Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/481

Rh in God, in the Christian God, in Christ, is competent to break the sword. Either we must follow Dostoevskii's Smerdjakov-Ivan and say "all things are permissible," or else we must follow Tolstoi and accept his gospel of non-resistance.

Bulgakov's return to Dostoevskii and his criticism of the revolution are far less effective then Ropšin's analysis of terrorist anarchism. On the barricade, Andrei Bolotov (once more the name of one of Stepniak's heroes is chosen) philosophises à la George after the death of the superintendent of police: "Look here, Sergii, I can't make it out They shoot us down, hang us, exterminate us. We in return hang, burn, and strangle. But why, because I have killed Slezkin, should I be regarded as a hero, and why should he be regarded as a contemptible wretch and a good for nothing because he hangs me? That's all humbug. Either one should not kill, and in that case both Slezkin and I are breaking the higher law; or else killing is permissible, and then we cannot say that one of us is a hero and the other a contemptible wretch, for we are both simple human beings who happen to be at enmity. Now answer me this. Do you admit that this Slezkin whom we have killed, hunted us from conviction, and not simply to make money out if it? Do you admit that he was not self-seeking, but did what he did for the sake of the people, holding (erroneously, of course) that it was his duty to fight us? Do you admit these things? It may well be that among a hundred or a thousand Slezkins, one at least is such a man as I suggest. In such a case, what is the difference between Slezkin and me? In my view, either we may always kill, or we may never kill. Does this mean that we may not, and yet we must? Where shall we find the law? In the party program, in Marx, in Engels, or in Kant? To say this is nonsense—for neither Marx, nor Engels, nor Kant ever killed anyone. They never killed, do you hear me, never. Thus they do not know, cannot know, what you and I and Volodja know. Whatever they may have written, it remains hidden from them whether we may kill or may not kill. But I know, with an absolute conviction, that a Slezkin ought not to be killed, whatever the circumstances, whatever I may be myself, and whatever I may think of him."

Noteworthy is Ropšin's analysis of expropriation. The revolutionary idealist, who confiscates state funds on behalf of the revolution, passes, resist as he may, beneath the sway