Anarchism

by Paul Eltzbacher

II. Together with law Tolstoi necessarily has to reject also, for the more highly developed nations of our time, the legal institution of the State.

"Perhaps there was once a time when, in a low state of morality with a general inclination of men to mutual violence, the existence of a power limiting this violence was advantageous—that is, in which the State violence was less than that of individuals against each other. But such an advantage of State violence over its non-existence could not last; the more the individuals' inclination to violence decreased and manners grew milder, and the more the governments degenerated by having nothing to check them, the more worthless did State violence grow. In this change—in the moral evolution of the masses on the one hand and the degeneration of the governments on the other—lies the whole history of the last two thousand years."[979] "I cannot prove either the general necessity of the State or its general perniciousness,"[980] "I know only that on the one hand the State is no longer necessary for me, and that on the other hand I can no longer do the things that are necessary for the existence of the State."[981]

"Christianity in its true significance abolishes the State,"[982] annihilates all government.[983] The State offends against love, particularly against the commandment not to resist evil by force.[984] And not only this; in founding a dominion[985] the State furthermore offends against the principle that for love "all men are God's sons and there is equality among them all";[986] it is therefore to be rejected even aside from the violence on which it is based as a legal institution. "That the Christian teaching has an eye only to the redemption of the individual, and does not relate to public questions and State affairs, is a bold and unfounded assertion."[987] "To every honest, earnest man in our time it must be clear that true Christianity—the doctrine of humility, forgiveness, love—is incompatible with the State and its haughtiness, its deeds of violence, its capital punishments and wars."[988] "The State is an idol";[989] its objectionableness is independent of its form, be this "absolute monarchy, the Convention, the Consulate, the empire of a first or third Napoleon or yet of a Boulanger, constitutional monarchy, the Commune, or the republic."[990]—Tolstoi carries this out into detail.

1. The State is the rule of the bad, raised to the highest pitch.

The State is rule. Government in the State is "an association of men who do violence to the rest."[991]

"All governments, the despotic and the liberal alike, have in our time become what Herzen has so aptly called a Jenghis Khan with telegraphs."[992] The men in whom the power is vested "practise violence not in order to overcome evil, but solely for their advantage or from caprice; and the other men submit to the violence not because they believe that it is practised for their good,—that is, in order to liberate them from evil,—but only because they cannot free themselves from it."[993] "If Nice is united with France, Lorraine with Germany, Bohemia with Austria, if Poland is divided, if both Ireland and India are subjected to the English dominion, if people fight with China, kill the Africans, expel the Chinese from America, and persecute the Jews in Russia, it is not because this is good or necessary or useful for men and the opposite would be evil, but only because it so pleases those in whom the power is vested."[994]

The State is the rule of the bad.[995] "'If the State power were to be annihilated, the wicked would rule over the less wicked,' say the defenders of State rule."[996] But has the power, when it has passed from some men to some others in the State, really always come to the better men? "When Louis the Sixteenth, Robespierre, Napoleon, came to power, who ruled then, the better or the worse? When did the better rule, when the power was vested in the Versaillese or in the Communards, when Charles the First or Cromwell stood at the head of the government? When Peter the Third was czar, and then when after his murder the authority of czar was exercised in one part of Russia by Catharine and in another by Pugatcheff, who was wicked then and who was good? All men who find themselves in power assert that their power is necessary in order that the wicked may not do violence to the good, and regard it as self-evident that they are the good and are giving the rest of the good protection against the bad."[997] But in reality those who grasp and hold the power cannot possibly be the better.[998] "In order to obtain and retain power, one must love it. But the effort after power is not apt to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities, pride, craft, and cruelty. Without exalting self and abasing others, without hypocrisy, lying, prisons, fortresses, penalties, killing, no power can arise or hold its own."[999] "It is downright ridiculous to speak of Christians in power."[1000] To this it is to be added "that the possession of power depraves men."[1001] "The men who have the power cannot but misuse it; they must infallibly be unsettled by such frightful authority."[1002] "However many means men have invented to hinder the possessors of power from subordinating the welfare of the whole to their own advantage, hitherto not one of these means has worked. Everybody knows that those in whose hands is the power—be they emperors, ministers, chiefs of police, or common policemen—are, just because the power is in their hands, more inclined to immorality, to the subordinating of the general welfare to their advantage, than those who have no power; nor can it be otherwise."[1003]

The State is the rule of the bad, raised to the highest pitch. We shall always find "that the scheming of the possessors of authority—nay, their unconscious effort—is directed toward weakening the victims of their authority as much as possible; for, the weaker the victim is, the more easily can he be held down."[1004] "To-day there is only one sphere of human activity left that has not been conquered by the authority of government: the sphere of the family, of housekeeping, private life, labor. And even this sphere, thanks to the fighting of the Communists and Socialists, the governments are already beginning to invade, so that soon, if the reformers have their way, work and rest, housing, clothing, and food, will likewise be fixed and regulated by the governments."[1005] "The most fearful band of robbers is not so horrible as a State organization. Every robber chief is at any rate limited by the fact that the men who make up his band retain at least a part of human liberty, and can refuse to commit acts which are repugnant to their consciences."[1006] But in the State there is no such limit; "no crime is so horrible that it will not be committed by the officials and the army at the will of him—Boulanger, Pugatcheff, Napoleon—who accidentally stands at the head."[1007]

2. The rule in the State is based on physical force.

Every government has for its prop the fact that there are in the State armed men who are ready to execute the government's will by physical force, a class "educated to kill those whose killing the authorities command."[1008] Such men are the police[1009] and especially the army.[1010] The army is nothing else than a collectivity of "disciplined murderers",[1011] its training is "instruction in murdering",[1012] its victories are "deeds of murder."[1013] "The army has always formed the basis of power, and does to this day. The power is always in the hands of those who command the army, and, from the Roman Cæsars to the Russian and German emperors, all possessors of power have always cared first and foremost for their armies."[1014]