oneself. Therefore the activity of those who desire to
contribute to the establishment of good life among men can and should
only consist in efforts towards inner perfection—in the fulfillment of
that which is expressed in the Gospel by the words: "Be ye perfect even
as your Father in Heaven."