183 Jahre Lev Nikolaevič Tolstoj

A comparison of America and Europe (1909)

If only I had begun to preach love and brotherhood when I first began to write stories, I should have accomplished more. It was Schopenhauer and the Bible that converted me.

I am an individualist and as such believe in free play for the psychological nature of man. For this reason I am claimed by the anarchists. Even George Brandes declares that I am in philosophical harmony with the ideas of Prince Krapotkin.

The idea of communism and what it implies refers to the social conditions and it would be senseless for me to demand that every one should sleep as little as I do, eat the same food, wear the same clothes or have the same feelings which are peculiar to me. A man is not a watch. Each is a world in himself. It is therefore an illusion to believe in materialistic economy as if it were a religion. It is foolish therefore to worship the idea of socialism. I worship the soul of man, which is the only reality.

After all it does seem as if the world likes to be deceived. If we did not have our illusions we could never find the truth. Through error we come to virtue, through ignorance to knowledge, through suffering to joy.

These opinions are naturally not popular with the socialists, who therefore oppose me with bitterness. They love to spread broadcast the rumor that I am, instead a doer of the word, a mere talker.

In my preachments of love and truth I am not a partisan. I condemn both revolutionist and reactionaries. I loath the yoke of party; for I believe that all physical force is brutality.

My opposition to administrative power has been interpreted into opposition to all government. This, however, is not true. I oppose only violence and the view that might makes right.

The only government in which I believe is that which exercise a moral authority. Moses, Buddha, Christ, these are the great law-givers, the real autocrats, who ruled not by force, but by character, whose government was one of love, justice, and brotherhood.

I do not believe in a parliament as the final goal of social leadership, for instead of simplifying it only complicates human society. Parliament becomes an instrument to cheat the people in that it deceives them into thinking it truly represents them. They say, "Vox populi, vox Dei," but it is never the case; for the greatest illusions is that which supposes that society can be improved by law.

Just as I hate hereditary potentate so do I hate cheap Duma. A government which relies on iron and explosives, which executes a murderer who is so because of insanity or of poverty and which glorifies the butchery of innocent thousands is the greatest instrument for wrong, the worst of oppressors.

Now I will explain why I criticize free America as severely as I do Russia. It is because I am also tending to the rule of force. The methods may differ but the results are the same.

It is true that America does not exile one to Siberia or hang one on the gallows for protesting against the government. But nevertheless it has its lynching and, what is far worse, its judicial murders. It has its great railroad casualties by which thousands are killed by the criminal carelessness of the great corporations, and besides all this it has the exploitation of the poor by the rich.

All this proves that government can not improve the moral nature of man, and that brute force always defeats its object. There can be no coercion of the soul. Every law must have the sanction of the free will.

Where America surpasses Europe is in its personal liberty, which is the heritage of a race of heroes. But this is doomed to be extinguished by the legislatures of a time-serving generation.

The greatest indictment against any country is the presence of capital punishment -- which exists in such a form as if Christ had never been born. The judge who sentences a criminal to death is ten times more guilty himself. Oh that ideas of humanity could end this tyranny, this black hypocrisy of legal procedure under which so many crimes are committed against humanity!

Yet the root of all the evils of civilization lies in the perverted teachings miscalled Christianity. The modern church is the greatest foe of man, and the churchgoer a blind dupe.

Of course my views are extremely unpleasant to the Russian Church, and often it has plotted how to get rid of me. Many suppose that I have so far escaped imprisonment simply because of my prominence, but there may be another reason, which I am unable to explain.

I am not afraid of any punishment, and would be happy if I might share it with the many martyrs who have suffered for the truth and justice. Persecution gives freedom strength, and suffering ennobles and purifies.

Speaking of my past I condemn myself unreservedly, for all my faults and errors were the natural result of my aristocratic birth and training, which is the worst thing that can befall a man, as it stifles every human instinct. Turgeneff wrote to me: "You have tried for many years to become a peasant in conduct as well as in ideas, but you nevertheless are the same aristocrat. You are good hearted and have a charming personality, but I have observed that in all your practical dealings with the peasants you remain the patronizing master who likes to be esteemed for his benefactions and to be considered the bounteous patriarch," in which he was very right.

