Non-violence and Civil Disobedience

If the American desires the greatness and prosperity of the States before all nations, and the Englishman desires the same for his nation, and the Russian, Turk, Dutchman, Afghan, Venezuelan, Boer, Armenian, Pole, German, Czech etc. each have a similar desire; if all are convinced that these desires ought not to be concealed and suppressed, but, on the contrary, are something to be proud of, and to be encouraged in oneself and in others; and if one's country's greatness and prosperity can be obtained only at the expense of another, or at times of many other countries and nations- then how can war not be? 

Obviously, to avoid war, it is necessary, not to preach sermons and pray God for peace, not to adjure the English speaking nations to live in peace together in order to domineer over other nations, not to make double and triple counter-alliances, not to intermarry princes and princesses, but to destroy the root of war. And that is, the exclusive desire for the well-being of one's own people; it is patriotism. Therefore, to destroy war, destroy patriotism...If patriotism be good, then Christianity, as giving peace, is an idle dream, and the sooner we root it out, the better. But if Christianity really gives peace, and if we really want peace, then patriotism is a survival of barbarism, and it is not only wrong to excite and develop it, as we do now, but it ought to be rooted out by every means, by preaching, persuasion, contempt, ridicule. If Christianity be truth, and we wish to live in peace, then must we more than cease to take pleasure in the power of our country; we must rejoice in the weakening of that power, and help thereto...

Just in this very thing is Christian truth powerful, irresistible; namely, that being the teaching of truth, in affecting men it is not to be governed by outside considerations. Whether young or old, whether persecuted or not, he who adopts the Christian, the true, conception of life, cannot shrink from the claims of his conscience. In this is the essence and peculiarity of Christianity, distinguishing it from all other religious teachings; and in this is its unconquerable power...

With amazing effrontery, all governments have always declared, and still go on declaring, that all the preparations for war, and even the wars themselves, that they undertake, are necessary to preserve peace...Armies will only be diminished and abolished and peace gained when people cease to trust governments, and themselves seek salvation from the miseries that oppress them, and seek that safety, not by the complicated and delicate combinations of diplomatists and comforts of patriotism but in the simple fulfilment of that law, binding upon every man, inscribed in all religious teachings and present in every heart, not to do to others what you wish them not to do to you- above all, not to slay your neighbors. 

-Leo Tolstoy from, On Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence. 1968.