184 Jahre Lev Nikolaevič Tolstoj

Die Entwicklungsstufen der Knechtung.

Jede Art der Unterdrückung eines Menschen durch einen anderen ist nur darauf begründet, daß der eine Mensch den andern des Lebens berauben kann und ihn, indem er in dieser drohenden Haltung verharrt, dazu zwingt seinen Willen zu erfüllen.
Ohne falsch zu gehen, kann man sagen: Wenn eine Unterjochung, eines Menschen stattfindet, das heißt, wenn der eine gezwungen wird, gewisse, von ihm nicht gewünschte Handlungen gegen seinen Willen nach dem Willen des andren auszuführen, so ist die Ursache davon nur die Gewalt, deren Grundlage die Drohung ist ihn des Lebens zu berauben. Wenn ein Mensch seine ganze Arbeit einem andern hingibt,sich in ungenügender Weise nährt, seine kleinen Kinder zu schwerer Arbeit hingibt, von seinem Lande fortzieht, um sein Leben einer ihm zuwideren, für ihn nutzlosen Arbeit zu widmet,, wie das vor unsern Augen und in unserer Welt (die wir 'zivilisiert' nennen, weil wir in ihr leben) geschieht, so kann man sich sicherlich sagen, daß er das nur deshalb tut, weil im Falle der Nichterfüllung alles dessen, sein Leben bedroht ist. Und darum befindet sich in unserer gebildeten Welt, in der die Mehrzahl der Menschen unter schrecklichen Entbehrungen ihnen zuwidere und nutzlose Arbeiten verrichtet, die Mehrzahl der Menschen in einer Knechtschaft, welche auf die Drohung sie des Lebens zu berauben, beruht.
Worin besteht diese Knechtschaft? Und worin liegt die Lebensbedrohung?
In alten Zeiten ward die Art der Knechtung und Bedrohung des Lebens augenscheinlich. Es war jene ganz ursprüngliche Art der Knechtung der Menschen, die in der einfachen Drohung mit der Tötung durch das Schwert bestand. Der Bewaffnete sagte zu dem Unbewaffneten: 'Ich kann dich töten, wie ich soeben mit deinesgleichen getan habe, aber ich will das nicht tun, ich verschone dich — hauptsächlich darum, weil es für mich und dich vorteilhafter fein wird, wenn du dich weigerst, so werde ich dich töten". Und der Unbewaffnete unterwarf sich dem Bewaffneten und tat alles, was ihm dieser befahl. Der Unbewaffnete arbeitete, der Bewaffnete drohte. Das war die persönliche Knechtschaft, die ursprünglich bei allen Völkern erscheint und deshalb auch jetzt noch bei allen Naturvölkern gefunden wird.  

Diese Art der Knechtung der Menschen war die erste aber als das Leben mannigfaltiger wurde, änderte sich auch diese Art in ihrer Form.
Denn sie hatte bei der mannigfaltigeren Gestaltung des Lebens große Unbequemlichkeiten für den Unterdrücker. Um die Arbeit der Schwachen auszubeuten, mußte der Unterdrücker sie nähren und kleiden, das heißt, sie so unterhalten, daß sie zur Arbeit fähig waren, und eben dadurch war die Zahl der Unterdrückten beschränkt, die ein Unterdrücker haben konnte, außerdem nötigte diese Art den Unterdrücker beständig mit Todesdrohungen vor den Unterdrücken zu stehen.
Und da entwickelte sich eine andere Art der Knechtung, deren Schilderung wir im alten Testament finden.
Vor fünftausend Jahren wurde, wie die Bibel sagt, durch Joseph, den Schönen, diese neue, bequemere und umfassendere Art der Menschenknechtung erfunden. Diese Art ist dieselbe, welche in neuerer Zeit zur Bändigung widerspenstiger Pferde und wilder Tiere in den Menagerien angewendet wird. Das Mittel ist der Hunger.
Diese Erfindung wird in der Bibel folgendermaßen beschrieben: (1. Mos. 41.) 

'48. Und sammelten alle Speisen der sieben Jahre, so im Land Aegypten waren; und taten sie in die Städte. Was für Speise auf dem Felde einer jeglichen Stadt umherwuchs, das taten sie hinein.
49. Also schüttete Joseph das Getreide auf, über die Maße viel wie Sand am Meere, also, daß er aufhörte zu zählen; denn man konnte es nicht zählen.
53. Da nun die sieben reichen Jahre um waren im Lande Aegypten,
54. Da fingen an die sieben teuren Jahre zu kommen davon Joseph gesagt hatte. Und es ward Teuerung in allen Landen, aber in ganz Aegyptenland war Brot.
55. Da nun das ganze Aegyptenland auch Hunger litt, schrie das Volk zu Pharao um Brot. Aber Pharao sprach zu allen Aegytern: Gehet hin zu Joseph, was euch der saget das tut.
56. Als nun im ganzen Land Teuerung war, tat Joseph allenthalben Kornhäuser auf und verkaufte den Aegytern. Denn die Teuerung war je länger, je größer im Lande.
57. Und alle Länder kamen in Aegypten zu kaufen bei Joseph; denn die Teuerung war groß in allen Ländern.'
Joseph benutzte die ursprüngliche Art der Knechtung der Menschen durch die Drohung mit dem Schwert, sammelte Getreide in guten Jahren in Erwartung der schlechten, die gewöhnlich auf die guten folgen, wie jedermann auch ohne Pharaos Traumgesichte weiß. Und durch dieses Mittel — den Hunger — arbeitete er starker und bequemer für Pharao und alle andern Einwohner der anstoßenden Länder.
Als das Volk anfing. Hunger zu empfinden verfuhr er in solcher Weise, daß er für immer das Volk in seiner Gewalt behielt, — durch den Hunger.
So entstand die zweite Form der Knechtung der Menschen durch die Herrscher und die Reichen.

Leo Tolstoi

Aus: Der arme Teufel, No. 83[9] (falsch als 838 angegeben), Esch/Alzette, 15. März 1925.

Seit einigen Wochen steht diese alte luxemburger Zeitung auf der eluxemburgensia-Seite der Nationalbibliothek online. Insbesondere in den Ausgaben der 1920er findet man viel Anarchistisches (unter anderem Übernahmen von Beiträgen aus Erkenntnis und Befreiung oder Le Libertaire), obwohl die Zeitung - die in ihren Anfängen am linken, syndikalistischen Rand der Sozialdemokratie stand - sich als "freies sozialistisch-republikanisches Organ Luxemburgs" bezeichnete, und in Wahlzeiten üblicherweise dazu aufrief, für die Liberalen zu stimmen.

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)

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.]