Japan had similar problems with the west. In 1853, America established peaceful contact with Japan, when American warships steamed into Yedo (later Tokyo) harbour. Trade links were formed, and the Japanese also opened ‘treaty ports’. They soon found, like the Chinese, that foreigners expected to live according to their own laws, and to impose their own rules of trade. In 1862, an Englishman who had accidentally broken a rule of politeness was killed by the followers of a local lord. With one voice, the western powers – British, American, French and Dutch – protested, and sent a naval force to bombard coastal towns; they also humiliated the emperor – who was regarded by the Japanese as a god – by threatening to bombard Kyoto unless he signed treaties. The Japanese decided it was time to modernise. So began the remarkable success story which resulted in modern industrialised Japan. But the humiliations which the west had inflicted – and continued to inflict – on Japanese pride led eventually to the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. To the west it was an appalling example of Japanese treachery and ruthlessness. To the Japanese, it was an attempt to avenge a century of insults and humiliations.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the western powers also parcelled out Africa. The Dutch had already discovered that its southernmost tip had a pleasant climate and settled there. The Spanish and Portuguese had settled an area of the west coast, which became known as the Gold Coast, the Ivory Coast and the Slave Coast. In the late 1870s, King Leopold of Belgium financed the American explorer Stanley, who presented the king with a large area of the Congo Basin, which became known as the Belgian Congo. The cruelties committed in the rubber plantations there became legendary; natives were flogged to death and, if they tried to escape, tortured and mutilated. The French claimed portions to the north of the Congo; the Portuguese seized a stretch from the east to the west coast; while the Germans concentrated their attention on the east coast around Zanzibar. Italy seized Somaliland, Eritrea and Ethiopia in the north. The British, more ambitious than any of the others, schemed to make Africa British from the Cape to Cairo, and succeeded in taking a large area from the Dutch – known as the Boers – in the Boer war 1899-1901. Clearly, it never struck anyone for a moment that the Africans themselves had a certain right to their own country. But when, after the Second World War, some African states succeeded in achieving independence, many became communist simply because communist ideology seemed to be at the opposite extreme from western imperialism.
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All this then, seems to support the anarchist view that government is to blame for mankind’s problems. But the anarchist view rests on the notion that there are two classes in the world: the oppressed and the oppressors. And anyone with the slightest knowledge of history knows this to be untrue. When the oppressed are given the opportunity, they become the oppressors. For the real problem lies in human nature itself. Governments are oppressive only because they behave exactly like individuals. When an individual is offended, he thinks in terms of ‘getting his own back’. So do governments. According to the anarchists and socialists, the ordinary people love peace; it is the rulers who want war. In fact, when national pride is hurt, everybody wants war, and the common people are more belligerent than most. This is the cause of international conflict, and it is also the cause of crime. Man is a creature who easily works himself up into a state of righteous indignation, and his indignation places him at the mercy of negative emotions. His rational self is tossed around like a small aeroplane in a storm. Suddenly, nothing matters but soothing the outraged feelings, the bruised ego. If he is successful, and the offender is suitably humiliated, the storm subsides and he is once again capable of kindliness and reason. But while the fury lasts he is, in effect, mildly insane.
We might say that a person who behaves in this way was ‘possessed’. But the behaviour could be compared to another medical condition that is rather less rare: hypnosis. Hypnosis consists of a narrowing of the field of attention until the subject is ‘locked’ in a state of narrowness, unaware of anything beyond it. This is precisely what happens to human beings when they are gripped by rage or indignation. The problem is that the effect of that rage, when directed against other people, is to produce in them the same state of ‘hypnosis’. The two combatants are then likely to remain locked in this state of mutual-provocation until the original cause of the quarrel has ceased to be important. The hypnosis has become a self-propagating condition, which may continue until both are exhausted or one is destroyed.
The history of the twentieth century may be seen as a continuous illustration of this process. We may take as a convenient starting point an event that occurred shortly after the accession of the tsar Nicholas II in 1894. Rumour had spread that the new tsar was anxious to modernise Russia and permit his subjects more liberty. He was, in fact, a gentle and charming person, totally unlike his autocratic father, who had the temper of a bull. Local councils (known as zemstvos) were told that the new tsar would be glad to receive deputations. A deputation from Tver arrived in St Petersburg and presented the tsar with expensive presents and with an address expressing their loyalty. It contained the innocuous phrase: ‘We expect, gracious sovereign, that these local councils will be allowed to express their opinions in matters which concern them…’ The result startled them. The writer of the address was dismissed from the public service with ignominy, and an official reproof was sent to the governor of Tver, who knew nothing about the matter. A few days later, the tsar addressed the assembled deputations, and told them sternly that it had come to his knowledge that some local councils were indulging in ‘the senseless dream that they might participate in the government of the country’. ‘I want everyone to know,’ shrieked the tsar, ‘that I intend to maintain the principle of autocracy, like my father,’ and he raised his hand as if shaking his fist. The audience went out looking shaken and cowed. And Nicholas’s wife, the tsarina Alexandra, looked at him with adoring admiration.
The tsar’s reaction to revolutionary ferment was to order his chief of police, von Plehve, to arrest anyone suspected of leftist sympathies. Plehve, who had organised the mass executions after the assassination of Alexander II, approached his task with enthusiasm. One of these arrested was a beautiful young student named Marie Vietrov – a few ‘forbidden books’ had been found in her room. Instead of being merely suspended from the university – the usual punishment – she was incarcerated in the Peter and Paul fortress. What took place during the next two months is not certain, although both torture and rape have been suggested. On 10 February 1897, Marie Vietrov committed suicide by soaking her mattress in paraffin and lying on it as she set it alight. She died after two days of horrible suffering. Her parents were not told until two weeks later. A secret press printed a document denouncing the government for her death, and asking what kind of tortures or humiliations had driven her to kill herself when her friends had already secured an order for her release. It was distributed in thousands. Vast crowds attended her funeral service, in spite of warnings from the police to disperse. A year later, industrial workers formed the Social Democratic Party which became the Communist Party.
The tsar was indifferent to all this agitation; he was more interested in trying to extend Russia’s influence in the far-east – particularly China and Korea. Japan had just won a war against China and wanted territorial concessions. So did Russia. In 1901, Japan’s greatest statesman, Hirobumi Ito, came to St Petersburg to discuss the problem. He was ignored and snubbed; answers to his official communications were delayed for weeks. The tsar regarded the Japanese as irritating foreigners who should be taught their place. The result was that the Japanese helped themselves to the disputed territory in north Korea. The Russians were outraged, and declared war. In 1904, the Russian fleet was ordered to sail halfway round the world to destroy the Japanese fleet. Russia was in for a painful surprise. The Japanese had been industrialising and modernising for several decades; they had even introduced the kind of democracy that Russia was still dreaming about. And they defeated the Russians in battle after battle. Finally, the Russian navy arrived, at Tsushima, where the Japanese sank all but two ships within a few hours. The Japanese had demonstrated that their chief minister could not be insulted with impunity.