Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/217

 A LETTER TO RUSSIAN LIBERALS 201

and foregoing our dignity as men, we lose much more than we gain, and by trying to reach one definite aim (which very often is not reached) we deprive ourselves of the possibility of reaching other aims which are of supreme importance. Only people who have something which they will on no account and under no circum- stances yield can resist a Government and curb it. To have power to resist, you must stand on firm ground.

And the Government knows this very well, and is, above all else, concerned to worm out of men that which will not yield — namely, their dignity as men. Vlien that is wormed out of them, the Government calmly proceeds to do what it likes, knowing that it will no longer meet any real resistance. A man who consents publicly to SAvear, pronouncing the degrading and mendacious words of the oath ; or submissively to wait several hours, dressed up in a uniform, at a Minister's reception ; or to inscribe himself as a Special Constable for the Coronation ; or to fast and receive Communion for respectability's sake ; or to ask the Head-Censor whether he may, or may not, express such and such thoughts, etc. — such a man is no longer feared by Government.

Alexander IL said he did not fear the Liberals, because he knew they could all be bought — if not with money, then with honours.

People who take part in Government, or work under its direction, may deceive themselves or their sympa- thizers by making a show of struggling ; but those against whom they struggle (the Government) know quite well, by the strength of the resistance experi- enced, that these people are not really pulling, but are only pretending to. Our Government knows this with respect to the Liberals, and constantly tests the quality of the opposition, and finding that genuine resistance is practically non-existent, it continues its course in full assurance that it can do what it likes with such opponents.

The Government of Alexander IIL knew this very