LEO TOLSTOY, POLITICAL PROPHET AND EVANGELICAL ANARCHIST

Antoni Blanch, sj.

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................

1. THE SOCIO-POLITICAL SITUATION OF RUSSIAIN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY ...................................................

2. REFORMIST THOUGHT IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA ......................................3. THE THOUGHT OF TOLSTOY BEFORE HIS CONVERSION ........................................

4. THE NEW LIFE AFTER CONVERSION ...........................................................................

5. AN OFFICIAL OF THE CZAR WHO REPUDIATES WAR ................................................

6. A POPULIST, UTOPIAN SOCIALIST ................................................................................

7. TOLSTOY THE PROPHET .................................................................................................

8. MORAL, POLITICAL, AND EVANGELICAL PROPHESYING .........................................

NOTES ....................................................................................................................................QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION ...........................................................................................

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Antoni Blanch, sj., was professor emeritus of comparative literature at Comillas PontificalUniversity (Madrid). His two most recent works are El hombre imaginario: una antropologíaliteraria [Imaginary Man: A Literary Anthropology] (1995) and El espíritu de la letra.Acercamiento creyente en la Literatura [The Spirit of the Letter: Approaching Literature withBelief] (2002). He is also the author of Longing for a Greater Justice (Cristianisme i Justícia,Booklet 120). He was a member of Cristianisme i Justícia until his death at the end of 2013.We publish this booklet posthumously as a homage to our great friend and collaborator.

Our interest in this essay is to understandhow this great change in Tolstoy cameabout and what consequences it had. Tothat end we will have to delve, first ofall, into the meaning of the severepersonal crisis that Tolstoy experiencedprecisely at the height of his literarysuccess. How and why did he undergoa dramatic mental and moral depressionthat sunk him into nihilistic darkness?Fortunately the crisis did not last long;he soon recovered from it and wastransformed into what might be called«a new man». Anticipating the analysisof this study, we can describe Tolstoy’s

radically renewed life in general termsby saying that his spirit was consumedwith a passion to rectify the unjustsituation of the Russian workers andpeasants and to struggle against theroyal powers that caused the situation.In undergoing this transformation hefelt especially inspired, for the first timein life, by a dramatic awareness of theperson of Jesus and the revolutionaryproclamations of his Gospel. Both thesefactors, the rebelliousness of the socialrevolutionary and the evangelical spiritof the prophet, converged so forcefullyin this gifted writer and teacher that we

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INTRODUCTION

The great Russian known as Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is today univer -sally known for his two monumental novels, War and Peace (1869) andAnna Karenina (1878), which he wrote before the age of 50. His laterwork, however, is not well known even though it is also very importantand has an orientation notably different from his earlier literary work. Itconsists of more than a hundred essays and several short novelswhich he published between 1878 and his death at age 82.

do well to apply to the radicallyrenewed Tolstoy the title «social andevangelical prophet».

Indeed, when perusing some of thehundred or so essays and newspaperarticles published by Tolstoy in his lateryears, the reader encounters an authorvery different from the earlier artist whodescribed so magnificently the greatNapoleonic wars in Russia and the su -percilious customs of the Czarist aris -tocracy to which he himself belonged.In this second phase of his life he hasbecome a didactic, polemical authorwho writes with the anguished intensityof a social and political reformer. He isalso much more inclined to take actionby getting involved in concrete educa -tional projects with uneducated peasantsand installing health clinics in the vastproperties he owned. He studied withintense interest the modern social re -formers of Europe as well as the rele -vant Russian thinkers, many of whomhad been exiled for their revolutionaryideas. He surrounded himself with

leftists and helped to organize popularmovements for reform. What is evenmore surprising in this evolution ofTolstoy is that everything he did andwrote from that moment on was pro -foundly inspired by some of the boldestproposals of Jesus as recounted in theGospels, which Tolstoy himself trans -lated directly from Greek into Russian.Motivated by this surprising propheticvocation, he wanted to make the GoodNews known to the general public

Our objective in these pages is torecover the essence of this teaching ofthe later Tolstoy so as to make it availa -ble to our own cultural and politicalepoch in Spain and Europe, a time whenblatant mediocrity and self-absorbedindividualism seem to prevail. I hopethat this portrait of a more revolutionaryand spiritual Tolstoy will serve as astimulus to our present generation ofperplexed, indignant, and rebelliouscitizens. Tolstoy deserves to be number -ed among the great moral teachers, whounfortunately are scarce in our times.

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1.1. An unsustainable socialsituation

Russia had not developed industriallyand so had not experienced the bour -geois revolution that transformed so -ciety in western Europe at the end ofthe 18th century. In Russia the profes -sional middle class was quite small andlived mainly in the large cities of thecountry. As grossly unjust as Russia’ssocial inequality was, it was made evenworse by the countless wars that theczars waged to defend their borders orto conquer new territories.

After the long, drawn-out victory ofRussia over Napoleon in 1812, whichleft the coun try in a calamitous state,Russian mili tarism suffered humiliationin two other conflicts: the war againstthe Turks in Crimea (1858) –in whichLeo Tolstoy took part, along with hisbrother Nicholas– and the naval defeatat the hands of distant Japan (1905).This socio-political situation wasalready precarious and disastrous forthe peo ple, but it was made still worseby the increasingly frequent demonstra -tions of popular resistance to the regime,which the police repressed ruthlessly.

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1. THE SOCIO-POLITICAL SITUATION OF RUSSIA IN THESECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Under the despotic regime of the czars the conditions prevailing inRussian society were still almost feudal. A scandalous distanceseparated the aristocracy and a small class of well-off landlords andmerchants from the enormous mass of workers and peasants. Weshould not forget that these rural workers (mujiks) were still subject to afeudal system, which was legally abolished in 1861 but existed in factuntil the revolution of 1917.

