The cover illustration is Archive, from To Archive the Shape of Memory, 1999-2000, right panel of diptych, digitally reproduced Lamda print. Copyright Freda Guttman, Freda Guttman is an installation artist whose work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions across Canada and internationally. Guttman has a long history of political activism that parallels and intersects with her artistic preoccupations. Presently, she is one of a host of Montreal anarchists involved in Palestinian Solidarity work. This activism is particularly important in a city that is home to many Palestinians struggling to obtain status in Canada against the threat of deportation. Archive is from a series of five installations (Notes From the 20th) inspired by Walter Benjamins belief that we must awaken from the myth of history as progress if we are to free ourselves from hitherto endless cycles of violence and despair a message that the world of the twenty-first century seems reluctant to heed. Allan Antliff

3

Open form and the abstract imperative: Herbert Read and contemporary anarchist artALLAN ANTLIFF allan@uvic.ca ABSTRACT During the 1930s, in a series of articles defending abstraction in art, Herbert Read argued an anarchist society is liberating because the order it generates is founded upon the free creativity of its participants. The precondition of social freedom under anarchism was communism without authoritarianism, an organicist social order without closure in which art could evolve unceasingly, in accord with the impetus of its creators. On this basis, Read regarded the abstract art of his time as amenable to anarchism: because not only did abstracting artists refuse the didactic artistic programs of communism and fascism. They created art that, like anarchism, mirrored the open structure of nature itself. Arguably, Reads legacy lies at this point of intersection, where anarchist art encounters living reality. But whereas Read searched for art that prefigured anarchisms open structures on a metaphorical level, as form, contemporary anarchists are developing art that fosters anarchist politics in practice, by transforming art-making into an egalitarian process that is itself unbounded. Herbert Read discovered, in abstract art, a prefiguration of the open politics of anarchism. Anarchism is characterized by an insistence that you cannot achieve social freedom through authoritarian means. Anarchists call for egalitarian socio-political structures wherein hierarchical relations are done away with and everyone is empowered to participate in the running of society. Anarchist self-governance would involve organizations, communities, associations, networks, and projects on every conceivable scale, from the municipal to the global, freely cooperating in ways that have yet to be worked out. The point is, so long as the participants act through anarchist modes of self-governance, the social structure is a sphere of freedom responsive to the desires of each and every participant. Conflicts will be dealt with through consensual processes rather than the rule of force, and no individual or group will exercise power over any one else.1 Anarchists have often compared this open cooperative social structure to a biological organism. Organisms are living beings which evolve of their own free will through a process of perpetual becoming that is unbounded and nondeterministic. Similarly, an anarchist society emulates this openness through a harmonious social structure that is free, dynamic, and ever-evolving. It 6

OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE comes as no surprise, then, that Read would appeal to this metaphor when identifying parallels to anarchism in art. And in this regard, one of his most succinct statements on abstraction, published on the eve of World War 2 in the London Bulletin, is instructive. Read wrote that the abstracting artist was concerned with certain proportions and rhythms inherent in the structure of the universe which govern organic growth. Attuned to these rhythms and proportions, the artist created microcosms which reflect the macrocosm by rejecting an exact presentation of the external world in favour of the essential forms underlying natures casual variations.2 By way of example, he illustrated his discussion with an Untitled painting by Piet Mondrian and a sculpture, Two Forms (1937), by Barbara Hepworth. These works expressed tendencies in abstraction towards, on the one hand, an exploration of natures geometric structures and, on the other, its organic materiality. What united them both was their capacity to evoke, in the viewer, an idea of organicism that lay beyond the object at hand. As Read put it, they expressed the living cosmos held not in a grain of sand, but in a block of stone or a pattern of colours.3

Barbara Hepworth, Two Forms, 1937 So far so good, but Reads considerations were not confined to the art object. He also addressed abstract arts social function by adjudicating what kind of art was desirable on the basis of its amenability to the anarchism of the natural scientist and geographer, Peter Kropotkin. On this basis he brought abstract art under the umbrella of anarchism, and defended it against Communist Party assertions that socialist realism was 7

ANARCHIST STUDIES the only revolutionary art form. Which is to say that the abstract imperative in art was profoundly bound up with the open politics anarchism. In his edited collection of Kropotkins writings, published in 1942, we have a succinct outline of Reads anarchism. The anarchist goal was a society where the needs of everyone would be met through a system of decentralized self-governance and a socialized economy. Whereas Marxists argued the centralized state could serve as a means of realizing socialism, Kropotkin argued the state was an authoritarian institution that would undermine economic egalitarianism and repress the social freedoms that were fundamental for progressive development.4 The state, therefore, had to be abolished at the same time as capitalism. Both generated social conflict that went against humanitys collective interest. Developing his argument, Kropotkin extrapolated, from nature, fundamental laws that pertained to humanitys evolution.5 He posited that the natural world tended toward a condition of dynamic equilibrium, in which each species spontaneously adapted to its environment and in so doing, contributed to the make-up of the ecological organism as a whole. Nature was dynamic because as species evolved and new ones came into being the conditions of equilibrium changed. The well-being of nature, therefore, lay in the spontaneous development of species and ever increasing diversity in the ecological makeup. The prime force in nature was mutual aid the universal law of organic evolution.6 Kropotkin observed that the vast majority of species thrive because of spontaneous patterns of cooperation that also permeate interspecies relationships. Humanity was natures most social animal and amongst us the practice of mutual aid had attained the greatest development. This gave rise to cooperative modes of social organization and ethical ideals such as altruism and the desire for justice founded on the principle of equal rights for all. It was in humanitys species interest, therefore, to increase cooperation and to cultivate correspondingly harmonious relationships with the environment.7 Anarchism was the means of achieving this goal. An anarchist society, wrote Kropotkin, would not be crystallized into certain unchangeable forms, but will continually modify its aspect, because it will be a living, evolving organism; no need for government will be felt, because free agreement and federation will take its place.8 Such a society would be animated by the freedom to grow and develop spontaneously, with mutual aid as the guarantor of progressive, as opposed to regressive, development. This would mark it as a healthy social system, as opposed to capitalism, where these conditions did not prevail. And so we return to art. Reads compendium of Kropotkins writings ends with a chapter on Art and Society in which Kropotkin wrote, Art is, in our ideal, synonymous with creation. The artist invented new forms 8

OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE which were powerful and expressive, but only when cities, territories, nations or groups of nations adopted the free order of anarchism would art become an integral part of the living whole.9 Produced by individuals from every walk of life and rooted in community diversity, art would spread and flourish in painting, sculpture, architecture, and the everyday environment. It would transform everything that surrounds man, in the street, in the interior and exterior, into pure artistic form.10 It followed, therefore, that the cause of the arts was the cause of revolution.11 Ideally, the social function of the artist was to express the inner most impulses of the mind in such a way as to contribute to the material organization of life.12 However art could only flourish if there was social and economic liberty for the artist to develop and evolve. And these conditions could only be realized in a classless, anarchist society.13 How, then, did abstract art figure in anarchisms programme? Read addressed this question in an essay published in 1935, where he defended the revolutionary potential of modernism. Here he mounted a critique of the condition of art under capitalism and its role under state dictatorship. Capitalism fostered a culture that favoured mass conformity over originality of expression while utilitarian products devoid of aesthetic value flooded the social landscape.14 Indeed, Kropotkins vision of art transforming everything that surrounds man into pure artistic form was impossible under capitalism because capitalist economics disbarred artists from playing any significant social role.15 Capitalism degraded the material world and repressed artistic activity in the process, but it was not the only social system hostile to the arts. Soviet Communism and Fascism were equally damaging. Both subordinated all aspects of society, including art, to the central control of the state.16 In these societies there was no recognition that imaginative expression through art was a fundamental human need. Instead art was treated instrumentally. Communist art celebrated the achievements of socialism while in Nazi Germany the ideals of nationalism were glorified, but the necessary method, wrote Read, was the same. The regimes fostered a rhetorical realism, devoid of invention, deficient in imagination, renouncing subtlety, and emphasizing the obvious.17 A brief examination of Nazi art and the art promoted by Communists in the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom will enliven Reads critique. Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbrcks Workers, Farmers and Soldiers (c. 1940) communicates its message in a realist style following the Nazi dictum that German art be understandable to the masses. The paintings theme is racist collectivism; the German nation is subdivided into spheres of productivity, with war-making at its apex.18 Similarly, Soviet artist Arkadi Platsovs Collective Farm Festival (1937) depicts ideological themes in a realist style so as to arouse a revolutionary relationship to reality.19 Under a 9

