Introduction to Non-Violence

Revolutionary Anarchism

The revolutionary Anarchists belong essentially in this group. As Alexander Berkman has put it, "The teachings of Anarchism are those of peace and harmony, of non-invasion, of the sacredness of life and liberty;" or again, "It [Anarchism] means that men are brothers, and that they should live like brothers, in peace and harmony."[23] But to create this ideal society the Anarchist feels that violence may be necessary. Berkman himself, in his younger days, was able to justify his attack upon the life of Frick at the time of the Homestead Strike in 1893 in these words:

"But to the People belongs the earth—by right, if not in fact. To make it so in fact, all means are justifiable; nay advisable, even to the point of taking life.... Human life is, indeed, sacred and inviolate. But the killing of a tyrant, of an enemy of the People, is in no way to be considered as the taking of a life.... To remove a tyrant is an act of liberation, the giving of life and opportunity to an oppressed people."[24]

Later, Berkman insisted that a successful revolution must be non-violent in nature. It must be the result of thoroughgoing changes in the ideas and opinions of the people. When their ideas have become sufficiently changed and unified, the people can stage a general strike in which they overthrow the old order by their refusal to co-operate with it. He maintains that any attempt to carry on the revolution itself by military means would fail because "government and capital are too well organized in a military way for the workers to cope with them." But, says Berkman, when the success of the revolution becomes apparent, the opposition will use violent means to suppress it. At that moment the people are justified in using violence themselves to protect it. Berkman believes that there is no record of any group in power giving up its power without being subjected to the use of physical force, or at least the threat of it.[25] Thus in effect, Berkman would still use violence against some personalities in order to establish a system in which respect for every personality would be possible. Actually his desire for the new society is greater than his abhorrence of violence.

Abraham Lincoln

The Church and War

The statements of British and American churchmen during the present war call to mind these words of Lincoln. At Malvern, in 1941, members of the Church of England declared: "God himself is the sovereign of all human life; all men are his children, and ought to be brothers of one another; through Christ the Redeemer they can become what they ought to be." In March, 1942, American Protestant leaders at Delaware, Ohio, asserted: "We believe it is the purpose of God to create a world-wide community in Jesus Christ, transcending nation, race and class."[26] Yet the majority of the men who drew up these two statements were supporting the war which their nations were waging against fellow members of the world community—against those whom they professed to call brothers. Like Lincoln they did so in the belief that when the military phases of the war were over, it would be possible to turn from violence and to practice the principles of Christian charity.[27]

There is little in human history to justify their hope. There is much to make us believe that the violent attitudes of war will lead to hatred and injustice toward enemies when the war is done. The inspiring words of Lincoln were followed by the orgy of radical reconstruction in the South. There is at least as grave a doubt that the spirit of the Christian Church will dominate the peace which is concluded at the end of the present war.

The question arises insistently whether violence without hate can long live up to its own professions.

III. NON-VIOLENCE BY NECESSITY

The use of non-violent resistance does not always denote devotion to pacifist principles. Groups who would gladly use arms against an enemy if they had them often use non-violent means simply because they have no others at their disposal at the moment. In contrast to the type of action described in the preceding section, such a procedure might be called "hate without violence." It would probably be better to call it "non-violence by necessity."

The group using non-violence under such circumstances might have in view one of three purposes. It might hope through its display of opposition and its own suffering to appeal to the sense of fair play of the group that was oppressing it. However, such a hope can exist only in cases where the two opposing parties have a large area of agreement upon values, or homogeneity, and would have no basis when the oppressing group looked upon the oppressed as completely beneath their consideration. It is unlikely that it would have much success in changing the policy of a nation which consciously chose to invade another country, although it might affect individual soldiers if their cultural background were similar to that of the invaded people.[28]

An invader usually desires to gain something from the invaded people. In order to succeed, he needs their cooperation. A second way of thwarting the will of the invader is to refuse that cooperation, and be willing to suffer the penalties of such refusal. Since the invaded territory would then have no value, the invader might leave of his own accord.

A third possibility is for the invaded people to employ sabotage and inflict damage upon the invader in the belief that his invasion can be made so costly that it will be impossible for him to remain in the conquered territory. Such sabotage easily merges into violence.

