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Title: “Bethink Yourselves!”
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Date: 1904
Language: en
Topics: peace, anti-war, pacifist
Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27189

Leo Tolstoy

“Bethink Yourselves!”

I

Again war. Again sufferings, necessary to nobody, utterly uncalled for;

again fraud; again the universal stupefaction and brutalization of men.

Men who are separated from each other by thousands of miles, hundreds of

thousands of such men (on the one hand—Buddhists, whose law forbids the

killing, not only of men, but of animals; on the other hand—Christians,

professing the law of brotherhood and love) like wild beasts on land and

on sea are seeking out each other, in order to kill, torture, and

mutilate each other in the most cruel way. What can this be? Is it a

dream or a reality? Something is taking place which should not, cannot

be; one longs to believe that it is a dream and to awake from it. But

no, it is not a dream, it is a dreadful reality!

One could yet understand how a poor, uneducated, defrauded Japanese,

torn from his field and taught that Buddhism consists not in compassion

to all that lives, but in sacrifices to idols, and how a similar poor

illiterate fellow from the neighborhood of Toula or Nijni Novgorod, who

has been taught that Christianity consists in worshipping Christ, the

Madonna, Saints, and their ikons—one could understand how these

unfortunate men, brought by the violence and deceit of centuries to

recognize the greatest crime in the world—the murder of one’s

brethren—as a virtuous act, can commit these dreadful deeds, without

regarding themselves as being guilty in so doing.

But how can so-called enlightened men preach war, support it,

participate in it, and, worst of all, without suffering the dangers of

war themselves, incite others to it, sending their unfortunate defrauded

brothers to fight? These so-called enlightened men cannot possibly

ignore, I do not say the Christian law, if they recognize themselves to

be Christians, but all that has been written, is being written, has and

is being said, about the cruelty, futility, and senselessness of war.

They are regarded as enlightened men precisely because they know all

this. The majority of them have themselves written and spoken about

this. Not to mention The Hague Conference, which called forth universal

praise, or all the books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and speeches

demonstrating the possibility of the solution of international

misunderstandings by international arbitration—no enlightened man can

help knowing that the universal competition in the armaments of States

must inevitably lead them to endless wars, or to a general bankruptcy,

or to both the one and the other. They cannot but know that besides the

senseless, purposeless expenditure of milliards of roubles, i.e. of

human labor, on the preparations for war, during the wars themselves

millions of the most energetic and vigorous men perish in that period of

their life which is best for productive labor (during the past century

wars have destroyed fourteen million men). Enlightened men cannot but

know that occasions for war are always such as are not worth not only

one human life, but not one hundredth part of all that which is spent

upon wars (in fighting for the emancipation of the negroes much more was

spent than it would have cost to redeem them from slavery).

Every one knows and cannot help knowing that, above all, wars, calling

forth the lowest animal passions, deprave and brutalize men. Every one

knows the weakness of the arguments in favor of war, such as were

brought forward by De Maistre, Moltke, and others, for they are all

founded on the sophism that in every human calamity it is possible to

find an advantageous element, or else upon the utterly arbitrary

assertion that wars have always existed and therefore always must exist,

as if the bad actions of men could be justified by the advantages or the

usefulness which they realize, or by the consideration that they have

been committed during a long period of time. All so-called enlightened

men know all this. Then suddenly war begins, and all this is instantly

forgotten, and the same men who but yesterday were proving the cruelty,

futility, the senselessness of wars now think, speak, and write only

about killing as many men as possible, about ruining and destroying the

greatest possible amount of the productions of human labor, and about

exciting as much as possible the passion of hatred in those peaceful,

harmless, industrious men who by their labor feed, clothe, maintain

these same pseudo-enlightened men, who compel them to commit those

dreadful deeds contrary to their conscience, welfare, or faith.

II

Something is taking place incomprehensible and impossible in its

cruelty, falsehood, and stupidity. The Russian Tsar, the same man who

exhorted all the nations in the cause of peace, publicly announces that,

notwithstanding all his efforts to maintain the peace so dear to his

heart (efforts which express themselves in the seizing of other peoples’

lands and in the strengthening of armies for the defence of these stolen

lands), he, owing to the attack of the Japanese, commands that the same

shall be done to the Japanese as they had commenced doing to the

Russians—i.e. that they should be slaughtered; and in announcing this

call to murder he mentions God, asking the Divine blessing on the most

dreadful crime in the world. The Japanese Emperor has proclaimed the

same thing in relation to the Russians.

Men of science and of law (Messieurs Muravieff and Martens) strenuously

try to prove that in the recent call of all nations to universal peace

and the present incitement to war, because of the seizure of other

peoples’ lands, there is no contradiction. Diplomatists, in their

refined French language, publish and send out circulars in which they

circumstantially and diligently prove (though they know no one believes

them) that, after all its efforts to establish peaceful relations (in

reality, after all its efforts to deceive other countries), the Russian

Government has been compelled to have recourse to the only means for a

rational solution of the question—i.e. to the murder of men. The same

thing is written by Japanese diplomatists. Scientists, historians, and

philosophers, on their side, comparing the present with the past, deduce

from these comparisons profound conclusions, and argue interminably

about the laws of the movement of nations, about the relation between

the yellow and white races, or about Buddhism and Christianity, and on

the basis of these deductions and arguments justify the slaughter of

those belonging to the yellow race by Christians; while in the same way

the Japanese scientists and philosophers justify the slaughter of those

of the white race. Journalists, without concealing their joy, try to

outdo each other, and, not hesitating at any falsehood, however impudent

and transparent, prove in all possible ways that the Russians only are

right and strong and good in every respect, and that all the Japanese

are wrong and weak and bad in every respect, and that all those are also

bad who are inimical or may become inimical toward the Russians—the

English, the Americans; and the same is proved likewise by the Japanese

and their supporters in relation to the Russians.

Not to mention the military, who in the way of their profession prepare

for murder, crowds of so-called enlightened people, such as professors,

social reformers, students, nobles, merchants, without being forced

thereto by anything or anybody, express the most bitter and contemptuous

feelings toward the Japanese, the English, or the Americans, toward whom

but yesterday they were either well-disposed or indifferent; while,

without the least compulsion, they express the most abject, servile

feelings toward the Tsar (to whom, to say the least, they were

completely indifferent), assuring him of their unlimited love and

readiness to sacrifice their lives in his interests.

This unfortunate, entangled young man, recognized as the leader of one

hundred and thirty millions of people, continually deceived and

compelled to contradict himself, confidently thanks and blesses the

troops whom he calls his own for murder in defence of lands which with

yet less right he also calls his own. All present to each other hideous

ikons in which not only no one amongst the educated believes, but which

unlearned peasants are beginning to abandon; all bow down to the ground

before these ikons, kiss them, and pronounce pompous and deceitful

speeches in which no one really believes.

Wealthy people contribute insignificant portions of their immorally

acquired riches for this cause of murder or the organization of help in

connection with the work of murder; while the poor, from whom the

Government annually collects two milliards, deem it necessary to do

likewise, giving their mites also. The Government incites and encourages

crowds of idlers, who walk about the streets with the Tsar’s portrait,

singing, shouting hurrah! and who, under pretext of patriotism, are

licensed in all kinds of excess. All over Russia, from the Palace to the

remotest village, the pastors of churches, calling themselves

Christians, appeal to that God who has enjoined love to one’s enemies—to

the God of Love Himself—to help the work of the devil to further the

slaughter of men.

Stupefied by prayers, sermons, exhortations, by processions, pictures,

and newspapers, the cannon’s flesh, hundreds of thousands of men,

uniformly dressed, carrying divers deadly weapons, leaving their

parents, wives, children, with hearts of agony, but with artificial

sprightliness, go where they, risking their own lives, will commit the

most dreadful act of killing men whom they do not know and who have done

them no harm. And they are followed by doctors and nurses, who somehow

imagine that at home they cannot serve simple, peaceful, suffering

people, but can only serve those who are engaged in slaughtering each

other. Those who remain at home are gladdened by news of the murder of

men, and when they learn that many Japanese have been killed they thank

some one whom they call God.