ANARCHIST STUDIES

Hans Schmitz-Wiedenbruck, Workers, Farmers and Soldiers, c. 1940

Arkadi Platsov, Collective Farm Festival, 1937 sunny sky, symbolic of the bright future, the figure of Stalin gazes over prosperous peasants who are enjoying the fruits of socialism in one country, including ownership of a combine harvester. The banner, flanked by a five-pointed star and Soviet flag, reads Living has gotten better, living has gotten merrier. This slogan, coined by Stalin in 1933, by and large set the tone for how life in the socialist fatherland was depicted during the era of the five year plan.20 Socialist realism in the Soviet Union also set the pace for the type of art promoted by the British Communist Party. New realism was the term coined by one of the partys leading critics, Anthony Blunt, to describe this art.21 New realist artists were sympathetic with the progressive sections of the proletariat and expressed Communist-inspired themes of class struggle.22 10

OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE Viscount Hastings Historic Growth of the British Labour Movement, a mural completed in 1935 for Londons Karl Marx House, is a textbook example of the style. Flanked by Marx and Lenin, the worker of the future pulls down the economic chaos of the present. Smaller groupings on the left and right represent the origins of the British labour movement and its current composition.23 Epic murals like this were, according to Blunt, bell-ringers of the coming new culture after the socialist revolution.24 Let us return, then, to Reads position on what made art revolutionary. Like Blunt, Read opposed capitalism and Fascism, but he did so in the name of an organicist politics of anarchism. And this was the basis for his defense of abstract art and work such as Barbara Hepworths Two Forms of 1937. Whereas Blunt tossed bourgeois abstraction in the garbage, 25 Read argued it was integral to the only type of post-capitalism worth fighting for, namely anarchism. There was a historical explanation for why so many artists were drawn to abstraction. Hostile towards capitalism, fascism, and communism, they were seeking to escape into a world without ideologies through art that focused on biological structures independent of human history.26 In other words, abstract art entailed a politics of resistance. However, its revolutionary import lay elsewhere, in its potential to infuse the man-made environment with universal aesthetic qualities that mirrored the organicism of the natural world.27 And here we arrive at the crux of the matter. An anarchist society would be liberating because the order it generated would be founded upon the free creativity of its participants. The precondition of social freedom under anarchism was communism without authoritarianism, an organicist social order without closure in which art could evolve unceasingly, in accord with the impetus of its creators.28 And on this basis, Read regarded the abstract art of his time as amenable to anarchism: because not only did these artists refuse the didactic programmes of communism and fascism; they created art that, like anarchism, mirrored the open structure of nature itself. Now the work of print artist Richard Mock (d. 2005) might seem as far from Reads abstraction as you can get: however there is a relationship that bears telling. Mock began his artistic career in the late 1960s, in the midst of the Vietnam war. His anarchism dates to that period, when the hypocrisy of capitalism and its relationship to the state, was, in his words, self-evident. Along the way he read a number of works by Read, notably, Anarchy and Order, which contains the essays that make up the 1942 collection Poetry and Anarchism. Later still, in the 1990s, he followed the anti-technological, anti-capitalist critiques developed in the Fifth Estate and Anarchy Magazine. Simultaneously, Mock was making a name for himself as a print maker and graphic 11

ANARCHIST STUDIES

Richard Mock, War Stinks 2003 artist, publishing syndicated editorial illustrations in the New York Times and other venues.29 The prints convey a sense of his political concerns. The Planets Death (2001) is a condemnation of the consumption of the planets very ecological viability. Its slogan, Eat the consumer, is a call to arms against the capitalist assault on nature, which, as every one knows, has reached its terminal stage. War Stinks (1994) takes aim at the rampant corruption driving the military aggression of the US. Whereas the government dresses up its wars as patriotic struggles defending freedom, Mock regarded them as so much excrement squeezed out the ass of the American eagle. The politics were overt, but the intent was more subtle. My prints, Mock once related,deal with the maladies of capitalism. They create thought, they create comradeship, by pointing to what we are all seeing and experiencing. And they urge solutions. I give my illustrations freely to anarchist publications because I have a responsibility to do so. I am part of the information wave making the space clear so that people can feel their own anarchistic tendencies.30

12

OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE In other words, Mock did not seek to dictate a political programme, he sought to awaken peoples critical capacity to adopt an anarchist understanding of the world. Which brings me to abstraction. Paralleling his illustrative work, before his death Mock had been painting abstractly for over two decades. And these paintings were integral to his politics. Asked what an anarchist social order would be like, Mock stated: We would create harmony between man and nature. And we would discover, in an anarchist society, new dimensions of being human. We would take down our armor and be revelatory, revelatory in allowing the growth of collective attachments to the earth and to other people.31 Mocks abstractions, such as Untitled, 2004, are an artistic expression of this ideal. He sought to communicate the idea of harmony visually through rhythmic flecks of bright colour that unfold organically in a dynamic interplay that finds resolution in the whole. Mock characterized these paintings as cosmic and transcendent because they create a visual field that expands beyond the picture plane, an aesthetic evocation of the open structure of an anarchistic order.32 The paintings are revelatory, not didactic; experiential, not explanatory. That said, there are distinctions to be made between Mocks abstractions and the abstract art Herbert Read championed during the World War 2 era. Take, for example, Construction in Space (1937-39) by Reads close friend and

Naum Gabo, Construction in Space, 1937-39 13

ANARCHIST STUDIES fellow anarchist Naum Gabo. In accord with Reads credo concerning abstraction, Gabo works with geometrical forms derived from the growth patterns of the natural world.33 One searches in vain for a parallel mirroring of nature in Mocks paintings. Mocks style, in fact, bares the mark of modernism as it evolved after World War 2 in New York, where the key demand was the prioritizing of formal properties, namely paint on a flat surface. These values were codified most famously by Barnett Newman, who described his paintings as spontaneous creations free of the abstract qualities derived from geometric or natural forms. They were specific embodiments of feeling to be experienced, each painting for itself.34 Of course I cite Newman because the politics of his art is pertinent for our discussion. Onement #1 (1948), for example, depicts the elemental act of creation through division a jagged break instantaneously fills the void with its presence.35 Newman regarded this painting as an anarchist statement, and towards the end of his life he told an interviewer,if my work were understood it would be the end of state capitalism and totalitarianism. Because to the extent that my painting was not an arrangement of objects, not an arrangement of spaces, not an arrangement of graphic elements, it was an open painting, in the sense that it represented an open world to that extent I thought, and I still believe, that my work in terms of its social impact denotes the possibility of an open society, of an open world, not of a closed institutional world.36

Elsewhere, he was even more explicit. In his preface to a 1968 reprinting of Kropotkins Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Newman likened the quality of openness in his paintings to the freedom animating Kropotkins society of spontaneous, self-organized communes.37 Openness is what unites Mock with Newman, Gabo and Read. The anarchist abstractionist seeks to create art that transcends closure, art that is capable of signifying the freedom and spontaneity that constitutes the foundation of anarchisms political programme. The public that is receptive to this aesthetic will be receptive to its politics or at least, that is the ideal. In practice there are a myriad of mediating forces that come between anarchist art and genuine communication. Thus the abstract imperative entails another imperative, namely the social struggle for an anarchist society. The political biographies of Read and these artists speak for themselves in this regard. Arguably, then, Reads legacy lies at this point of intersection, where anarchist art encounters living reality. But whereas Read searched for art that prefigured anarchisms open structures on a metaphorical level, as form, contemporary anarchists are developing art that fosters anarchist politics in practice, by transforming art-making into an egalitarian process that is itself unbounded. 14

OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE Take, for example, Art and Revolution. This is a loosely organized network of North American artists whose mandate is to infuse radical social movements with art, theatre, and creativity. They identify as anarchists and model their work on the consensus process of decision-making that is a fundamental tenet of anarchist-style organizing.38 I first encountered Art and Revolution at a week-long anarchist conference held in Toronto, Canada in 1998. There I joined a host of other activists, including Art and Revolution members, in making giant puppets, banners, street theatre, and drums to accompany a demonstration scheduled for the end of the gathering. Through a process of discussion over several days it was decided that the protest would call for an end to the harassment of homeless youth by city police. Accordingly we designed the puppets and street theatre around this theme. Demonstration events opened with a theatrical performance that spelled out the reasons for the protest. Then a 1000-plus crowd marched through Torontos downtown behind a giant puppet whose out-stretched arms unveiled a banner declaring, Hands off Street Youth! Cheerleaders chanted anti-capitalist slogans and waved pompoms made from police-line ribbons; demonstrators strutted around on stilts; banners and flags were raised; and a masked theatre contingent snaked through the procession to the rhythm of drums.39 Here we have art-making that evolves spontaneously out of the desires and concerns of the participants within an larger open social structure, namely an anarchist gathering. But the enactment of open structures in art need not be confined to demonstrations. For example, Ambience of a Future City (2003) by Kika Thorne and Adrian Blackwell, was a collaborative exercise involving three Toronto-based collectives that are self-run, non-hierarchical, and critical of capitalist urban development.40 In a series of meetings with each group, Thorne and Blackwell discussed specific areas of the city and how they could be transformed along anti-capitalist, communitarian lines. They then created site plans of these collective visions and put them on display in the areas concerned. One of the plans, Anarchist Cooperative for Kensington Market (2003), was developed by a group of anarchists living in Kensington Market. The market is a lively area of the downtown and has long been a center of anarchist activity. The Kensington anarchists focused on a parking lot connected to a busy shopping street by an alleyway. The group imagined replacing the parking lot with a co-operatively run communally-owned building that would provide a home for anarchist projects and affordable housing. The building complex would feature a publicly-accessible court yard and walk-through between two streets. Activist organizations, a bike shop, a film space and an area for people to relax and enjoy themselves would be located on the ground level, while the upper stories would house 15

