Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

Propaganda By The Deed / 1 57
perceive the possibility of another maneuver, whereupon he will not go and ask authority
from the first to make the attempt but will make it known to those who are
struggling with him. These, in turn, will assist or reject the undertaking as seems
most practicable.
[n Anarchy those who know teach those who do not know; the first to conceive
an idea puts it into practice, explaining it to those whom he wishes to interest in it.
But there is no temporary abdication, no authority; there are only equals who mutually
aid each other according to their respective faculties, abandoning none of their
rights, no part oftheir autonomy. The surest means of making Anarchy triumph is to
act like an Anarchist. ..
"The end justifies the means" is the motto oftheJesuits, which some Anarchists
have thought fit to apply to Anarchy, but which is not in reality app[icable save to him
who seeks egoistic satisfaction for his purely personal needs, without troubling himself
about those whom he wounds or crushes by the way. When satisfaction is sought
in the exercise of justice and solidarity the means employed must always be adapted
to the end, under pain of producing the exact contrary of one's expectations.
47. Leo Tolstoy: On Non-violent Resistance (1900)
Although Tolstoy (1828- 1910) rejected the anarchist label, he also rejected all fo rms of coercive
power and advocated non-violent resistance to authority. Tolstoy's main disagreement
with the anarchists was over the question of violence. On other issues, he wrote, ''The Anarchists
are right ... in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without Authority,
there could not be worse violence th an th at of Authority under existing conditions.
They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution" (from "On
Anarchy, " in Government is Violence: Essays on Anarchism and Pacifism, Londoll: Phoenix
Press, 1990, page 68). The fo llowing excerpts are taken from his 1900 pamphlet, The
Slavery of Our Times.
APART FROM OUTBURSTS OF REVENGE or anger, violence is used only in order to
compel some people, against their own will, to do the will of others. But the necessity
to do what other people wish against your own will is slavery. And, therefore, as
long as any violence, designed to compel some people to do the will of others, exists,
there will be slavery.
All the attempts to abolish slavery by violence are like extinguishing fire with fire,
stopping water with water, or filling up one hole by digging another. Therefore, the
means of escape from slavery, if such means exist, must be found, not in setting up fresh
violence, but in abolishing whatever renders governmental violence possible ...