TO A NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER 231
else in the world. Tlie Government and the upper, governing classes, to excuse their domination of the lahourers, behave like a gipsy who whips his horse before he turns a corner and then pretends he cannot hold it in. They stir up their own people and some foreign Government, and then pretend that for the well-being, or the defence, of their people they must declare war: which again brings profit only to generals, officers, officials, merchants, and, in general, to the rich. In reality war is an inevitable result of the existence of armies ; and armies are only needed by Governments to dominate their own working classes.
The thing is a crime, but the worst of it is that the Government, in order to have a plausible basis for its domination of the people, has to pretend that it holds the highest religious teaching known to man (the Christian), and that it brings up its subjects in this teaching. That teaching, however, is in its very nature opposed not only to murder but to all violence, and therefore the Governments, in order to dominate the people and to be considered Christian, had to pervert Christianity and to hide its true meaning from the people, and thus deprive men of the well-being Christ offered them.
This perversion was accomplished long ago, in the time of that scoundrel the Emperor Constantine, who for doing it was enrolled among the saints.* All sub- sequent Governments, especially our Russian Govern- ment, do their utmost to preserve this perverted understanding, and to prevent people from seeing the real meaning of Christianity ; because having once seen the real meaning of Christianity, the people would perceive that tlie Governments, with their taxes, soldiers, prisons, gallows, and false priests, are not only not the pillars of Christianity they profess to be, but are its greatest enemies.
In consequence of this perversion, those frauds which
♦ Constantine the Great was decreed to be a god by the Roman Senate, and was made a Christian saint by the Eastern Church.