ANARCHIST STUDIES apartments. This addressed the need for a building that anarchists could call their own, where they would be free to develop long-term projects without fear of eviction at the whim of a landlord. And in accord with its social purpose, a billboard display of the plan was erected on site to show up the contrast between the anarchist vision for the parking lot and the present, capitalized reality.41

Kika Thorne and Adrian Blackwell, Anarchist Cooperative for Kensington Market, 2003 A third experiment in open structure is Luis Jacobs traveling exhibit, Anarchist Free School Minutes (1999-2002).42 The exhibition presents the record of meetings related to an Anarchist educational project that began in Toronto in the late 1990s. Visitors can track the creation of an operating structure and the formulation of the schools identity by reading these minutes. Before each exhibition, Jacob contacts anarchists around North America and asks them to donate publications that visitors can read or take away with them. The free distribution of anarchist publications during the exhibit mirrors the Anarchist Free School project itself, and in the course of doing so, breaks the frame confining art to the realm of contemplative appreciation.43 In this way Jacob folds his art into his anarchist politics, creating an educational event that perpetually changes from gallery to gallery. By developing open structures such as these, artists are carrying anarchism forward into the new century. And if there is a case for Reads 16

OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE continuing relevance, I would argue it is here, in the artistic practices of the contemporary anarchist avant-garde. ENDNOTES1. Allan Antliff, Only A Beginning: An Anarchist Anthology (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004), passim. 2. Herbert Read. An Art of Pure Form, London Bulletin no. 14 (1939): 8-9. 3. Herbert Read. An Art of Pure Form: 8-9. Mondrian distilled features in nature down to their unchanging essence. A tree, for example, would be reduced to a basic geometric structure then rendered abstractly. In this way he imagined he was creating a universal artistic language that prefigured the rise of a new spiritual consciousness destined to bring about the unification of humanity; Charles Harrison, Francis Frascina, Gill Perry, Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 225-26. Similarly, Barbara Hepworth wrote that her sculptures were emotional projections that radiate the intensity of the whole. Abstracted from nature, these living forms embodied universal aesthetic qualities. However there is no indication she shared the spiritual-political orientation of Mondrian; Barbara Hepworth, Untitled Statement, Unit 1 (London: Cassell: 1934), 19-20. 4. Herbert Read, Introduction. Peter Kropotkin, Kropotkin: Selections from his Writings Herbert Read, ed. (London: Freedom Press, 1942):14-15. 5. Brian Morris has outlined Kropotkins biocentrist anarchism in Brian Morris. Kropotkins Metaphysics of Nature, Anarchist Studies 9 (2001): 165-80. 6. Kropotkin, Kropotkin: Selections, 130-1. 7. Ibid., 124-5. 8. Ibid., 114. 9. Ibid., 144; 146. 10. Ibid, 146. 11. Herbert Read, Why We English Have No Taste, Poetry and Anarchism. (New York: MacMillan, 1939) 40. The essay was originally published in the French Surrealist journal Minotaure no. 7 (June, 1935): 67-8 12. Herbert Read. Art and Society (London: Faber and Faber, 1956), 95. 13. Art could only realize its social potential in a post-capitalist communal type of society, where within one organic consciousness all modes of life, all senses and all faculties, function freely and harmoniously. Read, Why We English Have No Taste, 40. 14. Read, Why We English Have No Taste, 39. 15. Ibid., 40. 16. Read. Poets and Politicians, Poetry and Anarchism, 23. 17. Read, Poets and Politicians, 26. 18. Bertold Hinz. Art in the Third Reich. New York: 1979, 114. 19. I am paraphrasing Maxim Gorki cited in Matthew Cullerne Bown. Socialist Realist Painting. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 143. 20. In 1933 Gorki, writing in the journal Soviet Art, referred to the slogan while instructing artists to depict the joyous spirit animating life in the Soviet Union. Our pictures should be joyous, infections, he wrote. They should contain

17

ANARCHIST STUDIESmore smiles; Maxim Gorki cited in Bown, 143. Later, in 1935, it was adopted as the official slogan of the Stakhanovite (shock-worker) movement at the first all-Union Congress of Shock-Workers. During this period British Communist Party-oriented artists organizations such as the Hogarth Group, the Euston Road School, and the British Communist Party Artists Group worked with party critics such as Anthony Blunt, A.L. Lloyd, Aleck West, and Francis Klingender to promote new realist aesthetics and class struggle themes in art; Tony Rickaby. Artists International. History Workshop. 6 (Autumn, 1978): 154-168. Anthony Blunt, Art Under Capitalism and Socialism, The Mind in Chains: Socialism and the Cultural Revolution C. Day Lewis, ed. (London: Frederick Muller, 1937), 115. Blunt, who was art critic during the 1930s for the Communist-oriented Spectator magazine and the British Communist Partys theoretical journal Left Review, was also a recruiter for the Soviet spy network in the United Kingdom. In 1939 he was appointed to London University as reader in the history of art attached to the prestigious Courtauld Institute. He went on to serve as art advisor to the Monarchy and surveyor of the Royal art collection. Blunt was knighted in 1956. This is Viscount Hastings description of his mural in the Daily Mirror 10 (October 1935) cited in Morris and Radford, AIA: The Story of the Artists International Association: 1933-1953 (Oxford: Museum of Modern Art, 1983), 15. Anthony Blunt, The Realist Quarrel, Left Review. (April 1937) cited in Lynda Morris and Robert Radford, 16. Blunt dismisses abstraction in Art Under Capitalism and Socialism, 122. Herbert Read, The Nature of Revolutionary Art, The Politics of the Unpolitical. (London: Routledge, 1946), 127. This is a reprint of Reads essay,What is Revolutionary Art? first published in 5 On Revolutionary Art, Betty Rea, ed. (London: Wishart and Co., 1935). Ibid., 130-131. The role of abstract art in a post-capitalist society is also discussed in Herbert Read, Art and Industry (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935), 39-40. Herbert Read, The Necessity of Anarchism, Poetry and Anarchism, 96-97. Elsewhere, Read observed that the vitality of art depends on the free operation of the unconscious forces of life. Read, Art and Society, 123. Richard Mock: Interview with Allan Antliff, June 25, 2001. Richard Mock cited in Allan Antliff, Richard Mock, Quivers: Twenty Linocuts (Omaha, NB: Gallery 72, 2002): 10. Ibid. Richard Mock: Interview with Allan Antliff, June 25, 2001. On Naum Gabos anarchism and his artistic debt to organic forms see Martin Hammer and Christina Lodder, Constructing Modernity: The Art and Career of Naum Gabo (London: Yale University Press, 2000), 385-387. Barnett Newman, Statement: One Man Exhibition, Betty Parsons Gallery, Jan. 23-Feb. 11, 1950, Barnett Newman: Selected Writings and Interviews (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 178. Jonathan Fineberg, Art After 1940: Strategies of Being (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995), 101. Barnett Newman: Interview with Emile de Antonio, Barnett Newman: Selected Writings and Interviews, 306-308.

21.

22.

23.

24. 25. 26.

27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

35. 36.

18

OPEN FORM AND THE ABSTRACT IMPERATIVE37. Barnett Newman, The True Revolutionist is an Anarchist!, Barnett Newman: Selected Writings and Interviews, 51. 38. Allan Antliff, Active Resistance, Only a Beginning: An Anarchist Anthology, 353. 39. Ibid. 40. Adrian Blackwell: Interview with Allan Antliff, September 21, 2004. 41. Ibid. 42. Luis Jacob: Interview with Allan Antliff, September 21, 2004. 43. Ibid.

