Leo Tolstoy. Slavery of our time (№ 456231)

The possibility of governmental violence, as well as any violence of a small number of people against a large one, has always produced and produces only that a small number is armed, and the majority is unarmed, or a small number is better armed than a large one. This is how it happened during all the conquests: this is how the peoples conquered - the Greeks, Romans, knights, Cortes, and now they conquer people in Africa, Asia, just keep their subjects in peacetime all governments. As in the old days, so now some people rule over others only because some are armed and others are not. In the old days, warriors with their leaders attacked defenseless inhabitants and subjugated them to themselves and robbed them, and everyone, according to their participation, their courage, cruelty, shared the booty, and it was clear to each warrior that the violence he committed was beneficial to him. Now, however, armed people, taken mainly from the workers, go against defenseless people, strikers, rebels or inhabitants of foreign countries, and subdue them and rob them (i.e., force them to give their labor) not for themselves, but for people who do not even participate in the conquest. The only difference between conquerors and governments is that the conquerors themselves, with their wars, attacked defenseless inhabitants and, in case of disobedience, carried out their threats of torture and murder, while governments do not themselves carry out, in case of disobedience, torture and murder of unarmed inhabitants , but they force deceived people to do this, and especially for this brutalized people, taken from the very people that they rape. So that the former violence was carried out by personal efforts: the courage, cruelty, dexterity of the conquerors themselves; the present violence is produced by deceit.