Page:Tolstoy - Pamphlets.djvu/116

Rh but an insignificant minority, who live in luxury and idleness, upon the labour of the workers. This deceit has already been going on for a long time, but lately the insolence of the impostors has reached its extremest development, and a great, share of what labour produces is being taken away from the workers and used for making preparations for plundering and killing. In all the constitutional countries of Europe the workers themselves—all, without exception—are called upon to take part in these plunders and murders; international relations are purposely always more and more complicated, and this leads on to war; peaceful countries are being plundered without the least cause; every year, in some place or other, people murder and rob; and all live in constant dread of general, mutual robbery and murder. It seems evident that if these things are done, it can only be because the great mass of people are deceived by the minority to whom this deceit is advantageous, and therefore that the first task of those who are anxious to free people from the evils caused by this mutual murdering and plundering should be to expose the deception under which the masses are labouring; to point out to them how the deceit is perpetrated, by what means it is being upheld, and how to get rid of it. The enlightened people of Europe, however, do nothing of the kind, but under the pretext of furthering the establishment of peace, they assemble