19

Leo Tolstoy on the state: A detailed picture of Tolstoys denunciation of state violence and deceptionALEXANDRE J. M. E. CHRISTOYANNOPOULOS ajmec@kent.ac.uk

ABSTRACT Leo Tolstoys peculiar religious and political thought has been discussed in numerous studies, yet few of these address a core anarchist concern: his criticisms of the state. Tolstoy denounces not just war but also law and the economy as violent and enslaving, all under the ruthless mechanical supervision of the state machine. Moreover, for him, state authorities are deliberately and hypocritically deceiving the masses, promoting a system that destroys any sense of responsibility, and keeping people hypnotised by regularly whipping up patriotic sentiments the army being the best example of the strength of all this deceit. Not only is Tolstoys denunciation of the state as violent and deceptive eloquently written, but much of it has not lost relevance since he first wrote it more than a century ago. Leo Tolstoy believed that the state is a violent and deceitful institution and that in a truly Christian society, the state would be obsolete. In a previous issue of Anarchist Studies, Terry Hopton summarised Tolstoys political thought and justified its location within the anarchist tradition.1 The purpose of this article is to complement Hoptons broad overview by scrutinizing Tolstoys critique of the state. Whereas Hoptons article offers a general discussion of the continuity of Tolstoys thought with his earlier fictional work and then briefly reviews Tolstoys stances on religion, the state, the economy and revolutionary change, this article examines Tolstoys condemnation of the state, but does so in considerably more detail. Thus the aim is to enrich Hoptons excellent introduction to Tolstoys political thought by elaborating on a fundamental anarchist theme and by making more room for Tolstoys poignant literary style, through use of verbatim quotes. The many arguments against the state that Tolstoy articulates in numerous books and pamphlets are here reorganised thematically, often by substantially expanding on themes already briefly touched upon by Hopton. These themes constitute the headings of the two main sections of the article. The first of these two sections (section 2) focuses on Tolstoys condemnation of state violence, by exploring his views on war, law, economic exploitation and the effect of the structure of the state on its 20

LEO TOLSTOY ON THE STATE members. The second (section 3) then explores the states mechanisms of deception: the hypocrisy of its leaders, the ingrained evasion of responsibilities, the hypnotic power of patriotism and the ultimate paradox of universal conscription. These two central sections are introduced (in section 1) with a review of the secondary literature on Tolstoy and followed (in section 4) by a short conclusion which hints at the contemporary relevance of Tolstoys writings on the state. Tolstoy often contrasts the modern state with an ideal Christian society to illustrate the incompatibility of Jesus principles, which he admired, with the state, which he loathed. His understanding of Christianity was deeply rationalistic: for him, Jesus was simply the highest representative of [humanitys] wisdom2 what he taught was actually confirmed by reason, and superstitions like the Resurrection were all fantastic stories later added by elites whose interest was to distort the essential teachings of Christianity.3 A critical discussion of this understanding of Christianity, however interesting, is too big a subject for this article. The contention to note here is that for Tolstoy, the essence of Jesus rational teaching is to be found in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus supersedes Old Testament law with his new commandments not to be angry, not to judge, not to swear oaths, to love ones enemy, and in particular not to resist evil but to turn the other cheek.4 Even when nominally Christian, Tolstoy argues that the state breaks all these guidelines. The comparison with Jesus standards is often made in the same breath as the more empirical description of the state. Together, they combine to form a moving condemnation of the modern state. Some of the power of Tolstoys writing rests precisely in the contrast between the reality of officially Christian statehood and the Christian ideal. So although the specific aim of this article is to present Tolstoys critique of the state without considering his alternative, references to Jesus and Christianity have been kept to preserve all its intensity. 1. SECONDARY LITERATURE ON TOLSTOY Before examining his critique of the state, a short review of the secondary literature on Tolstoys social and political views (leaving aside the enormous amount of studies focusing solely on his fiction) may be helpful in order to contextualise this article within that literature and show why so few of these secondary sources are of direct substantial value to anarchist studies. 1.1. Biographies Many biographies of Tolstoy have been published over the years.5 These vary in the space devoted to any critical engagement with Tolstoys political views. For instance, Greenwood and Bayley focus mostly on Tolstoys 21

ANARCHIST STUDIES fiction while also discussing his intellectual influences and some of his theories about life and society in general,6 whereas Maudes detailed biography allows itself to drift into brief reflections about and criticisms of these views but also shies away from more in depth engagement with Tolstoys radical political writings.7 In any case, by definition, biographies of Tolstoy focus more on his life than on his thought. On a different tone, one also finds essays on Tolstoys life which seek to ponder certain traits of Tolstoys idiosyncratic character: Orwell on Tolstoys lack of tolerance or humility, Sampson on his courageous quest for truth, or Berlin on whether Tolstoy was more of a hedgehog who knows one big thing or a fox who knows many.8 But few biographical works give more than passing consideration to Tolstoys political views. Slightly more interesting perhaps for students of anarchism is the debate on whether Tolstoys thought and writings can be divided into two distinct parts: a world-renown author of Russian literature on the one hand and a nave political thinker on the other.9 Some believe this division to be obvious,10 but most perceive strong lines of continuity between Tolstoys pre- and post-conversion writings.11 Indeed for Greenwood, Tolstoy himself exaggerates the contested split in an attempt to emphasise the novelty of his discovery.12 Yet existential crises, the search for truth, and his expression of these in artistic works accompanied his entire life.13 Moreover, Tolstoy seemed to have envisioned the founding of a new religion and seen the state as a conspiracy much before his conversion to Christianity.14 Either way, whether or not Tolstoys life and thought can be divided into two parts, as Stepun notes, his fame is certainly twofold: as an artist and as a social prophet.15 1.2. On Tolstoys Views on Religion and Politics Much has been written about Tolstoys view of religion and how it affects his ethics. Usually, the aim of such publications is mainly limited to summarising Tolstoys answer regarding the meaning of life and some of its immediate consequences, often with a few added reflections or quick criticisms of it.16 One can also find some debate on whether Tolstoys is really a Christian type of ethics.17 But most relentless and detailed among these publications is Spences exposition and critique of Tolstoys dualism and all the problems Spence thinks this creates for Tolstoys ethics.18 Moving closer to politics, one can find various discussions of specific sub-themes extracted from Tolstoys political thought. Maude, for instance, often returns throughout the second volume of his biography to non-resistance and arguments against it, and devotes a chapter to his divergence from Tolstoys views on government and patriotism.19 Kennans article reports a conversation with Tolstoy on non-violence, and his disagreements with it.20 Hopton (in one part of his article) summarises 22

LEO TOLSTOY ON THE STATE Tolstoys political ideas in War and Peace, and Sampsons book focuses in particular on Tolstoys views of power and war in the same novel.21 Crosby offers a short summary and approval of elements of Tolstoys moral and social code.22 Redfearn dismisses cheap criticisms of Tolstoy and spends the second half of his book on Henry Georges single tax and Tolstoys position on it.23 Wenzers book and article offer an even more detailed analysis of Tolstoys advocacy of Georgism as a transition towards anarchy.24 Finally, Stanoyevitchs articles purport to take a closer look at Tolstoys views on law, money and property, but in the end disappoint in the relative shallowness of their dismissal.25 What these studies have in common, however, is that they focus on only one aspect of Tolstoys description of and prescription for society; a more extensive and exhaustive analysis that covers most of his social thought remains to be written. 1.3. On Tolstoy in the Anarchist Literature When turning to publications focusing more directly and explicitly on anarchism be they popular journals, academic studies and textbooks or publications by well-known anarchists one finds mostly very brief declarations simply affirming his anarchism, despite his dislike of the word and the violence widely associated with it.26 Likewise, Tolstoy is often named as the best exemplar of Christian anarchism.27 There is still very little thorough discussion on Tolstoy in anarchist circles. The two best examples continue to be Hoptons and Marshalls excellent broad introductions to Tolstoys religious belief, his critiques of government and the economy and his strategy for change (Marshall also considers the fate of Tolstoyism after Tolstoys death).28 Woodcocks treatment also deserves a mention even though it is more descriptive of Tolstoys fondness for anarchist themes than critically engaged with his specific version of anarchism.29 Similarly, Stephens introduction offers a good indication of Proudhons and Kropotkins early influence on Tolstoy, and a good overview of Tolstoys thoughts on true religion, non-violence and personal revolution.30 Morriss very short piece focuses more on Tolstoys conversion and summarises his What Then Must We Do?, and an old article in Peace News makes the case for Tolstoys contemporary relevance.31 Aside from these, one can also find many short introductions to Tolstoy on the internet, but they tend to remain rather short and superficial. 1.4. On Tolstoys Influence What all this suggests, therefore, is that the substance of Tolstoys anarchism has largely been left aside (albeit usually respectfully acknowledged) by academic analyses of anarchism, and thus also largely forgotten by society as a whole. There have in fact been several publications on the initial impact and eventual demise of Tolstoyism and 23