The first public rebellion with widesupport was that of the «Decembrists»of 1825 in Saint Petersburg, in whichsome nobles took part for the first time.The revolt was quickly squelched bythe czar, who a few days later stagedthe execution of its main leaders in themain plaza. Nevertheless, the rebels didnot disappear. Clandestine groupscontinued to be formed, many inspiredby the short-lived French revolution of1848 (the same year in which the Com -munist Manifesto of Marx and Engelsappeared in England). The Russianrevolutionary movement was alsoinvigorated in the years following bythe removal from power of the secondFrench emperor, Napoleon III, and bythe revolutionary struggles of the ParisCommune in 1871. In fact, this defeatof another French emperor was partlythe result of the effective interventionof the powerful Russian army. All thesepolitical movements in Europe arousedkeen interest in Russia not only amongpoliticians but also among universityintellectuals and the writers in literarycircles. They boldly expressed theirconcerns and their hopes, some in moreconservative fashion (such as thenationalists, Slavophiles, and OrthodoxChristians) and others more progres -sively by demanding civil libertiessimilar to those existing in the demo -cratic republics of the West. There alsoexisted a third, minority tendency thatwas nihilist, anarchist, and revolu -tionary; terrorist commandos from thissector committed assaults and went sofar as to assassinate Czar Alexander IIin 1881.

1.2. The restlessness of asensitive and lucid spirit Given such a situation, it is easy toimagine the dismay that would be feltby a spirit as sensitive and lucid as thatof Leo Tolstoy as he witnessed the greatabuse of power and the widespreadmisery of the people. It is true thatwhen he was quite young he had par -ticipated in some of Russia’s wars as anofficer, but he had been so affected bythe monstrous cruelty of the violencehe saw that he developed a decidedlypacifist posture in his later years. Healso became ever more concernedabout trying the alleviate the terribleinjustice that weighed heavily on thelives of so many millions of poor Rus -sian workers. After he emerged fromhis profound personal crisis, he wasdetermined to dedicate his life to a two -fold political struggle: against physicalviolence and against social injustice.

Fortunately, little effort is requiredto find confirmation of this new direc -tion in Tolstoy’s life. In one of the mostinteresting books he wrote in this pe -riod, My Confession (1882), he gives usdirect access to the personal itinerary he took in pursuing his vocation ofaltruism and transcendence. Beforeciting from this confession, however,we will provide more informationabout the intellectual setting in whichTolstoy found himself, for he wasassuredly part of a reformist and evenrevolutionary movement that includedmany contemporary Russian thinkersand writers who dissented from theofficial doctrine.

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2.1. The intellectuals whoinfluenced TolstoyTolstoy was influenced by Russianintellectuals living in exile or clandes -tinely. One of these was VisarionBielinski, an ethics professor andsocialist of the Hegelian left who fromLondon actively criticized the existingsystem. Tolstoy was perhaps even moreinfluenced by a liberal anti-Hegelianexile named Alexander Herzen whoseutopian socialism condemned thewestern bourgeoisie. Herzen advocatedradical and urgent changes, but heinsisted that they always be undertakenwith moderation and with full respect

for the most genuine values of theRussian people. He had an evident in -fluence on the «populism» of NicholasChernichevski, who insisted with hisfollowers on the primordial importanceof religious compassion. These threeauthors, therefore, had a great influenceon Tolstoy’s thought.

The Russian anarchist authorsBakunin and Kropotkin were of a morerevolutionary bent; they were disciplesof the French thinker Proudhon, whoproposed radical libertarian approachesto social change. His followers includedthe most extremist Russians, such asthe nihilists and terrorists Nekrasov,

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2. REFORMIST THOUGHT IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARYRUSSIA

Among the European Enlightenment authors who were most read inRussia at that time were Rousseau, Diderot, Kant, and Hegel, all of whomproposed new forms of common life for humanity. They did so quiterationally but also with a decidedly utopian spirit. The models of societythey proposed featured freedom and solidarity and therefore were directlyopposed to the political tyranny of the feudal regime.

Pisarev, and Netxayev, who were appro -priately described as «demons» byDostoyevsky in his novel, The Possess -ed (1871). To be sure, both terrorism andnihilist thought were prevalent amongprogressive young Russians during the1830s and 1840s when Nicholas I ruledwith an iron fist. Frustrated in theirromantic attempts to live with a free -dom that was beyond their reach, thoseyoung men surrendered to the futility ofexistence; rejecting traditional values,they ended up committing suicide orengaging in terrorist crime.

2.2. Committed literature It is interesting to note that all thesevarious ideological types were repro -duced as literary characters in a numberof the novels and dramatic works pro -duced by the great Russian authors ofthe epoch. The writers of the school of«socialist realism» described graphi -cally the misery of the poor masses in

order to awaken compassion among thebetter off.

Among the earliest of them, writingin the 1840s, was Nicholas Gogol, whosefamous stories include Dead Souls andThe Overcoat. The following genera -tion (in the 1860s and 1870s) was moreconscious of Russia’s tragic situation,and they created works of great valuethat cogently portrayed the dramatictension that resulted when desperateindividuals rose up in opposition to theestablished social system. In this regard,three great authors contemporaneouswith Tolstoy are worthy of mention:Ivan Turgenev with his Fathers andSons (1862), Fyodor Dostoyevsky withhis Notes from Underground (1864)and The Possessed (1871), and AntonChekhov with his Aunt Vanya (1902).The turn of the century saw the start ofthe official Marxist strain of «socialistrealism» in works of Maxim Gorkisuch as The Mother (1902) and TheLower Depths (1917).

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3.1. The sensitivity of an orphanThe first chapters of this diary, whichwas published in 1852 with the titleChildhood, Adolescence, and Youth,already give evidence of a great writerin the making; he recounts his firstexperiences and reflections in veryprecise form. Quite noteworthy, forexample, are the descriptions of thegripping emotions this child felt as hedealt with the early loss of his motherand his father. Starting from those earlyyears the specter of death wouldcontinually haunt his mind as a menacethat frightened him and provoked in

him anguish at the absurdity ofexistence.

