Page:Leo Tolstoy - The Russian Revolution (1907).djvu/23

 6 this change is that the ruled—believing in the rights of the power above them and accustomed to submit to it—as knowledge spreads and their moral consciousness becomes enlightened, begin to see and feel not only the ever increasing material harmfulness of this rule, but also that to submit to such power is becoming immoral.

It was possible five hundred or a thousand years ago for people, in obedience to their rulers, to slaughter whole nations for the sake of conquest, or for dynastic or religio-fantastic aims to behead, torture, quarter, encage, destroy and enslave whole nations. But in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, subjugated people, enlightened by Christianity or by the humanitarian teachings which have grown up out of it, can no longer without pangs of conscience submit to the powers which demand that they should participate in the slaughter of men defending their freedom (as was done in the Chinese, Boer, and Philippine wars) and can no longer with quiet consciences, as formerly, know themselves to be participators in the deeds of violence and the executions which are being committed by the Governments of their countries.

So that force-using power destroys itself in two ways.

It destroys itself through the ever-growing depravity of those in authority, and the consequent continually-increasing burden borne by the ruled; and through its ever-increasing deviation from the ever developing moral perception of the ruled. Therefore, where force-using power exists, a moment must inevitably come when the relation of the people towards that power must change. This moment may come sooner or later according to the degree and the rapidity of the corruption of the rulers, to the amount of their cunning, to the quitter or more trestles temperament of the people, and even from their geographical position helping or hindering the intercourse of the people among themselves; but sooner or later that moment must inevitably come to all nations.

To the Western nations, which arose on the ruins of the Roman Empire, that moment came long ago. The struggle of people against Government began even in Rome; continued in all the States that succeeded Rome, and still goes on. To the Eastern