I am not a lover of sports and athletics, for these I consider a misuse of energy, which might do much to relieve the poor. I am greatly in sympathy with the settlement work in America, but I do not believe in institutionalized charity or in mechanical philanthropy, but only individual effort to relieve suffering.

(zuerst veröffentlicht in der New York World, 7. Februar 1909)

192 Jahre William Batchelder Greene

Eine der ungewöhnlicheren Figuren des amerikanischen Individualismus und Individualanarchismus des 19. Jahrhunderts war der unitarische Pastor William Batchelder Greene, der, neben seinen zahlreichen religiösen, philosophischen und mathematischen Schriften auch als erster den Proudhonschen Mutualismus in den USA verbreitete, wobei mehr noch als Proudhon vor allem Pierre Leroux einen maßgeblichen Einfluss auf Greene ausübte. Auch die folgende Textpassage aus dem 1849 in Boston erschienenen geschichtsphilosophischem Werk Remarks on the science of history; followed by an a priori autobiography über das alte Problem Freiheit und Notwendigkeit zeugt vom Lerouxschen Einfluss:

"One evening, while I was in a reclining posture, meditating upon Free Will and Fate, I fell into a sort of trance: I was neither awake nor asleep, but in a state bordering on ecstacy. At once, all distinct thought vanished from my mind, no object presented itself to my imagination ; but the abyss, with all its emptiness spread itself before me, Then came a certain something that was invisible, untangible, altogether vague, without character, undefinable, which seemed to be premonitory of something that was to follow. After this, I felt the essential Being, which is my soul, the I, moving itself as it were blindly forward into the Abyss. I became at once conscious of my hidden potential Being, though not of its faculties. Immediately, objects and images started up to my imagination, and the potential force instantly so coalesced with them, that I was conscious of nothing but the contemplation in imagination of the representation of a well known locality.

I had little difficulty in finding the meaning of these phenomena. I saw, at once, that all my trouble had come from my neglect to apply a sufficient stress of logic, when I endeavored to trace out the consequences of the simple and evident fact that I was a relative, and not an absolute, efficient cause. It is hard to reconcile Liberty and Necessity in a statement in words, but the reconciliation is very simple in fact. It is impossible, by any arithmetical process, to extract the square root of two exactly ; nevertheless, there is a square root of two, and it may be constructed geometrically with perfect exactness ; for the hypothenuse of a right angled triangle, having each side of the right angle equal to one, is exactly the square root of two. Every act of life is a perfect practical reconciliation of the powers of free will and destiny. In fact, Life may be defined as that which practically reconciles liberty and necessity. Every act of life is, at once, free and necessitated : free, because it is originated by an efficient cause acting by its own power, necessitated because this cause acts in concurrence with the circumstances falling under the dominion of Destiny. It is necessitated, because no Vital Principle can manifest itself, that is live, except in relations to that which it contradistinguishes from itself. "We cannot ask whether man be free or determined, in his actions ; for he is at once free and determined. The true question is this : How far is man free, and how far is he determined in his actions ? Every act of man is on one side free, because that side is originated by the self-acting power of the soul ; and on the other determined, because that other side is regulated by conditions originating in the Order of Destiny.

The soul may be compared to a fountain of water : if this fountain be situated in empty space, and well forth into an infinite vacuum, without bottom, without sides, if it be subjected to no law, it will become infinitely attenuated, it will flow as it were, no where, and will produce no effect, because there will be nothing on which it can produce an effect ; in like manner the soul, considered by itself apart, in its potential state, though perfectly free, will do nothing ; because there is no reason why it should do one thing rather than another. A perfect Liberty, that is, a Will that is determined by nothing but itself, will do nothing whatever, but remain always in the potential state - it will remain dead ; that is, without manifestation and activity, in which life consists. But, if this fountain of water be situated on the surface of the earth, where it can work its way between hard banks, it will be confined, limited, and will roll on, a noble and majestic river, taking its chara cter from the country through which it passes, and itself conferring a character upon the country wherever it flows. Alone, and by itself, the soul, though containing immeasurable capabilities, is altogether imperceptible ; but, defined and limited by the objects with which it enters into relation, it manifests itself, and becomes as the noble river.

