The military rules and regulations of every country are practically the same as those formulated in the Russian military code.
"87. To fulfil exactly, and without comment, the orders of the superior officers, means—to execute orders with precision, without considering whether they are good or bad, or whether their execution be possible. Only the superior is responsible for the consequences of his order.
"88. The only occasion on which the inferior should not obey the order of his superior is when he sees plainly that in obeying it ..." (Here one naturally thinks it will surely go on to say when he plainly sees that in fulfilling the order of his superior he violates the law of God. Not at all; it goes on to say:) "sees plainly that he violates the oath of allegiance and duty to his sovereign."
It is stated in the code that a man, in becoming a soldier, can and must execute all the orders, without exception, which he receives from his superior; orders which, for a soldier, are for the most part connected with murder. He may violate every law, human and divine, as long as he does not violate his oath of allegiance to him who, at a given time, happens to be in power.
Thus it stands in the Russian military code, and this is the substance of the military codes of other nations. It could not be otherwise. The foundations of the power of the State rest upon the delusion by means of which men are set free from their obligations to God and to their own consciences, and bound to obey the will of a casual superior.
This is the basis of the appalling conviction that prevails among the lower classes, that the existing system, so ruinous to them, is necessary and justifiable, and that it must be maintained by outrage and murder.
This is inevitable. In order to force the lower, the more numerous classes to act as their own oppressors and tormentors, to commit deeds contrary to their consciences, it is necessary to deceive them.
And this is done.
Not long since I saw again put into practice this shameful deception, and again wondered to see it effected without opposition and so audaciously.
In the beginning of November, on my way through Tula, I saw at the gates of the Zemskaya Uprava the familiar dense crowd of men and women, from which issued the sounds of drunken voices, blended with the heartrending sobs of the wives and mothers.