CHAPTER VII
REVOLUTION IN DEFENSE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT
"The workers do not yet understand," says Debs, "that they are engaged in a class struggle, and must unite their class and get on the right side of that struggle economically, politically, and in every other way—strike together, vote together, and, if necessary, fight together."[277] Socialists are prepared to use force when governments resort to arbitrary violence—for example, to martial "law." In the Socialist view no occasion whatever justifies the suspension of the regular government the people has instituted—and even if such an occasion could arise there is no authority to which they would consent to give arbitrary power. Military "government" is not government, but organized violence.
Tolstoi's masterly language on this matter will scarcely be improved upon:—
"The slavery of the working people is due to this, that there are governments. But if the slavery of the laborers is due to the government, the emancipation is naturally conditioned by the abolition of the existing governments and the establishment of new governments,—such as will make possible the liberation of the land from ownership, the abolition of taxes, and the transference of the capital and the factories into the power and control of the working people.
"There are men who recognize this issue as possible, and who are preparing themselves for it.... So long as the soldiers are in the hands of the government, which lives on taxes and is connected with the owners of land and of capital, a revolution is impossible. And so long as the soldiers are in the hands of the government, the structure of life will be such as those who have the soldiers in their hands want it to be.
"The governments, who are already in possession of a disciplined force, will never permit the formation of another disciplined force. All the attempts of the past century have shown how vain such attempts are. Nor is there a way out, as the Socialists believe, by means of forming a great economic force which would be able to fight successfully against the consolidated and ever more consolidating force of the capitalists. Never will the labor unions, who may be in possession of a few miserable millions, be able to fight against the economic power of the multimillionaires, who are always supported by the military force. Just as little is there a way out as is proposed by other Socialists, by getting possession of the majority of the Parliament. Such a majority in the Parliament will not attain anything, so long as the army is in the hands of the governments. The moment the decrees of the Parliament are opposed to the interests of the ruling classes, the government will close and disperse such a parliament, as has been so frequently done and as will be done so long as the army is in the hands of the government."
Tolstoi, in spite of his contrary impression, here reaches conclusions which are the same as those of the Socialists; for they are well aware that armies are likely to be used to dissolve Parliaments and labor unions.
"The introduction of socialistic principles into the army will not accomplish anything," Tolstoi continues. "The hypnotism of the army is so artfully applied that the most free-thinking and rational person will, so long as he is in the army, always do what is demanded of him. Thus there is no way out by means of revolution or in Socialism."
Here Tolstoi is again mistaken, for at this point also Socialists agree with him completely. The soldier, they agree, must be reached, and some think must even be led to act, before he reaches the barracks—whether he is about to enter them for military training in times of peace or for service in times of war.
"If there is a way out," concludes Tolstoi, "it is the one which has not been used yet, and which alone incontestably destroys the whole consolidated, artful, and long-established governmental machine for the enslavement of the masses. This way out consists in refusing to enter into the army, before one is subjected to the stupefying and corrupting influence of discipline.
"This way out is the only one which is possible and which at the same time is inevitably obligatory for every individual person."[278]