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Copyright © 2012 by ALAN W. KENNEDY and THOMAS E. KENNEDY

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012913854

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4771-5286-7
Softcover 978-1-4771-5285-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation
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56189
 For
Peter Zarry and Elaine Gutmacher
Acknowledgments 9
Introduction 11

1 The Alpha Strategies 15

Eight Strategies Common to All Organizations
Strategy: A Choice of Action
The Eight Choices of Action
Do You Know Your Alpha Strategies?

2 The Alpha Strategies: A Dynamic Model 38

The Dynamic Nature of The Alpha Strategies
Alpha, Influencers, and Enablers
Configuring The Alpha Strategies

3 Alpha Strategic Planning 50

Framing the Need to Understand Current Strategy
Defining Strategic Planning
The Alpha Strategies of Stantec
The Alpha Strategies of IBM
The Alpha Strategies of Ford
The Message for Boards, CEOs, and Senior Executives

4 Alpha Business Planning 71

Expectations Drive All Business Planning
The Role of the Board
The Role of Imposed Expectations
Aligning Imposed Expectations with External Reality
5 Alpha Vision and Mission 91
Vision and Mission Defined in Alpha Terms
False Alpha
Industry Specific Alphas

6 Alpha Risk Management 105

Risk Management is a Strategy Review
Strategy Choices Create Risk
Alpha Risks

7 Alpha Culture and Values 120

The Alpha Cultures
The Present Approach to Values is Inadequate
Strategy First, Values Second
The Alpha Values

8 Alpha Impact 138

Four Essays on Popular Beliefs in Strategy
Strategy First, Please. Then People
Every Organization has a Strategic Plan
Process is Everything
Are You Making Delusional Decisions?

Epilogue 173
Glossary 177
Drawing List 183
I started teaching for the Schulich Executive Education Centre in 1992. Peter
Zarry, the late executive director of SEEC, and his director of operations,
Elaine Gutmacher, had been given a mandate to staff the program with
consultants rather than tenured academics. Peter’s proposition to would-be
consultant-teachers was simple: “Fill the seats. Please the seats. Then you get
to stay.” What Peter failed to mention was the Chinese saying “One teaches.
Two learn.” I soon fell in love with the learning as well as the teaching. At
first, researching and rewriting my principal course, Strategic Management,
was sufficient. Then I started writing this book.

What with consulting, teaching, researching, and managing the demands of

family life, the completion of the project seemed almost impossible at times.
Just when I had nearly abandoned hope, my son Tom jumped in to save the
day. Over the last two years, he helped me to pull it all together and pushed
the book over the finish line for which I will also always be grateful.

I want to thank my readers, especially Professor Alan Middleton, the current

executive director of SEEC, for being so supportive of my efforts. Many
thanks go as well to David Gibson, John Wallace, Adam Digby, Bud Purves,
Brian Sirbovan, David Lehto, Paul Donaldson, Farzin Shahid-Noorai, Ian
Kennedy, Bill Digby, Daniel Owen, Michael Lansky, Norm Jarus, Amanda
Kennedy, Sarah Kennedy, and Rick Archbold.

I owe a real debt of gratitude to the folks at Kaiser Associates. Twenty years
of association with this top tier strategy and competitive research firm has

9
had a great influence on my thinking. The firm’s approach to analyzing
competitors was what first started me thinking about how to apply the
approach to strategy planning.

Many thanks go to Andrew Kennedy for his extraordinary graphics and to

Philip Sportel for his art direction. Our editor, John Parry, deserves a special
thank-you for his patience and guidance.

My wife, Jo, deserves the most thanks for allowing me to pursue this dream.
It has taken far too long. Jo regularly reminds me that I must have every
book there is on the subject of strategy from Henri Fayol’s wonderful little
General and Industrial Management (1916) to Good to Great (2001) and
Built to Last (2002) by Jim Collins. Now I can add one more book to the
collection.

Alan Kennedy
Toronto, Canada

10
What if you could

- improve your understanding of your organization’s strategy?

- improve your board’s understanding of the organization’s strategy?
- communicate your strategic plan or business plan on one page?
- show the external factors and risks most impacting strategy?
- be satisfied the most critical risks have been identified?
- improve communication of implementation expectations?
- secure buy-in for the values needed for successful implementation?

The Alpha Strategies provides the framework to achieve all of the above
and more. The premise of The Alpha Strategies is that there are eight
strategies common to all organizations, whether they are big or small,
public sector, for-profit, or not-for-profit.

11
 INTRODUCTION

This simple premise enables the creation of a powerful strategy

information capture and presentation table, as shown below.

The Alpha Strategies Framework

Down the left hand column of the table are The Alpha Strategies. Any
number of subjects can now be tackled for each strategy. For example, can
you describe the actual strategies your organization is using to implement
each of The Alpha Strategies? Can you describe the risks and external

12
 THE ALPHA STRATEGIES

factors impacting the performance of each of those strategies? Can you

describe the values that characterize the implementation of each strategy?

And even if you could provide all those descriptions, do you think your
board and management team would agree with you? That’s the real power
of The Alpha Strategies. The framework enables boards, management, and
employees to understand and agree upon current strategy. Understanding
current strategy is the critical starting point for all strategy planning.

But what if there was even more to The Alpha Strategies model? What if
you could use it to understand:

- the relationships among the eight strategies?

- the culture of the organization?
- the relative roles of each of the strategies?
- the implications of strategy decisions?

We believe that The Alpha Strategies framework can do all these things
when converted into the dynamic strategy configuration model shown
below. This model enables the relationships among the eight strategies to
be seen and discussed.

The Alpha Strategies Dynamic Model

13
 INTRODUCTION

One strategy, which we call the alpha, leads the remaining seven. Two or
three of the remaining seven follow immediately behind the alpha. We call
these “influencers” because they impose the most guidance and influence
on the alpha ahead of them and on the strategies following behind them.
The “enablers”, consisting of the remaining strategies, form the third
category and follow behind the influencers. The choice and configuration
of strategies in each organization is what makes organizations unique.

We call the model The Alpha Strategies because all eight are present in all
organizations. They are the starting point and the leaders of all strategy in
all organizations. Any of the eight can be dominant strategy for the
organization as a whole.

Throughout the book, we use real organizations as examples to

demonstrate the use of The Alpha Strategies framework and the dynamic
strategy configuration model. While we do not expect our readers to agree
with all our conclusions, we hope our readers will appreciate how these
tools provide the means to begin a focused strategy discussion and to
arrive at an informed conclusion.

There are two other matters that readers will notice. The first is the use of
the word “strategy”. There are almost 750 uses of the word. We hope we
can be forgiven for this. After all, this is a book on strategy. We believe
the subject of strategy and its planning has been wrapped in mysterious
processes and an intimidating vocabulary of synonyms and buzz words for
strategy for too long. We refuse to use synonyms for strategy. We just use
the word strategy. The second matter is the use of the pronouns “I” and
“We”. When the reader sees the use of “I”, it means that the example or
opinion comes from Alan’s teaching or consulting experience. “We”, of
course, means the shared opinion of the authors.

Our sincere hope is that The Alpha Strategies makes the subject more
accessible and enables board members, management, and employees to
take their organizations to new levels of performance excellence.

For more information on The Alpha Strategies, visit us at:

14
Eight Strategies Common to All Organizations
There is a framework of eight strategies that is common to all for-profit,
not-for-profit, and public sector organizations, regardless of their size.

We call the framework The Alpha Strategies because the alphas are the
starting point and the leaders of all strategy in all organizations.

All eight are present in all organizations. They are the pillars on which all
strategic planning and subsequent strategy implementation planning are
founded.

Figure 1 Eight Strategies Common to All Organizations

15
 THE ALPHA STRATEGIES

The eight alpha strategies are business definition, financial management,

growth, marketing, organization management, research and development /
technology, risk, and service delivery / manufacturing / production.

For not-for-profits and public sector organizations, business definition is

called the mandate and marketing is known as communications. Service
delivery is also called production or manufacturing depending on the
nature of an organization’s business.

