Page:Leo Tolstoy - The Russian Revolution (1907).djvu/19

2 defining as clearly and firmly as possible what we must do in these immensely important, terrible, and dangerous times in which we live.

Every Revolution is a change of a people's relation towards Power.

Such a change is now taking place in Russia, and we, the whole Russian people, are accomplishing it.

Therefore to know how we can and should change our relation towards Power, we must understand the nature of Power: what it consists of, how it arose, and how best to treat it.

Always and among all nations the same thing has occurred. Among people occupied with the necessary work natural to all men, of providing food for themselves and their families, by the chase (hunting animals), or as herdsmen (nomads), or by agriculture, there appeared men of their own or another nation, who forcibly seized the fruit of the workers' toil: first robbing, then enslaving them, and exacting from them either labour or tribute. This used to happen in old times, and still happens in Africa and Asia, And always and everywhere the workers (occupied with their accustomed, unavoidably necessary, and unremitting task (their struggle with nature to feed themselves and rear children) though by far more numerous and always more moral than their conquerors, submitted to them and fulfilled their demands.

They submitted because it is natural to all men (and especially to those engaged in a serious struggle with nature to support themselves and their families) to dislike strife with other men; and