What Shall We Do? Part 30

It is only to our perverted ideas, that it seems, when the master sends his clerk to be a peasant, or government sentences one of its ministers to deportation, that they are punished and have been dealt with hardly.

In reality they have had a great good done to them; that is, they have exchanged their heavy special work for a pleasant alternation of labour.

In a natural society all is different. I know a commune where the people earn their living themselves. One of the members of this community was more educated than the rest; and they require him to deliver lectures, for which he has to prepare himself during the day, that he may be able to deliver them in the evening. He does it joyfully, feeling that he is useful to others, and that he can do it well. But he grows tired of the exclusive mental labour, and his health suffers accordingly. The members of the community therefore pity him, and ask him to come and labour in the field again.

For men who consider labour to be the essential thing and the joy of life, the ground, the basis, of it will always be the struggle with nature,--not only in agricultural labour, but also in that of handicraft, mental work, and intercourse with men.

The divergence from one or many of these kinds of labour, and specialities of labour, will be performed only when a man of special gifts, being fond of this work, and knowing that he performs it better than anybody else, will sacrifice his own advantage in order to fulfil the demands which others put directly to him.

Only with such a view of labour and the natural division of labour resulting from it, will that curse disappear which in our imagination we have put upon labour; and every labour will always be a joy, because man will do either an unquestionably useful, pleasant, and easy work, or will be conscious that he makes a sacrifice by performing a more difficult special labour for the good of others.

But the division of labour is, it is said, more advantageous.

Advantageous for whom? Is it more advantageous to make with all speed as many boots and cotton-prints as possible? But who will make these boots and cotton-prints? Men who from generation to generation have been making only pin-heads? How, then, can it be more advantageous for people? If the object were to make as many cotton-prints and pins as possible, it would be so; but the question is, how to make people happy?

The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in labour.

How, then, can the necessity of painful, oppressing work be advantageous for men? If the question were only for the advantage of some men without any consideration of the welfare of all, then it might be most advantageous for some men to eat others. They say it is savoury!

The thing most advantageous for all men is what I wish for myself,--the greatest welfare and the satisfying of all my wants which are ingrafted in me, those of body as well as those of soul, of conscience, and of reason.

Now, for myself I have found, that for my welfare and for the satisfying of these wants, I need only to be cured of the folly in which I (as well as the Krapivensky madman) have lived, consisting in the idea that gentlefolk need not work, and that all must be done for them by others, and that, producing nothing, I have to do only what is proper to man,--satisfy my own wants.

Having discovered this, I became persuaded that this labour for the satisfying of my own wants, is divisible into various kinds of labour, each of which has its own charm, and is not only no burden, but serves as rest after some other labour.

I have roughly divided labour, not in the least insisting on the propriety of such a division, into four parts parallel to the four parts of the labourer's day's work, divided by his meals; and thus I try to satisfy my wants.

These are, then, the answers to the question, "What shall we do?" which I have found for myself.

_First_, Not to lie to myself. However far I have gone astray from that road of life which my reason shows to me, I must not be afraid of the truth.

_Secondly_, To renounce my own righteousness, my own advantages, peculiarities, distinguishing me from others, and to own my guilt.

_Thirdly_, To fulfil the eternal, unquestionable law of man,--by labouring with all my being to struggle with nature, to sustain my own life, and the lives of others.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

I have now finished, having said all that concerns myself; but I cannot restrain my desire to say that which concerns every one, and to verify my own deductions by several considerations.

I wish to explain why I think that a great many of my own cla.s.s must arrive where I myself am, and I must also speak of what will result if even a few men arrive there; in the first place, if men of our circle, our caste, will only seriously think the matter out themselves, the younger generation, who seek their own personal happiness, will become afraid of the ever-increasing misery of lives which obviously lead them to ruin; scrupulous persons among us (if they would examine themselves more closely) will be terrified at the cruelty and unlawfulness of their own lives, and timid persons will be frightened at the danger of their mode of life.

_The misery of our lives!_ However we, rich men, may try to mend and to support, with the a.s.sistance of science and art, this our false life, it must become weaker every day, unhealthier, and more and more painful: with each year, suicide, and the sin against the unborn babe, increase; with each year the new generations of our cla.s.s grow weaker, with each year we feel more and more the increasing misery of our lives.