A reader’s first reaction to this list of strategies should be that the list looks
familiar. It is familiar. We bump up against these strategies every day at
work. Every organization has all eight. We typically see them as functions
or departments. What organization doesn’t have a finance group,
marketing (or communications group), risk function, human resources,
R&D, IT or technology group, and a service delivery group? This last
function is also known as manufacturing or production depending on what
your organization does.

As for growth, that strategy is usually managed in departments such as

“land use planning” in municipalities or “business development”,
“corporate development”, and “the acquisitions group” in most other
organizations.

Business definition, or “mandate” as it is called in public sector

organizations, is the responsibility of the board of directors or council or
whatever the highest decision making body might be called in an
organization because the business definition or interpretation of the
mandate sets the boundaries for the activities the organization is prepared
to undertake.

Human nature makes us want to test the list of strategies by seeing if it

relates to our reality. Our reality is what we do in our job. Where does my
job fit into the strategy framework? “Am I in the finance function? Or
maybe my job is in the service delivery group?” These are the sorts of
questions that make the strategy framework become very real because your
job can be found in one of the eight strategies.

Now, look around a bit more widely to where you might find these eight
strategies. In business schools, they represent the basic subjects taught.
Publicly traded companies are required to address all eight, in one form or
another, in their disclosure filings. Competitive researchers and industry

16
 THE ALPHA STRATEGIES

analysts typically organize their research on a target company by

addressing all of these strategies. In other words, the eight are all around
us all the time.

The concept of a common framework of strategies is not new. Henri Fayol

identified six of the eight in General and Industrial Management (1916).
His book is arguably the first book ever written on the newly emerging
subject of business strategy and its management. Peter Drucker identified
the remaining two some forty years later in The Practice of Management
(1954).

We see the framework being used all around us. But it is not being used to
facilitate better strategic and business planning. We think the time has
come to start using it for that purpose.

Strategy is a Choice of a Course of Action

We are proposing that there are eight strategies (courses of action) that all
organizations must address. Therefore, we believe that all of The Alpha
Strategies are indeed strategies.

A typical comment I get from attendees in my courses is: “Not all eight
‘feel like’ strategies.” For example, some folks believe organization
management can only play a supporting role and is never, in their opinion,
a “strategy”.

The fact is that the vocabulary for strategy is typically different in every
organization. If I say to a group that I want to talk about strategy, I watch
the group start to get tense. This is happening because everyone in the
group has her or his own idea of what does and does not constitute
strategy. Unfortunately, we see all of this divergence of opinion on the
basic language of strategy as creating a very real problem for strategy
communication and understanding.

The conventional approach to the strategy vocabulary is to use some sort

of variation on terms such as purpose, goals, mission, vision, objectives,
strategies, and tactics. We do not subscribe to this overly cumbersome
approach. We think all of these terms are simply synonyms for strategy
and we believe strategy is quite simply a chosen course of action.

17
 THE ALPHA STRATEGIES

If you look at all the various terms, the fundamental distinguishing

characteristic among them is the implied time frame for implementation
associated with each term. For example, vision is distinguished by a long
time frame. Tactics are distinguished by a very short time frame.

But between the lack of a common understanding on what that implied

time frame might be and the lack of a meaningful definition for each term,
we think the current strategy vocabulary has become a major barrier to
effective strategy communications. How many readers have wasted time in
meetings debating whether they are talking about a strategy or an objective
or a tactic? It is as though learning the manufactured differences for a
bunch of synonyms for strategy becomes more important than
understanding what action is required.

The greatest weakness in the current practice of focusing on a framework

of synonyms is that it takes our attention away from the real issue; being a
discussion on the choices of action.

Therefore, we offer our activity focused definition of strategy. We believe

strategy should be defined as a chosen course of action.

We believe that there are eight strategies (courses of action) that all
organizations must address. Therefore, we believe that all of The Alpha
Strategies are indeed strategies.

The way we suggest one strategy can be distinguished from another is by

giving it a time frame and identifying the core activity being addressed.
Using this approach, for example, we would talk about our five year
marketing strategy, our first quarter growth strategy, our three month
communications strategy, our three year service delivery strategy, and so
on. This makes clear both the subject of the strategy and the time frame for
its implementation. This approach also eliminates the need to use
synonyms for strategy.

We are not suggesting that organizations do away with their lexicons for
strategy although we think it would certainly expedite better strategy
understanding and communication if they did. What we are proposing is a
means for individuals to decipher the confusing strategy language of their
organization. Individuals should focus on identifying and understanding
the core activity and implementation time frame for the actions being

18
 THE ALPHA STRATEGIES

discussed and ignore whether the action is being called a “goal” or a

“strategic objective” or whatever. That label is not useful information.

The Alpha Strategies are indeed strategies. They are clearly long term
choices of action when they are used in the strategic plan. Each subsequent
implementation of each of the alphas results in shorter and shorter
implementation time frames.

For example, say the long term marketing strategy of a start-up technology
firm is to be in all major global markets. The five year marketing strategy
of the start-up might be to become established in Europe and North
America. The three year marketing strategy might be to become
established in North America. The one year marketing strategy might be to
become established in the United States. The first quarter marketing
strategy might be to target the most attractive markets on the U.S. east
coast.

Armed with this explanation of strategy, let’s take a closer look at the eight
strategies. A brief description of each of The Alpha Strategies is as
follows:

Business Definition / Mandate

Business definition, referred to as mandate in not-for-profit and public
sector organizations, focuses on the positioning of the organization within
the context of the external environment. Not-for-profits and public sector
organizations are given a general description of that positioning in their
enabling legislation or charter of incorporation. Business definition or
mandate is the basis of the mission statements found in many
organizations.

Financial Management
Financial management focuses on the sourcing, allocation, and
management of financial capital and all other aspects of management of
the organization’s finances.

Growth
Growth focuses on the type and rate of the organization’s growth. This
may involve the organization’s expansion, staying the same size,
becoming smaller, or even ceasing to exist.

19
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
men, involuntarily ascribes a special, almost a supernatural
significance to them. The crowd sees, for example, that triumphal
arches are being erected; that men masquerade in crowns,
uniforms, vestments; that fireworks are displayed, cannon are fired,
bells are rung, regiments are marching with music, documents,
telegrams, and couriers fly from one place to another, and strangely
masquerading men with preoccupation keep riding from one place to
another, saying and writing something, and so forth,—and, not being
able to verify whether there is the slightest need for what is being
done (as, indeed, there is none), ascribes to all this a special,
mysterious, and important meaning, and with shouts of transport or
with silent awe meets all these manifestations. But in the meantime
these expressions of transport and the constant respect of the crowd
still more strengthen the assurance of the men who are doing all
these foolish things.
Lately William II. ordered a new throne for himself, with some
special ornaments, and, dressing himself up in a white uniform with
patches, in tight trousers, and in a helmet with a bird on it, and
throwing a red mantle over all, came out to his subjects and seated
himself on this throne, with the full assurance that this was a very
necessary and important act, and his subjects not only did not see
anything funny in all this, but even found this spectacle to be very
majestic.