The young Tolstoy also experiencedfrom those early years great distress ashe witnessed the treatment aristocraticfamilies inflicted on their servants, evensubjecting them at times to humiliatingcorporal punishments. His autobiogra -phy makes it clear that even as a youthhe was conscious of how he was beingdeceived by teachers and even bypriests who offered him instruction.Already planted in his soul was theseed of inconformity and rebellion thatwould stay with him all his life.

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3. THE THOUGHT OF TOLSTOY BEFORE HISCONVERSION

As I mentioned already, Tolstoy’s autobiographical texts will be ourprimary source for recovering the main features of his spiritualevolution. However, before examining My Confession, written after hisgreat crisis, we will look at the personal diary which young Tolstoybegan at the age of seven (!) and continued throughout his life.

Still another notable characteristicof Tolstoy’s early years was his greatlove of reading; he devoured the greatRussian authors but also Homer,Dickens, Dumas, Stendhal, and manyothers. Most of all he adored Rousseau,reading all 24 volumes of his works inFrench. This philosopher of the En -lightenment exercised a tremendousinfluence on Tolstoy’s thought in suchthemes as conceptions of love, methodsfor educating young people, advocacyof equality for all human beings, andcomplete confidence in Nature.

3.2. War...

At the age of eighteen, then, Tolstoyseemed already well prepared to dealwith life, although he was still not incontrol of his passions. For some yearshe would experience all kinds of moraldisorders and violent impulses, whichwere calmed only when his opportuneenlistment in the army of the Caucasusfinally subjected him to rigorous dis ci -pline. The war against the Turks soonbroke out, however, and this terrifyingexperience of lethal violence of humansagainst humans so revolted him that,after leaving the military, he became achampion of non-violence and an ada -mant opponent of obligatory militaryservice. In view of what I will say later,we do well to recall here that duringthese years of youthful passion and dur -ing his time at the university of KazanTolstoy had abandoned his orthodoxreligious beliefs. As he himself notes,he enjoyed reading Voltaire’s scornfulremarks about the church.

3.3. ...and peace

Fortunately these tumultuous years ofhis youth were followed by a time ofpersonal tranquility and happiness. Hesettled into the peace and quiet of hisestate at Yasnaya Poliana, far from Mos -cow, and married the young princessSophia Bers. With great enthu siasm theyoung couple undertook to create andeducate a large family. It was also inthose years that Tolstoy was able towrite the two great novels already men -tioned; they won for him well deserveduniversal fame. Assisted by his wife,this genial writer dedicated long yearsto study and to intense creative work inorder to realize his literary dream. Atthe same time, he was actively involvedin the education of his children, and hetook a personal interest in the tryingsituation of the small farmers who wereworking their lands.

3.4. Conversion

In the first chapters of My Confes sionthe author describes two phases of hispersonal journey; the description waswritten fifteen years later, by whichtime Tolstoy had suffered his terribleexistential crisis and was a changedman. He had experienced a «descentinto hell» and had emerged from ittrans formed into a different person. Itwas precisely that conversion, whichhad a clearly religious character, thatmoved him to write the retrospectiveconfession which I will now commenton.

Cultural anthropologists are correctwhen they assert that the heroes of an -

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cient myths and legends did not reachtheir full protagonism until they afterthey had gone through a harrowingpersonal trial. Tolstoy seems to haveundergone something similar beforeentering into his new phase of heroicrebellion. We have evidence of a veryobscure, complex event, but we arelacking details about it. We can getsome idea of what happened, however,by citing a statement made by the herohimself, which was later summed up byhis friend Romain Rolland in thebiography published the year of hisdeath.1

«I was fifty years old. I loved andwas loved. I had good children, alarge estate, glory, health, andphysical and moral vigor. I was ableto harvest like any villager; Iworked ten hours a day withouttiring. But my life came to a suddenstop. I could breathe, eat, drink,sleep. But I was not alive. I nolonger had any desires. I knew thatthere was nothing to be desired, noteven knowledge of the truth; thetruth was that life was absurdity. Ihad reached the abyss and sawclearly that there was nothingbefore me but death. Strong and

happy though I was, I felt that Icould no longer live. An invincibleforce was driving me to end my life.[…] I don’t mean that I wanted tokill myself. The force that wasdriving me beyond life was strongerthan I was; it was an aspirationsimilar to my old aspiration to live,except that it was in the otherdirection. I had to be shrewd withmyself in order not to yield to itexcessively. And there I was, ahappy man, having to hide the ropefrom myself in order not to hangmyself from a beam amid thedressers of my room where everynight I undressed alone. […] Mylife seemed to me a stupid farce thatwas being staged for me by some -one else. Forty years of work, ofsuffering, of progress, just to seethat there is nothing! Nothing.Nothing would be left of me butcorruption and worms. […] Andworst of all, I could not resignmyself. I was like a man lost in thewoods, overcome with terror be -cause he is disoriented and runningaimlessly without being able to stopeven though he knows that everystep leads him further astray…»

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4.1. The meaning of lifeIn My Confessions he asks: «Why is itthat so many people can live withoutknowing the true meaning of life?». Byway of answer, he suggests that perhapsthey haven’t looked for it where it’sreally to be found. Some people makethe mistake of being content with theirignorance; others seek meaning inpleasure or power or physical force; stillothers are satisfied with being confinedto their small circles of security andsubmission. It is interesting to observehow Tolstoy dwells on this last casebecause he thinks that such is thesituation of most Russian peasants.From this point on in his reflections heis always mindful of the peasantsbecause he has discovered in them a

religious faith in the God who saves andgives meaning to suffering; this faithgives them life despite their painfulsubmission. «I discovered then that thepeople’s faith is a type of knowledgewhich allows them to live in peace».The peasants’ idea of the God who savesthem did not correspond precisely to theideas of theologians; rather, it was themysterious reality of infinite Life bywhich they feel blessed «because with -out God there is no life» (Chapter XII).

