Slavery exists. In what does it consist? In that in which it has always consisted and without which it can never exist-the violence of the strong and armed towards the weak and unarmed.
Slavery in its three fundamental methods of personal violence-military service; land tribute enforced by soldiery; and tribute imposed on inhabitants in the form of direct and indirect taxes and maintained by that same soldiery exists just as it used to. We do not see it only because each of the three forms of slavery has received a new justification, hiding its meaning from us.
The personal violence of the armed towards the unarmed has been justified as the defence of the fatherland against its imaginary foes; in reality it has its old meaning, namely the subjection of the vanquished by oppressors. The violence exerted in depriving the workers of the land they work has received justification as a reward for services supposed to have been rendered to the common good, and it is confirmed by the right of inheritance; in reality it is the same deprivation of land and enslavement of the people, effected by the army (the authorities).
The last, the monetary coercion of taxation the strongest and now the chief method-has received the most amazing justification, namely that people are deprived of their property and freedom and of their whole good for the sake of freedom and general welfare. In reality it is nothing but the same slavery, except that it is impersonal.
Where violence is legalized, there slavery exists. Whether the violence is expressed by incursions made by princes and their retainers, killing women and children and burning the villages; or by slave-owners taking work or money from their slaves for land and in case of non-payment calling in armed forces; or by some people laying tribute on others and riding armed through the villages; or by the Ministry of the Interior collecting money through Provincial Governors and the rural police, and in case of refusals to pay sending in the military-in a word, so long as there is violence supported by bayonets, there will not be a distribution of wealth among the people, but all wealth will go to the oppressors.
A striking illustration of the truth of this conclusion is supplied by Henry George’s project for nationalizing the land.1 George proposes to recognize all land as belonging to the State, and therefore to replace all taxes, both direct and indirect, by a ground rent. That is to say, every one making use of land should pay to the State the rental-value of such land.
What would result? Agricultural slavery would be abolished within the bounds of the State, that is, the land would belong to the State: England would have its own, America its own, and the slave-dues a man had to pay would be determined by the amount of land he used.
Perhaps the position of some of the workers (agrarian) would be improved, but as long as the forcible collection of a rent tax remained there would be slavery. An agriculturalist unable after a failure of crops to pay the rent forcibly demanded of him, to retain his land and not lose everything would have to go into bondage to a man who had money.
1 Accustomed as we are in England to hear of Land Nationalization as a rival project to Henry George’s taxation of land values, Tolstoy’s way of stating the case seems strange. But as his meaning is clear enough, the Russian text has been closely followed in this translation.-A.M.
If a bucket leaks there is certainly a hole in it. Looking at the bottom of a bucket it may seem that the water leaks out of several holes, but however much we may stop up these imaginary holes from outside, the water will still leak out. To stop the flow we must find the place where the water. escapes from the bucket and stop it up from inside. The same must be done with measures proposed for stopping the ill-distribution of wealth-for stopping up the holes through which wealth.
leaks away from the people. People say: ‘organize workers’ associations, make capital public property, make the land public property!’ All this is only external plugging of the places from which the water seems to leak. To stop the leakage of the workers’ wealth into the hands of the leisured classes it is necessary to find from within the hole through which this leakage takes place. This hole is the coercion armed men exert on the unarmed; the violence of troops by means of which the people themselves are taken from their work, and the land and the produce of people’s toil taken from the people. As long as there exists a single armed man arrogating to himself the right to kill any other man whatever, so long will the irregular distribution of wealth exist, that is, slavery.
CHAPTER XXII
I AM always surprised by the oft-repeated words: ‘Yes, in theory that is so, but how is it in practice?’ Just as if theory were some nice phrases needed for conversation but not in order that practice, that is one’s whole activity, should necessarily be based on it. There must have been a terrible number of stupid theories in the world for such a remarkable opinion to be generally accepted. Theory is what a man thinks on a subject, and practice is what he does. How then can it be that a man thinks he should do a thing this way and then does it the opposite way? If the theory of bread-baking is that it has first to be kneaded and then set to rise, no one knowing the theory, except a lunatic, will do the reverse. Yet with us it has become the fashion to say, ‘In theory that is so, but how is it in practice?’
In the matter with which I am engaged, what I had always thought was the case has been confirmed, namely, that practice inevitably follows theory and, I will not say justifies it, but cannot be different, and that if! have understood a matter about which I have thought, I cannot do it otherwise than as I understand it.
I wished to help the poor just because I had money and shared the common superstition that money represents work, or is in general a legitimate and good thing. But when I began giving away money I saw that I was giving drafts I had collected-which were drawn on the poor. I was doing what many land-owners used to do, making some serfs serve other serfs. I saw that every use of money, whether by purchase of anything, or as a free gift of it to someone, is the issuing for collection of a draft on the poor, or the giving of it to someone for collection from the poor.
And therefore the absurdity of what I wished to do-help the poor by exactions on the poor-became plain to me. I saw that money in itself is not merely not a good, but is an evident evil, depriving people of the greatest blessing-that of labouring and utilizing the fruits of one’s own exertions-and that I cannot transmit this blessing to anyone, because I myself lack it: I do not labour and have not the happiness of utilizing my own labour.
It might seem that there was nothing particular in this abstract reflection on the question, What is money? But this reflection, which I entered upon not as a mere reflection but to solve a question of my life and sufferings, gave me the answer to the question, What must we do?
As soon as I understood what riches are and what money is, it not only became clear and indubitable to me what I must do, but also what everybody ought to do, and what they will, therefore, inevitably do. In reality I merely understood what I had long known-the truth transmitted to mankind in remote times by Buddha, and Isaiah, and Lao-tsze, and Socrates, and to us particularly clearly and indubitably by Jesus Christ and his forerunner John the Baptist. In reply to the people’s question: What then must we do? John the Baptist replied simply, briefly, and clearly: ‘He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath food, let him do likewise’ (Luke iii. 10, 11).
The same was said by Christ many times and yet more clearly. He said, ‘Blessed are the poor, and woe unto ye that are rich.’ He said, ‘Ye cannot serve God and mammon.’ He forbade his disciples to take money or even two coats. He told the rich young man that because he was rich, he could not enter the kingdom of God, and that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. He said that he who will not renounce all-house, and children, and fields, to follow him, is not his disciple.