In the preceding paragraphs, the enemy of the group using non-violence has been referred to as the "invader," because our best examples of this type of non-violent opposition are to be found in the histories of conquered people opposing the will of occupying forces. A similar situation may exist between a colonial people and the home government of an imperial power, since in most cases their position is essentially that of a conquered people, except that their territory has been occupied for a longer period of time.

Non-Violent Resistance to Invaders

Stories of the use of this sort of non-violence occur in our press every day, as they find their way out of the occupied countries which are opposing the Nazi invaders with every means at their disposal. In these countries the vast majority of the people are agreed in their determination to rid themselves of Nazi control. Such common agreement is the first requisite for the success of this method of resistance. When the people of the territory refuse to inform the police about individuals who are committing unlawful acts against the invaders, it is virtually impossible for the latter to check the expansion of non-cooperation or sabotage. Similarly, if the whole population refuses to cooperate with the invader, it is impossible for him to punish them all, or if he did, he would be destroying the labor force whose cooperation he desires, and would have defeated himself in the very process of stamping out the opposition to his regime.

Hitler himself has discovered that there is a difference between military occupation and actual conquest. In his New Year's proclamation to the German people in 1944, he attempted to explain the Nazi reverses in North Africa and Italy in these words:

"The true cause of the difficulties in North Africa and the Balkans was in reality the persistent attempts at sabotage and paralyzation of these plutocratic enemies of the fascist people's State.

"Their continual sabotage not only succeeded in stopping supplies to Africa and, later on, to Italy, by ever-new methods of passive resistance, thus preventing our soldiers and the Italians standing at their side from receiving the material wherewithal for the conduct of the struggle, but also aggravated or confused the situation in the Balkans, which had been cleared according to plan by German actions."[29]

Opposition to the German invader has taken different forms in different countries. In Denmark, where there was no military resistance to the initial invasion, the subtle opposition of the people has made itself felt in innumerable ways. There are many stories such as that of the King's refusal to institute anti-Jewish laws in Denmark on the ground that there was no Jewish problem there since the Danes did not feel themselves to be inferior to the Jews. Such ideological opposition makes the Nazis angry, and it also makes them uncomfortable, since they do hold enough values in common with the Danes to understand perfectly the implications of the Danish jibes. Such psychological opposition merges into sabotage very easily. For instance when the Germans demanded ten torpedo boats from the Danish navy, the Danes prepared them for delivery by taking all their guns and equipment ashore, and then burning the warehouse in which these were stored. The Nazis even forbade the press to mention the incident, lest it become a signal for a nationwide demonstration of solidarity.[30]

Other occupied countries report the same type of non-violent resistance. There are strikes of parents against sending their children to Nazi-controlled schools, strikes of ministers against conforming to Nazi decrees, demonstrations, malingering, and interference with internal administration. Such events may appear less important than military resistance, but they make the life of an occupying force uneasy and unhappy.[31]

Calls for non-violent preparation for the day of delivery go out constantly in the underground press. While urging solidarity in illegal acts among the French population at home, one French appeal even gave instructions to Frenchmen who might go to work in Germany:

"If you respond to Laval's appeal, I know in what spirit you will do so. You will wish to slow down German production, establish contacts with all the Frenchmen in Germany, and create the strongest of Fifth Columns in the enemy country."[32]

Over a long period of time such action cannot help having an effect upon the success of the invader. Since the grievance of the peoples of the occupied countries is a continuous one, there is no prospect that their resistance will relax until they have freed themselves of their oppressors.

Chinese Boycotts Against Foreigners

"As for the total loss to Japanese trade, various authorities have settled upon $50,000,000, which we may accept as a close approximation. At any rate the pressure was great enough to impel the Japanese merchants of Peking and Tientsin, with apparent ruin staring them in the face, to appeal to their home government for protection. They insisted that the boycott should be made a diplomatic question of the first order and that demands for its removal should be backed by threats of military intervention. To this the government at Tokio 'could only reply that it knew no way by which the Chinese merchants, much less the Chinese people, could be made to buy Japanese goods against their will.'"[33]

This incident calls to mind the experience of the American colonists in their non-violent resistance to Great Britain's imperial policy in the years following 1763, which we shall discuss more at length in the next section.