All this is not only regarded as the manifestation of elevated feeling,

but those who refrain from such manifestations, if they endeavor to

disabuse men, are deemed traitors and betrayers, and are in danger of

being abused and beaten by a brutalized crowd which, in defence of its

insanity and cruelty, can possess no other weapon than brute force.

III

It is as if there had never existed either Voltaire, or Montaigne, or

Pascal, or Swift, or Kant, or Spinoza, or hundreds of other writers who

have exposed, with great force, the madness and futility of war, and

have described its cruelty, immorality, and savagery; and, above all, it

is as if there had never existed Jesus and his teaching of human

brotherhood and love of God and of men.

One recalls all this to mind and looks around on what is now taking

place, and one experiences horror less at the abominations of war than

at that which is the most horrible of all horrors—the consciousness of

the impotency of human reason. That which alone distinguishes man from

the animal, that which constitutes his merit—his reason—is found to be

an unnecessary, and not only a useless, but a pernicious addition, which

simply impedes action, like a bridle fallen from a horse’s head, and

entangled in his legs and only irritating him.

It is comprehensible that a heathen, a Greek, a Roman, even a mediæval

Christian, ignorant of the Gospel and blindly believing all the

prescriptions of the Church, might fight and, fighting, pride himself on

his military achievements; but how can a believing Christian, or even a

sceptic, involuntarily permeated by the Christian ideals of human

brotherhood and love which have inspired the works of the philosophers,

moralists, and artists of our time,—how can such take a gun, or stand by

a cannon, and aim at a crowd of his fellow-men, desiring to kill as many

of them as possible?

The Assyrians, Romans, or Greeks might be persuaded that in fighting

they were acting not only according to their conscience, but even

fulfilling a righteous deed. But, whether we wish it or not, we are

Christians, and however Christianity may have been distorted, its

general spirit cannot but lift us to that higher plane of reason whence

we can no longer refrain from feeling with our whole being not only the

senselessness and the cruelty of war, but its complete opposition to all

that we regard as good and right. Therefore, we cannot do as they did,

with assurance, firmness, and peace, and without a consciousness of our

criminality, without the desperate feeling of a murderer, who, having

begun to kill his victim, and feeling in the depths of his soul the

guilt of his act, proceeds to try to stupefy or infuriate himself, to be

able the better to complete his dreadful deed. All the unnatural,

feverish, hot-headed, insane excitement which has now seized the idle

upper ranks of Russian society is merely the symptom of their

recognition of the criminality of the work which is being done. All

these insolent, mendacious speeches about devotion to, and worship of,

the Monarch, about readiness to sacrifice life (or one should say other

people’s lives, and not one’s own); all these promises to defend with

one’s breast land which does not belong to one; all these senseless

benedictions of each other with various banners and monstrous ikons; all

these Te Deums; all these preparations of blankets and bandages; all

these detachments of nurses; all these contributions to the fleet and to

the Red Cross presented to the Government, whose direct duty is (whilst

it has the possibility of collecting from the people as much money as it

requires), having declared war, to organize the necessary fleet and

necessary means for attending the wounded; all these Slavonic, pompous,

senseless, and blasphemous prayers, the utterance of which in various

towns is communicated in the papers as important news; all these

processions, calls for the national hymn, cheers; all this dreadful,

desperate newspaper mendacity, which, being universal, does not fear

exposure; all this stupefaction and brutalization which has now taken

hold of Russian society, and which is being transmitted by degrees also

to the masses; all this is only a symptom of the guilty consciousness of

that dreadful act which is being accomplished.

Spontaneous feeling tells men that what they are doing should not be;

but, as the murderer who has begun to assassinate his victim cannot

stop, so also Russian people now imagine that the fact of the deadly

work having been commenced is an unanswerable argument in favor of war.

War has been begun, and therefore it should go on. Thus it seems to

simple, benighted, unlearned men, acting under the influence of the

petty passions and stupefaction to which they have been subjected. In

exactly the same way the most educated men of our time argue to prove

that man does not possess free will, and that, therefore, even were he

to understand that the work he has commenced is evil, he can no longer

cease to do it. And dazed, brutalized men continue their dreadful work.

IV

Ask a soldier, a private, a corporal, a non-commissioned officer, who

has abandoned his old parents, his wife, his children, why he is

preparing to kill men whom he does not know; he will at first be

astonished at your question. He is a soldier, he has taken the oath, and

it is his duty to fulfil the orders of his commanders. If you tell him

that war—i.e. the slaughter of men—does not conform to the command,

“Thou shalt not kill,” he will say: “And how if ours are attacked—For

the King—For the Orthodox faith?” (One of them said in answer to my

question: “And how if he attacks that which is sacred?” “What do you

mean?” I asked. “Why,” said he, “the banner.”) And if you endeavor to

explain to such a soldier that God’s Commandment is more important not

only than the banner but than anything else in the world, he will become

silent, or he will get angry and report you to the authorities.

Ask an officer, a general, why he goes to the war. He will tell you that

he is a military man, and that the military are indispensable for the

defence of the fatherland. As to murder not conforming to the spirit of

the Christian law, this does not trouble him, as either he does not

believe in this law, or, if he does, it is not in the law itself, but in

that explanation which has been given to this law. But, above all, he,

like the soldier, in place of the personal question, what should he do

himself, always put the general question about the State, or the

fatherland. “At the present moment, when the fatherland is in danger,

one should act, and not argue,” he will say.

Ask the diplomatists, who, by their deceits, prepare wars, why they do

it. They will tell you that the object of their activity is the

establishment of peace between nations, and that this object is

attained, not by ideal, unrealizable theories, but by diplomatic action

and readiness for war. And, just as the military, instead of the

question concerning one’s own action, place the general question, so

also diplomatists will speak about the interests of Russia, about the

unscrupulousness of other Powers, about the balance of power in Europe,

but not about their own position and its activities.

Ask the journalists why, by their writings, they incite men to war; they

will say that wars in general are necessary and useful, especially the

present war, and they will confirm this opinion of theirs by misty

patriotic phrases, and, just like the military and diplomatist, to the

question why he, a journalist, a particular individual, a living man,

acts in a certain way, he will speak about the general interests of the

nation, about the State, civilization, the white race. In the same way,

all those who prepare war will explain their participation in that work.

They will perhaps agree that it would be desirable to abolish war, but

at present this is impossible. At present they as Russians and as men

who occupy certain positions, such as heads of the nobility,

representatives of local self-government, doctors, workers of the Red

Cross, are called upon to act and not to argue. “There is no time to

argue and to think of oneself,” they will say, “when there is a great

common work to be done.” The same will be said by the Tsar, seemingly

responsible for the whole thing. He, like the soldier, will be

astonished at the question, whether war is now necessary. He does not

even admit the idea that the war might yet be arrested. He will say that

he cannot refrain from fulfilling that which is demanded of him by the

whole nation, that, although he does recognize that war is a great evil,

and has used, and is ready to use, all possible means for its

abolition—in the present case he could not help declaring war, and

cannot help continuing it. It is necessary for the welfare and glory of

Russia.

Every one of these men, to the question why he, so and so, Ivan, Peter,

Nicholas, whilst recognizing as binding upon him the Christian law which

not only forbids the killing of one’s neighbor but demands that one

should love him, serve him, why he permits himself to participate in

war; i.e. in violence, loot, murder, will infallibly answer the same

thing, that he is thus acting in the name of his fatherland, or faith,

or oath, or honor, or civilization, or the future welfare of the whole

of mankind—in general, of something abstract and indefinite. Moreover,

these men are always so urgently occupied either by preparation for war,

or by its organization, or discussions about it, that in their leisure

time they can only rest from their labors, and have not time to occupy

themselves with discussions about their life, regarding such discussions

as idle.