As the soul may overcome Destiny in the outward course of nature, by studying its Laws, by understanding it, and then make a mere servant of it by bringing (through the originative power of our own souls) new principles into its fatal wheel of operation, thus cultivating it, making it bring forth what we please, even as we cultivate a field, gathering fruit from it, according to the seed we sow, - so the soul may overcome Destiny in the nearer sphere of our own bodies, by operating in like manner toward it. The soul may make a servant of Destiny, but cannot separate its actions from the movement of fatality ; and it is well for us that this is so, for Destiny is the most useful servant and instrument that is given to man : it is a present worthy of the Universal Power.

If a man live according to his instinctive tendencies, he will be moved by the impulse of nature, and will be, like the animals, under the control of Destiny. If he live according to his ruling passions, he will have escaped, to a certain extent, from the power of Destiny ; because he will live under powers which are destiny transformed by the action of his own efficient nature. If he live according to Wisdom, according to the results of the action of his intelligence upon the facts gathered from experience, and treasured up in his memory, he will be free, and Destiny will be his slave.

Upon further meditation, I found that these were far from being the only conclusions which a fair logic might draw from the principle that our life is the activity of a relative efficient cause. - This activity, which is our Life, is the relation itself which subsists between us and the object in concurrence with which we live : and this is but another statement of the magnificent formula of Pierre Leroux, that All Life Is At Once Subjective And Objective."
William Batchelder Greene, Remarks on the science of history; followed by an a priori autobiography, Boston, 1849, S.92-96.

139 Jahre E. Armand

Im vergangen Jahr habe ich an dieser Stelle einen vergleichsweise späten Text des französischen Individualanarchisten E. Armand gebracht, dieses Jahr möchte ich einen Text aus Armands früher christlich-tolstoianisch geprägter Frühzeit bringen. Zusammen mit seiner Gefährtin Marie Kugel gibt Armand ab 1901 die zunächst christlich und zugleich anarchokommunistisch inspirierte Zeitschrift L'ère nouvelle heraus, die sich - wie Armand selbst - nach und nach sowohl vom Christentum als auch vom Kommunismus emanzipiert und ab 1908 klar individualistisch-anarchistisch orientiert ist. In der Nummer 2 der Ère nouvelle (Juni 1901), die dankenswerterweise auf der empfehlenswerten Seite La Presse anarchiste verfügbar ist, erschien die folgende christliche (!) Version der Internationale aus der Feder Armands:

La lutte suprême

1. Debout ! les vaillants, les sincères,

Debout ! c’est pour l’humanité,

Nous voici, quelques volontaires,

Unis par solidarité !

Le monde meurt sans espérance ;

Des milliers, tout autour de nous

Tombent, vaincus par la souffrance

 ! Il faut les sauver… Tous debout !

2. Trop longtemps de la crainte esclaves,

Dupes d’erreurs, de préjugés

Cœurs et voix liés par mille entraves,

On nous a vus muets, figés.

Mais le temps vole — assez de doute

L’appel du Christ est trop pressant

« Laisse tout et suis-moi ! » En route

Prenons nos places dans le rang.

3. Trop longtemps du fond des abîmes

Sont montés sanglots et clameurs.

Le mal terrassait ses victimes

Nous écoutions, distraits, songeurs !

D’humains l’immense multitude,

Ne voit son salut qu’en la mort !

À nous la tâche noble et rude :

Révélons-leur un meilleur sort !

4. Debout, c’est la lutte suprême

Qui le veut peut être soldat

Pourvu qu’on soit vrai, que l’on aime,

C’est assez pour livrer combat.