ANARCHIST STUDIES Tolstoyan communities in the West,32 and on the repression of Tolstoyism in Soviet Russia.33 Some further argue that the only lasting legacy of Tolstoys writings on society has turned out to be his influence on the pacifist movement, especially through Gandhi.34 It is probably fair to say, then, that Tolstoy has never really been given the proper critical engagement and respect that such a thoughtprovoking, methodical intellectual and eloquent writer deserves. It may be that most anarchist thinkers have suffered that same fate, but this is no reason not to look at him anew, not least since none of the problems he identified with society have really gone away. Tolstoy may not have helped his own cause: he was a prolific writer who repeated views with slight modification, depending on the immediate polemic he was contributing to, in the course of writing a huge number of essays and books. It can therefore take long hours of (nevertheless artistically rewarding) reading to familiarise oneself with the main elements of his political theory. Hence the aim of this article: to bring his often scattered ideas together and consider them thematically. The hope is to stimulate students of anarchism into engaging further with Tolstoys unique Christian anarchist writings. 2. STATE VIOLENCE The main lesson that Tolstoy learnt from his rediscovery of Christianity was that violence is never justifiable, because it always causes more violence further down the line.35 It is therefore not surprising that his criticisms of the state focus on various aspects of state violence. 2.1. War Although Tolstoy came to denounce war as one of the most brutal instances of state violence, one must concede that his earlier novels, including of course his classic War and Peace, betray a much less condemnatory fascination with the physiognomy of war.36 E. B. Greenwood thus remarks that in several of his early novels, Tolstoy not only accepted war as a necessary part of life but was even comfortable enough with the phenomenon to describe it in epic, poetic terms.37 After his conversion to Christianity, however, Tolstoys fascination turned to outright aversion both of the process of war and of the hypocrisy by which Christian states justified an activity which was blatantly opposed to Jesus instructions. However eloquent Tolstoy might have been in his description of war in his novels, he now applied his literary talent to portray it as an intolerable picture of mindless brutality. In Christianity and Patriotism, this is how he looks forward to the next war that Russia is inevitably going one day to engage in: 24

LEO TOLSTOY ON THE STATEAnd hundreds of thousands of simple kindly folk, torn from their wives, mothers, and children, and with murderous weapons in their hands, will trudge wherever they may be driven, stifling the despair in their souls by songs, debauchery, and vodka. They will march, freeze, suffer from hunger, and fall ill. Some will die of disease, and some will at last come to the place where men will kill them by the thousand. And they, too, without themselves knowing why, will murder thousands of others whom they had never before seen, and who had neither done nor could do them any wrong.38

Whatever his earlier acceptance or even aesthetic admiration of war, after his conversion to Christianity, Tolstoy abhorred it (suggesting at least some degree of rupture in Tolstoys intellectual development). Tolstoys view is that war is the inevitable outcome of the existence of armed men that is, of armies.39 Each government justifies the existence of an army to defend itself from neighbouring states, but that is what all governments say of one another, so in the end, [t]he power of the State, far from saving us from attacks by our neighbours, is on the contrary itself the cause of the danger of such attacks.40 Only because (other) armies exist can we be convinced that we also need an army, but then the very existence of our army is also what convinces others that they, too, need an army of their own. The argument is circular and self-defeating. But the real purpose of armies, Tolstoy suspects, is the defence of privileges stolen by the elites stolen, that is, from neighbouring brigands as well as from their own enslaved subjects.41 In an epigraph to one of his chapters, Tolstoy quotes the following words from Lichtenberg: If a traveller were to see a people on some far-off island whose houses were protected by loaded cannon and around those houses sentinels patrolled night and day, he could not help thinking that the island was inhabited by brigands. Is it not thus with the European states?42 What armies protect is only what has been unduly earned from plundering other states, as well as what has been stolen from the enslaved domestic population. And the main tool used by the state to enslave its people, Tolstoy says, is law. 2.2. Law Tolstoy declares that the essence of slavery lies [] in the fact that legislation exists that there are people who have power to decree laws profitable for themselves.43 The one characteristic of all laws is that their enforcement is based on the threat of punishment: if one man does not fulfil them, those who have made these laws will send armed men, and the armed men will beat, deprive of freedom, or even kill, the man who does not obey the law.44 Violence or the threat of it is critical to the enforcement of law, and for Tolstoy self-evidently a sign of enslavement: 25

ANARCHIST STUDIES being compelled to do what other people wish, against your own will, is slavery.45 As long as violence is used to compel people to obey a law against their will, there will be slavery. The problem, Tolstoy argues, lies in the combination of law with social pluralism. Every state action is considered good by some and pernicious by others in other words, there are always disagreements about state action. As long as there are some people who disagree with any given state action, with any given law, then all state activity eventually requires violence to be enforced.46 Thus all state activity logically results in slavery. The very existence of the state is inescapably bound to violence and slavery. Tolstoy furthermore rejects the idea that laws reflect the will of the whole people since, he says, those who wish to break these laws are always more numerous than those who wish to obey them.47 More to the point, if laws expressed the will of the people, violence would not be necessary to enforce them. In fact, Tolstoy insists,everyone knows that not in despotic countries only, but also in the countries nominally most free England, America, France, and others the laws are made not by the will of all, but by the will of those who have power, and therefore always and everywhere are such as are profitable to those who have power: be they many, or few, or only one man.48

Tolstoy thus rejects the standard case for preferring representative democracy to authoritarianism. In an anonymous epigraph to one of Tolstoys chapters, the tone of which suggests it was actually written by him, one can read:When among one hundred men, one rules over ninety-nine, it is unjust, it is a despotism; when ten rule over ninety, it is equally unjust, it is an oligarchy; but when fifty-one rule over forty-nine (and this is only theoretical, for in reality it is always ten or eleven of these fifty-one), it is entirely just, it is freedom! Could there be anything funnier, in its manifest absurdity, than such reasoning? And yet it is this very reasoning that serves as the basis for all reformers of the political structure.49

According to Tolstoy, the idea that the rule of the majority is somehow an embodiment of justice, of freedom, is utterly ridiculous. Democratic or not, Laws are rules, made by people who govern by means of organised violence for non-compliance with which the non-complier is subjected to blows, to loss of liberty, or even to being murdered.50 Laws are written by those in power, in line with their own interests; and since they require violence to be enforced, they amount de facto to slavery. 26

LEO TOLSTOY ON THE STATE Tolstoy also addresses the argument that people need to be guided, that they need to be taught how to live in a way that ensures the well-being of the entire community. Fine in principle, says Tolstoy, but what proof is there that those legislators are wiser than those on whom they inflict violence?51 Actually, he continues, [t]he fact that they allow themselves to use violence towards human beings, indicates that they are not more, but less wise than those who submit to them.52 A violent guide is neither wise nor rational. As another anonymous epigraph to one of his chapters reads, Why does man have reason if he can only be influenced by violence?53 For Tolstoy, reason and violence are mutually exclusive:One of two things: either people are rational beings or they are irrational beings. If they are irrational beings, then they are all irrational, and then everything among them is decided by violence, and there is no reason why certain people should, and others should not, have a right to use violence. In that case, governmental violence has no justification. But if men are rational beings, then their relations should be based on reason, and not on the violence of those who happen to have seized power. In that case, again, governmental violence has no justification.54

For Tolstoy, no government can rationally justify the use of violence to educate the population. Social order is maintained either by reason or by violence. In the last years of his life, while Tsarist Russia was in increasing political turmoil, Tolstoy wrote a pamphlet in which he insisted that both the government and the revolutionaries were equally immoral in their use of violence to justify their aim.55 But, he noted, revolutionaries only acted as the government taught them to. They were educated by a violent state under enslaving laws, so their violent conduct was like that of a misbehaved child mimicking unruly parents. Yet just as the childs behaviour is understandable, Tolstoy argued that the revolutionary policy was at least coherent: unlike the government, revolutionaries did not pretend to be Christians but repudiated all religion; unlike the government, their actions were consistent with their proclaimed philosophy.56 In short, Tolstoy considered all laws to amount to violence and thus slavery, be they passed by democratic or by despotic governments. By their very nature, these laws cannot educate they can only exhaust reason. And their purpose is none other than the economic exploitation of the populace. 2.3. Economic Slavery As Hopton remarks, for Tolstoy, exploitation is a product of the economic system just as violence is a product of the state system; but economic exploitation is in fact violence, only a form of violence that is more subtle 27

ANARCHIST STUDIES and more pervasive precisely because it is less obvious yet equally restraining than direct physical violence.57 Tolstoy argues that the state uses its legitimised monopoly of violence against its own poorer citizens in order to maintain the wealth of the privileged. Throughout his writings, he describes several instances of such economic exploitation that he himself witnessed, and then uses these cases as starting-points for his ensuing reflections on the ills of state power.58 Tolstoy argued that all states were exploitative no matter how they were constituted: authoritarian Russia was using more visible methods than liberal regimes, but that was the only difference. In fact, his critique could easily be adapted by those who, today, see capitalism as slavery disguised under benevolent investment. The following cynical statement, for example, has hardly lost any of its potency in the twenty-first century:If the slave-owner of our time has not slave John, whom he can send to the cess-pool to clear out his excrements, he has five shillings of which hundreds of Johns are in such need that the slave-owner of our times may choose anyone out of hundreds of Johns and be a benefactor to him by giving him the preference, and allowing him, rather than another, to climb down into the cess-pool.59