V

Men of our Christian world and of our time are like a man who, having

missed the right turning, the further he goes the more he becomes

convinced that he is going the wrong way. Yet the greater his doubts,

the quicker and the more desperately does he hurry on, consoling himself

with the thought that he will arrive somewhere. But the time comes when

it becomes quite clear that the way along which he is going will lead to

nothing but a precipice, which he is already beginning to discern before

him.

In such a position stands the Christian humanity of our time. It is

perfectly evident that, if we continue to live as we are now living,

guided in our private lives, as well as in the life of separate States,

by the sole desire of welfare for ourselves and for our State, and will,

as we do now, think to ensure this welfare by violence, then, inevitably

increasing the means of violence of one against the other and of State

against State, we shall, first, keep subjecting ourselves more and more,

transferring the major portion of our productiveness to armaments; and,

secondly, by killing in mutual wars the best physically developed men,

we must become more and more degenerate and morally depraved.

That this will be the case if we do not alter our life is as certain as

it is mathematically certain that two non-parallel straight lines must

meet. But not only is this theoretically certain in our time; it is

becoming certain not only to thought, but also to the consciousness. The

precipice which we approach is already becoming apparent to us, and the

most simple, non-philosophizing, and uneducated men cannot but see that,

by arming ourselves more and more against each other and slaughtering

each other in war, we, like spiders in a jar, can come to nothing else

but the destruction of each other.

A sincere, serious, rational man can no longer console himself by the

thought that matters can be mended, as was formerly supposed, by a

universal empire such as that of Rome or of Charles the Great, or

Napoleon, or by the mediæval spiritual power of the Pope, or by Holy

Alliances, by the political balance of the European Concert, and by

peaceful international tribunals, or, as some have thought, by the

increase of military strength and the newly discovered powerful weapons

of destruction.

It is impossible to organize a universal empire or republic, consisting

of European States, as different nationalities will never desire to

unite into one State. To organize international tribunals for the

solution of international disputes? But who will impose obedience to the

decision of the tribunal upon a contending party who has an organized

army of millions of men? To disarm? No one desires it or will begin it.

To invent yet more dreadful means of destruction—balloons with bombs

filled with suffocating gases, shells, which men will shower upon each

other from above? Whatever may be invented, all States will furnish

themselves with similar weapons of destruction. And cannon’s flesh, as

after cold weapons it submitted to bullets, and meekly exposed itself to

shells, bombs, far-reaching guns, mitrailleuses, mines, so it will also

submit to bombs charged with suffocating gases scattered down upon it

from balloons.

Nothing shows more evidently than the speeches of M. Muravieff and

Professor Martens about the Japanese war not contradicting The Hague

Peace Conference—nothing shows more obviously than these speeches to

what an extent, amongst the men of our time, the means for the

transmission of thought—speech—is distorted, and how the capacity for

clear, rational thinking is completely lost. Thought and speech are used

for the purpose, not of serving as a guide for human activity, but of

justifying any activity, however criminal it may be. The late Boer war

and the present Japanese war, which can at any moment pass into a

universal slaughter, have proved this beyond all doubt. All

anti-military discussions can as little contribute to the cessation of

war as the most eloquent and persuasive considerations addressed to

fighting dogs as to its being more advantageous to divide the piece of

meat over which they are struggling than to mutilate each other and lose

the piece of meat, which will be carried away by some passing dog not

joining in the fight. We are dashing on toward the precipice, cannot

stop, and we are approaching its edge.

For every rational man who reflects upon the position in which humanity

is now placed and upon that which it is inevitably approaching, it

cannot but be obvious that there is no practical issue out of this

position, that one cannot devise any combination or organization which

would save us from the destruction toward which we are inevitably

rushing. Not to mention the economical problems which become more and

more complex, those mutual relations between the States arming

themselves against each other and at any moment ready to break out into

wars clearly point to the certain destruction toward which all so-called

civilized humanity is being carried. Then what is to be done?

VI

Two thousand years ago John the Baptist and then Jesus said to men: The

time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand; (μετανοεῖτε)

bethink yourselves and believe in the Gospel (Mark i. 15); and if you do

not bethink yourselves you will all perish (Luke xiii. 5).

But men did not listen to them, and the destruction they foretold is

already near at hand. And we men of our time cannot but see it. We are

already perishing, and, therefore, we cannot leave unheeded that—old in

time, but for us new—means of salvation. We cannot but see that, besides

all the other calamities which flow from our bad and irrational life,

military preparations alone and the wars inevitably growing from them

must infallibly destroy us. We cannot but see that all the means of

escape invented by men from these evils are found and must be found to

be ineffectual, and that the disastrous position of the nations arming

themselves against each other cannot but go on advancing continually.

And therefore the words of Jesus refer to us and our time more than to

any time or to any one.

Jesus said, “Bethink yourselves”—i.e. “Let every man interrupt the work

he has begun and ask himself: Who am I? From whence have I appeared, and

in what consists my destiny? And having answered these questions,

according to the answer decide whether that which thou doest is in

conformity with thy destiny.” And every man of our world and time, that

is, being acquainted with the essence of the Christian teaching, needs

only for a minute to interrupt his activity, to forget the capacity in

which he is regarded by men, be it of Emperor, soldier, minister, or

journalist, and seriously ask himself who he is and what is his

destiny—in order to begin to doubt the utility, lawfulness, and

reasonableness of his actions. “Before I am Emperor, soldier, minister,

or journalist,” must say to himself every man of our time and of the

Christian world, “before any of these, I am a man—i.e. an organic being

sent by the Higher Will into a universe infinite in time and space, in

order, after staying in it for an instant, to die—i.e. to disappear from

it. And, therefore, all those personal, social, and even universal human

aims which I may place before myself and which are placed before me by

men are all insignificant, owing to the shortness of my life as well as

to the infiniteness of the life of the universe, and should be

subordinated to that higher aim for the attainment of which I am sent

into the world. This ultimate aim, owing to my limitations, is

inaccessible to me, but it does exist (as there must be a purpose in all

that exists), and my business is that of being its instrument—i.e. my

destiny, my vocation, is that of being a workman of God, of fulfilling

His work.” And having understood this destiny, every man of our world

and time, from Emperor to soldier, cannot but regard differently those

duties which he has taken upon himself or other men have imposed upon

him.

“Before I was crowned, recognized as Emperor,” must the Emperor say to

himself: “before I undertook to fulfil the duties of the head of the

State, I, by the very fact that I live, have promised to fulfil that

which is demanded of me by the Higher Will that sent me into life. These

demands I not only know, but feel in my heart. They consist, as it is

expressed in the Christian law, which I profess, in that I should submit

to the will of God, and fulfil that which it requires of me, that I

should love my neighbor, serve him, and act towards him as I would wish

others to act towards me. Am I doing this?—ruling men, prescribing

violence, executions, and, the most dreadful of all,—wars. Men tell me

that I ought to do this. But God says that I ought to do something quite

different. And, therefore, however much I may be told that, as the head

of the State, I must direct acts of violence, the levying of taxes,

executions and, above all, war, that is, the slaughter of one’s

neighbor, I do not wish to and cannot do these things.”

So must say to himself the soldier, who is taught that he must kill men,

and the minister, who deemed it his duty to prepare for war, and the

journalist who incited to war, and every man, who puts to himself the

question, Who is he, what is his destination in life? And the moment the

head of the State will cease to direct war, the soldier to fight, the

minister to prepare means for war, the journalist to incite

thereto—then, without any new institutions, adaptations, balance of

power, tribunals, there will of itself be destroyed that hopeless

position in which men have placed themselves, not only in relation to

war, but also to all other calamities which they themselves inflict upon

themselves.