Starting from this conviction,Tolstoy studied what happens in otherreligions practiced by large numbers ofpeople. He concluded that those otherimmense masses of humiliated andmaltreated humanity also have faith inthe God of Life, and that is what saves

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4. THE NEW LIFE AFTER CONVERSION

After his anxieties about death had subsided, Tolstoy drew out of thedepths of his being new forces for life and a fresh sense of the meaningof existence.

them. That was what Tolstoy himselfexperienced in his frequent encounterswith his own peasants as he accompa -nied them in long hours of prayer andother Orthodox religious practices. Hefelt that he was in solid communionwith millions of simple folk.

At the same time he realized withever greater clarity that it was preciselypride and the desire for wealth of somany powerful and educated personsthat hid from them the deep meaning ofexistence, as had also been the case withhimself. He therefore from that point onnever stopped repeating that those wereexactly the ideas that Jesus proposedwith great clarity in his Gospel.2

Tolstoy entered into a state of perma -nent rebellion against the abuses of thepublic powers, and as a new convert hebecame indignant at the way the Ortho -dox Church understood and ex plainedthe Christian faith. He de nounced thechurch’s dogmatic rigor and its closealliance with the dominant politicalregime. For him these were completelycontrary to the Gospel (Chapters XIV-XVI).

4.2. «Religious resurrection»

These new religious sentiments andrelated views, to which Tolstoy adhereduntil the end of his life, were often notwell thought out and would sometimesstray from orthodoxy. As a result, theRussian Orthodox Synod soon admon -ished him and ended up excommuni -cating him in 1901. Curiously, the im -mediate cause of this severe sanctionwas one of his last great novels, Resur -

rection (1899), in which he tried to ex -press symbolically his own return to theChristian faith. The novel is the story ofthe conversion of a Russian prince whohas been a great sinner but who is nowobliged to pass judgment in court on agirl whom he abused and abandonedten years before. The court accuses thegirl unjustly of murder and sentencesher to life imprisonment in Siberia. Theprince, who was not able to get heracquitted, is now profoundly movedand repentant. In order to receive herpardon he follows her to the prison, andfinally she forgives him out of love. Inorder to do penance for his offenses, theprince renounces his family and all hisproperties and dedicates himself toliving as a hermit, spending long hoursmeditating on the Gospel.

4.3. «Political resurrection»It was clear that this novel describednot only a «religious resurrection» butalso a «political resurrection», that is, aradical transformation of this aristocrat’sway of understanding the victims ofpolitical power. When he visits theSiberian prison colony, the prince getsto know some of the revolutionaryworkers who are being punished there,and he comes to admire and respectthem for their willingness to sacrificethemselves in the struggle againstinjustice. This novel also denounces aseries of social and political wrongsand condemns the corrupt tribunals ofjustice, the abuse of servants by theupper class, the extreme cruelty of thepenal system, the imposition of thedeath penalty without appeal, and other

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injustices. For Tolstoy all this is directlyrelated to his own complete conversionto the Gospel of Jesus, which in God’sname demands renunciation of violenceand advocates mutual love, pardon, andmercy.

4.4. The Kingdom of God isamong you

These themes are the same as thosepresented in an essay Tolstoy publishedin 1893 with the title, The Kingdom ofGod is Among You. Here also he insistson the evangelical precept of neverreturning evil for evil and never doingharm to one’s neighbor or even one’senemy since the greatest commandmentis to love one another as brothers and

sisters, children of the same Father.Since Tolstoy himself was still strug -gling with his own disordered way oflife, he thought that the most importantway to reach this ideal was to eradicatethe unjust arrogance with whichmasters still treated their servants.Consequently, at the end of this famousbook the author insists on the need tostruggle against pride, to becomedetached from all superfluous goods,and always to avoid lying. As a way ofdominating these passions he recom -mends fasting, sobriety in everything,and working in the fields with thepeasants. Only in this way will theKingdom of God, which has alreadycome, become firmly established in thisperverse world.

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5.1. An essay on war

Tolstoy’s repudiation of war was soprofound that from that moment on henever stopped expressing his anti-military views in public, in private, oreven in his writings. Soon after thoseterrible war experiences he publishedthe three volumes of Sebastopol (1854-55) about the blood-drenched defenseof Crimea. Once he was peacefullysettled into Yasnaya Poliana, he dedi -cated himself to writing his monu men -tal work, War and Peace, which dealtwith the Napoleonic campaigns inRussia. In the course of this story the

author inserts into the text with a cer -tain frequency his opinions about theevents narrated –insertions that bothersome naïve readers. Tolstoy wanted thismaster work to be seen not just asanother novel about the war but as an«epic essay» which featured charactersand events that were both historical andfictitious but also accompanied themwith the author’s political and moralreflections. Moreover, faithful to hisgrowing concern for the common folk,this philosopher-novelist refused toconsider the principal protagonists ofthose extended military campaigns tobe the generals or the politicians –not

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5. AN OFFICIAL OF THE CZAR WHO REPUDIATES WAR

Following the example of his older brother Nicholas, a captain in theHussars, Count Leo Tolstoy enlisted voluntarily in the czar’s army atage 23. He fought in the Crimea campaign from which he emerged withthe rank of lieutenant. However, the experience of death and carnagehe had during the campaign was so horrible that he soon left themilitary. In so doing he went against the tradition of his illustrious militaryforebears, one of whom was a general in the wars against Napoleon.

even Napoleon or Alexander I orKutuzov. Rather the real championswere the great masses of villagers andsoldiers since they were the ones whoparticipated most personally in the bat -tles and suffered most directly thedisasters of that great war. Tolstoy espe -cially wanted to highlight the role ofthat immense throng of Russian peas -ants who had been obliged to becomecannon fodder. As far as history goes,they were certainly anonymous, but for Tolstoy they, along with their fami -lies, were the true heroes of all thosedeeds.