Point de trêve avant que la terre

Du bonheur devenu séjour

Ait vu terrasser la misère

Par la puissance de l’Amour !

Refrain

C'est la lutte suprême,
Groupons-nous ! Haut les cœurs

Du Christ l’Esprit même,

Nous rendra vainqueurs !

182 Jahre Lev Nikolaevič Tolstoj

Lev Nikolaevič Tolstoj, oder allgemein gebräuchlicher Leo Tolstoi, der am 28. August 1828 (nach julianischem Kalender; d.i. der 9. September nach gregorianischem Kalender) auf einem Landgut nahe der zentralrussischen Stadt Tula geboren wurde, ist nicht nur einer der maßgeblichen Schriftsteller der russischen Literatur, sondern zugleich auch der Begründer einer radikalpazifistischen, heretisch-christlichen Spielart des Anarchismus, die sozusagen Proudhon und Kropotkin mit Christus verband. Als Illustration habe ich folgende Kritik Tolstois am anarchistischen Terrorismus der Jahrhundertwende (in englischer Übersetzung) ausgewählt:

Thou Shalt Not Kill

'Thou shalt not kill.' -EXOD. xx. 13.
'The disciple is not above his master: but every one when he is perfected shall be as his master.' -LUKE vi. 40
'For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' -MATT. xxvi. 52.
'Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' - MATT. vii. 12.
    
When Kings are executed after trial, as in the case of Charles L., Louis XVI., and Maximilian of Mexico; or when they are killed in Court conspiracies, like Peter III., Paul, and various Sultans, Shahs, and Khans - little is said about it; but when they are killed without a trial and without a Court conspiracy- as in the case of Henry IV. of France, Alexander II., the Empress of Austria, the late Shah of Persia, and, recently, Humbert - such murders excite the greatest surprise and indignation among Kings and Emperors and their adherents, just as if they themselves never took part in murders, nor profited by them, nor instigated them. But, in fact, the mildest of the murdered Kings (Alexander II. or Humbert, for instance), not to speak of executions in their own countries, were instigators of, and accomplices and partakers in, the murder of tens of thousands of men who perished on the field of battle; while more cruel Kings and Emperors have been guilty of hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of murders.

The teaching of Christ repeals the law, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth'; but those who have always clung to that law, and still cling to it, and who apply it to a terrible degree - not only claiming 'an eye for an eye,' but without provocation decreeing the slaughter of thousands, as they do when they declare war - have no right to be indignant at the application of that same law to themselves in so small and insignificant a degree that hardly one King or Emperor is killed for each hundred thousand, or perhaps even for each million, who are killed by the order and with the consent of Kings and Emperors. Kings and Emperors not only should not be indignant at such murders as those of Alexander II. and Humbert, but they should be surprised that such murders are so rare, considering the continual and universal example of murder that they give to mankind.

The crowd are so hypnotized that they see what is going on before their eyes, but do not understand its meaning. They see what constant care Kings, Emperors, and Presidents devote to their disciplined armies; they see the reviews, parades, and manoeuvres the rulers hold, about which they boast to one another; and the people crowd to see their own brothers, brightly dressed up in fools' clothes, turned into machines to the sound of drum and trumpet, all, at the shout of one man, making one and the same movement at one and the same moment-but they do not understand what it all means. Yet the meaning of this drilling is very clear and simple: it is nothing but a preparation for killing.

It is stupefying men in order to make them fit instruments for murder. And those who do this, who chiefly direct this and are proud of it, are the Kings, Emperors and Presidents. And it is just these men - who are specially occupied in organizing murder and who have made murder their profession, who wear military uniforms and carry murderous weapons (swords) at their sides - that are horrified and indignant when one of themselves is murdered.