So that, however strange this may appear, the most effective and certain

deliverance of men from all the calamities which they inflict upon

themselves and from the most dreadful of all—war—is attainable, not by

any external general measures, but merely by that simple appeal to the

consciousness of each separate man which, nineteen hundred years ago,

was proposed by Jesus—that every man bethink himself, and ask himself,

who is he, why he lives, and what he should and should not do.

VII

The evil from which men of our time are suffering is produced by the

fact that the majority live without that which alone affords a rational

guidance for human activity—without religion; not that religion which

consists in belief in dogmas, in the fulfilment of rites which afford a

pleasant diversion, consolation, stimulant, but that religion which

establishes the relation of man to the All, to God, and, therefore,

gives a general higher direction to all human activity, and without

which people stand on the plane of animals and even lower than they.

This evil which is leading men to inevitable destruction has manifested

itself with special power in our time, because, having lost all rational

guidance in life, and having directed all efforts to discoveries and

improvements principally in the sphere of technical knowledge, men of

our time have developed in themselves enormous power over the forces of

nature; but, not having any guidance for the rational adaptation of this

power, they naturally have used it for the satisfaction of their lowest

and most animal propensities.

Bereft of religion, men possessing enormous power over the forces of

nature are like children to whom powder or explosive gas has been given

as a plaything. Considering this power which men of our time possess,

and the way they use it, one feels that considering the degree of their

moral development men have no right, not only to the use of railways,

steam, electricity, telephones, photography, wireless telegraphs, but

even to the simple art of manufacturing iron and steel, as all these

improvements and arts they use only for the satisfaction of their lusts,

for amusement, dissipation, and the destruction of each other.

Then, what is to be done? To reject all these improvements of life, all

this power acquired by humanity—to forget that which it has learnt? This

is impossible, however perniciously these mental acquisitions are used;

they still are acquisitions, and men cannot forget them. To alter those

combinations of nations which have been formed during centuries and to

establish new ones? To invent such new institutions as would hinder the

minority from deceiving and exploiting the majority? To disseminate

knowledge? All this has been tried, and is being done with great fervor.

All these imaginary methods of improvement represent the chief methods

of self-oblivion and of diverting one’s attention from the consciousness

of inevitable perdition. The boundaries of States are changed,

institutions are altered, knowledge is disseminated; but within other

boundaries, with other organizations, with increased knowledge, men

remain the same beasts, ready any minute to tear each other to pieces,

or the same slaves they have always been, and always will be, while they

continue to be guided, not by religious consciousness, but by passions,

theories, and external influences.

Man has no choice; he must be the slave of the most unscrupulous and

insolent amongst slaves, or else the servant of God, because for man

there is only one way of being free—by uniting his will with the will of

God. People bereft of religion, some repudiating religion itself, others

recognizing as religion those external, monstrous forms which have

superseded it, and guided only by their personal lusts, fear, human

laws, and, above all, by mutual hypnotism, cannot cease to be animals or

slaves, and no external efforts can extricate them from this state; for

only religion makes a man free. And most of the people of our time are

deprived of it.

VIII

“But, in order to abolish the evil from which we are suffering,” those

will say who are preoccupied by various practical activities, “it would

be necessary that not a few men only, but all men, should bethink

themselves, and that, having done so, they should uniformly understand

the destination of their lives, in the fulfilment of the will of God and

in the service of one’s neighbor.

“Is this possible?” Not only possible, do I answer, but it is impossible

that this should not take place. It is impossible for men not to bethink

themselves—i.e. impossible that each man should not put to himself the

question as to who he is and wherefore he lives; for man, as a rational

being, cannot live without seeking to know why he lives, and he has

always put to himself this question, and always, according to the degree

of his development, has answered it in his religious teaching. In our

time, the inner contradiction in which men feel themselves elicits this

question with special insistence, and demands an answer. It is

impossible for men of our time to answer this question otherwise than by

recognizing the law of life in love to men and in the service of them,

this being for our time the only rational answer as to the meaning of

human life; and this answer nineteen hundred years ago has been

expressed in the Christian religion and is likewise known to the vast

majority of all mankind.

This answer in a latent state lives in the consciousness of all men of

the Christian world of our time; but it does not openly express itself

and serve as guidance for our life, only because, on the one hand, those

who enjoy the greatest authority, so-called scientists, being under the

coarse error that religion is a temporary and outgrown step in the

development of mankind and that men can live without religion, inculcate

this error to those of the masses who are beginning to be educated; and,

on the other hand, because those in power, sometimes consciously, but

often unconsciously (being under the error that the Church faith is

Christian religion), endeavor to support and excite in the people crude

superstitions given out as the Christian religion. If only these two

deceptions were to be destroyed, then true religion, already latent in

men of our time, would become evident and obligatory.

To bring this about it is necessary that, on the one hand, men of

science should understand that the principle of the brotherhood of all

men and the rule of not doing unto others what one does not wish for

oneself is not one casual idea out of a multitude of human theories

which can be subordinated to any other considerations, but is an

incontestable principle, standing higher than the rest, and flowing from

the changeless relation of man to that which is eternal, to God, and is

religion, all religion, and, therefore, always obligatory.

On the other hand, it is necessary that those who consciously or

unconsciously preach crude superstitions under the guise of Christianity

should understand that all these dogmas, sacraments, and rites which

they support and preach are not only, as they think, harmless, but are

in the highest degree pernicious, concealing from men that central

religious truth which is expressed in the fulfilment of God’s will, in

the service of men, and that the rule of acting toward others as one

would wish others to act toward oneself is not merely one of the

prescriptions of the Christian religion, but is the whole of practical

religion, as indeed is stated in the Gospels.

To bring about that men of our time should uniformly place before

themselves the question of the meaning of life, and uniformly answer it,

it is only necessary that those who regard themselves as enlightened

should cease to think and to inculcate to other generations that

religion is atavism, the survival of a past wild state, and that for the

good life of men the spreading of education is sufficient—i.e. the

spread of the most varied knowledge which is in some way to bring men to

justice and to a moral life. These men should understand instead that

for the good life of humanity religion is vital, and that this religion

already exists and lives in the consciousness of the men of our time.

Men who are intentionally and unintentionally stupefying the people by

church superstitions should cease to do so, and recognize that what is

important and binding in Christianity is not baptism, nor Communion, nor

profession of dogmas, etc., but only love to God and to one’s neighbor,

and the fulfilling of the commandment of acting toward others as one

wishes others to act toward oneself—and that in this lies all the law

and the prophets.

If only both pseudo-Christians and men of science understood and

preached to children and to the uneducated these simple, clear, and

necessary truths as they now preach their complicated, confused, and

unnecessary theories, all men would uniformly understand the meaning of

their lives and recognize one and the same duties as flowing from this

meaning.

IX

But “How are we to act now, immediately among ourselves, in Russia, at

this moment, when our foes have already attacked us, are killing our

people, and threatening us; what should be the action,” I shall be

asked, “of a Russian soldier, officer, general, Tsar, private

individual? Are we, forsooth, to allow our enemies to ruin our

possessions, to seize the productions of our labors, to carry away

prisoners, or kill our men? What are we to do now that this thing has

begun?”

But before the work of war was commenced, by whomsoever it was

commenced—every awakened man must answer—before all else the work of my

life was commenced. And the work of my life has nothing in common with

recognition of the rights of the Chinese, Japanese, or Russians to Port

Arthur. The work of my life consists in fulfilling the will of Him who

sent me into this life. This will is known to me. This will is that I

should love my neighbor and serve him. Then why should I, following

temporary, casual, irrational, and cruel demands, deviate from the known

eternal and changeless law of all my life? If there be a God, He will

not ask me when I die (which may happen at any moment) whether I

retained Chi-nam-po with its timber stores, or Port Arthur, or even that

conglomeration which is called the Russian Empire, which He did not

confide to my care; but He will ask me what I have done with that life

which He put at my disposal;—did I use it for the purpose for which it

was predestined, and under the conditions for fulfilling which it was

intrusted to me? Have I fulfilled His law?