5.2. Closeness to those who suffer That was how Tolstoy understood thereality, and that was how his intensepedagogical urge inspired him tocommunicate it to his readers. What istruly admirable is the serene, benevo -lent, and compassionate manner inwhich this anti-war rebel succeeded inconveying his ideas. He used no ideo -logical slogans but simply tried toportray respectfully all those who suf -fered in the war: the peasant militiamenon both sides, the troops and theirofficers, the poor village folk, and eventhe upper-class families. All of them intheir own way were victims of the grimogre of war. He gives a good exampleof the intimacy that can exist amongdistressed human beings despite socialdifferences when he recounts the con -versation between a peasant militiamannamed Plato and the intellectual rebelPierre Bezukov in a French camp forprisoners of war.3 In describing indi -viduals exposed to death, Tolstoy shows

how they are overcome by the veryhuman and also religious sentimentsthat he had never forgotten from thatmiddle phase of his own life. Consider,for example, the thoughts of PrinceAndrew after he has been wounded inbattle: «Love conceals death becauselove is God and dying means that I aman atom of that love returning to theeternal source».4

5.3. The unnecessary warOf course, since our author was writingso earnestly about the war, he could nothelp but ask about the causes for such ahorrendous and far-reaching crime.Many of his interventions in War andPeace are dedicated precisely to thisserious question, including the 80 pages of the epilogue. Faced with theimpossibility of responding adequatelyto such a sweeping question, hewondered how some writers couldunderstand the war as necessary andtherefore just. In his perplexity Tolstoyreproached the authors of war novelsthat never even bothered to ask suchquestions, and he also rejected themodern historians who saw war asnecessary on the Darwinian principlethat survival among humans meanseliminating one’s enemies. Years later,following his conversion, Tolstoycondemned this mentality which heldthat «war is inevitable», seeing prideand not instinct as being the principalcause of this crime. He consideredpride to be the most horrendous ofhuman passions. Because it is freelyconsented to, it generates the equallylethal passions of envy and hatred to

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reinforce its destructive satanic force,as we see in the biblical myth of Cain’scrime against Abel.

5.4. Controlling the passionsToward the end of his life Tolstoyreaffirmed his rejection of all violence–physical, moral, and structural– andhe began a public campaign. He wroteand preached on the importance ofcontrolling the passions, which he sawas the cause of all moral evil. He im -posed extreme austerity on himself andstrove to deprive himself of all harmfulstimuli. He was inspired by the Gospel

of Jesus which reveals that peace amongmortals is achieved only by over com -ing the arrogance of self-will and bypracticing humility, mercy, and frater -nal love, even toward one’s enemies.5

Among the followers of this pacifistrebel was Gandhi, who was still a younglawyer in South Africa at the time.Gandhi read Tolstoy’s work and wroteseveral letters to the author professingcomplete allegiance to his program.Later when confronting the Britishempire in India, Gandhi developed astyle of pacifism (Ahimsa) that was inaccord with the Hindu tradition ofpurification and self-sacrifice.

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He was also an activist and a magnifi -cent propagandist thanks to his extraor -dinary mastery of the written word. Hisinterest in politics in the noblest andbroadest sense of the term led him tostudy in depth the principal politicaland economic systems of his times,both in Russia and the rest of Europe.He had frequent conversations withsocialists who were returning fromEurope, some of whom he hired asteachers for his children. His main pur -pose in all his extraordinary activismwas to find the most suitable means forreforming the system of absolute mon -archy that then held sway in Russia.

6.1. A socialism of loveThe socialist thought coming from theWest was of great interest to Tolstoythanks above all to the teachings beingdisseminated by exiled writers such asBielinski and Herzen. Nevertheless, henever fully accepted the «scientific»socialism proposed by Marx andEngels because of its materialism andits advocacy of revolutionary violenceand class struggle. What most botheredTolstoy about Marx was his incitementof hatred and his will to power; therewas nothing in his writings aboutfraternal love, only vague mention oflove of liberty or an illusory hope for a

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6. A POPULIST, UTOPIAN SOCIALIST

Leo Tolstoy was not really a politician; he was man truly concernedabout the society of his time. He was a reformer and a moral thinkerinterested above all in the idea of justice in all its manifestations.

classless society. «What always sur -prised me in Marx’s writings is thatthey contain nothing about love; all ishatred, ambition, and will to power. […]All those base emotions are disguisedwith the pretext of an abstract andimpossible love for the people» (Diary,13 February 1907). Despite these reser -vations, Tolstoy accepted some key ele -ments of Marxist doctrine, such as theneed for workers to recover the realvalue of their labor instead of just themarket value. (On this topic see the veryinteresting essay by Tolstoy, Moneyand Labor, 1886)6. We are quite familiarwith the never-ending struggle Tolstoywaged against the owners of largeestates and other forms of massiveprivate property since their abuse ofpower weighed heavily on many mil -lions of Russian peasants. Moreover,some of the books he wrote later in lifewere clearly socialist and revolutionary,among them such works as The Slaveryof Our Time (1900) and To the WorkingClass (1902). Among unfinished worksthat were found after his death was acritique titled On Socialism, which waspublished posthumously (1910).

6.2. Mystical socialism

Consequently I believe that Tolstoy’spolitical thought was basically socialist,though with great reservations. Hissocialism was more the «utopian» typein that it favored the historical currentof Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, andothers. He agreed, for example, withthe theory of organizing the people insmall workers’ societies (communes)and labor cooperatives which preserved

the dignity and freedom of individuals.Tolstoy actually proposed such ascheme for Russian farm workers, ashis essay The End of the Centuryexplains in detail. This was a programalso proposed by the «populist»movements with which he felt in closeharmony.