Egyptian Opposition to Great Britain

Another similar example is that of the Egyptian protest against British occupation of the country in 1919. People in all walks of life went on strike. Officials boycotted the British mission under Lord Milner, which came to work out a compromise. The mission was forced to return to London empty handed, but finally an agreement was reached there with Saad Zagloul Pasha, leader of the Egyptian movement, on the basis of independence for the country, with the British retaining only enough military control to safeguard their interest in the Suez Canal. After the acceptance of the settlement in 1922, friction between Egypt and Great Britain continued, but Egypt was not sufficiently united, nor were the grievances great enough to lead to the same type of successful non-cooperation practiced in 1919.[34]

It must be recognized that in most cases such as those we have been considering, violence would be used by the resisters if they had it at their disposal. However, the occasional success of non-violence even under such circumstances is proof of the possible expediency of this method. When it has failed, it has done so because the resisters were not sufficiently committed to their purpose to carry it out in the face of possible death. It appears from this experience that complete solidarity and commitment is required for the success of non-violent methods when used in this way, just as they are if such methods are used as a matter of principle. It must be recognized that the self-discipline necessary for the success of a non-violent movement must be even more rigorous than the imposed discipline of a military machine, and also that there is a chance that the non-violent resisters will fail in their endeavor, just as there is a virtual certainty that one side in a military conflict will be defeated.[35]

IV. NON-VIOLENT COERCION

In this section we are concerned with the action of groups designed to modify the conduct of others in order to promote their own ideals. We are concerned with people who presumably have a possible choice of methods to accomplish their purposes. They might rely upon persuasion and education of their opponents through emotional or intellectual appeals; but such action would have no coercive element in it, so we shall consider it in a later section. Or they might attempt to coerce their opponents, either by violent or non-violent means. For the present we are interested only in the latter through its usual manifestations: the strike, the boycott, or other organized movements of non-cooperation.[36]

At first sight such methods do not appear to be coercive in nature, since they involve merely an abstention from action on the part of the group offering the resistance. Actually they are coercive, however, because of the absolute necessity for inter-group cooperation in the maintenance of our modern social, economic, and political systems. Under modern conditions the group against whom the resistance is directed must have the cooperation of the resisting group in order to continue to survive. When that cooperation is denied, the old dominant group is forced to make concessions, even against its will, to the former subordinate group in order to regain the help that they have refused to render under the old conditions.[37]

The non-violent resisters themselves are also dependent upon inter-group cooperation. Hence the outcome of this type of struggle usually depends upon which of the two parties to the conflict can best or longest dispense with the services of the other. If the resisters are less able to hold out than the defenders, or if the costs of continued resistance become in their eyes greater than the advantages which might be gained by ultimate victory, they will lose their will to resist and their movement will end in failure.

In all such struggles, both sides are greatly influenced by the opinions of parties not directly concerned in the immediate conflict, but who might give support or opposition to one side or the other depending upon which could enlist their sympathies. Because of the deep-seated dislike of violence, even in our western society, the side that first employs it is apt to lose the sympathy of these third parties. As E. A. Ross has put it:

"Disobedience without violence wins, if it wins, not so much by touching the conscience of the masters as by exciting the sympathy of disinterested onlookers. The spectacle of men suffering for a principle and not hitting back is a moving one. It obliges the power holders to condescend to explain, to justify themselves. The weak get a change of venue from the will of the stronger to the court of public opinion, perhaps of world opinion."[38]

The stakes in such a struggle may be great or small. They range all the way from the demand of a labor union for an increase of five cents an hour in wages, to that of a whole people demanding political independence from an imperial master, or a revolutionary change in the economic or political power of the community.

The decision of the resisters to use non-violent means of opposition to gain their ends may be based either upon principle or upon expediency. In the former case they would say that the purposes they have in mind would not be worth attaining if their achievement were to involve physical violence toward other human beings; in the latter they would act on the basis of the conclusion that in view of all the factors involved their purposes could best be served by avoiding violence. These factors would include the likelihood of counter-violence, an estimate of the relative physical strength of the two parties to the conflict, and the attitude of the public toward the party that first used violence. In practice the action of those who avoid violence because they regard it as wrong is very little different from that of those who avoid it because they think that it will not serve their ends. But since there is a moral difference between them, we shall postpone the consideration of Satyagraha, or non-violent direct action on the basis of principle, until the next section. It would deserve such separate treatment in any case because of the great amount of attention which it commands in pacifist circles all over the world.