The murder of Kings - the murder of Humbert - is terrible, but not on account of its cruelty. The things done by command of Kings and Emperors - not only past events such as the massacre of St.. Bartholomew religious butcheries, the terrible repressions of peasant rebellions, and Paris coups d'etat, but the present-day Government executions, the doing-to-death of prisoners in solitary confinement, the Disciplinary Battallions, the hangings, the beheadings, the shootings and slaughter in wars - are incomparably more cruel than the murders committed by Anarchists. Nor are these murders terrible because undeserved. If Alexander II. and Humbert did not deserve death, still less did the thousands of Russians who perished at Plevna, or of Italians who perished in Abyssinia. Such murders are terrible, not because they are cruel or unmerited, but because of the unreasonableness of those who commit them.

If the regicides act under the influence of personal feelings of indignation evoked by the sufferings of an oppressed people, for which they hold Alexander or Carnot or Humbert responsible; or if they act from personal feelings of revenge, then - however immoral their conduct may be - it is at least intelligible; but how is it that a body of men (Anarchists, we are told) such as those by whom Bresci was sent., and who are now threatening another Emperor - how is that they cannot devise any better means of improving the condition of humanity than by killing people whose destruction can no more be of use than the decapitation of that mythical monster on whose neck a new head appeared as soon as one was cut of? Kings and Emperors have long ago arranged for themselves a system like that of a magazine-rifle : as soon as one bullet has been discharged another takes its place. Le roi est mort, vive le roi! So what is the use of killing them?

Only on a most superficial view, can the killing of these men seem a means of saving the nations from oppression and from wars destructive of human life.

One only need remember that similar oppression and similar war went on, no matter who was at the head of the Government - Nicholas or Alexander, Frederick or Wilhelm, Napoleon or Louis, Palmerston or Gladstone, McKinley or anyone else-in order to understand that it is not any particular person who causes these oppressions and these wars from which the nations suffer. The misery of nations is caused not by particular persons, but by the particular order of Society under which the people are so tied up together that they find themselves all in the power of a few men, or more often in the power of one single man: a man so perverted by his unnatural position as arbiter of the fate and lives of millions, that he is always in an unhealthy state, and always suffers more or less from a mania of self-aggrandizement, which only his exceptional position conceals from general notice.

Apart from the fact that such men are surrounded from earliest childhood to the grave by the most insensate luxury dud an atmosphere of falsehood and flattery which always accompanies them, their whole education and all their occupations are centred on one object: learning about former murders, the best present-day ways of murdering, and the best preparations for future murder. From childhood they learn about killing in all its possible forms. They always carry about with them murderous weapons-swords or sabres; they dress themselves in various uniforms; they attend parades, reviews and manoeuvres; they visit one another, presenting one another with Orders and nominating one another to the command of regiments - and not only does no one tell them plainly what they are doing or say that to busy one's self with preparations for killing is revolting and criminal, but from all sides they hear nothing but approval and enthusiasm for all this activity of theirs. Every time they go out, and at each parade and review, crowds of people flock to greet them with enthusiasm, and it seems to them as if the whole nation approves of their conduct. The only part of the Press thiat reaches them, and that seems to them the expression of the feelings of the whole people, or at least of its best representatives, most slavishly extols their every word and action, however silly or wicked they may be. Those around them, men and women., clergy and laity- all people who do not prize human dignity - vying with one another in refined flattery, agree with then, about anything and deceive them about everything making it impossible for them to see life as it is. Such rulers might live a hundred years without ever seeing one single really independent man or ever hearing the truth spoken. One is sometimes appalled to hear of the words and deeds of these men; but one need only consider their position in order to understand that anyone in their place would act as they do. If a reasonable man found himself in their place, there is only one reasonable action he could perform, and that would be to get away from such a position. Any one remaining in it would behave as they do.