So that to this question as to what is to be done now, when war is

commenced, for me, a man who understands his destiny, whatever position

I may occupy, there can be no other answer than this, whatever be my

circumstances, whether the war be commenced or not, whether thousands of

Russians or Japanese be killed, whether not only Port Arthur be taken,

but St. Petersburg and Moscow—I cannot act otherwise than as God demands

of me, and that therefore I as a man can neither directly nor

indirectly, neither by directing, nor by helping, nor by inciting to it,

participate in war; I cannot, I do not wish to, and I will not. What

will happen immediately or soon, from my ceasing to do that which is

contrary to the will of God, I do not and cannot know; but I believe

that from the fulfilment of the will of God there can follow nothing but

that which is good for me and for all men.

You speak with horror about what might happen if we Russians at this

moment ceased to fight, and surrendered to the Japanese what they desire

from us. But if it be true that the salvation of mankind from

brutalization and self-destruction lies only in the establishment

amongst men of that true religion which demands that we should love our

neighbor and serve him (with which it is impossible to disagree), then

every war, every hour of war, and my participation in it, only renders

more difficult and distant the realization of this only possible

salvation.

So that, even if one places oneself on the unstable point of view of

defining actions according to their presumed consequences—even then the

surrender to the Japanese by the Russians of all which the former desire

of us, besides the unquestionable advantage of the cessation of ruin and

slaughter, would be an approach to the only means of the salvation of

mankind from destruction; whereas the continuance of the war, however it

may end, will be a postponement of that only means of salvation.

“Yet even if this be so,” it is replied, “wars can cease only when all

men, or the majority, will refuse to participate in them. But the

refusal of one man, whether he be Tsar or soldier, would only,

unnecessarily, and without the slightest profit to any one, ruin his

life. If the Russian Tsar were now to throw up the war, he would be

dethroned, perhaps killed, in order to get rid of him; if an ordinary

man were to refuse military service, he would be sent to a penal

battalion and perhaps shot. Why, then, without the slightest use should

one throw away one’s life, which may be profitable to society?” is the

common question of those who do not think of the destination of their

life and therefore do not understand it.

But this is not what is said and felt by any man who understands the

destination of his life—i.e. by any religious man. Such a man is guided

in his activity not by the presumed consequences of his action, but by

the consciousness of the destination of his life. A factory workman goes

to his factory and in it accomplishes the work which is allotted him

without considering what will be the consequences of his labor. In the

same way a soldier acts, carrying out the will of his commanders. So

acts a religious man in fulfilling the work prescribed to him by God,

without arguing as to what precisely will come of that work. Therefore

for a religious man there is no question as to whether many or few men

act as he does, or of what may happen to him if he does that which he

should do. He knows that besides life and death nothing can happen, and

that life and death are in the hands of God whom he obeys.

A religious man acts thus and not otherwise, not because he desires to

act thus, nor because it is advantageous to himself or to other men, but

because, believing that his life is in the hands of God, he cannot act

otherwise.

In this lies the distinction of the activity of religious men; and

therefore it is that the salvation of men from the calamities which they

inflict upon themselves can be realized only in that degree in which

they are guided in their lives, not by advantage nor arguments, but by

religious consciousness.

X

“But how about the enemies that attack us?”

“Love your enemies, and ye will have none,” is said in the teaching of

the Twelve Apostles. This answer is not merely words, as those may

imagine who are accustomed to think that the recommendation of love to

one’s enemies is something hyperbolical, and signifies not that which

expressed, but something else. This answer is the indication of a very

clear and definite activity, and of its consequences.

To love one’s enemies—the Japanese, the Chinese, those yellow people

toward whom benighted men are now endeavoring to excite our hatred—to

love them means not to kill them for the purpose of having the right of

poisoning them with opium, as did the English; not to kill them in order

to seize their land, as was done by the French, the Russians, and the

Germans; not to bury them alive in punishment for injuring roads, not to

tie them together by their hair, not to drown them in their river Amur,

as did the Russians.

“A disciple is not above his master.… It is enough for a disciple that

he be as his master.”

To love the yellow people, whom we call our foes, means, not to teach

them under the name of Christianity absurd superstitions about the fall

of man, redemption, resurrection, etc., not to teach them the art of

deceiving and killing others, but to teach them justice, unselfishness,

compassion, love—and that not by words, but by the example of our own

good life. And what have we been doing to them, and are still doing?

If we did indeed love our enemies, if even now we began to love our

enemies, the Japanese, we would have no enemy.

Therefore, however strange it may appear to those occupied with military

plans, preparations, diplomatic considerations, administrative,

financial, economical measures, revolutionary, socialistic propaganda,

and various unnecessary sciences, by which they think to save mankind

from its calamities, the deliverance of man, not only from the

calamities of war, but also from all the calamities which men inflict

upon themselves, will take place not through emperors or kings

instituting peace alliances, not through those who would dethrone

emperors, kings, or restrain them by constitutions, or substitute

republics for monarchies, not by peace conferences, not by the

realization of socialistic programmes, not by victories or defeats on

land or sea, not by libraries or universities, nor by those futile

mental exercises which are now called science; but only by there being

more and more of those simple men who, like the Dukhobors, Drojjin,

Olkhovik, in Russia, the Nazarenes in Austria, Condatier in France,

Tervey in Holland, and others, having placed as their object not

external alterations of life, but the closest fulfilment in themselves

of the will of Him who has sent them into life, will direct all their

powers to this realization. Only such people realizing the Kingdom of

God in themselves, in their souls, will establish, without directly

aiming at this purpose, that external Kingdom of God which every human

soul is longing for.

Salvation will come to pass only in this one way and not in any other.

Therefore what is now being done by those who, ruling men, inspire them

with religious and patriotic superstitions, exciting in them

exclusiveness, hatred, and murder, as well as by those who, for the

purpose of freeing men from slavery and oppression, invoke them to

violent external revolution, or think that the acquisition by men of

very much incidental and for the most part unnecessary information will

of itself bring them to a good life—all this, by distracting men from

what alone they need, only removes them further from the possibility of

salvation.

The evil from which the men of the Christian world suffer is that they

have temporarily lost religion.

Some people, having come to see the discord between the existing

religion and the degree of mental and scientific development attained by

humanity at the present time, have decided that in general no religion

whatever is necessary. They live without religion and preach the

uselessness of any religion of whatever kind. Others, holding to that

distorted form of the Christian religion which is now preached, likewise

live without religion, professing empty external forms, which cannot

serve as guidance for men.

Yet a religion which answers to the demands of our time does exist and

is known to all men, and in a latent state lives in the hearts of men of

the Christian world. Therefore that this religion should become evident

to and binding upon all men, it is only necessary that educated men—the

leaders of the masses—should understand that religion is necessary to

man, that without religion men cannot live a good life, and that what

they call science cannot replace religion; and that those in power and

who support the old empty forms of religion should understand that what

they support and preach under the form of religion is not only not

religion, but is the chief obstacle to men’s appropriating the true

religion which they already know, and which can alone deliver them from

their calamities. So that the only certain means of man’s salvation

consists merely in ceasing to do that which hinders men from

assimilating the true religion which already lives in their

consciousness.

XI

I had finished this writing when news came of the destruction of six

hundred innocent lives opposite Port Arthur. It would seem that the

useless suffering and death of these unfortunate deluded men who have

needlessly and so dreadfully perished ought to disabuse those who were

the cause of this destruction. I am not alluding to Makaroff and other

officers—all these men knew what they were doing, and wherefore, and

they voluntarily, for personal advantage, for ambition, did as they did,

disguising themselves in pretended patriotism, a pretence not condemned

merely because it is universal. I allude rather to those unfortunate men

drawn from all parts of Russia, who, by the help of religious fraud, and

under fear of punishment, have been torn from an honest, reasonable,

useful, laborious family life, driven to the other end of the world,

placed on a cruel, senseless machine for slaughter, and torn to bits,

drowned along with this stupid machine in a distant sea, without any

need or any possibility of advantage from all their privations, efforts,

and sufferings, or from the death which overtook them.