It is obvious that on this road, with all its increase of the comforts and delights of life, of cures, artificial teeth and hair, and so on, there can be no salvation.

This truth has become such a truism, that in newspapers advertis.e.m.e.nts are printed about stomach powder for rich people, under the t.i.tle "Blessings of the poor," where they say that only poor people have a good digestion, and the rich need help, and among other things this powder. You cannot ameliorate this matter by any kind of amus.e.m.e.nts, comforts, powders, but only by turning over a new leaf.

_The contradiction of our life with our conscience._ However we may try to justify to ourselves our treason against mankind, all our justification falls to pieces before evidence: around us, people are dying from overwork and want; and we destroy the food, clothes, and labour of men merely to amuse ourselves. Therefore the conscience of a man of our circle, though he may have but a small remainder of it in his breast, cannot be stifled, and poisons all these comforts and charms of life which our suffering and perishing brethren procure for us. Not only does every conscientious man feel this himself, but he must feel it more acutely at present, because the best part of art and science, that part which still retains a sense of its high calling, constantly reminds him of his cruelty, and of the unlawfulness of his position.

The old secure justifications are all destroyed; and the new ephemeral justifications of the progress of science for science's sake, and art for art's sake, will not bear the light of plain common sense.

The conscience of men cannot be calmed by new devices: it can be calmed only by turning over a new leaf, when there will be no longer any need for justification.

_The danger to our lives!_ However much we may try to hide from ourselves the plain and obvious danger of exhausting the patience of those whom we oppress; however much we may try to counteract this danger by all sorts of deceit, violence and flattery,--it grows day by day, hour by hour,--it has long been threatening us, but now it is so ready that we are scarcely able to hold our course,--as in a vessel tossed by a roaring and overflowing sea,--a sea which will presently swallow us up in wrath.

The workman's revolution, with its terrors of destruction and murder, not only threatens us, but we have already lived above it for the last thirty years, and it is only by various cunning devices that we have postponed the explosion.

Such is the state in Europe: such is the state in Russia, and still worse there, because we have no safety-valves. The cla.s.ses who oppress the people, with the exception of the Tsar, have no longer any justification in the eyes of our people; they all keep up their position merely by violence, cunning, and expediency, i.e., skill; but the hatred towards us of the worst representatives of the people, and the contempt of us from the best, increases every hour.

Among the Russian people a new word full of significance has been circulating during the last three or four years: by this word, which I never heard before, people are swearing in the streets, and by it they give us a definition--"parasites."

The hatred and contempt of the oppressed people are increasing, and the physical and moral strength of the richer cla.s.ses are decreasing: the deceit which supports all is wearing out, and the rich cla.s.ses have nothing wherewith to comfort themselves in this mortal danger. To return to the old order of things is impossible, to restore the old prestige is impossible. It only remains for those who are not willing to change the course of their lives, and to turn over a new leaf,--to hope that, during their lives, they may fare well enough, after which the people may do as they like. So think the blind crowd of the rich; but the danger ever increases, and the awful catastrophe comes nearer and nearer.

There are three reasons which should prove to rich people the necessity of turning over a new leaf: First, desire for their own personal welfare and that of their families, which is not secured by the way in which rich people are living; secondly, the inability to satisfy the voice of conscience, which is obviously impossible in the present condition of things; and thirdly, the threatening and constantly increasing danger to life, which cannot be met by any outward means. All these together ought to induce rich people to change their mode of life. This change alone would satisfy the desire of welfare and conscience, and would remove the danger. There is but one means of making such change,--to leave off deceiving ourselves, to repent, and to acknowledge labour to be, not a curse, but the joyful business of life.

To this it is replied, "What will come out of the fact of my physical labour during ten, eight, or five hours, while thousands of peasants would gladly do it for the money which I have?"

The first good result would be, that you will become livelier, healthier, sounder, kinder; and you will learn that real life from which you have hidden yourself, or which was hidden from you.

The second good result will be, that, if you have a conscience, it will not only cease to suffer as it now suffers when looking at the labour of men,--the importance of which we always, from our ignorance, either increase or diminish,--but you will constantly experience a joyful acknowledgment that with each day you are satisfying more and more the demands of your conscience, and are leaving behind you that awful state in which so much evil is acc.u.mulated in our lives that we feel that we cannot possibly do any good in the world; you will experience the joy of free life, with the possibility of doing good to others; you will open for yourself a way into regions of the world of morality which have hitherto been shut to you.

