The Kingdom of God Is Within You - Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (best non fiction books of all time txt) 📗

fathers or

grandfathers just as if they were going on a party of pleasure, or

at any rate on some quite ordinary business.

 

The same impression was produced by the well-dressed functionaries

and officers who were scattered about the platform and in the

first-class carriage. At a table covered with bottles was sitting

the governor, who was responsible for the whole expedition,

dressed in his half-military uniform and eating something while he

chatted tranquilly about the weather with some acquaintances he

had met, as though the business he was upon was of so simple and

ordinary a character that it could not disturb his serenity and

his interest in the change of weather.

 

At a little distance from the table sat the general of the police.

He was not taking any refreshment, and had an impenetrable bored

expression, as though he were weary of the formalities to be gone

through. On all sides officers were bustling noisily about in

their red uniforms trimmed with gold; one sat at a table finishing

his bottle of beer, another stood at the buffet eating a cake, and

brushing the crumbs off his uniform, threw down his money with a

self-confident air; another was sauntering before the carriages of

our train, staring at the faces of the women.

 

All these men who were going to murder or to torture the famishing

and defenseless creatures who provide them their sustenance had

the air of men who knew very well that they were doing their duty,

and some were even proud, were “glorying” in what they were doing.

 

What is the meaning of it?

 

All these people are within half an hour of reaching the place

where, in order to provide a wealthy young man with three thousand

rubles stolen from a whole community of famishing peasants, they

may be forced to commit the most horrible acts one can conceive,

to murder or torture, as was done in Orel, innocent beings, their

brothers. And they see the place and time approaching with

untroubled serenity.

 

To say that all these government officials, officers, and soldiers

do not know what is before them is impossible, for they are

prepared for it. The governor must have given directions about

the rods, the officials must have sent an order for them,

purchased them, and entered the item in their accounts. The

military officers have given and received orders about cartridges.

They all know that they are going to torture, perhaps to kill,

their famishing fellow-creatures, and that they must set to work

within an hour.

 

To say, as is usually said, and as they would themselves repeat,

that they are acting from conviction of the necessity for

supporting the state organization, would be a mistake. For in the

first place, these men have probably never even thought about

state organization and the necessity of it; in the second place,

they cannot possibly be convinced that the act in which they are

taking part will tend to support rather than to ruin the state;

and thirdly, in reality the majority, if not all, of these men,

far from ever sacrificing their own pleasure or tranquillity to

support the state, never let slip an opportunity of profiting at

the expense of the state in every way they can increase their own

pleasure and ease. So that they are not acting thus for the sake

of the abstract principle of the state.

 

What is the meaning of it?

 

Yet I know all these men. If I don’t know all of them personally,

I know their characters pretty nearly, their past, and their way

of thinking. They certainly all have mothers, some of them wives

and children. They are certainly for the most part good, kind,

even tender-hearted fellows, who hate every sort of cruelty, not

to speak of murder; many of them would not kill or hurt an animal.

Moreover, they are all professed Christians and regard all

violence directed against the defenseless as base and disgraceful.

 

Certainly not one of them would be capable in everyday life, for

his own personal profit, of doing a hundredth part of what the

Governor of Orel did. Every one of them would be insulted at the

supposition that he was capable of doing anything of the kind in

private life.

 

And yet they are within half an hour of reaching the place where

they may be reduced to the inevitable necessity of committing this

crime.

 

What is the meaning of it?

 

But it is not only these men who are going by train prepared for

murder and torture. How could the men who began the whole

business, the landowner, the commissioner, the judges, and those

who gave the order and are responsible for it, the ministers, the

Tzar, who are also good men, professed Christians, how could they

elaborate such a plan and assent to it, knowing its consequences?

The spectators even, who took no part in the affair, how could

they, who are indignant at the sight of any cruelty in private

life, even the overtaxing of a horse, allow such a horrible deed

to be perpetrated? How was it they did not rise in indignation

and bar the roads, shouting, “No; flog and kill starving men

because they won’t let their last possession be stolen from them

without resistance, that we won’t allow!” But far from anyone

doing this, the majority, even of those who were the cause of the

affair, such as the commissioner, the landowner, the judge, and

those who took part in it and arranged it, as the governor, the

ministers, and the Tzar, are perfectly tranquil and do not even

feel a prick of conscience. And apparently all the men who are

going to carry out this crime are equally undisturbed.

