“And what good are judges and prosecutors who in civil cases do not decide according to justice and in criminal cases know themselves that all punishments are useless?”
“And of what use are collectors of taxes who unwillingly collect the taxes, while what is needed is collected without them?”
“And of what use is the clergy, which has long ago ceased to believe in what it preaches?”
“And of what use is capital in private hands, when it can be of use only by becoming the common possession?”
And having once asked themselves this, people cannot help but come to the conclusion that they ought not to support all these useless institutions.
But not only will the men who support these institutions arrive at the necessity of abolishing them—the men themselves who occupy these positions will simultaneously or even earlier be brought to the necessity of giving up their positions.
Public opinion more and more condemns violence, and so men, more and more submitting to public opinion, are less and less desirous of holding their positions, which are maintained by violence, and those who hold these positions are less and less able to make use of violence.
But by not using violence, and yet remaining in positions which are conditioned by violence, the men who occupy these positions become more and more useless. And this uselessness, which is more and more felt by those who maintain these positions and by those who hold them, will finally be such that there will be found no men to maintain them and none who would be willing to hold them.
Once I was present in Moscow at some discussions about faith, which, as usual, took place during Quasimodo week near a church in Okhotny