XVI.
The power of the governments has now for a long time ceased to be
based on force, as it was based in those times when one nationality
conquered another and by force of arms held it in subjection, or
when the rulers, amidst a defenceless people, maintained separate
armed troops of janissaries, opríchniks, or guardsmen. The power of
the governments has now for a long time been based on what is
called public opinion.
There exists a public opinion that patriotism is a great moral
sentiment, and that it is good and right to consider one's own
nation, one's own state, the best in the world, and from this there
naturally establishes itself a public opinion that it is necessary to
recognize the power of the government over ourselves and to submit
to it; that it is good and right to serve in the army and to submit to
discipline; that it is good and right to give up our savings in the
shape of taxes to the government; that it is good and right to submit
to the decisions of the courts; that it is good and right to believe
without verification in what is given out as a divine truth by the men
of the government.
Once such a public opinion exists, there establishes itself a mighty
power, which in our time has command of milliards of money, of an
organized mechanism of government, the post, the telegraphs, the
telephones, disciplined armies, courts, the police, a submissive
clergy, the school, even the press, and this power maintains in the
nations that public opinion which it needs.
The power of the governments is maintained through public opinion;
but, having the power, the governments by means of all their
organs, the officers of the courts, the school, the church, even the
press, are always able to keep up the public opinion which they
need. Public opinion produces power,—power produces public
opinion. There seems to be no way out from this situation.
Thus it would, indeed, be, if public opinion were something stable
and unchanging, and if the governments were able to produce the
public opinion which they need.
But fortunately this is not the case, and public opinion is, in the first
place, not something which is constant, unchanging, stable, but, on
the contrary, something eternally changing, moving together with
the motion of humanity; and, in the second, public opinion not only
cannot be produced by the will of the governments, but is that
which produces the governments and gives them power or takes it
away from them.
It may appear that public opinion remains immovable and now is
such as it was decades ago, and it may appear that public opinion
wavers in relation to certain special cases, as though going back, so
that, for example, it now destroys the republic, putting the
monarchy in its place, and now again destroys the monarchy, putting
the republic in its place; but that only seems so when we view the
external manifestations of that public opinion which is artificially
produced by the governments. We need only take public opinion in
its relation to the whole life of men, and we shall see that public
opinion, just like the time of the day or year, never stands in one
place, but is always in motion, always marching unrestrictedly ahead
along the path on which humanity proceeds, just as, in spite of
retardations and waverings, day or spring moves on unrestrictedly
along the path over which the sun travels.
Thus, though by the external signs the condition of the nations of
Europe in our time is nearly the same that it was fifty years ago, the
relation of the nations toward it is now entirely different from what it
was fifty years ago. Though there exist, even as fifty years ago, the
same rulers, armies, wars, taxes, luxury, and misery, the same
Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, these existed before because
the public opinion of the nations demanded them, but now they all
exist because the governments artificially maintain that which
formerly was a living public opinion.
If we frequently do not notice this motion of public opinion, as we
do not notice the motion of water in the river, with the current of
which we are swimming, this is due to the fact that those
imperceptible changes of public opinion which form its motion are
taking place in ourselves.
The property of public opinion is that of constant and unrestricted
motion. If it seems to us that it is standing in one place, this is due
to the fact that everywhere there are people who have established
an advantageous position for themselves at a certain moment of
public opinion, and so with all their strength try to maintain it and
not to admit the manifestation of the new, the present public opinion
which, though not yet fully expressed, is living in the consciousness
of men. Such people, who retain the obsolete public opinion and
conceal the new, are all those who at the present time form the
governments and the ruling classes, and who profess patriotism as
an indispensable condition of human life.
The means which are at the command of these people are
enormous, but since public opinion is something eternally flowing
and increasing, all their efforts cannot help but be vain: the old
grows old, and the youthful grows.
The longer the expression of the new public opinion shall be
retained, the more it will grow, and the greater will be the force with
which it will express itself. The government and the ruling classes try
with all their strength to retain that old public opinion of patriotism,
on which their power is based, and to retard the manifestation of the
new, which will destroy it. But it is possible only within certain limits
to retain the old and retard the new, just as running water can be
held back by a dam only within certain limits.
No matter how much the governments may try to rouse in the
nations the past public opinion, now no longer characteristic of
them, concerning the dignity and virtue of patriotism, the men of our
time no longer believe in patriotism, but more and more believe in
the solidarity and brotherhood of the nations. Patriotism now
presents to men nothing but the most terrible future; but the
brotherhood of the nations forms that ideal which more and more
grows to be comprehensible and desirable for humanity. And so the
transition of men from the former obsolete public opinion to the new
must inevitably be accomplished. This transition is as inevitable as
the falling of the last sere leaves in autumn and the unfolding of the
young leaves in swelling buds.
The longer this transition is delayed, the more imperative does it
become, and the more obvious is its necessity.
Indeed, we need only recall what it is we are professing, as
Christians, and simply as men of our time, we need but recall those
moral bases which guide us in our public, domestic, and private life,
and that position in which we have placed ourselves in the name of
patriotism, in order that we may see what degree of contradiction
we have reached between our consciousness and that which among
us, thanks to the intensified influence of the government in this
respect, is regarded as our public opinion.
We need only reflect on those very usual demands of patriotism,
which present themselves to us as something very simple and
natural, in order that we may understand to what extent these
demands contradict that real public opinion which we all share now.
We all consider ourselves free, cultured, humane men, and even
Christians, and at the same time we are in such a position that if to-
morrow William takes umbrage at Alexander, or Mr. N—— writes a
clever article on the Eastern question, or some prince robs the
Bulgarians or the Servians, or some queen or empress takes offence
at something, we all, the cultured, humane Christians, must go out
to kill men, whom we do not know, and toward whom we are
friendly disposed, as toward all men. If this has not yet happened,
we owe this, as we are assured, to the peaceful mind of Alexander
III., or to this, that Nicholas Aleksándrovich is going to marry
Victoria's grandchild. But let another man be in the place of
Alexander, or let Alexander himself change his mood, or Nicholas
Aleksándrovich marry Amalia, and not Alice, and we shall throw
ourselves like bloodthirsty animals upon one another, to take out one
another's guts. Such is the supposed public opinion of our time.
Such opinions are calmly repeated in all the leading and liberal
organs of the press.
 Alexander III.
Photogravure from Photograph
If we, the Christians of one thousand years' standing, have not yet
cut one another's throats, it is because Alexander III. does not let us
do so.
This is, indeed, terrible.