Although modern slavery is not as explicit and visible as it was in preemancipation America, it is slavery nonetheless. In fact, economic slavery is even worse than the slavery described in history books, because it is veiled under the illusion of free choice, and is considered natural, even beneficial. The slave-owner of today is not the wealthy colonist anymore, but the benevolent business owner, the shareholder. Indeed, the poorer members of any (local or, today, global) community face little choice: for a bare subsistence, people, considering themselves freemen, [think] it necessary to give themselves up to work such as, in the days of serfdom, not one slave-owner, however cruel, would have sent his slaves to.60 Just to get bread on their table, poor employees are obliged to put up with humiliating working conditions. The economic model championed by the enlightened state and protected by its laws ensures that one way or the other, the labourer is always in slavery to those who control the taxes, the land, and the articles necessary to satisfy his requirements.61 Todays labourer is no better than yesterdays slave, and the state system ensures that things remain that way. Why, other than to protect the wealthy, would laws (hence violence) need to be invoked, for instance, to defend the private ownership of land? Only large swathes of misused land, of stolen property, need to be protected by aggressive legislation. For Tolstoy, [t]hings really produced by a mans own labour, and that he needs, are always protected by custom, 28

LEO TOLSTOY ON THE STATE by public opinion, by feelings of justice and reciprocity, and they do not need to be protected by violence;62 but [t]ens of thousands of acres of forest lands belonging to one proprietor, while thousands of people close by have no fuel, need protection by violence.63 Laws on private property only protect those who should not own what they have appropriated for themselves. Laws protect the wealthy. Throughout history, new excuses have constantly been sought to justify the uneven distribution of the burden of labour across society. Thus [i]n olden times, men who utilized the labor of others asserted, first, that they belonged to a different race; and secondly, that they had from God a peculiar mission, caring for the welfare of others; in other words, to govern and teach them.64 The justification was biological and theological. But over time, this justification gradually lost its ground.65 So, Tolstoy submits, new excuses have had to be devised, and this time science provided the explanation.66 This new justification for the idleness of all so-called educated people (and the concomitant slavery inflicted upon the rest of the population), according to Tolstoy, runs like this: We men who have freed ourselves from the common human duty of taking part in the struggle for existence, are furthering progress, and so we are of great use to all human society, of such use that it counterbalances all the harm we do to the people by consuming their labor.67 In other words, this apparently uneven division of labour is the best possible distribution to ensure the progress of society as a whole. Society is like a natural organism, with different members performing different functions, so the current distribution of labour is the most natural to reach it is the natural equilibrium of a healthy, organic society.68 Of course, for Tolstoy, this scientific justification for an unjust economic system is, quite simply, another cunning lie concocted by those who benefit from it. For a start, this theory is not drawn from the natural properties of human societies, but merely from a particular case.69 That a society must reach such uneven division of labour is not a universal truth, but only what happens under specific circumstances. And the defining feature of these circumstances is the presence of a privileged minority in charge of a powerful state that defines the rules by which the majority is to live, and that uses force to ensure compliance with these rules. Under these conditions no division of labour can be described as natural. If the division of tasks happens by itself, guided by reason and conscience, then this division of labour is a right one; but as soon as any form of coercion distorts the workforces choices, then the result is usurpation of other mens labor, which is far from natural or just.70 Tolstoy accepts that there has always been a division of labour, but it is what guides it that defines whether or not it is acceptable. If guided by 29

ANARCHIST STUDIES reason and conscience, by the free and rational choice of workers, then the division is just; but if distorted by violence, then it cannot be right.71 And it is no good to declare that this division of labour allows science to flourish or humanity to progress because new technology multiplies the poor workers plight at least as much as it allegedly relieves it:Though a workingman, instead of walking, can use the railway, it is this very railway which has caused his forest to be burned, and has carried away his bread from under his very nose, and put him into a condition which is next door to slavery to the railway proprietor.72

The new knowledge and technologies made available by science are much more accessible to the wealthy few than to the enslaved workforce, which means that it is the privileged slave-owners, rather than the slaves, that stand to gain the most from scientific progress. So those who invoke sociological laws to justify their comfortable position in the current economic system are just fortunate liars. They may say [i]t is not we who have done all this; it has been done of itself; as children say when they break any thing, that it broke itself. [] But that is not true.73 One need only watch the lifestyle of these people and realise that they are not innocent. They like to think that their prosperous lifestyle has no connexion with the economic and political violence perpetrated by the state,[t]hey like to believe that their privileges exist of themselves, and result from voluntary agreement among people, and that the violence enacted also exists of itself, and results from some general, higher juridical, political, or economic laws. They try not to see that they enjoy their advantages as a result of the very thing which forces the peasants who have tended the wood and are of great need of the timber to yield it up to a wealthy landowner, who took no part in tending it during its growth and is in no need of it that is, the knowledge that if they do no give it up they will be flogged or killed.74

But it is not so. Even if they try to hide from the truth and do their best to forget it, these wealthy few and the state system they grandiloquently defend are responsible for the economic exploitation of the masses.75 2.4. A Violent Machine with Violent Elites In sum, because it instigates wars against its neighbours, because it imposes laws upon its people, and because it exploits its workforce, the state is a vicious, brutal and pernicious machine. The state kills, steals and enslaves. Hence [a]ll that well-being of the people which we see in socalled well-governed States, ruled by violence, is but an appearance, a 30

LEO TOLSTOY ON THE STATE fiction. Everything that would disturb the external appearance of wellbeing, all the hungry people, the sick, the revoltingly vicious, all are hidden away where they cannot be seen.76 Even if it tries its best to appear holy, the state structure is a malicious system that transgresses all that Jesus rational teaching stands for. The state, therefore, is an organisation that resembles a cone of which all the parts are completely in the power of those people, or that one person, who happens to be at the apex, an apex which is seized by those who are more cunning, audacious, and unscrupulous than the rest.77 So even in a democracy, one must not be deluded into thinking that the rulers are honest representatives of the aggregate of citizens, because all they are is a set of men who do violence to others.78 Democratic or not, the leaders of a state can only be bullies: To seize power and retain it, it is necessary to love power, but love of power comes with pride, cunning, and cruelty.79 Because of the very structure of the state, to reach its apex, one needs characteristics that come with immorality and viciousness. In any case, supposing that good persons can reach this apex, they would quickly be corrupted since the states mechanisms require the transgression of the most basic principle of morality:All men in power assert that their authority is necessary to keep bad men from doing violence to the good, thus assuming that they themselves are the good who protect others from the bad. But ruling means using force, and using force means doing what the man subjected to violence does not wish done, and to which the perpetrator would certainly object if the violence were applied to himself. Therefore to rule means to do to others what we would not have done to ourselves that is, doing wrong.80

Hence only the wicked can ever be rulers. No good person can ever head a state. In other words, by the very nature of the state, [t]he evil always domineer over the good and inflict violence on them.81 The states existence is justified on the grounds that it prevents violence and injustice, yet it brings about violence and injustice of itself. Tolstoy borrows a comparison made by Eugen Schmitt: Governments, justifying their existence on the ground that they ensure a certain kind of safety to their subjects, are like the Calabrian robber-chief who collected a regular tax from all who wished to travel in safety along the highways.82 The state sells itself to its subjects by proposing to keep them safe, yet the only real threat to their security comes from the state itself and sure enough, if the subjects do not pay and obey, various laws ensure that their safety is indeed at risk. Moreover, the system is very cunning: once established, the state (like the Calabrian robber-chief) can easily 31