What, indeed, must go on in the head of some Wilhelm of Germany - a narrow-minded, ill-educated, vain man, with the ideals of a German Junker - when there is nothing he can say so stupid or so horrid that it will not be met by an enthusiastic 'Hoch!' and be commented on by the Press of the entire world as though it were something highly important. When he says that, at his word, soldiers should be ready to kill their own fathers, people shout 'Hurrah !' When he says that the Gospel must be introduced with an iron fist - 'Hurrah!' When he says the army is to take no prisoners in China, but to slaughter everybody, he is not put into a lunatic asylum, but people shout 'Hurrah!' and set sail for China to execute his commands. Or Nicholas II. (a man naturally modest) begins his reign by announcing to venerable old men who had expressed a wish to be allowed to discuss their own affairs, that such ideas of self-government were 'insensate dreams,' - and the organs of the Press he sees and the people he meets, praise him for it. He proposes a childish, silly, and hypocritical project of universal peace, while at the same time ordering an increase in the army - and there are no limits to the laudations of his wisdom and virtue. Without any need, he foolishly and mercilessly insults and oppresses a whole nation, the Finns, and again lie hears nothing but praise. Finally, he arranges the Chinese slaughter - terrible in its injustice, cruelty and incompatibility with his peace projects - and from all sides, people applaud him, both as a victor and as a continuer of his father's peace policy.

What, indeed, must be going on in the heads and hearts of these men?

So it is not the Alexanders and Humberts, nor the Wilhelms, Nicholases, and Chamberlains - though they decree these oppressions of the nations and these wars - who are really the most guilty of these sins, but it is rather those who place and support them in the position of arbiters over the lives of their fellow-men. And, therefore, the thing to do is not to kill Alexanders, Nicholases, Wilhelms, and Humberts, but to cease to support the arrangement of society of which they are a result. And what supports the present order of society is the selfishness and stupefaction of the people, who sell their freedom and honour for insignificant material advantages.

People who stand on the lowest rung of the ladder - partly as a result of being stupefied by a patriotic and pseudo-religious education, and partly for the sake of personal advantages - cede their freedom and sense of human dignity at the bidding of these who stand above them and offer them material advantages. In the same way - in consequence of stupefaction, and chiefly for the sake of advantages -  those who are a little higher up the ladder cede their freedom and manly dignity, and the same thing repeats itself with those standing yet higher, and so on to the to most rung - to those who, or to him who, standing at the apex of the social cone have nothing more to obtain: for whom the only motives of action are love of power and vanity, and who are. generally so perverted and stupefied by the power of life and death which they hold over their fellow-men, and by the consequent servility and flattery of those who surround them, that, without ceasing to do evil, they feel quite assured that they are benefactors to the human race.

It is the people who sacrifice their dignity as men for material profit that produce these men who cannot act otherwise than as they do act, and with whom it is useless to be angry for their stupid and wicked actions. To kill such men is like whipping children whom one has first spoilt.

That nations should not be oppressed, and that there should be none of these useless wars, and that men may not be indignant with those who seem to cause these evils, and may not kill them- it seems that only a very small thing is necessary. It is necessary that men should understand things as they are, should call them by their right names, and should know that an army is an instrument for killing, and that the enrolment and management of an army - the very things which Kings, Emperors, and Presidents occupy themselves with so self-confidently - is a preparation for murder.

If only each King, Emperor, and President understood that his work of directing armies is not an honourable and important duty, as his flatterers persuade him it is, but a bad and shameful act of preparation for murder - and if each private individual understood that the payment of taxes wherewith to hire and equip soldiers, and, above all, army-service itself, are not matters of indifference, but are bad and shameful actions by which he not only permits but participates in murder-then this power of Emperors, Kings, and Presidents, which now arouses our indignation, and which causes them to be murdered, would disappear of itself.

So that the Alexanders, Carnots, Humberts, and others should not be murdered, but it should be explained to them that they are themselves murderers, and, chiefly, they should not be allowed to kill people: men should refuse to murder at their command.

If people do not yet act in this way, it is only because Governments, to maintain themselves, diligently exercise a hypnotic influence upon the people. And, therefore, we may help to prevent people killing either Kings or one another, not by killing - murder only increases the hypnotism - but by arousing people from their hypnotic condition.
And it is this I have tried to do by these remarks.
[August 8, o.s., 1900.]