XVII.
For the greatest and most important changes to take place in the life
of humanity, no exploits are needed,—neither the armament of
millions of soldiers, nor the construction of new roads and machines,
nor the establishment of exhibitions, nor the establishment of
labour-unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor explosions, nor
the invention of aerial motion, and so forth, but only a change in
public opinion. But for public opinion to change, no efforts of the
mind are needed, nor the rejection of anything existing, nor the
invention of anything unusual and new; all that is needed is, that
every separate man should say what he actually thinks and feels, or
at least should not say what he does not think. Let men, even a
small number of them, do so, and the obsolete public opinion will fall
of its own accord and there will be manifested the youthful, live,
present public opinion. And let public opinion change, and the inner
structure of men's life, which torments and pains them, will be
changed without any effort. It is really a shame to think how little is
needed for all men to be freed from all those calamities which now
oppress them; they need only stop lying. Let men only not succumb
to that lie which is inculcated on them, let them not say what they
do not think or feel, and immediately a revolution will take place in
the whole structure of our life, such as the revolutionists will not
accomplish in centuries, even if all the power were in their hands.
If men only believed that the strength is not in strength, but in the
truth, and if they boldly expressed it, or at least did not depart from
it in words and deeds,—if they did not say what they do not think,
and did not do what they consider bad and stupid.
"What harm is there in crying 'Vive la France!' or 'Hurrah!' to some
emperor, king, victor, or in going in a uniform, with the chamberlain's
key, to wait for him in the antechamber, to bow, and to address him
by strange titles, and then to impress all young and uncultured men
with the fact that this is very praiseworthy?" Or, "What harm is there
in writing an article in defence of the Franco-Russian alliance or the
Customs War, or in condemnation of the Germans, Russians,
Frenchmen, Englishmen?" Or, "What harm is there in attending some
patriotic celebration and eulogizing men whom you do not care for
and have nothing to do with, and drinking their health?" Or even,
"What harm is there in recognizing, in a conversation, the benefit
and usefulness of treaties, or alliances, or even in keeping silent,
when your nation and state is praised in your presence, and other
nationalities are cursed and blackened, or when Catholicism,
Orthodoxy, Lutheranism are praised, or when some war hero or
ruler, like Napoleon, Peter, or the contemporary Boulanger or
Skóbelev, are praised?"
All that seems so unimportant, and yet in these seemingly
unimportant acts, in our aloofness from them, in our readiness to
point out, according to our strength, the irrationality of what is
obviously irrational,—in this does our great, invincible power consist,
the power which composes that insuperable force which forms the
real, actual, public opinion, which, moving itself, moves the whole of
humanity. The governments know this, and tremble before this
force, and with all the means at their command try to counteract it
and to get possession of it.
They know that the force is not in force, but in thought and in its
clear enunciation, and so they are more afraid of the expression of
independent thought than of armies, and establish censorships,
bribe newspapers, take possession of the management of religion
and of schools. But the spiritual force which moves the world slips
away from them: it is not even in a book, a newspaper,—it is
intangible and always free,—it is in the depth of men's
consciousness. The most powerful, intangible, freest force is the one
which is manifested in man's soul, when he by himself reflects on
the phenomena of the world, and then involuntarily expresses his
thoughts to his wife, brother, friend, to all those men with whom he
comes together, and from whom he considers it a sin to conceal
what he regards as the truth. No milliards of roubles, millions of
soldiers, no institutions, nor wars, nor revolutions will produce what
will be produced by the simple expression of a free man as to what
he considers just, independently of what exists and what is
inculcated upon him.
One free man will truthfully say what he thinks and feels, amidst
thousands of men, who by their acts and words affirm the very
opposite. It would seem that the man who frankly expressed his
thought would remain alone, while in reality it happens that all those
men, or the majority of them, have long been thinking and feeling
the same, but have not expressed their thought. And what yesterday
was the new opinion of one man, to-day becomes the common
opinion of all men. And as soon as this opinion has established itself,
men's acts begin to change imperceptibly, slowly, but irresistibly.
For, as it is, every free man says to himself: "What can I do against
all this sea of evil and deceit, which inundates me? Why should I
give expression to my thought? Why even give form to it? It is better
not to think of these obscure and intricate questions. Maybe these
contradictions form an inevitable condition of all the phenomena of
life. And why should I alone struggle against all this evil of the
world? Would it not be better if I abandoned myself to the current
which sweeps me along? If anything can be done, it can be done
only in conjunction with other men."
And, abandoning that powerful instrument of thought and its
expression, which moves the world, this man takes up the
instrument of public activity, without noticing that all public activity is
based on the very principles against which he has to struggle, that in
entering upon any public activity which exists amidst our world, he
must at least partially depart from the truth, make such concessions
as will destroy the whole force of that powerful instrument of the
struggle which is given to him. It is as though a man, into whose
hands an unusually sharp dagger is given, one that cuts everything,
should drive in nails with the blade.
We all deplore the senseless order of life which contradicts all our
existence, and yet not only fail to make use of the one most
powerful tool, which is in our hands,—the recognition of the truth
and its expression,—but, on the contrary, under the pretext of
struggling with evil, destroy this tool and sacrifice it to the imaginary
struggle against this order.
One man does not tell the truth which he knows, because he feels
himself under obligation to the men with whom he is connected;
another,—because the truth might deprive him of the advantageous
position by means of which he is supporting his family; a third,—
because he wants to attain glory and power, to use them later in the
service of men; a fourth,—because he does not wish to violate the
ancient sacred traditions; a fifth,—because the expression of the
truth will provoke persecution and will impair that good public
activity to which he is devoting himself, or intends to devote himself.
One man serves as an emperor, king, minister, official, soldier, and
assures himself and others that the deviation from the truth which is
necessary in his position is more than redeemed by his usefulness.
Another exercises the office of a spiritual pastor, though in the depth
of his heart he does not believe in what he teaches, permitting
himself a deviation from the truth in view of the good which he
does. A third instructs men in literature and, in spite of the
suppression of the whole truth, in order not to provoke the
government and society against himself, has no doubt as to the
good which he does; a fourth simply struggles against the existing
order, as do the revolutionists and anarchists, and is fully convinced
that the aim which he pursues is so beneficent that the suppression
of the truth, which is indispensable in his activity, and even lying will
not destroy the good effect of his activity.
For the order of life which is contrary to the consciousness of men to
give way to one in accord with it, it is necessary for the obsolete
public opinion to give way to a live and new one.
For the old, obsolete public opinion to give way to the new, live one,
it is necessary that the men who are conscious of the new demands
of life should clearly express them. Meanwhile all the men who
recognize all these new demands, one in the name of one thing, and
another in the name of another, not only repress them, but even in
words and deeds confirm what is directly opposed to these
demands. Only the truth and its expression can establish that new
public opinion which will change the obsolete and harmful order of
life; we, however, not only do not express the truth which we know,
but frequently even express precisely what we consider to be an
untruth.
If free men would only not depend on what has no force and is
never free,—on external power,—and would always believe in what
is always powerful and free,—in the truth and its expression. If men
only expressed boldly the truth, already revealed to them, about the
brotherhood of all the nations and about the criminality of the
exclusive membership in one nation, the dead, false public opinion,
on which the whole power of the governments is based, and all the
evil produced by them, would fall off by itself like a dried-up skin,
and there would appear that new, live public opinion, which is only
waiting for the sloughing off of the hampering old opinion, in order
clearly and boldly to proclaim its demands and establish the new
forms of life in accordance with the consciousness of men.

XVIII.
Men need but understand that what is given out to them as public
opinion, what is maintained by such complex and artificial means, is
not public opinion, but only the dead consequence of the quondam
public opinion; they need only, above all, believe in themselves, in
this, that what is cognized by them in the depth of their hearts, what
begs for recognition and finds no expression only because it
contradicts public opinion, is that force which changes the world,
and the manifestation of which forms man's destiny; men need but
believe that the truth is not what men about him say, but what his
conscience, that is, God, says to him, and immediately there will
disappear the false, artificially sustained public opinion, and the true
one will be established.
If men only said what they believe, and did not say what they do not
believe, there would immediately disappear the superstitions that
result from patriotism, and all the evil feelings and all the violence,
which are based on them. There would disappear the hatred and
hostility of states against states and of nationalities against
nationalities, which are fanned by the governments; there would
disappear the eulogizing of military exploits, that is, of murder; there
would, above all else, disappear the respect for the authorities, the
surrender of people's labours and the submission to them, for which
there are no foundations outside of patriotism.
Let all this be done, and immediately all that vast mass of weak
men, who are always guided from without, will sweep over to the
side of the new public opinion. And the new public opinion will
become the ruling one in the place of the old public opinion.
Let the governments have possession of the school, the church, the
press, milliards of roubles, and millions of disciplined men turned
into machines,—all that apparently terrible organization of rude force
is nothing in comparison with the recognition of the truth, which
arises in the heart of one man who knows the force of the truth, and
is communicated by this man to another, a third man, just as an
endless number of candles are lighted from one. This light need only
burn, and, like the wax before the face of the fire, all this seemingly
so powerful organization will waste away.
If men only understood that terrible power which is given them in
the word which expresses the truth. If men only did not sell their
birthright for a mess of pottage. If men only made use of this power
of theirs,—the rulers would not only not dare, as they dare now, to
threaten men with universal slaughter, to which they will drive men
or not, as they may see fit, but would not even dare in the sight of
peaceable citizens to bring the disciplined murderers out on parade
or in manœuvres; the governments would not dare for their own
profit, for the advantage of their accomplices, to make and unmake
customs treaties, and they would not dare to collect from the people
those millions of roubles which they distribute to their accomplices
and for which they prepare themselves for the commission of
murder.
And so the change is not only possible, but it is even impossible for
it not to take place, as it is impossible for an overgrown, dead tree
not to rot, and for a young one not to grow. "Peace I leave with you,
my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you;
let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid," said Christ.
And this peace is actually already among us, and it depends on us to
attain it.
If only the hearts of separate men did not grow faint from those
temptations with which they are tempted every hour, and if they
were not frightened by those imaginary fears with which they are
terrified. If men only knew in what their mighty, all-conquering force
consists, the peace for which men have always wished, not the one
which is obtained by means of diplomatic treaties, journeys of
emperors and kings from one city to another, dinners, speeches,
fortresses, cannon, dynamite, and melenite, but the one which is
obtained not by the exhaustion of the masses by taxes, not by
tearing the flower of the population away from work and debauching
them, but by the free profession of the truth by every separate
individual, would long ago have come to us.
Moscow, March 17, 1894.
 REASON AND RELIGION
1895