ANARCHIST STUDIES maintain itself, as taxes are collected by troops which are maintained by means of these very taxes.83 The state justifies its existence to curb internal dissent and violence, but in the process grants itself a monopoly of violence that, in this case, is unchecked by any moderator so it freely uses and misuses its supremacy, and thereby behaves exactly like the villain it is supposed to eradicate, only on a much broader scale.84 But coercion can only work while the other is weaker: one day the weak will grow strong and retaliate by using the same brutal techniques that had kept them in check.85 In other words, state violence breeds more violence, and the ensuing vicious cycle brings society further and further away from Jesus teaching. In sum, for Tolstoy, a state cannot but be violent and must therefore be un-Christian and irrational. Christian states do not escape this verdict: all the states that have allegedly adopted Christianity have forced both their own peoples as well as neighbouring ones to act against their will.86 Because of its very structure and because those who lead it cannot be anything but immoral and self-interested, the state is necessarily violent and domineering. 3. ORGANISED DECEPTION Over and above its inherent violence, Tolstoy fiercely denounces another key characteristic of the state: its structure of deception.87 This section examines Tolstoys understanding of deception and the ways in which it becomes manifest in the state. 3.1. Hypocrisy of State Authorities Since for Tolstoy, the cause of state violence lies in the very existence of the state, war, for instance, cannot be eradicated by peace conferences and alliances for the scourge of war to disappear, the state itself must disappear. To pretend that international treaties and alliances can eradicate war, Tolstoy says, is sheer hypocrisy. Who would enforce such treaties anyway?88 Other states using their armies? How would that be different from war? Peace treaties are based on cooperation between existing states, but according to Tolstoy, it is the very existence of these states that causes wars in the first place.89 Besides, these treaties are never honestly lived up to: soon enough, state leaders always find a way to argue that this or that war does not actually contravene this or that international treaty.90 They sign treaties with the stated aim of ensuring peace, but months later argue that this or that new danger faced by their people is an exception to the treaty and must be dealt with using the tools of war.91 As to bilateral alliances to allegedly guarantee peace, they are blatantly alliances for war.92 Tolstoy devoted a whole essay on the 1893 celebrations 32

LEO TOLSTOY ON THE STATE for the then recent Franco-Russian alliance, warning that although state leaders pretended that this alliance was a peaceful one, it was in fact a clear declaration of warlike intentions against Germany.93 Why else would millions continue to be spent on the military, and why else would the military advantage of this alliance be stressed by the press?94 These alliances are agreed precisely because of their military advantage; they are clearly geared towards future wars. But the hypocrisy of state authorities and associated elites does not apply only to the international sphere. Whether about war or about more domestic concerns such as economic slavery, they only propose amendments to current arrangements that do not deprive them of their privileges.95 They defend the feebleness of the changes they introduce by the need to preserve culture or civilisation.96 The current state and its economic system, they say, is what brought about culture, so we must guard against introducing too radical a change lest it destroys this unique cultural heritage. But a culture that is the product of violence rather than reason and which results in oppression is not one that Tolstoy is prepared to preserve and defend. Affluent elites will also invoke iron laws, such as the natural division of labour mentioned above, to claim that things cannot be changed substantially anyway. Some will rely on the theological justification, inspired by official Christianity, which states that people have different destinies; others will point to the Hegelian idea that the state is a historical necessity; others still will put forward the scientific view whereby society is like a biological organism but they will all hide behind some false theory to explain why they do not implement the only change that really would improve the condition of the people: the abolition of the state and the honest implementation of Jesus rational teaching.97 None of these iron laws, Tolstoy argues, are immutable. Instead, the current conditions of society merely result from human laws concerning taxes, land, and above all, [] concerning property.98 Thus it is not some sociological iron law, but ordinary man-made law, that produces slavery.99 Man-made laws are written precisely to enslave the people, and the claim that their plight cannot be radically improved is just another hypocritical statement by the elites to defend the status quo. Clearly, then, the authorities do not live by the Christian values that they profess. Christianity proclaims the equality of men, yet these elites are busy justifying the unequal system that they happen to benefit from.100 Moreover, their hypocrisy corrupts, embitters, and brutalizes people because it wipes out in mens consciousness the difference between good and evil and thereby debars them from avoiding evil and seeking good, depriving them of the very essence of true human life and therefore blocking the path to all improvement.101 33

ANARCHIST STUDIES The irresponsible lifestyle daringly enacted by the upper-class in the name of Christianity corrupts the consciousness of those that look up to it. Instead of changing their way of life and becoming shining beacons of Jesus sensible teaching, these elites try by all means to stifle and deaden consciousness.102 The pinnacle of their hypocrisy is finally reached when, having thus brutalised people, they then produce these same people [] to prove that it is impossible to deal with people except by brutal violence!103 This completes the self-fulfilling logic of the elites hypocrisy. 3.2. Evasion of Responsibility As already mentioned, economic and political elites shrug their shoulders at the exploitation of the masses, as if there was no other choice.104 They actually believe their own lies about this being the result of unalterable laws.105 Tolstoy in fact suggests that people of the well-to-do classes, believe this because they must believe it.106 That is, either they must realise that their whole way of life is based on robbery and murder, and that they are very dishonourable men; or they must believe that all that takes place, takes place for the general advantage, in accord with unalterable laws of economic science.107 Consciously or unconsciously, they shut their eyes to their true responsibility and blame external iron laws: they must believe that they are not at fault, because otherwise, surely, they would stop. Furthermore, the state system is so arranged that it becomes easy to think that somebody else is responsible for state violence. Hopton explains how each individual unit shifts responsibility either higher up or lower down the system.108 But in line with the aim of scrutinizing themes raised by Hopton, Tolstoys own words deserve to be reproduced here:At the bottom of the social ladder soldiers with rifles, revolvers, and swords, torture and murder men and by those means compel them to become soldiers. And these soldiers are fully convinced that the responsibility for their deed is taken from them by the officers who order those actions. At the top of the ladder the Tsars, presidents, and ministers, decree these tortures and murders and conscriptions. And they are fully convinced that since they are either placed in authority by God, or the society they rule over demands such decrees from them, they cannot be held responsible. Between these extremes are the intermediate folk who superintend the acts of violence and the murders and the conscriptions of the soldiers. And these, too, are fully convinced that they are relieved of all responsibility, partly because of orders received by them from their superiors, and partly because such orders are expected from them by those on the lower steps of the ladder.109

34

LEO TOLSTOY ON THE STATE At each rung on the ladder, men think they are merely fulfilling their duty, they are just doing the job they were appointed to do.110 Some are bound by oaths of allegiance; others are just honouring their professional function but they are certainly not answerable for the cruel deeds committed by the state as a whole. As a result, the moral responsibility that men are built to feel is diluted in the system. Tolstoy explains:Not a single judge will consent to strangle with a rope the man whom he has condemned to death in his court. No one of higher rank will consent to snatch a peasant from his weeping family and shut him up in prison. [] These things are due to that complicated machinery of Society and the State, which makes it its first business to destroy the feeling of responsibility for such deeds, so that no man shall feel them to be as unnatural as they are. Some make laws, others apply them. Others again train men and educate them in the habit of discipline, in the habit, that is to say, of senseless and irresponsible obedience. Again others, and these are the best trained of all, practise every kind of violence, even to the slaying of men, without the slightest knowledge of the why and wherefore. We need only clear our mind for an instant from the network of human institutions in which we are thus entangled, to feel how adverse it is to our true nature.111

This subdivision of tasks is the only explanation for why men collectively commit such barbarous acts. They lose sight of the fact that their own contribution is at least partly morally responsible, along with the contribution of all the other individual units in the complex machinery, for the violence they inflict upon others.112 Thus all the units of the state system are hypnotised into feeling they have special duties.113 They forget that they are just men, equal to other men, and instead represent themselves to others as being [] some special conventional beings: noblemen, merchants, governors, judges, officers, Tsars, ministers, or soldiers, not subject to ordinary human duties but to aristocratic, commercial, governatorial, judicial, military, royal, or ministerial, obligations.114 They are intoxicated by their social function and overlook their most basic moral responsibilities as human beings. Even the ruling classes hypnotise themselves to some extent.115 Still, consciously or unconsciously, they are the ones who perpetuate the system: Tolstoy believes that the subdivision of tasks that alleviates any feeling of responsibility for a public execution is carefully arranged and planned by learned and enlightened people of the upper class.116 To some extent, state authorities are hypnotised just like everybody else; but as the men lucky 35