In 1830, during the Polish war, the adjutant Vilijinsky sent to St.

Petersburg by Klopitsky, in a conversation held in French with Dibitch,

in answer to the latter’s demand that the Russian troops should enter

Poland, said to him:—

“Monsieur le Maréchal, I think that in that case it will be quite

impossible for the Polish nation to accept this manifesto.…”

“Believe me, the Emperor will make no further concessions.”

“Then I foresee that, unhappily, there will be war, that much blood will

be shed, there will be many unfortunate victims.”

“Do not think so; at most there will be ten thousand who will perish on

both sides, and that is all,”[1] said Dibitch in his German accent,

quite confident that he, together with another man as cruel and foreign

to Russian and Polish life as he was himself,—Nicholas I,—had the right

to condemn or not to condemn to death ten or a hundred thousand Russians

and Poles.

One hardly believes that this could have been, so senseless and dreadful

is it,—and yet it was; sixty thousand maintainers of their families lost

their lives owing to the will of those men. And now the same thing is

taking place.

In order not to let the Japanese into Manchuria, and to expel them from

Korea, not ten thousand, but fifty and more thousands will, according to

all probability, be necessary. I do not know whether Nicholas II and

Kuropatkin say like Dibitch in so many words that not more than fifty

thousand lives will be necessary for this on the Russian side alone,

only and only that; but they think it—they cannot but think it, because

the work they are doing speaks for itself; that ceaseless stream of

unfortunate, deluded Russian peasants now being transported by thousands

to the Far East—these are those same not more than fifty thousand live

Russian men whom Nicholas Romanoff and Alexis Kuropatkin have decided

they may get killed, and who will be killed, in support of those

stupidities, robberies, and every kind of abomination which were

accomplished in China and Korea by immoral ambitious men now sitting

peacefully in their palaces and expecting new glory and new advantage

and profit from the slaughter of these fifty thousand unfortunate,

defrauded Russian workingmen guilty of nothing and gaining nothing by

their sufferings and death. For other people’s land, to which the

Russians have no right, which has been criminally seized from its

legitimate owners, and which, in reality, is not even necessary to the

Russians—and also for certain dark dealings by speculators, who in Korea

wished to gain money out of other people’s forests—many millions of

money are spent, i.e. a great part of the labor of the whole of the

Russian people, while the future generations of this people are bound by

debts, its best workmen are withdrawn from labor, and scores of

thousands of its sons are mercilessly doomed to death; and the

destruction of these unfortunate men is already begun. More than this:

the war is being managed by those who have hatched it so badly, so

negligently, all is so unexpected, so unprepared, that, as one paper

admits, Russia’s chief chance of success lies in the fact that it

possesses inexhaustible human material. It is upon this that those rely

who send to death scores of thousands of Russian men!

It is frankly said that the regrettable reverses of our fleet must be

compensated on the land. In plain language this means that if the

authorities have badly directed things on sea, and by their negligence

have destroyed not only the nation’s millions, but thousands of lives,

we can make it up by condemning to death on land several more scores of

thousands!

When crawling locusts cross rivers, it happens that the lower layers are

drowned until from the bodies of the drowned is formed a bridge over

which the upper ranks can pass. In the same way are the Russian people

being disposed of. Thus the first lower layer is already beginning to

drown, indicating the way to other thousands, who will all likewise

perish.

And are the originators, directors, and supporters of this dreadful work

beginning to understand their sin, their crime? Not in the least. They

are quite persuaded that they have fulfilled, and are fulfilling, their

duty, and they are proud of their activity. People speak of the loss of

the brave Makaroff, who, as all agree, was able to kill men very

cleverly; they deplore the loss of a drowned excellent machine of

slaughter which had cost so many millions of roubles; they discuss the

question of how to find another murderer as capable as the poor

benighted Makaroff; they invent new, still more efficacious, tools of

slaughter; and all the guilty men engaged in this dreadful work, from

the Tsar to the humblest journalist, all with one voice call for new

insanities, new cruelties, for the increase of brutality and hatred of

one’s fellow-men.

“Makaroff is not the only man in Russia, and every admiral placed in his

position will follow in his steps and will continue the plan and the

idea of Makaroff, who has nobly perished in the strife,” writes the

Novoe Vremya.

“Let us earnestly pray God for those who have laid down their lives for

the sacred Fatherland, without doubting for one moment that the

Fatherland will give us new sons, equally virtuous, for the further

struggle, and will find in them an inexhaustible store of strength for a

worthy completion of the work,” writes the St. Petersburg Viedomosti.

“A ripe nation will draw no other conclusion from the defeat, however

unprecedented, than that we should continue, develop, and conclude the

strife; therefore let us find in ourselves new strength; new heroes of

the spirit will arise,” writes the Russ,—and so forth.

So murder and every kind of crime go on with greater fury. People

enthusiastically admire the martial spirit of the volunteers who, having

come unexpectedly upon fifty of their fellow-men, slay all of them, or

take possession of a village and slaughter all its population, or hang

or shoot those accused of being spies—i.e. of doing the very same thing

which is regarded as indispensable and is constantly done on our side.

News about these crimes is reported in pompous telegrams to their chief

director, the Tsar, who, in return, sends to his virtuous troops his

blessing on the continuation of such deeds.

Is it not evident that, if there be a salvation from this position, it

is only one: that one which Jesus teaches?—“Seek ye first the Kingdom of

God and His righteousness (that which is within you), and all the

rest—i.e. all that practical welfare toward which man is striving—will

of itself be realized.”

Such is the law of life: practical welfare is attained not when man

strives toward this practical welfare—such striving, on the contrary,

for the most part removes man from the attainment of what he seeks; but

only when man, without thinking of the attainment of practical welfare,

strives toward the most perfect fulfilment of that which before God,

before the Source and Law of his life, he regards as right. Then only,

incidentally, is practical welfare also attained.

So that the true salvation of men is only one thing: the fulfilment of

the will of God by each individual man within himself—i.e. in that

portion of the universe which alone is subject to his power. In this is

the chief, the only, destiny and duty of every individual man, and at

the same time this is the only means by which every individual man can

influence others; and, therefore, to this, and to this only, should all

the efforts of every man be directed.

May 2, 1904.

XII

I had only just despatched the last of the preceding pages of this paper

when the dreadful news came of a new iniquity committed in regard to the

Russian people by those light-minded men who, crazed with power, have

appropriated the right of managing them. Again coarse and servile slaves

of slaves, dressed up in various dazzling attires—varieties of Generals

wishing to distinguish themselves, or to earn the right to add one more

little star, fingle fangle, or scrap of ribbon to their idiotic glaring

get-up, or else from stupidity or carelessness—again these miserable men

have destroyed amid dreadful sufferings thousands of those honorable,

kind, hard-working laborers who feed them. And again this iniquity not

only does not cause those responsible for it to reflect and repent, but

one hears and reads only about its being necessary as speedily as

possible to mutilate and slaughter a greater number of men, and to ruin

still more families, both Russian and Japanese.

More than this, to prepare men for fresh iniquities of this kind, the

perpetrators of these crimes, far from recognizing what is evident to

all—viz. that for the Russians this event, even from their patriotic,

military point of view, was a scandalous defeat—endeavor to assure

credulous people that these unfortunate Russian laboring men—lured into

a trap like cattle into a slaughterhouse, of whom several thousands have

been killed and maimed merely because one General did not understand

what another General had said—have performed an act of heroism because

those who could not run away were killed and those who did run away

remained alive. As to the fact that one of these immoral and cruel men,

distinguished by the titles of Generals, Admirals, drowned a quantity of

peaceful Japanese, this is also described as a great and glorious act of

heroism, which must gladden the hearts of Russians. And in all the

papers are reprinted this awful appeal to murder:—

“Let the two thousand Russian soldiers killed on the Yalu, together with

the maimed Retvisan and her sister ships, with our lost torpedo-boats,

teach our cruisers with what devastation they must break in upon the

shores of base Japan. She has sent her soldiers to shed Russian blood,

and no quarter should be afforded her. Now one cannot—it is sinful—be

sentimental; we must fight; we must direct such heavy blows that the

memory of them shall freeze the treacherous hearts of the Japanese. Now

is the time for the cruisers to go out to sea to reduce to ashes the

towns of Japan, flying as a dreadful calamity along its shores. No more

sentimentality.”