REASON AND RELIGION

You ask me:
1. Should people who are not particularly advanced mentally seek an
expression in words for the truths of the inner life, as comprehended
by them?
2. Is it worth while in one's inner life to strive after complete
consciousness?
3. What are we to be guided by in moments of struggle and
wavering, that we may know whether it is indeed our conscience
that is speaking in us, or whether it is reflection, which is bribed by
our weakness? (The third question I for brevity's sake expressed in
my own words, without having changed its meaning, I hope.)
These three questions in my opinion reduce themselves to one,—the
second, because, if it is not necessary for us to strive after a full
consciousness of our inner life, it will be also unnecessary and
impossible for us to express in words the truths which we have
grasped, and in moments of wavering we shall have nothing to be
guided by, in order to ascertain whether it is our conscience or a
false reflection that is speaking within us. But if it is necessary to
strive after the greatest consciousness accessible to human reason
(whatever this reason may be), it is also necessary to express the
truths grasped by us in words, and it is these expressed truths which
have been carried into full consciousness that we have to be guided
by in moments of struggle and wavering. And so I answer your
radical question in the affirmative, namely, that every man, for the
fulfilment of his destiny upon earth and for the attainment of the
true good (the two things go together), must strain all the forces of
his mind for the purpose of elucidating to himself those religious
bases by which he lives, that is, the meaning of his life.
I have frequently met among illiterate earth-diggers, who have to
figure out cubic contents, the wide-spread conviction that the
mathematical calculation is deceptive, and that it is not to be
trusted. Either because they do not know any mathematics, or
because the men who figured things out mathematically for them
had frequently consciously or unconsciously deceived them, the
opinion that mathematics was inadequate and useless for the
calculation of measures has established itself as an undoubted truth
which they think it is even unnecessary to prove. Just such an
opinion has established itself among, I shall say it boldly, irreligious
men,—an opinion that reason cannot solve any religious questions,—
that the application of reason to these questions is the chief cause of
errors, that the solution of religious questions by means of reason is
criminal pride.
I say this, because the doubt, expressed in your questions, as to
whether it is necessary to strive after consciousness in our religious
convictions, can be based only on this supposition, namely, that
reason cannot be applied to the solution of religious questions.
However, such a supposition is as strange and obviously false as the
supposition that calculation cannot settle any mathematical
questions.
God has given man but one tool for the cognition of himself and his
relation to the world,—there is no other,—and this tool is reason,
and suddenly he is told that he can use his reason for the elucidation
of his domestic, economic, political, scientific, artistic questions, but
not for the elucidation of what it is given him for. It turns out that for
the elucidation of the most important truths, of those on which his
whole life depends, a man must by no means employ reason, but
must recognize these truths as beyond reason, whereas beyond
reason a man cannot cognize anything. They say, "Find it out,
through revelation, faith." But a man cannot even believe outside of
reason. If a man believes in this, and not in that, he does so only
because his reason tells him that he ought to believe in this, and not
to believe in that. To say that a man should not be guided by reason
is the same as saying to a man, who in a dark underground room is
carrying a lamp, that, to get out from this underground room and
find his way, he ought to put out his lamp and be guided by
something different from the light.
But, perhaps, I shall be told, as you say in your letter, that not all
men are endowed with a great mind and with a special ability for
expressing their thoughts, and that, therefore, an awkward
expression of their thoughts concerning religion may lead to error. To
this I will answer in the words of the Gospel, "What is hidden from
the wise is revealed to babes." This saying is not an exaggeration
and not a paradox, as people generally judge of those utterances of
the Gospel which do not please them, but the assertion of a most
simple and unquestionable truth, which is, that to every being in the
world a law is given, which this being must follow, and that for the
cognition of this law every being is endowed with corresponding
organs. And so every man is endowed with reason, and in this
reason there is revealed to him the law which he must follow. This
law is hidden only from those who do not want to follow it and who,
in order not to follow it, renounce reason and, instead of using their
reason for the cognition of the truth, use for this purpose the
indications, taken upon faith, of people like themselves, who also
reject reason.
But the law which a man must follow is so simple that it is accessible
to any child, the more so since a man has no longer any need of
discovering the law of his life. Men who lived before him discovered
and expressed it, and all a man has to do is to verify them with his
reason, to accept or not to accept the propositions which he finds
expressed in the tradition, that is, not as people, who wish not to
fulfil the law, advise us to do, by verifying reason through tradition,
but by verifying tradition through reason. Tradition may be from
men, and false, but reason is certainly from God, and cannot be
false. And so, for the cognition and the expression of truth, there is
no need of any especial prominent capacity, but only of the faith that
reason is not only the highest divine quality of man, but also the
only tool for the cognition of truth.
A special mind and gifts are not needed for the cognition and
exposition of the truth, but for the invention and exposition of the
lie. Having once departed from the indications of reason, men heap
up and take upon faith, generally in the shape of laws, revelations,
dogmas, such complicated, unnatural, and contradictory propositions
that, in order to expound them and harmonize them with the lie,
there is actually a need of astuteness of mind and of a special gift.
We need only think of a man of our world, educated in the religious
tenets of any Christian profession,—Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant,—
who wants to elucidate to himself the religious tenets inculcated
upon him since childhood, and to harmonize them with life,—what a
complicated mental labour he must go through in order to
harmonize all the contradictions which are found in the profession
inoculated in him by his education: God, the Creator and the good,
created evil, punishes people, and demands redemption, and so
forth, and we profess the law of love and of forgiveness, and we
punish, wage war, take away the property from poor people, and so
forth, and so forth.
It is for the unravelling of these contradictions, or rather, for the
concealment of them from ourselves, that a great mind and special
gifts are needed; but for the discovery of the law of our life, or, as
you express it, in order to bring our faith into full consciousness, no
special mental gifts are needed,—all that is necessary is not to admit
anything that is contrary to reason, not to reject reason, religiously
to guard reason, and to believe in nothing else. If the meaning of a
man's life presents itself to him indistinctly, that does not prove that
reason is of no use for the elucidation of this meaning, but only this,
that too much of what is irrational has been taken upon faith, and
that it is necessary to reject everything which is not confirmed by
reason.
And so my answer to your fundamental question, as to whether it is
necessary to strive after consciousness in our inner life, is this, that
this is the most necessary and important work of our life. It is
necessary and important because the only rational meaning of our
life consists in the fulfilment of the will of God who sent us into this
life. But the will of God is not recognized by any special miracle, by
the writing of the law on tablets with God's finger, or by the
composition of an infallible book with the aid of the Holy Ghost, or
by the infallibility of some holy person or of an assembly of men,—
but only by the activity of the reason of all men who in deeds and
words transmit to one another the truths which have become more
and more elucidated to their consciousness. This cognition has never
been and never will be complete, but is constantly increased with
the movement of humanity: the longer we live, the more clearly do
we recognize God's will and, consequently, what we ought to do for
its fulfilment. And so I think that the elucidation by any man (no
matter how small he himself and others may consider him to be—it
is the little ones who are great) of the whole religious truth, as it is
accessible to him, and its expression in words (since the expression
in words is the one unquestionable symptom of a complete clearness
of ideas) is one of the most important and most sacred duties of
man.
I shall be very much pleased if my answer shall satisfy you even in
part.
 PATRIOTISM OR PEACE
Letter to Manson
1896