Tolstoy’s anti-capitalist, socialistspirit was also manifest in the harshmoral judgments he formulated againstthe bourgeois liberal system of theWest. He traveled to Europe (France,England, and Switzerland) only twice,but both times he returned disillusionedby the state of those societies and theirdemocratic systems. «The actual situa -tion of those peoples who claim togovern themselves (democracy) isnothing more than the result of com -plex power struggles and intriguesamong parties and the insatiable thirstfor power of some very rich indi vidu -als. … The system of universal suffragediffuses the desire for power bymultiplying the number of centers andindividuals who hold it». Tolstoy alsoclaimed to be scandalized by the life -style of many wealthy European bour -geoisie who squandered money onextremely expensive works of art andstartlingly lavish feasts. His vehementrejection of art and poetry (includingShakespeare) toward the end of his lifewas due to his conviction that thebourgeoisie had made art into mer -chandise. His distaste for Shakespearewas also due to the English genius’sexcessive use of subtle wordplay.

Despite these convergences anddiscrepancies, Tolstoy adhered to aprofound socialism with transcendent

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religious roots. More than utopian, hissocialism was evangelical in its firmbelief in the human fraternity that Godpromises. That is why at one point henoted own in his diary that «thissocialism is a minimal application ofChristianity, to which [Marxism] isunfaithful because of its serious lack ofmorality» (31 July 1905).

If we apply to Tolstoy Albert Ca -mus’s lucid distinction between revolu -tion and rebellion,7 our author wouldcertainly not have been a revolutionarydesirous of power but a true «man inrebellion», constant and even heroic inhis manner. Disagreeing, then, with therevolutionary socialism of the West, aswell as with the nihilist anarchism ofRussia, this old rebel now allied himselfto a new Russian reform movement,populism.

6.3. Russian «populism»

Around the middle of the 19th cen turythere arose in Russia a series of poorlyorganized grass-roots move ments thatsought to defend the count less peopleliving in extreme poverty and lackinglegal protection. The move ments in -cluded not a few intellectuals, revolu -tionaries, repentant nobles, and dissi -dent monks and Christians, all of whomwere grieved by the extreme misery ofthe masses. They drew their originalinspiration from the socialist-humanistwritings that Alexander Herzen sentfrom exile, but they also had greatrespect for the people’s culture andtraditional Slavic values and wereconcerned to preserve the people’s reli -

gion. The thinker Nicolai Cherni chev -ski soon assumed leadership in thesemovements; he became famous for hisbook What Can We Do?, in which heproposed some short-term, concreteways to respond to the de plorable socialconditions. Chernichev ski was a simple,honest man, but he was also a goodorganizer; he preached not only socialreform but moral reform based on self-sacrifice and increased non-violentsolidarity. At that time in Russia suchpopulism clearly could not take theform of a political party, nor it shouldbe understood in terms of what issometimes called «populist» politics inour day, meaning demagogic andrightward-leaning.

The rapid spread of these groups inTolstoy’s time reflected the extremediscontent and indignation that manypeople experienced as well as theurgent need they felt to take actionagainst that appalling situation. Thisexplains why Tolstoy himself was verypartial to this movement which alsotook an interest in the education of thepeasants. In the populist movements ofthe time there was a convergence ofintense social concern and Christianbelief, and the latter sometimes took onapocalyptic tones. Without going tosuch extremes, Tolstoy repeatedlyvoiced his belief, as I have alreadystated, that a sounder, more justuniversal order could arise only whenhuman beings overcame their passionsand their pride. And this was preciselythe criticism that the Russian Marxistsleveled against the populists. Leninhimself criticized Tolstoy, whom headmired, for offering such intangible

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hopes and proposing a peaceful revo -lution that would be exceedingly slow.

It is possible that Tolstoy becameaware of this on his own, which wouldexplain his discrepancies with Cherni -chevski and his distancing himself frompopulism, which seemed to him tooconservative and timid in its struggle

against political power. That the fierylord of Yasnaya Poliana should beunhappy with populism is quite com -prehensible, but his break from thepopulist movement only reinforced hiscertainty of having received a new,transcendent mission, the mission ofprophet.

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7.1. Inspired by the Gospel

He did in fact have great insight into theperverse social reality in which helived, and he was courageous in thejudgments he passed on it. Not only didhe denounce serious injustices, but hepromised people hope and did so,moreover, deeply inspired by the Gos -pel of Jesus.

Even as a young man Tolstoy had arestless nature that rebelled againstanything that prevented him frompersonally knowing the true meaning oflife, not only in theory but in hisconcrete experience. This rebelliousspirit led him to reject first university

studies and then his military career.Slowly but with great determination he came to understand the horriblecircumstances in which most of hiscompatriots were living, both in theoutlying areas of Moscow –which hecanvassed with great emotion whiletaking a census– and in the vast ruralareas, including his own estates, wheremillions of peasants where sufferingintolerably. It was, however, his pro -found emotional crisis and the subse -quent religious conversion at age fiftythat provoked in him a drastic reactionof protest and an anxious search formore transcendent solutions. To someextent he found these solutions in the

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7. TOLSTOY THE PROPHET

I will not use this term here in the biblical sense of exceptional personsinspired by God to proclaim his promises and condemnations.Nevertheless, I think the term «prophet» can be fittingly applied to LeoTolstoy, as other scholars have already done.8

major revolutionary movements outsideRussia, whose principles he experi -ment ed with in his own life and in hiswritings even as he assessed theiradvantages and contradictions.

7.2. Determined anarchist, eagersocialist… evangelical prophetThus we begin to see this new Tolstoy,aged but still vigorous. He was ananarchist opposed to the state and all itsrepressive apparatus, but he did notyield in his deep conviction that theharsh violence of the powerful shouldnever be resisted with violence. Thenew Tolstoy was also a supporter ofsocialism, whose doctrine he rejected inpart but whose hope for a new societyhe enthusiastically embraced. Finally,Tolstoy was also a defender of thepopular reforms that the Russianauthorities were beginning to tolerate.He especially favored the reforms ofthe populist movement although later

he became impatient with their half-hearted revolutionary spirit.