The frightful work commenced is continued. Loot, violence, murder,

hypocrisy, theft, and, above all, the most fearful fraud—the distortion

of religious teachings, both Christian and Buddhistic—continue. The

Tsar, the chief responsible person, continues to review the troops, to

thank, reward, and encourage them; he issues an edict for the calling

out of the reserves; his faithful subjects again and again lay down

their property and lives at the feet of him they call, only with their

lips, their adored Monarch. On the other hand, desiring to distinguish

themselves before each other in deeds and not in words only, they tear

away the fathers and the bread-winners from their orphaned families,

preparing them for slaughter. The worse the position of Russia, the more

recklessly do the journalists lie, transforming shameful defeats into

victories, knowing that no one will contradict them; and they quietly

collect money from subscriptions and sales. The more money and labor of

the people is devoted to the war, the more is grabbed by various

authorities and speculators, who know that no one will convict them

because every one is doing the same. The military, trained for murder,

having passed years in a school of inhumanity, coarseness, and idleness,

rejoice—poor men—because, besides an increase of their salary, the

slaughter of superiors opens vacancies for their promotion. Christian

pastors continue to invite men to the greatest of crimes, continue to

commit sacrilege, praying God to help the work of war; and, instead of

condemning, they justify and praise that pastor who, with the cross in

his hands on the very scene of murder, encouraged men to the crime. The

same thing is going on in Japan. The benighted Japanese go in for murder

with yet greater fervor, owing to their victories; the Mikado also

reviews and rewards his troops; various Generals boast of their bravery,

imagining that, having learned to kill, they have acquired

enlightenment. So, too, groan the unfortunate working people torn from

useful labor and from their families. So their journalists also lie and

rejoice over their gains. Also probably—for where murder is elevated

into virtue every kind of vice is bound to flourish—also probably all

kinds of commanders and speculators earn money; and Japanese theologians

and religious teachers no less than the masters in the techniques of

armament do not remain behind the Europeans in the techniques of

religious deceit and sacrilege, but distort the great Buddhistic

teaching by not only permitting but justifying that murder which Buddha

forbade. The Buddhistic scientist, Soyen-Shaku, ruling over eight

hundred monasteries, explains that although Buddha forbade manslaughter

he also said he could never be at peace until all beings are united in

the infinitely loving heart of all things, and that, therefore, in order

to bring into harmony that which is discordant it is necessary to fight

and to kill men.[2]

It is as if there never had existed the Christian and Buddhistic

teaching about the unity of the human spirit, the brotherhood of men,

love, compassion, the sacredness of human life. Men, both Japanese and

Russians, already enlightened by the truth, yet like wild animals, nay,

worse than wild animals, throw themselves upon each other with the sole

desire to destroy as many lives as possible. Thousands of unfortunates

groan and writhe in cruel sufferings and die in agony in Japanese and

Russian field hospitals, asking themselves in bewilderment why this

fearful thing was done with them, while other thousands are already

rotting in the earth or on the earth, or floating in the sea, in swollen

decomposition. And scores of thousands of wives, fathers, mothers,

children, are bemoaning their bread-winners; uselessly destroyed. Yet

all this is still too little; new and newer victims are being prepared.

The chief concern of the Russian organizers of slaughter is that on the

Russian side the stream of food for cannon—three thousand men per day

doomed to destruction—should not be interrupted for one minute. The

Japanese are preoccupied with the same thing. The locusts are

incessantly being driven down into the river in order that the rows

behind may pass over the bodies.

When will this cease, and the deceived people at last recover themselves

and say: “Well, go you yourselves, you heartless Tsars, Mikados,

Ministers, Bishops, priests, generals, editors, speculators, or however

you may be called, go you yourselves under these shells and bullets, but

we do not wish to go and we will not go. Leave us in peace, to plough,

and sow, and build,—and also to feed you.” It would be so natural to say

this now, when amongst us in Russia resounds the weeping and wailing of

hundreds of thousands of mothers, wives, and children, from whom are

being snatched away their bread-earners, the so-called “reserve.” These

same men, the majority of the reserve, are able to read; they know what

the Far East is; they know that war is going on, not for anything which

is in the least necessary to Russia, but for some dealings in strange

land, leased lands, as they themselves call them, on which it seemed

advantageous to some corrupt speculators to build railways and so gain

profit; also they know, or might know, that they will be killed like

sheep in a slaughterhouse, since the Japanese possess the latest

improvements in tools of murder, which we do not, as the Russian

authorities who are sending these people to death had not thought in

time of furnishing themselves with the same weapons as the Japanese.

Knowing all this, it would indeed be so natural to say, “Go you, those

who have brought on this work, all you to whom war is necessary, and who

justify it; go you, and face the Japanese bullets and mines, but we will

not go, because we not only do not need to do this, but we cannot

understand how it can be necessary to any one.”

But no, they do not say this; they go, and they will continue to go;

they cannot but go as long as they fear that which ruins the body and

not that which ruins both the body and the soul. “Whether we shall be

killed,” they argue, “or maimed in these chinnampos, or whatever they

are called, whither we are driven, we do not know; it yet may happen

that we shall get through safely, and, moreover, with rewards and glory,

like those sailors who are now being feasted all over Russia because the

Japanese bombs and bullets did not hit them, but somebody else; whereas

should we refuse, we should be certainly sent to prison, starved,

beaten, exiled to the province of Yakoutsk, perhaps even killed

immediately.” So with despair in their hearts, leaving behind a good

rational life, leaving their wives and their children,—they go.

Yesterday I met a Reservist soldier accompanied by his mother and wife.

All three were riding in a cart; he had had a drop too much; his wife’s

face was swollen with tears. He turned to me:—

“Good-by to thee! Lyof Nikolaevitch, off to the Far East.”

“Well, art thou going to fight?”

“Well, some one has to fight!”

“No one need fight!”

He reflected for a moment. “But what is one to do; where can one

escape?”

I saw that he had understood me, had understood that the work to which

he was being sent was an evil work.

“Where can one escape?” That is the precise expression of that mental

condition which in the official and journalistic world is translated

into the words—“For the Faith, the Tsar, and the Fatherland.” Those who,

abandoning their hungry families, go to suffering, to death, say as they

feel, “Where can one escape?” Whereas those who sit in safety in their

luxurious palaces say that all Russian men are ready to sacrifice their

lives for their adored Monarch, and for the glory and greatness of

Russia.

Yesterday, from a peasant I know, I received two letters, one after the

other. This is the first:—

“Dear Lyof Nikolaevitch,—Well, to-day I have received the official

announcement of my call to the Service; to-morrow I must present myself

at the headquarters. That is all. And after that—to the Far East to meet

the Japanese bullets. About my own and my household’s grief I will not

tell you; it is not you who will fail to understand all the horror of my

position and the horrors of war; all this you have long ago painfully

realized, and you understand it all. How I have longed to visit you, to

have a talk with you! I had written to you a long letter in which I

described the torments of my soul; but I had not had time to copy it,

when I received my summons. What is my wife to do now with her four

children? As an old man, of course, you cannot do anything yourself for

my folks, but you might ask some of your friends in their leisure to

visit my orphaned family. I beg you earnestly that if my wife proves

unable to bear the agony of her helplessness with her burden of children

and makes up her mind to go to you for help and counsel, you will

receive and console her. Although she does not know you personally, she

believes in your word, and that means much. I was not able to resist the

summons, but I say beforehand that through me not one Japanese family

shall be orphaned. My God! how dreadful is all this—how distressing and

painful to abandon all by which one lives and in which one is

concerned.”