PATRIOTISM OR PEACE
Letter to Manson
Dear Sir:—You write to me asking me to express myself in respect to
the United States of North America "in the interests of Christian
consistency and true peace," and express the hope that "the nations
will soon awaken to the one means of securing national peace."
I harbour the same hope. I harbour the same hope, because the
blindness in our time of the nations that extol patriotism, bring up
their young generations in the superstition of patriotism, and, at the
same time, do not wish for the inevitable consequences of
patriotism,—war,—has, it seems to me, reached such a last stage
that the simplest reflection, which begs for utterance in the mouth of
every unprejudiced man, is sufficient, in order that men may see the
crying contradiction in which they are.
Frequently, when you ask children which they will choose of two
things which are incompatible, but which they want alike, they
answer, "Both."
"Which do you want,—to go out driving or to stay at home?"—"Both,
—go out driving and stay at home."
Just so the Christian nations answer the question which life puts to
them, as to which they will choose, patriotism or peace, they answer
"Both patriotism and peace," though it is as impossible to unite
patriotism with peace, as at the same time to go out driving and
stay at home.
The other day there arose a difference between the United States
and England concerning the borders of Venezuela. Salisbury for
some reason did not agree to something; Cleveland wrote a
message to the Senate; from either side were raised patriotic warlike
cries; a panic ensued upon 'Change; people lost millions of pounds
and of dollars; Edison announced that he would invent engines with
which it would be possible to kill more men in an hour than Attila
had killed in all his wars, and both nations began energetically to
arm themselves for war. But because, simultaneously with these
preparations for war, both in England and in America, all kinds of
literary men, princes, and statesmen began to admonish their
respective governments to abstain from war, saying that the subject
under discussion was not sufficiently important to begin a war for,
especially between two related Anglo-Saxon nations, speaking the
same language, who ought not to war among themselves, but ought
calmly to govern others; or because all kinds of bishops,
archdeacons, canons prayed and preached concerning the matter in
all the churches; or because neither side considered itself sufficiently
prepared,—it happened that there was no war just then. And people
calmed down.
But a person has to have too little perspicacity not to see that the
causes which now are leading to a conflict between England and
America have remained the same, and that, if even the present
conflict shall be settled without a war, there will inevitably to-morrow
or the day after appear other conflicts, between England and Russia,
between England and Turkey, in all possible permutations, as they
arise every day, and one of these will lead to war.
If two armed men live side by side, having been impressed from
childhood with the idea that power, wealth, and glory are the highest
virtues, and that, therefore, to acquire power, wealth, and glory by
means of arms, to the detriment of other neighbouring possessors,
is a very praiseworthy matter, and if at the same time there is no
moral, religious, or political restraint for these men, is it not evident
that such people will always fight, that the normal relation between
them will be war? and that, if such people, having clutched one
another, have separated for awhile, they have done so only, as the
French proverb says, "pour mieux sauter," that is, they have
separated to take a better run, to throw themselves with greater
fury upon one another?
Strange is the egotism of private individuals, but the egotists of
private life are not armed, do not consider it right either to prepare
or use arms against their adversaries; the egotism of private
individuals is under the control of the political power and of public
opinion. A private person who with gun in his hand takes away his
neighbour's cow, or a desyatína of his crop, will immediately be
seized by a policeman and put into prison. Besides, such a man will
be condemned by public opinion,—he will be called a thief and
robber. It is quite different with the states: they are all armed,—
there is no power over them, except the comical attempts at
catching a bird by pouring some salt on its tail,—attempts at
establishing international congresses, which, apparently, will never
be accepted by the powerful states (who are armed for the very
purpose that they may not pay any attention to any one), and,
above all, public opinion, which rebukes every act of violence in a
private individual, extols, raises to the virtue of patriotism every
appropriation of what belong to others, for the increase of the power
of the country.
Open the newspapers for any period you may wish, and at any
moment you will see the black spot,—the cause of every possible
war: now it is Korea, now the Pamir, now the lands in Africa, now
Abyssinia, now Turkey, now Venezuela, now the Transvaal. The work
of the robbers does not stop for a moment, and here and there a
small war, like an exchange of shots in the cordon, is going on all the
time, and the real war can and will begin at any moment.
If an American wishes the preferential grandeur and well-being of
America above all other nations, and the same is desired for his
state by an Englishman, and a Russian, and a Turk, and a
Dutchman, and an Abyssinian, and a citizen of Venezuela and of the
Transvaal, and an Armenian, and a Pole, and a Bohemian, and all of
them are convinced that these desires need not only not be
concealed or repressed, but should be a matter of pride and be
developed in themselves and in others; and if the greatness and
well-being of one country or nation cannot be obtained except to the
detriment of another nation, frequently of many countries and
nations,—how can war be avoided?
And so, not to have any war, it is not necessary to preach and pray
to God about peace, to persuade the English-speaking nations that
they ought to be friendly toward one another, in order to be able to
rule over other nations; to form double and triple alliances against
one another; to marry princes to princesses of other nations,—but to
destroy what produces war. But what produces war is the desire for
an exclusive good for one's own nation,—what is called patriotism.
And so to abolish war, it is necessary to abolish patriotism, and to
abolish patriotism, it is necessary first to become convinced that it is
an evil, and that it is hard to do. Tell people that war is bad, and
they will laugh at you: who does not know that? Tell them that
patriotism is bad, and the majority of people will agree with you, but
with a small proviso. "Yes, bad patriotism is bad, but there is also
another patriotism, the one we adhere to." But wherein this good
patriotism consists no one can explain. If good patriotism consists in
not being acquisitive, as many say, it is none the less retentive; that
is, men want to retain what was formerly acquired, since there is no
country which was not based on conquest, and it is impossible to
retain what is conquered by any other means than those by which it
was acquired, that is, by violence and murder. But even if patriotism
is not retentive, it is restorative,—the patriotism of the vanquished
and oppressed nations, the Armenians, Poles, Bohemians, Irish, and
so forth. This patriotism is almost the very worst, because it is the
most enraged and demands the greatest degree of violence.
Patriotism cannot be good. Why do not people say that egotism can
be good, though this may be asserted more easily, because egotism
is a natural sentiment, with which a man is born, while patriotism is
an unnatural sentiment, which is artificially inoculated in him?
It will be said: "Patriotism has united men in states and keeps up the
unity of the states." But the men are already united in states,—the
work is all done: why should men now maintain an exclusive loyalty
for their state, when this loyalty produces calamities for all states
and nations? The same patriotism which produced the unification of
men into states is now destroying those states. If there were but
one patriotism,—the patriotism of none but the English,—it might be
regarded as unificatory or beneficent, but when, as now, there are
American, English, German, French, Russian patriotisms, all of them
opposed to one another, patriotism no longer unites, but disunites.
To say that, if patriotism was beneficent, by uniting men into states,
as was the case during its highest development in Greece and Rome,
patriotism even now, after eighteen hundred years of Christian life,
is just as beneficent, is the same as saying that, since the ploughing
was useful and beneficent for the field before the sowing, it will be
as useful now, after the crop has grown up.
It would be very well to retain patriotism in memory of the use
which it once had, as people preserve and retain the ancient
monuments of temples, mausoleums, and so forth. But the temples
and mausoleums stand, without causing any harm to men, while
patriotism produces without cessation innumerable calamities.
What now causes the Armenians and the Turks to suffer and cut
each other's throats and act like wild beasts? Why do England and
Russia, each of them concerned about her share of the inheritance
from Turkey, lie in wait and do not put a stop to the Armenian