At the outset it is necessary to dispel the idea that non-violent resistance is something esoteric and oriental, and that it is seldom used in western society. This type of action is used constantly in our own communities, and the histories of western peoples present us with a large number of examples of the use of non-violent action in political and revolutionary conflicts. In the following discussion, the point of view is that of the West.

The Labor Strike

The most common type of non-violent conflict is the ordinary labor strike. In a strike, the workers withdraw their cooperation from the employer until he meets their demands. He suffers, because as long as they refuse to work for him it is impossible for him to produce the goods or services upon the sale of which his own living depends. Usually he is fighting for no principle during such a strike, so that he is apt to calculate his monetary loss from it against the advantages he would have to surrender in order to reach an agreement. When he concludes that it would be cheaper to give in, it is possible for the management and the strikers to arrive at a settlement. If the employer does feel that the principle of control of an enterprise by its owner is at stake, he may hold out longer, until he actually loses more by the strike than he would by conceding the demands of the strikers, but even then he balances psychological cost against monetary cost, and when the latter overweighs the former he becomes receptive to a settlement.

During the strike the workers are going through much the same process. A strike from their point of view is even more costly than it is to the employer. It is not to be entered upon lightly, since their very means of sustenance are at stake. They too have to balance the monetary costs of their continued refusal to cooperate against the gains that they might hope for by continued resistance, and when the cost becomes greater than the prospective gain they are receptive to suggestions for compromise. They too may be contending for the principle of the right of organization and control over their own economic destinies, so that they may be willing to suffer loss for a longer period than they would if they stood to gain only the immediate monetary advantages, but when immediate costs more than overweigh ultimate psychological advantages, they too will be willing to capitulate.

In the meantime the strikers have to see to it that the employer does not find someone else with whom he can cooperate in order to eliminate his dependence upon them. Hence they picket the plant, in an attempt to persuade others not to work there. If persuasion is not effective, they may resort to mass picketing, which amounts to a threat of violence against the persons who would attempt to take over their jobs. On occasion the threat to their jobs becomes so great that in order to defend them they will resort to violence against the strikebreaker. At this point, the public, which is apt to be somewhat sympathetic toward their demands for fair wages or better working conditions, turns against them and supports the employer, greatly adding to his moral standing and weakening that of the strikers, until the strikers, feeling that the forces against them are too great, are apt to give way. The employer will find the same negative reaction among the public if he tries to use violence in order to break the strike. Hence, if he does decide to use violence, he tries to make it appear that the strikers are responsible, or tries to induce them to use it first. It is to their advantage not to use it, even when it is used against them. Labor leaders in general understand this principle and try to avoid violence at all costs. They do so not on the basis of principle, but on the basis of expediency.[39]

In the great wave of enthusiastic organization of labor that swept over the United States in 1936 and 1937, American labor copied a variant of the strike, which had been used earlier in Hungary and in France.[40] Instead of leaving the property of the employer and trying to prevent others from entering it to take their places, workers remained on a "sit down strike" within the plants, so that the employer would have been forced to use violence to remove them in order to operate the factory. These strikes were based in part upon the theory that the worker had a property right to his job, just as the employer did to his capital equipment. Such strikes were for a time more successful than the older variety, because strike-breaking was virtually impossible. However, it was not long before public opinion forced the abandonment of the technique. It was revolutionary in character, since it threatened the old concept of private property. The fear of small property holders that their own possessions would be jeopardized by the success of such a movement, made them support the owners of the plants against the strikers, who were then forced to give way. In this case the public's fear of revolutionary change was greater than their dislike of violence, so they even supported the use of physical force by the employers and the police authorities to remove the strikers from the plants. The very effectiveness of the method which labor was employing brought about its defeat, because the public was not yet persuaded to accept the new concept of the property right of the laborer to his job.

