Published in ‘The Blast’, Vol. 1, No. 13, May 1916, an anarchist newspaper edited by Alexander Berkman, excerpted in part from a book by Tolstoy (who lived from 1828-1910), ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You‘ (1894)
To keep the majority of men in submission, the minority in power employs the military caste.
Every government needs the army, first of all to keep its own subjects in submission, and secondly, to safeguard the exploitation of their labor. But there is not only one government, there are many of them which all rule by violence and are ever ready to filch their neighbor’s wealth created by subjects already reduced to slavery. That is why every government needs an army not only to keep in power at home, but also to defend its booty against greedy neighbors. The States are forced to compete in increasing their arms. The example set is contagious, as Montesquieu noticed 150 years ago.
Every increase in the fighting force by one State directed against its subjects causes uneasiness to the neighboring State and compels it to increase its army, too. If the armies today run into millions of men it is not only because of the fact that one State threatens another, it is also due above all to the desire to crush labor unrest at home. One is the result of the others: the despotism of the governments grows with their power and their successes abroad, and their aggressive disposition keeps pace with their despotism at home.
This rivalry in armaments has brought the European governments to the necessity of establishing compulsory military service, which alone procures the greatest number of men with the least expenditure. Germany was the first to adopt conscription, and other nations followed suit. Thus all citizens have been called to arms to maintain the iniquities perpetrated upon themselves, so that the citizens of a State have become the supporters of their tyrants.
What is the motive power used by governments to induce peaceful nations to commit violence and murder? It is called patriotism. It is the art of proving that one group of population separated by a conditional imaginary line, called a frontier, is far superior and preferable in every way to another group of population which lives on the other side of this imaginary line. The most friendly relations, identity of religion, of language, of instruction, of common stock and most intimate friendship, do not prevent these two groups, at a given signal, from rushing at each other and cutting each other’s throats, after the fashion of the most ferocious beasts. And the cause for this signal to kill is often a trifling misunderstanding on the part of the rulers of these two groups of people. These peaceful, good, friendly, laboring people throw themselves upon one another in such a case to destroy one another, invoking to their aid a God who, no doubt, must be a fierce Moloch, and both sides express the same blasphemies in the name of God and civilization.
Also:
Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas; Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939), by Robert Graham, which contains the selection “Compulsory Military Service” by Tolstoy, also from The Kingdom of God is Within You