atrocities? Why do the Abyssinians and Italians fight one another?
Why did a terrible war come very near breaking out on account of
Venezuela, and now on account of the Transvaal? And the Chino-
Japanese War, and the Turkish, and the German, and the French
wars? And the rage of the subdued nations, the Armenians, the
Poles, the Irish? And the preparation for war by all the nations? All
that is the fruits of patriotism. Seas of blood have been shed for the
sake of this sentiment, and more blood will be shed for its sake, if
men do not free themselves from this outlived bit of antiquity.
I have several times had occasion to write about patriotism, about
its absolute incompatibility, not only with the teaching of Christ in its
ideal sense, but even with the lowest demands of the morality of
Christian society, and every time my arguments have been met with
silence or with the supercilious hint that the ideas expressed by me
were Utopian expressions of mysticism, anarchism, and
cosmopolitanism. My ideas have frequently been repeated in a
compressed form, and, instead of retorting to them, it was added
that it was nothing but cosmopolitanism, as though this word
"cosmopolitanism" unanswerably overthrew all my arguments.
Serious, old, clever, good men, who, above all else, stand like the
city on a hill, and who involuntarily guide the masses by their
example, make it appear that the legality and beneficence of
patriotism are so obvious and incontestable that it is not worth while
to answer the frivolous and senseless attacks upon this sentiment,
and the majority of men, who have since childhood been deceived
and infected by patriotism, take this supercilious silence to be a most
convincing proof, and continue to stick fast in their ignorance.
And so those people who from their position can free the masses
from their calamities, and do not do so, commit a great sin.
The most terrible thing in the world is hypocrisy. There was good
reason why Christ once got angry,—that was against the hypocrisy
of the Pharisees.
But what was the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in comparison with the
hypocrisy of our time? In comparison with our men, the Pharisees
were the most truthful of men, and their art of hypocrisy was as
child's play in comparison with the hypocrisy of our time; nor can it
be otherwise. Our whole life, with the profession of Christianity, the
teaching of humility and love, in connection with the life of an armed
den of robbers, can be nothing but one solid, terrible hypocrisy. It is
very convenient to profess a teaching at one end of which is
Christian sanctity and infallibility, and at the other—the pagan sword
and gallows, so that, when it is possible to impose or deceive by
means of sanctity, sanctity is put into effect, and when the deception
does not work, the sword and the gallows are put into effect. Such a
teaching is very convenient, but the time comes when this spider-
web of lie is dispersed, and it is no longer possible to continue to
keep both, and it is necessary to ally oneself with either one or the
other. It is this which is now getting to be the case in relation to the
teaching about patriotism.
Whether people want it or not, the question stands clearly before
humanity: how can that patriotism, from which result innumerable
physical and moral calamities of men, be necessary and a virtue? It
is indispensable to give an answer to this question.
It is necessary either to show that patriotism is such a great good
that it redeems all those terrible calamities which it produces in
humanity; or to recognize that patriotism is an evil, which must not
only not be inoculated in men and impressed upon them, but from
which also we must try to free ourselves at all cost.
C'est à prendre ou à laisser, as the French say. If patriotism is good,
then Christianity, which gives peace, is an idle dream, and the
sooner this teaching is eradicated, the better. But if Christianity really
gives peace, and we really want peace, patriotism is a survival from
barbarous times, which must not only not be evoked and educated,
as we now do, but which must be eradicated by all means, by means
of preaching, persuasion, contempt, and ridicule. If Christianity is
the truth, and we wish to live in peace, we must not only have no
sympathy for the power of our country, but must even rejoice in its
weakening, and contribute to it. A Russian must rejoice when
Poland, the Baltic provinces, Finland, Armenia, are separated from
Russia and made free; and an Englishman must similarly rejoice in
relation to Ireland, Australia, India, and the other colonies, and
coöperate in it, because, the greater the country, the more evil and
cruel is its patriotism, and the greater is the amount of the suffering
on which its power is based. And so, if we actually want to be what
we profess, we must not, as we do now, wish for the increase of our
country, but wish for its diminution and weakening, and contribute
to it with all our means. And thus must we educate the younger
generations: we must bring up the younger generations in such a
way that, as it is now disgraceful for a young man to manifest his
coarse egotism, for example, by eating everything up, without
leaving anything for others, to push a weaker person down from the
road, in order to pass by himself, to take away by force what
another needs, it should be just as disgraceful to wish for the
increase of his country's power; and, as it now is considered stupid
and ridiculous for a person to praise himself, it should be considered
stupid to extol one's nation, as is now done in various lying patriotic
histories, pictures, monuments, text-books, articles, sermons, and
stupid national hymns. But it must be understood that so long as we
are going to extol patriotism and educate the younger generations in
it, we shall have armaments, which ruin the physical and spiritual life
of the nations, and wars, terrible, horrible wars, like those for which
we are preparing ourselves, and into the circle of which we are
introducing, corrupting them with our patriotism, the new, terrible
fighters of the distant East.
Emperor William, one of the most comical persons of our time,
orator, poet, musician, dramatic writer, and artist, and, above all,
patriot, has lately painted a picture representing all the nations of
Europe with swords, standing at the seashore and, at the indication
of Archangel Michael, looking at the sitting figures of Buddha and
Confucius in the distance. According to William's intention, this
should mean that the nations of Europe ought to unite in order to
defend themselves against the peril which is proceeding from there.
He is quite right from his coarse, pagan, patriotic point of view,
which is eighteen hundred years behind the times. The European
nations, forgetting Christ, have in the name of their patriotism more
and more irritated these peaceful nations, and have taught them
patriotism and war, and have now irritated them so much that,
indeed, if Japan and China will as fully forget the teachings of
Buddha and of Confucius as we have forgotten the teaching of
Christ, they will soon learn the art of killing people (they learn these
things quickly, as Japan has proved), and, being fearless, agile,
strong, and populous, they will inevitably very soon make of the
countries of Europe, if Europe does not invent something stronger
than guns and Edison's inventions, what the countries of Europe are
making of Africa. "The disciple is not above his master: but every
one that is perfect shall be as his master" (Luke vi. 40).
In reply to a prince's question how to increase his army, in order to
conquer a southern tribe which did not submit to him, Confucius
replied: "Destroy all thy army, and use the money, which thou art
wasting now on the army, on the enlightenment of thy people and
on the improvement of agriculture, and the southern tribe will drive
away its prince and will submit to thy rule without war."
Thus taught Confucius, whom we are advised to fear. But we, having
forgotten Christ's teaching, having renounced it, wish to vanquish
the nations by force, and thus are only preparing for ourselves new
and stronger enemies than our neighbours. A friend of mine, who
saw William's picture, said: "The picture is beautiful, only it does not
at all represent what the legend says. It means that Archangel
Michael shows to all the governments of Europe, which are
represented as robbers bedecked with arms, what it is that will
cause their ruin and annihilation, namely, the meekness of Buddha
and the wisdom of Confucius." He might have added, "And the
humility of Lao-tse."
Indeed, we, thanks to our hypocrisy, have forgotten Christ to such
an extent, have so squeezed out of our life everything Christian, that
the teachings of Buddha and Confucius stand incomparably higher
than that beastly patriotism, by which our so-called Christian nations
are guided. And so the salvation of Europe and of the Christian
world at large does not consist in this, that, bedecking themselves
with swords, as William has represented them, they should, like
robbers, cast themselves upon their brothers beyond the sea, in
order to kill them, but, on the contrary, they should renounce the
survival of barbarous times,—patriotism,—and, having renounced it,
should take off their arms and show the Eastern nations, not an
example of savage patriotism and beastliness, but an example of
brotherly love, which Christ has taught us.
Moscow, January 2, 1896.
 LETTER TO ERNEST HOWARD
CROSBY
On Non-Resistance
1896

