e 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Cadoux, _Christian Pacifism Re-examined_, 116-117.

[22] The way in which a whole social order can differ from that of the
West, merely because it chooses to operate on the basis of different
assumptions concerning such things as the aggressive nature of man is
well brought out in the study of three New Guinea tribes living in very
similar environments. Margaret Mead, _Sex and Temperament in Three
Primitive Societies_ (London: Routledge, 1935).

[23] Alexander Berkman, _What Is Communist Anarchism_? (New York:
Vanguard, 1929), x-xi, 176.

[24] Alexander Berkman, _Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist_ (New York:
Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1912), 7.

[25] Berkman, _Communist Anarchism_, 217-229, 247-248, 290.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln represented the spirit of moderation in the use of
violence. He led his nation in war reluctantly and prayerfully, with no
touch of hatred toward those whom the armies of which he was
Commander-in-Chief were destroying. He expressed his feeling in an
inspiring way in the closing words of his Second Inaugural Address, when
the war was rapidly drawing to a victorious close:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness to do
the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to
finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care
for him who shall have borne battle, and for his widow, and his
orphan--to do all which ma