 

The spectators, who one would suppose could have no personal

interest in the affair, looked rather with sympathy than with

disapproval at all these people preparing to carry out this

infamous action. In the same compartment with me was a wood

merchant, who had risen from a peasant. He openly expressed aloud

his sympathy with such punishments. “They can’t disobey the

authorities,” he said; “that’s what the authorities are for. Let

them have a lesson; send their fleas flying! They’ll give over

making commotions, I warrant you. That’s what they want.”

 

What is the meaning of it?

 

It is not possible to say that all these people who have provoked

or aided or allowed this deed are such worthless creatures that,

knowing all the infamy of what they are doing, they do it against

their principles, some for pay and for profit, others through fear

of punishment. All of them in certain circumstances know how to

stand up for their principles. Not one of these officials would

steal a purse, read another man’s letter, or put up with an

affront without demanding satisfaction. Not one of these officers

would consent to cheat at cards, would refuse to pay a debt of

honor, would betray a comrade, run away on the field of battle, or

desert the flag. Not one of these soldiers would spit out the

holy sacrament or eat meat on Good Friday. All these men are

ready to face any kind of privation, suffering, or danger rather

than consent to do what they regard as wrong. They have therefore

the strength to resist doing what is against their principles.

 

It is even less possible to assert that all these men are such

brutes that it is natural and not distasteful to them to do such

deeds. One need only talk to these people a little to see that

all of them, the landowner even, and the judge, and the minister

and the Tzar and the government, the officers and the soldiers,

not only disapprove of such things in the depth of their soul, but

suffer from the consciousness of their participation in them when

they recollect what they imply. But they try not to think about

it.

 

One need only talk to any of these who are taking part in the

affair from the landowner to the lowest policeman or soldier to

see that in the depth of their soul they all know it is a wicked

thing, that it would be better to have nothing to do with it, and

are suffering from the knowledge.

 

A lady of liberal views, who was traveling in the same train with

us, seeing the governor and the officers in the first-class saloon

and learning the object of the expedition, began, intentionally

raising her voice so that they should hear, to abuse the existing

order of things and to cry shame on men who would take part in

such proceedings. Everyone felt awkward, none knew where to look,

but no one contradicted her. They tried to look as though such

remarks were not worth answering. But one could see by their

faces and their averted eyes that they were ashamed. I noticed

the same thing in the soldiers. They too knew that what they were

sent to do was a shameful thing, but they did not want to think

about what was before them.

 

When the wood merchant, as I suspect insincerely only to show that

he was a man of education, began to speak of the necessity of such

measures, the soldiers who heard him all turned away from him,

scowling and pretending not to hear.

 

All the men who, like the landowner, the commissioner, the

minister, and the Tzar, were responsible for the perpetration of

this act, as well as those who were now going to execute it, and

even those who were mere spectators of it, knew that it was a

wickedness, and were ashamed of taking any share in it, and even

of being present at it.

 

Then why did they do it, or allow it to be done?

 

Ask them the question. And the landowner who started the affair,

and the judge who pronounced a clearly unjust even though formally

legal decision, and those who commanded the execution of the

decision, and those who, like the policemen, soldiers, and

peasants, will execute the deed with their own hands, flogging and

killing their brothers, all who have devised, abetted, decreed,

executed, or allowed such crimes, will make substantially the same

reply.

 

The authorities, those who have started, devised, and decreed the

matter, will say that such acts are necessary for the maintenance

of the existing order; the maintenance of the existing order is

necessary for the welfare of the country and of humanity, for the

possibility of social existence and human progress.

 

Men of the poorer class, peasants and soldiers, who will have to

execute the deed of violence with their own hands, say that they

do so because it is the command of their superior authority, and

the superior authority knows what he is about. That those are in

authority who ought to be in authority, and that they know what

they are doing appears to them a truth of which there can be no

doubt. If they could admit the possibility of mistake or error,

it would only be in functionaries of a lower grade; the highest

authority on which all the rest depends seems to them immaculate

beyond suspicion.

 

Though expressing the motives of their conduct differently, both

those in command and their subordinates are agreed in saying that

they act thus because the existing order is the order which must

and ought to exist at the present time, and that therefore to

support it is the sacred duty of every man.

 

On this acceptance of the necessity and therefore immutability of

the existing order, all who take part in acts of violence on the

part of government base the argument always advanced in their

justification. “Since the existing order is immutable,” they say,

“the