This rebellious aristocrat whodefied his monarch experienced theseallegiances and contradictions in waysthat were at times painful and evendisruptive of peace in his home. Thesevying forces gained even greaterpotency in his spirit, however, when heunderwent his radical conversion to theGospel of Jesus, which expanded hisstruggles and hopes into an absolutehorizon. The result was a dramatic in -crease in his personal remonstrations,as well as in the family tensions andpublic protests (against the police, forexample, or the Orthodox Church). Thesituation was not helped by the fact thathe simply could not keep quiet; he hadto proclaim his message against all odds.In sum, I believe that we are totallyjustified in granting the title «prophet»to the gigantic spirit that was Leo Tol -stoy. He was a great evangelical prophet,as well as a moral and political one.

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8.1. A subversive KingdomThere are countless invectives againstwhat today we call «structural vio -lence» as well as against the suppres -sion of liberty and the cruelty of penalpunishment. These condemnations werealways pregnant with serious moralcontent in their defense of justice andespecially of charity toward the mostdispossessed and marginalized personsof both the city and the countryside. Inits daring denunciations of solidlyestablished powers, the vigorous voiceof Tolstoy must have sounded to manypeople like the voice of a «prophetcrying out in the desert», but it was

often eagerly heard by those wholistened to him and read his books.These people were especially consoledby the protests that Tolstoy voiced butthat they themselves could not or didnot know how to express. Their appre -ciation was borne out by many of theletters that he received daily in the laststage of his life.

Tolstoy’s pronouncements had con -siderable effect in a society that wasbeginning to feel great indignation atthe many great injustices, and thiseffect was reinforced by his personalexample for he confessed himself to bea sinner and applied to himself the same

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8. MORAL, POLITICAL, AND EVANGELICAL PROPHESYING

We should keep in mind that this intense prophetic vocation of Tolstoynever ceased to be socially and politically noteworthy. We have alreadymentioned Tolstoy’s constant denunciations against the absolutistRussian regime in his early literary works.

moral corrective he was preaching. Inproposing his «five commandments ofa revolutionary», for example, he wasdescribing his own efforts to live up tothem. His precepts were very practical,such as not getting irritated, not com -mitting adultery, not swearing falsely,not resisting evil with violence, andabove all loving others as one lovesoneself. Like the ancient prophets,Tolstoy also preached radical moralconversion and frequently cried out,«Do penance!». As a result of his fullrecovery of religious spirit, this prophetwas no longer content with offeringsimply ethical motivations but alwaysappealed to confidence in the power ofGod, who for him was above all theGod of love and mercy. This was thedoctrine of Jesus that Tolstoy had foundin the Gospels.

«I believe in God who is the Spiritof Love and the principle of every -thing. … I believe that the meaningof life for every one of us consistssolely in growing in love of God.[…] In this life such love will bringus a blessedness that grows day byday, and in the other world the mostperfect happiness.»9

Interestingly, our prophet’s religiousconviction was also strengthened by hisconstant dealings with the peasants(«they restored to me the basis of myfaith», he writes in My Confession,chapter XIII). In fact, he was convincedthat their faith was what gave the poorof this world the strength they neededto survive and move forward. That iswhy one of the Gospel sayings thatTolstoy repeated often was «Seek first

the kingdom of God and its justice, andall the rest will be given to you inaddition». (For example, that is how heconcluded his work, The Kingdom ofGod is Among You.)

8.2. Adherence to Jesus In another of his essays, Religion andMorality (1893), Tolstoy argued that «alay morality unrelated to religion can -not survive». It’s true that the theolo -gical baggage of our prophet was nei -ther very broad nor very orthodox; itdid not always conform to the dog masand precepts of the Russian synod, whichhe considered excessively onerous. Hisindependent, rebellious temperamentperhaps makes his heterodoxy more un -derstandable, but there can be no doubtabout the extraordinary adherence Tol -stoy felt to the figure of Christ, his -torical and heavenly at the same time,the Christ who was going to comeagain at the end of history as anassurance for believers both in this lifeand after death. His constant referencesin his books to the doctrine of Jesus,especially as found in John’s gospeland the «Sermon on the Mount», makeit clear that Tolstoy the prophet wasalso «evangelical». The Gospel themeshe cited most often were those of neverreturning evil for evil, loving others asoneself, giving more than what isrequested, etc.

Another distinctive feature ofTolstoy’s prophetic character was thathe almost never appeared as a herald ofterrible calamities or as a foreteller ofutopian paradises. Faced with a morallycorrupt social situation, he did not trust

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only in human forces. He trusted evenless in the forces of the revolutionarysocialists because he sensed that theirrevolution would be very brutal. Hefeared that they would do no more thanreplace the existing regime withanother just as autocratic and wouldbesides «extinguish the last reserves offreedom»10. As a pacifist Tolstoy waseven less moti vated than before by anywill to gain power. He sensed that asuperior force was somehow movinghim «as an en voy of God» (Diary, 11August 1893), whom he desired toserve «not as a private individual but ashis ambas sador» (Diary, 12 July 1900)11.As a result, his proposals became noweven more transcendent. There can beno doubt that Tolstoy in his final years,full of confidence in the coming ofGod’s kingdom, was convinced that anew age of happiness was arriving forall.

«I believe that at this very momentthe great revolution that has been inthe making for two thousands yearsis truly becoming reality.»«We find ourselves on the thresholdof a new life. … In order to attain itwe need only to free ourselves fromthe superstition that violence isnecessary and accept instead theeternal principle of love.»(The End of the Century, 1905).12

8.3. A figure always present To end this essay, we should ask aboutthe reception that this great moralteacher had in his own country andelsewhere, as well as consider how

Tolstoy might be made better known asa prophet in our world today. We shouldfirst recognize that there were and stillare critics who consider his proposalsas extremely idealist and of little«scientific» efficacy in the politicalrealm. Many conservatives, scandalizedby his anarchism and heterodoxy,criticized Count Tolstoy mercilessly,but he still had many admirers andfollowers. Even among revolutionaryMarxists he was praised for his radicalopposition to the absolutist regime andfor his repudiation of private property.Lenin himself went so far as to call himthe «patriarch of the revolution».