The third good result will be this, that, instead of constant fear of revenge upon your evil deeds, you will feel that you are saving others from this revenge, and are princ.i.p.ally saving the oppressed from the cruel feeling of rancour and resentment.

But it is generally said, that it would be ridiculous if we, men of our stamp, with deep philosophical, scientific, political, artistic, ecclesiastical, social questions before us, we, state ministers, senators, academists, professors, artists, singers, we, whose quarter-hours are valued so highly by men, should spend our time in doing--what? Cleaning our boots, washing our shirts, digging, planting potatoes, or feeding our chickens and cows, and so on,--in business which not only our house-porter, or our cook, but thousands of men besides who value our time, would be very glad to do for us.

But why do we dress, wash, and comb our hair ourselves? Why do we walk, hand chairs to ladies, to our guests, open and shut the door, help people into carriages, and perform hundreds of actions which were formerly performed for us by our slaves?

Because we consider that such may be done by ourselves; that they are compatible with human dignity; that is, human duty. The same holds good with physical labour. Man's dignity, his sacred duty, is to use his hands, his feet, for the purpose for which they were given him, to spend the swallowed food in work, which produces the food, and not to be wasted by disuse, not merely that he may wash and clean them and use them only for the purpose of stuffing food and cigarettes into his mouth.

Such is the meaning of physical labour for every man in every society.

But in our cla.s.s, with the divergence from this law of nature came the misery of a whole circle of men; and for us, physical labour receives another meaning,--the meaning of a preaching and a propaganda which divert the terrible evil which threatens mankind.

To say that for an educated man, physical labour is a trifling occupation, is the same as to say, in the building of a temple, "What importance can there be in putting each stone exactly in its place?"

Every great act is done under the conditions of quietness, modesty, and simplicity. One can neither plough, nor feed cattle, nor think, during a great illumination, or amid thundering of guns, nor while in uniform.

Illumination, the roar of cannon, music, uniforms, cleanliness, brilliancy, which we usually connect with the idea of the importance of any act, are, on the contrary, tokens of the absence of importance in that act. Great, true deeds are always simple and modest. Such is also the greatest deed which is left to us to do,--the solution of those awful contradictions in which we are living. The acts which solve these contradictions are modest, imperceptible, seemingly ridiculous acts, such as helping ourselves by physical labour, and, if possible, helping others too: this is what we rich people have to do, if we understand the misery, wrong, and danger of the position in which we live.

What will result from the circ.u.mstance that I, and another, and a third, and a tenth man, do not despise physical labour, but consider it necessary for our happiness, for the calming of our consciences, and for our safety? This will result from it,--that one, two, three, ten men, coming into conflict with no one, without violence either of government or of revolution, will solve for themselves the problem which is before all the world, and which has appeared unsolvable; and they will solve it in such a way that life will become for them a good thing: their consciences will be calm, and the evil which oppresses them will cease to be dreadful to them.

Another effect will be this: other men, too, will see that the welfare, which they have been looking for everywhere, is quite near them, that seemingly unsolvable contradictions between conscience and the order of the world are solved in the easiest and pleasantest way, and that, instead of being afraid of the men surrounding them, they must have intercourse with them, and love them.

The seemingly unsolvable economical and social questions are like the problem of Krilof's casket. The casket opened of itself, without any difficulty: but it will not open until men do the simplest and most natural thing; that is, open it. The seemingly unsolvable question is the old question of the utilizing some men's labour by others: this question, in our time, has found its expression in property.

Formerly, other men's labour was used simply by violence, by slavery: in our time it is being done by the means of property. In our time, property is the root of all evil and of the sufferings of men who possess it, or are without it, and of all the remorse of conscience of those who misuse it, and of the danger from the collision between those who have it, and those who have it not.

Property is the root of all evil, and, at the same time, property is that towards which all the activity of our modern society is directed, and that which directs the activity of the world. States and governments intrigue, make wars, for the sake of property, for the possession of the banks of the Rhine, of land in Africa, China, the Balkan Peninsula.