ANARCHIST STUDIES enough to get an education, as the men formally in charge of the state machinery, they also ensure that the various tasks of any act of state violence remain cleverly subdivided so as to alleviate anybodys potential feeling of responsibility. And of course, when the church (with its alleged moral aura) then comes in and approves of public executions, people are led to believe that it is not such an immoral or evil thing after all.117 So the complex machinery of the state, supported as it is by the church, ensures that nobody takes moral responsibility for the immoral acts committed in the name of the state (or Jesus). People blame immutable laws for the social ills they do nothing to improve; and they shift responsibility for acts of state violence either above them, to those who formally ordered them, or below, to those who asked for these orders to be sent or to those who will actually commit the dirty work for them. The result is moral depravity on a collective scale. Hence Tolstoys quotation from Kant: We live in an age of discipline, [] but it is still far from being a moral age.118 Morality is sacrificed for discipline; it is diluted in the state machinery. 3.3. The Hypnotism of Patriotism This discipline, this hypnotic delegation of morality to the state, is further supported by the blind emotional reverence of patriotism. Tolstoy thus sees patriotism as a deadly myth, a gross and harmful delusion, a deceptive dream, a stupid and immoral sentiment, a cruel tradition that he even compares to a psychical epidemic.119 As Hopton notes, the sole purpose of patriotism is to bind together rulers and ruled in a common delusion.120 Patriotism ensures devotion and submission to the existing government.121 It is orchestrated by the ruling classes in order for them to retain their position.122 These ruling classes inflame patriotism by perpetrating every kind of injustice and harshness against other nations, provoking in them enmity towards their own people, and then in turn exploit that enmity to embitter their people against the foreigner.123 It is aroused artificially to divide and rule, to stimulate crude hatred and war upon which the government can then further its ambitious and mercenary aims.124 Seen this way, patriotism therefore amounts to slavery.125 The state needs it to survive: patriotism is its spirit, its blood without it, the state would die.126 Patriotism is also incompatible with the Sermon on the Mount: as a preference for ones own nationals, patriotism contradicts Jesus instructions to love your neighbour and your enemy. It may have been useful in former times, but Jesus replaced this Law of Violence with the higher idea of a brotherhood of man, with the Law of Love.127 Nonetheless, two millennia after Jesus, patriotism is still widespread: it continues to kindle artificial enmities, arms races, violence and instability, and reduces the 36

LEO TOLSTOY ON THE STATE peoples of the so-called Christian world to a state of brutality.128 A lot of thinking remains to be done for true Christian consciousness to shake off this cruel feeling of patriotism.129 But if patriotism continues to brutalise even the people who come across Jesus rational teaching, it is because these people are hypnotised into adoring their nation and their state system from very early childhood.130 The state will use every trick in the book to instil patriotism in all its citizens, from outright bribery to the use of new technology.131 From childhood on, people are taught to respect what is directly contrary to Jesus teaching to consider violent institutions as sacred, to avenge insults, to judge, condemn, resist and make war.132 As they grow older, men are often obliged to enrol in the army, where brutal discipline is used as another means of stupefying even the softest, most Christian souls.133 Tough training there deprives men of their humanity, of their rationality,134 and turns them into fit instruments for murder.135 When conflict eventually breaks out, all Christians come together and blindly join in the war effort. Tolstoys own words are so moving, and so typical of his style, that they merit their extended quotation:Wealthy people contribute insignificant portions of their immorally acquired riches to this cause of murder, or to the organization of assistance in the work of murder, while the poor, from whom the government annually collects two milliards, deem it necessary to do likewise, offering their mites also. The government incites and encourages crowds of idlers who walk about the streets with the Tsars portrait, singing and shouting hurrah and under the pretext of patriotism committing all kinds of excesses. All over Russia from the capital to the remotest village the priests in the churches, calling themselves Christians, appeal to the God who enjoined love of ones enemies, the God of love, for help in the devils work the slaughter of men. And stupefied by prayers, sermons, exhortations, processions, pictures, and newspapers, the cannon-fodder hundred of thousands of men dressed alike and carrying various lethal weapons leave their parents, wives, and children, and with agony at heart but with a show of bravado, go where at the risk of their own lives they will commit the most dreadful action, killing men whom they do not know and who have done them no harm. And in their wake go doctors and nurses who for some reason suppose that they cannot serve the simple, peaceful, suffering people at home, but can serve only those who are engaged in slaughtering one another. Those who remain rejoice at the news of the murder of men, and when they learn that a great many Japanese have been killed they thank someone whom they call God.136

37

ANARCHIST STUDIES These are the dreadful successes of patriotism. Stupefied, hypnotised, brutalised, entire nations of Christians unite (sometimes against one another), each pooling all their resources into the killing of fellow men. They thereby forget the social problems back at home, let alone Jesus wise commands. The folly of patriotism succeeds in making men do the very opposite of what they regard as reasonable. All men say they want peace, but are (artificially made to be) prepared to go to war to defend the Fatherland, their faith, their honour, even civilisation itself; some will moreover feel obliged to go because they have already sworn an oath of allegiance to their government against Jesus very warning not to do so.137 And if asked to explain the obvious contradiction, they will say they are too busy for such discussions, which anyway they regard as idle besides, there is no time to argue when the entire nation is calling for help.138 In other words, patriotism is an incredibly successful method to hypnotise men into submitting to the will of the state. 3.4. The Ultimate Paradox: Universal Conscription Tolstoy therefore maintains that men are caught in a circle of violence made up of four methods that join and support one another.139 The first is intimidation, whereby the state organisation is presented as something sacred and immutable that punishes barbarously any attempts to alter it.140 The second is corruption, which consists in taking wealth from the working population to enrich officials who then use this remuneration to strengthen peoples enslavement.141 The third is hypnotisation of the people, which retards the spiritual development of men and is organised in a complex manner from early schooling to the encouragement of patriotic and religious superstitions using monuments, festivals, censure and so on.142 The fourth method consists in selecting some strong men from the stupefied masses in order to stupefy and brutalise them further and thus make them submissive instruments for government brutality that is, military conscription.143 And for Tolstoy, universal military conscription perfectly exemplifies the profoundly contradictory way of life of Christian states.144 Christian children are sent to Sunday school where there are told that they should turn the other cheek, only to be then duly sent to the army where they learn to resist, to hate, to kill.145 That is to say, men are taught to be at the same time Christians and gladiators;146 and the official teachers of Christianity are paradoxically involved in both.147 The church plays an important role by using its authority to sanction what would otherwise appear blatantly opposed to Jesus rational teaching. On the whole, the methods of instruction used to mould new conscripts are: deception, stupefaction, blows and vodka.148 Together, they ensure that within a year, good, intelligent, healthy-minded lads will 38

LEO TOLSTOY ON THE STATE become brutalised beings just like their instructors.149 These conscripts stop thinking, stifle their conscience and learn to obey blindly and submissively to the point that they do not even realise that by joining the army, they ironically become the perpetrators of their enslavement.150 It is therefore hardly surprising that Emperor Frederick the Great said: If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would remain in the army.151 The existence of the army depends on the brutalisation and stupefaction of conscripts. Otherwise, they would realise how contradictory it is to be Christian and to be a soldier let alone an accomplice in ones own enslavement. This paradox of conscription, however, quickly leads Tolstoy to a comparison of the current state of affairs with the ideal Christian society which, although a very interesting area of Tolstoys thought, is one that falls outside the remit of this article. The point here is that for Tolstoy, instead of recording the social revolution implied in Jesus teaching, history narrates the composition, by political and ecclesiastical elites, of a brutal, dishonest and hypnotic social system that tramples over Jesus rational commandments and enslaves those that navely believe themselves to be his followers. This paradox, according to Tolstoy, is most glaringly obvious in Christian states enforcement of military conscription. 4. THE CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE OF TOLSTOYS CRITIQUE What, then, does Tolstoys thought tell us? His recurring theme is that the state is a prison that humanity must break out of, but this can only happen if the violence and deception that it is guilty of is exposed. Tolstoy was not comfortable with being called an anarchist because the violence that was then routinely associated with the term was contrary to the non-violence that formed the basis of his own condemnation of the state. Yet this condemnation and his hopes for a stateless society make him an important figure in the broad and eclectic pantheon of anarchist thinkers.152 Besides, he found it curious that people are afraid of anarchists bombs, and are not afraid of this terrible organization which is always threatening them with the greatest calamities153 they fear exceptional and sporadic bombs but not permanent oppression by the state. Even though he was active a hundred years ago, Tolstoys accusations of state violence continue to be (almost self-evidently) relevant today.154 As the recent history of the Middle East indicates, wars continue to be waged (at least partly) to exploit other countries resources, and they continue to cause more conflict further down the line. Laws still lead to violence in the sense that Tolstoy described, and will continue to do so until consensus replaces the tyranny of the majority. Economic exploitation has now spread to a global scale which if anything makes the hiding 39

ANARCHIST STUDIES away of what disturbs any external appearance of harmony even easier. And power is still said to corrupt even the initially most promising political leaders. As to the states structure of deception, again, little seems to have changed. The United Nations was created to eradicate war, and yet great powers still seek, hypocritically, either to use its mechanisms to legitimise their next war or to bypass these mechanisms altogether. Domestically, too, leaders shy away from truly radical reform by citing timeless laws of social science. Units within the state system continue to evade responsibility for state violence: police officers using the full force of the law on demonstrators will say they followed orders, the legislators who passed the initial law will say they were just representing the views of their constituency, and those in between will similarly argue they are just fulfilling their duty. Patriotism today may in some countries not rely much on church collaboration anymore, and may be slightly less pervasive than at the end of the nineteenth century, but in an age of citizenship classes, flag burning and international football, it remains a key hypnotic tool that benefits the state. Universal conscription may be the only element of the states structure of deception that seems to have lost importance since Tolstoys dea