The Boycott

The boycott is a more indirect type of non-cooperation than the strike, in most cases.[41] This word originated in Ireland in 1880 when a Captain Boycott, an agent for an Irish landlord, refused the demands of the tenants on the estate. In retaliation they threatened his life, forced his servants to leave him, tore down his fences, and cut off his food supplies. The Irish Land League, insisting that the land of Ireland should belong to its people, used this method of opposition in the years that followed. Its members refused to deal with peasants or tradesmen who sided with the government, but they used acts of violence and intimidation as well as economic pressure. The government employed 15,000 military police and 40,000 soldiers against the people, but they succeeded only in filling the jails. The struggle might well have won land for the Irish peasant, if Parnell, who had become leader of the Irish movement, had not agreed to accept the Gladstone Home Rule Bill of 1886 in exchange for calling off the opposition in Ireland. The Bill was defeated in Parliament and the Irish problem continued.[42]

In later usage, the word "boycott" has been applied almost exclusively to the refusal of economic cooperation. Organized labor in America used the boycott against the goods of manufacturers who refused to deal with unions, and it is still used in appeals to the public not to patronize stores or manufacturers who deal unfairly with labor.

The idea of economic sanctions, which played so large a part in the history of the League of Nations in its attempts to deal with those who disregarded decisions of the League, is essentially similar to the boycott. In fact much of the thinking of the pacifist movement between the two wars maintained that economic sanctions would provide a non-violent but coercive substitute for war, in settling international controversies.[43]

Non-Violent Coercion by the American Colonies

The western world has repeatedly employed non-violent coercion as a political as well as an economic technique. Strangely enough, many Americans who are apt to scoff at the methods of the Indian independence movement today forget that the American colonists used much the same methods in the early stages of their own revolt against England. When England began to assert imperial control over the colonies after 1763, the colonists answered with protests and refusals to cooperate. Against both the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Duties of 1767, they adopted non-importation agreements whereby they refused to import British goods. To be sure, the more radical colonists did not eschew violence on the basis of principle, and the direct action by which they forced colonial merchants to respect the terms of the non-importation agreements was not always non-violent. The loss of trade induced British merchants to go to Parliament on both occasions and to insist successfully upon the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 and the Townshend Duties in 1770. In the face of non-cooperation practiced by the vast majority of the colonists, the British government had been forced to give way in order to serve its own best interests.[44]

In 1774, when the Continental Congress established the Continental Association in order to use the same economic weapon again, the issues in the conflict were more clearly drawn. Many of the moderate colonists who had supported the earlier action, denounced this one as revolutionary, and went over to the loyalist side. The radicals themselves felt less secure in the use of their economic weapon, and began to gather arms for a violent rebellion. The attempt of the British to destroy these weapons led to Lexington and Concord.[45] What had been non-violent opposition to British policy had become armed revolt and civil war. It was a war which would probably have ended in the defeat of the colonists if they had not been able to fish in the troubled waters of international politics and win the active support of France, who sought thus to avenge the loss of her own colonies to Great Britain in 1763. We have here an example of the way in which non-violent resistance, when used merely on the basis of expediency, is apt to intensify and sharpen the conflict, until it finally leads to war itself.[46]

Irish Opposition to Great Britain After 1900

After centuries of violent opposition to British occupation, the Irish tried an experiment in non-violent non-cooperation after 1900. Arthur Griffith was inspired to use in Ireland the techniques employed in the Hungarian independence movement of 1866-1867. His Sinn Fein party, organized in 1906, determined to set up an independent government for Ireland outside the framework of the United Kingdom. When the Home Rule Act of 1914 was not put into operation because of the war, Sinn Fein gained ground. In the elections of 1918, three fourths of the successful Irish candidates were members of the party, so they met at Dublin as an Irish parliament rather than proceeding to Westminster. In 1921, after a new Home Rule Act had resulted only in additional opposition, the British government negotiated a settlement with the representatives of the "Irish Republic," which set up the "Irish Free State" as a self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth. The Irish accepted the treaty, and the Irish problem was on its way to settlement, although later events were to prove that Ireland would not be satisfied until she had demonstrated that the new status made her in fact independent. Her neutrality in the present war should dispel all doubts.[47]