LETTER TO ERNEST HOWARD CROSBY

On Non-Resistance
My dear Crosby:—I am very glad to hear of your activity and that it is
beginning to attract attention. Fifty years ago Garrison's
proclamation of non-resistance only cooled people toward him, and
the whole fifty years' activity of Ballou in this direction was met with
stubborn silence. I read with great pleasure in Peace the beautiful
ideas of the American authors in regard to non-resistance. I make an
exception only in the case of Mr. Bemis's old, unfounded opinion,
which calumniates Christ in assuming that Christ's expulsion of the
cattle from the temple means that he struck the men with a whip,
and commanded his disciples to do likewise.
The ideas expressed by these writers, especially by H. Newton and
G. Herron, are beautiful, but it is to be regretted that they do not
answer the question which Christ put before men, but answer the
question which the so-called orthodox teachers of the churches, the
chief and most dangerous enemies of Christianity, have put in its
place.
Mr. Higginson says that the law of non-resistance is not admissible
as a general rule. H. Newton says that the practical results of the
application of Christ's teaching will depend on the degree of faith
which men will have in this teaching. Mr. C. Martyn assumes that the
stage at which we are is not yet suited for the application of the
teaching about non-resistance. G. Herron says that in order to fulfil
the law of non-resistance, it is necessary to learn to apply it to life.
Mrs. Livermore says the same, thinking that the fulfilment of the law
of non-resistance is possible only in the future.
All these opinions treat only the question as to what would happen
to people if all were put to the necessity of fulfilling the law of non-
resistance; but, in the first place, it is quite impossible to compel all
men to accept the law of non-resistance, and, in the second, if this
were possible, it would be a most glaring negation of the very
principle which is being established. To compel all men not to
practise violence against others! Who is going to compel men?
In the third place, and above all else, the question, as put by Christ,
does not consist in this, whether non-resistance may become a
universal law for all humanity, but what each man must do in order
to fulfil his destiny, to save his soul, and do God's work, which
reduces itself to the same.
The Christian teaching does not prescribe any laws for all men; it
does not say, "Follow such and such rules under fear of punishment,
and you will all be happy," but explains to each separate man his
position in the world and shows him what for him personally results
from this position. The Christian teaching says to each individual
man that his life, if he recognizes his life to be his, and its aim, the
worldly good of his personality or of the personalities of other men,
can have no rational meaning, because this good, posited as the end
of life, can never be attained, because, in the first place, all beings
strive after the goods of the worldly life, and these goods are always
attained by one set of beings to the detriment of others, so that
every separate man cannot receive the desired good, but, in all
probability, must even endure many unnecessary sufferings in his
struggle for these unattained goods; in the second place, because if
a man even attains the worldly goods, these, the more of them he
attains, satisfy him less and less, and he wishes for more and more
new ones; in the third place, mainly because the longer a man lives,
the more inevitably do old age, diseases, and finally death, which
destroys the possibility of any worldly good, come to him.
Thus, if a man considers his life to be his, and its end to be the
worldly good, for himself or for other men, this life can have for him
no rational meaning. Life receives a rational meaning only when a
man understands that the recognition of his life as his own, and the
good of personality, of his own or of that of others, as its end, is an
error, and that the human life does not belong to him, who has
received this life from some one, but to Him who produced this life,
and so its end must not consist in the attainment of his own good or
of the good of others, but only in the fulfilment of the will of Him
who produced it. Only with such a comprehension of life does it
receive a rational meaning, and its end, which consists in the
fulfilment of God's will, become attainable, and, above all, only with
such a comprehension does man's activity become clearly defined,
and he no longer is subject to despair and suffering, which were
inevitable with his former comprehension.
"The world and I in it," such a man says to himself, "exist by the will
of God. I cannot know the whole world and my relation to it, but I
can know what is wanted of me by God, who sent men into this
world, endless in time and space, and therefore inaccessible to my
understanding, because this is revealed to me in the tradition, that
is, in the aggregate reason of the best people in the world, who lived
before me, and in my reason, and in my heart, that is, in the striving
of my whole being.
"In the tradition, the aggregate of the wisdom of all the best men,
who lived before me, I am told that I must act toward others as I
wish that others should act toward me; my reason tells me that the
greatest good of men is possible only when all men will act likewise.
"My heart is at peace and joyful only when I abandon myself to the
feeling of love for men, which demands the same. And then I can
not only know what I must do, but also the cause for which my
activity is necessary and defined.
"I cannot grasp the whole divine work, for which the world exists
and lives, but the divine work which is being accomplished in this
world and in which I am taking part with my life is accessible to me.
This work is the destruction of the discord and of the struggle
among men and other beings, and the establishment among men of
the greatest union, concord, and love; this work is the realization of
what the Jewish prophets promised, saying that the time will come
when all men shall be taught the truth, when the spears shall be
forged into pruning-hooks, and the scythes and swords into
ploughshares, and when the lion shall lie with the lamb."
Thus the man of the Christian comprehension of life not only knows
how he must act in life, but also what he must do.
He must do what contributes to the establishment of the kingdom of
God in the world. To do this, a man must fulfil the inner demands of
God's will, that is, he must act amicably toward others, as he would
like others to do to him. Thus the inner demands of a man's soul
coincide with that external end of life which is placed before him.
And here though we have an indication which is so clear to a man of
the Christian comprehension, and incontestable from two sides, as
to what the meaning and end of human life consists in, and how a
man must act, and what he must do, and what not, there appear
certain people, who call themselves Christians, who decide that in
such and such cases a man must depart from God's law and the
common cause of life, which are given to him, and must act contrary
to the law and the common cause of life, because, according to their
ratiocination, the consequences of the acts committed according to
God's law may be profitless and disadvantageous for men.
Man, according to the Christian teaching, is God's workman. The
workman does not know his master's whole business, but the
nearest aim to be attained by his work is revealed to him, and he is
given definite indications as to what he should do; especially definite
are the indications as to what he must not do, in order that he may
not work against the aim for the attainment of which he was sent to
work. In everything else he is given complete liberty. And so for a
man who has grasped the Christian conception of life the meaning of
his life is clear and rational, and he cannot have a moment of
wavering as to how he should act in life and what he ought to do, in
order to fulfil the destiny of his life.
According to the law given him in the tradition, in his reason, and in
his heart, a man must always act toward another as he wishes to
have done to him: he must contribute to the establishment of love
and union among men; but according to the decision of these far-
sighted people, a man must, while the fulfilment of the law,
according to their opinion, is still premature, do violence, deprive of
liberty, kill people, and with this contribute, not to union of love, but
to the irritation and enragement of people. It is as though a mason,
who is put to do certain definite work, who knows that he is taking
part with others in the building of a house, and who has received a
clear and indubitable command from the master himself that he is to
lay a wall, should receive the command from other masons like him,
who, like him, do not know the general plan of the structure and
what is useful for the common work, to stop laying the wall, and to
undo the work of the others.
Wonderful delusion! The being that breathes to-day and disappears
to-morrow, that has one definite, incontestable law given to him, as
to how he is to pass his short term of life, imagines that he knows
what is necessary and useful and appropriate for all men, for the
whole world, for that world which moves without cessation, and
goes on developing, and in the name of this usefulness, which is
differently understood by each of them, he prescribes to himself and
to others for a time to depart from the unquestionable law, which is
given to him and to all men, and not to act toward all men as he
wants others to act toward him, not to bring love into the world, but
to practise violence, to deprive of freedom, to punish, to kill, to
introduce malice into the world, when it is found that this is
necessary. And he enjoins us to do so knowing that the most terrible
cruelties, tortures, murders of men, from the Inquisitions and
punishments and terrors of all the revolutions to the present
bestialities of the anarchists and the massacres of them, have all
proceeded from this, that men suppose that they know what people
and the world need; knowing that at any given moment there are
always two opposite parties, each of which asserts that it is
necessary to use violence against the opposite party,—the men of
state against the anarchists, the anarchists against the men of state;
the English against the Americans, the Americans against the
English; the English against the Germans; and so forth, in all
possible combinations and permutations.
Not only does a man of the Christian concept of life see clearly by
reflection that there is no ground whatever for his departure from
the law of his life, as clearly indicated to him by God, in order to
follow the accidental, frail, frequently contradictory demands of men;
but if he has been living the Christian life for some time, and has
developed in himself the Christian moral sensitiveness, he can
positively not act as people demand that he shall, not only as the
result of reflection, but also of feeling.
As it is for many men of our world impossible to subject a child to
torture and to kill it, though such a torture may save a hundred
other people, so a whole series of acts becomes impossible for a
man who has developed the Christian sensitiveness of his heart in
himself. A Christian, for example, who is compelled to take part in
court proceedings, where a man may be sentenced to capital
punishment, to take part in matters of forcible seizure of other
people's property, in discussions about the declaration of war, or in
preparations for the same, to say nothing of war itself, finds himself
in the same position in which a good man would be, if he were
compelled to torture or kill a child. It is not that he decides by
reflection what he ought not to do, but that he cannot do what is
demanded of him, because for a man there exists the moral
impossibility, just as there is a physical impossibility, of committing
certain acts. Just as it is impossible for a man to lift up a mountain,
as it is impossible for a good man to kill a child, so it is impossible
for a man who lives a Christian life to take part in violence. Of what
significance for such a man can be the reflections that for some
imaginary good he must do what has become morally impossible for
him?
How, then, is a man to act when he sees the obvious harm of
following the law of love and the law of non-resistance, which results
from it? How is a man to act—this example is always adduced—
when a robber in his sight kills or injures a child, and when the child
cannot be saved otherwise than by killing the robber?
It is generally assumed that, when they adduce such an example,
there can be no other answer to the question than that the robber
ought to be killed, in order that the child be saved. But this answer
is given so emphatically and so quickly only because we are not only
in the habit of acting in this manner in the case of the defence of a
child, but also in the case of the expansion of the borders of a
neighbouring state to the detriment of our own, or in the case of the
transportation of lace across the border, or even in the case of the
defence of the fruits of our garden against depredations by passers-
by.
It is assumed that it is necessary to kill the robber in order to save
the child, but we need only stop and think on what ground a man
should act thus, be he a Christian or a non-Christian, to convince
ourselves that such an act can have no rational foundations, and is
considered necessary only because two thousand years ago such a
mode of action was considered just and people were in the habit of
acting thus. Why should a non-Christian, who does not recognize
God and the meaning of life in the fulfilment of His will, kill the
robber, in defending the child? To say nothing of this, that in killing
the robber he is certainly killing, but does not know for certain until
the very last moment whether the robber will kill the child or not, to
say nothing of this irregularity: who has decided that the life of the
child is more necessary and better than the life of the robber?
If a non-Christian does not recognize God, and does not consider the
meaning of life to consist in the fulfilment of God's will, it is only
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