Apart from these revolutionaries,there were many others who feltstrongly drawn to his example and histeaching. The state and the church hadprohibited the circulation of many ofTolstoy’s writing in Russia, but theystill were published clandestinely andwere translated into French and Englishabroad, where they reached ever wideraudiences. In fact, from 1890 on manythousands of pilgrims came to visit thispatriarch of Yasnaya Poliana, andgroups were organized all around thecountry with the aim of living in accordwith what the master preached, espe -cially his teachings regarding pacifism,conscien tious objection, elimination oflarge landholdings, and Christian soli -darity. This growing and very diversi -fied «Tol stoyan» movement includedyoung per secuted intellectuals, dissi -dent monks, a few converted nobles,teachers, and journalists, all moved bya great desire to transform the situationin Russia. Tolstoy also received count -less letters from abroad (twelve large

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volumes in the Complete Workspublished in Russian in 1925). Manyletters came from intellectuals in GreatBritain, France, and Switzerland, butalso from the United States andCanada, where groups of his followerswere organized. In addition, there wereat least two magazines published: TheFree World in London and La LibrePensée in Geneva.13 We should alsoremember that the subtle and veryhumane drama tist Anton Chekhov wasone of Tol stoy’s many illustrious Rus -sian literary disci ples. Among Spanishwriters Tol stoy’s contemporary admirersincluded the likes of E. Pardo Bazán, B.Pérez Galdós, Clarín, Unamuno, NarcísOller, and Joan Maragall. Finally, weshould keep in mind that the outbreakof the First World War in 1914 and theBolshevik Revolution in 1917 suddenlyeclipsed the memory of Tolstoy in all of

Europe for several years, but it wastimidly restored again in 1928 when thefirst centenary of his birth was cele -brated.

Thinkers have not been lacking–Stefan Zweig, for example– who sawLeo Tolstoy as one of the great idealistsof history who ended up as a failure, asdid Don Quixote. But we should askourselves: did Don Quixote really fail?It’s true that he was often defeated, butpeople were never able to curb his willto keep fighting for a better world, andthat’s why his figure has always re -mained alive as an inspiring moralsymbol. So also should we understandthe destiny of Leo Tolstoy. He was im -perfect and contradictory if you wish,but he was indomitable in his firmdetermination to proclaim a bettersociety for all and to work hard to bringit about.

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1. Romain ROLLAND, Vida de León Tolstoi (1911),Ediciones La Nave, Madrid, 1935, pp. 115-116. The author explains: «I am resuming heresev eral pages of My Confession whilepreserving Tolstoy’s expressions».

2. See chapters VI-IX of My Confession.3. War and Peace, Book XIII, chap. XI.4. Ibid., Book XII, chap. XVI.5. See, for example, Tolstoy’s essay, On Power

and Goodness (1888).6. Like Marx, Tolstoy saw that money had ceased

to be a means and had become an end or asupreme value and that this was to thedetriment of the labor value of the worker,whose merit and dignity were measured by thebanking system and the stock exchange.

7. This theme is developed superbly in Camus’s1951 essay, Man in Rebellion.

8. This is precisely the title of the interesting study,Tolstoi, il profeta. Invito alla lettura degliscritti filosófico-religiosi. Edit. Gabrielli,Verona 2000.

9. Mi credo (1901), quoted by ROLLAND, op. cit., p. 128.

10. See The End of the Century [1905] and OnSocialism [1910].

11. Quotes are taken from Tolstoi, il profeta, p. 63.12. Ibid., last page.13. For more complete information about Tolstoy’s

influence, an indispensable resource is therecent, well documented work of RosamundBarlett, Tolstoy. A Russian Life. London 2010.

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NOTES

From an early age but especially after his personal crisis at around age 50, Tolstoypossessed a temperament that rebelled against the social injustices that oppressedthe poor, the servants, and the workers of Russia. He never stopped asking thequestion «What must we do?» because he wanted with all his heart to change theunjust political situation in Russia. His most frequent answers and also his concreteproposals were these:

To know better the reality and the causes of these injustices.•

To help the poor, the servants, and the workers in constant, practical ways.•

To organize better education and health clinics for children and illiterate•adults.

To give alms to charitable organizations rather than to individuals.•

To fight against all forms of violence, both individual and «structural» (laws,•military, police, prisons, death penalty, etc.).

To be well informed about the proposals for social and political reform of•revolutionary European thinkers and also of Russians in exile.

To publicize these ideas far and wide at all times.•

Finally, to remember that all these ideas and activities are always•motivated by our passionate faith in the Gospel of Jesus.

1. Which of Tolstoy’s proposals seem to you to be most valid for today?

2. After reading this booklet, how might we define Tolstoy?

Was he a «pacifist anarchist»? A rebellious aristocrat but also a defender•of non-violence?

Was he a «self-critical, benevolent revolutionary» who aspired to radical•changes, but always through the fully evangelical path of fraternal love andpersonal self-sacrifice?

Was he a «socialist mystic» though certainly not «scientific» (unlike Hegel,•Marx, or Lenin)?

Was he instead a utopian socialist in the evangelical sense of the•«Kingdom of God in our midst»?

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QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

Was he a «dissident populist» with little tendency toward traditionalism,•conservatism, or Slavic nationalism?

Was he instead a naturalist in the spirit of Rousseau and a (somewhat•libertarian) romantic?

Was he a «heterodox religious prophet», mystically enamored of Christ•the prophet but also of Isaiah and Jeremiah?

Was he a great evangelical prophet but one excommunicated by Russian•Orthodoxy?

3. Which of these attitudes continue to have validity today? Which are theones we most need in the situation in which we find ourselves?

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