The second letter is as follows: “Kindest Lyof Nikolaevitch, Only one

day of actual service has passed, and I have already lived through an

eternity of most desperate torments. From 8 o’clock in the morning till

9 in the evening we have been crowded and knocked about to and fro in

the barrack yard, like a herd of cattle. The comedy of medical

examination was three times repeated, and those who had reported

themselves ill did not receive even ten minutes’ attention before they

were marked ‘Satisfactory.’ When we, these two thousand satisfactory

individuals, were driven from the military commander to the barracks,

along the road spread out for almost a verst stood a crowd of relatives,

mothers, and wives with infants in arms; and if you had only heard and

seen how they clasped their fathers, husbands, sons, and hanging round

their necks wailed hopelessly! Generally I behave in a reserved way and

can restrain my feelings, but I could not hold out, and I also wept. [In

journalistic language this same is expressed thus: “The upheaval of

patriotic feeling is immense.”] Where is the standard that can measure

all this immensity of woe now spreading itself over almost one-third of

the world? And we, we are now that food for cannon, which in the near

future will be offered as sacrifice to the God of vengeance and horror.

I cannot manage to establish my inner balance. Oh! how I execrate myself

for this double-mindedness which prevents my serving one Master and

God.”

This man does not yet sufficiently believe that what destroys the body

is not dreadful, but that which destroys both the body and the soul,

therefore he cannot refuse to go; yet while leaving his own family he

promises beforehand that through him not one Japanese family shall be

orphaned; he believes in the chief law of God, the law of all

religions—to act toward others as one wishes others to act toward

oneself. Of such men more or less consciously recognizing this law,

there are in our time, not in the Christian world alone, but in the

Buddhistic, Mahomedan, Confucian, and Brahminic world, not only

thousands but millions.

There exist true heroes, not those who are now being fêted because,

having wished to kill others, they were not killed themselves, but true

heroes, who are now confined in prisons and in the province of Yakoutsk

for having categorically refused to enter the ranks of murderers, and

who have preferred martyrdom to this departure from the law of Jesus.

There are also such as he who writes to me, who go, but who will not

kill. But also that majority which goes without thinking, and endeavors

not to think of what it is doing, still in the depth of its soul does

now already feel that it is doing an evil deed by obeying authorities

who tear men from labor and from their families and send them to

needless slaughter of men, repugnant to their soul and their faith; and

they go only because they are so entangled on all sides that—“Where can

one escape?”

Meanwhile those who remain at home not only feel this, but know and

express it. Yesterday in the high road I met some peasants returning

from Toula. One of them was reading a leaflet as he walked by the side

of his cart.

I asked, “What is that—a telegram?”

“This is yesterday’s,—but here is one of to-day.” He took another out of

his pocket. We stopped. I read it.

“You should have seen what took place yesterday at the station,” he

said; “it was dreadful. Wives, children, more than a thousand of them,

weeping. They surrounded the train, but were allowed no further.

Strangers wept, looking on. One woman from Toula gasped and fell down

dead. Five children. They have since been placed in various

institutions; but the father was driven away all the same.… What do we

want with this Manchuria, or whatever it is called? There is sufficient

land here. And what a lot of people and of property has been destroyed.”

Yes, the relation of men to war is now quite different from that which

formerly existed, even so lately as the year ’77. That which is now

taking place never took place before.

The papers set forth that, during the receptions of the Tsar, who is

travelling about Russia for the purpose of hypnotizing the men who are

being sent to murder, indescribable enthusiasm is manifested amongst the

people. As a matter of fact, something quite different is being

manifested. From all sides one hears reports that in one place three

Reservists have hanged themselves; in another spot, two more; in yet

another, about a woman whose husband had been taken away bringing her

children to the conscription committee-room and leaving them there;

while another hanged herself in the yard of the military commander. All

are dissatisfied, gloomy, exasperated. The words, “For the Faith, the

King, and the Fatherland,” the National Anthem, and shouts of “Hurrah”

no longer act upon people as they once did. Another warfare of a

different kind—the struggling consciousness of the deceit and sinfulness

of the work to which people are being called—is more and more taking

possession of the people.

Yes, the great strife of our time is not that now taking place between

the Japanese and the Russians, nor that which may blaze up between the

white and yellow races, not that strife which is carried on by mines,

bombs, bullets, but that spiritual strife which without ceasing has gone

on and is now going on between the enlightened consciousness of mankind

now waiting for manifestation and that darkness and that burden which

surrounds and oppresses mankind.

In His own time Jesus yearned in expectation, and said, “I came to cast

fire upon the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled.” Luke

xii. 49.

That which Jesus longed for is being accomplished, the fire is being

kindled. Then do not let us check it, but let us spread and serve it.

13 May, 1904.

I should never finish this paper if I were to continue to add to it all

that corroborates its essential idea. Yesterday the news came in of the

sinking of the Japanese ironclads; and in the so-called higher circles

of Russian fashionable, rich, intellectual society they are, without the

slightest conscientious scruples, rejoicing at the destruction of a

thousand human lives. Yet to-day I have received from a simple seaman, a

man standing on the lowest plane of society, the following letter:[3]

“Much respected Lyof Nikolaevitch, I greet you with a low bow, with

love, much respected Lyof Nikolaevitch. I have read your book. It was

very pleasant reading for me. I have been a great lover of reading your

works. Well, Lyof Nikolaevitch, we are now in a state of war, please

write to me whether it is agreeable to God or not that our commanders

compel us to kill. I beg you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, write to me please

whether or not the truth now exists on earth. Tell me, Lyof

Nikolaevitch. In church here a prayer is being read, the priest mentions

the Christ-loving army. Is it true or not that God loves war? I pray

you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, have you got any books from which I could see

whether truth exists on earth or not? Send me such books. What they

cost, I will pay. I beg you, Lyof Nikolaevitch, do not neglect my

request. If there are no books then send me a letter. I will be very

glad when I receive a letter from you. I will await your letter with

impatience. Good-by for the present. I remain alive and well and wish

the same to you from the Lord God. Good health and good success in your

work.”

[1] Vilijinsky adds on his own behalf, “The Field-Marshal did not then

think that more than sixty thousand Russians alone would perish in this

war, not so much from the enemy’s fire as from disease—nor that he would

himself be amongst their number.”

[2] In the article it is said: “This triple world is my own possession.

All the things therein are my own children … the ten thousand things in

this world are no more than the reflections of my own self. They come

from the one source. They partake of the one body. Therefore I cannot

rest, until every being, even the smallest possible fragment of

existence, is settled down to its proper appointment.… This is the

position taken by the Buddha, and we, his humble followers, are but to

walk in his wake. Why, then, do we fight at all? Because we do not find

this world as it ought to be. Because there are here so many perverted

creatures, so many wayward thoughts, so many ill-directed hearts, due to

ignorant subjectivity. For this reason Buddhists are never tired of

combating all productions of ignorance, and their fight must be to the

bitter end. They will show no quarter. They will mercilessly destroy the

very root from which arises the misery of this life. To accomplish this

end, they will never be afraid of sacrificing their lives.…” There

follow, just as is usual with us, entangled arguments about

self-sacrifice and kindness, about the transmigration of souls and about

much else—all this for the sole purpose of concealing the simple and

clear commandment of Buddha: not to kill. Further it is said: “The hand

that is raised to strike and the eye that is fixed to take aim do not

belong to the individual, but are the instruments utilized by a

principle higher than transient existence.” (“The Open Court,” May,

1904. “Buddhist Views of War,” by the Right Rev. Soyen-Shaku.)

[3] The letter is written in a most illiterate way, filled with mistakes

in orthography and punctuation.