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Home , Commune, Leo Tolstoy

, POLITICAL PROPHET AND EVANGELICAL ANARCHIST

Antoni Blanch, sj.

INTRODUCTION ...... 3 1. T HE SOCIO -POLITICAL SITUATION OF IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19 TH CENTURY ...... 5 2. REFORMIST THOUGHT IN PRE -REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA ...... 7 3. THE THOUGHT OF TOLSTOY BEFORE HIS CONVERSION ...... 9 4. THE NEW LIFE AFTER CONVERSION ...... 12 5. AN OFFICIAL OF THE CZAR WHO REPUDIATES WAR ...... 15 6. A POPULIST , UTOPIAN SOCIALIST ...... 18 7. TOLSTOY THE PROPHET ...... 22 8. MORAL , POLITICAL , AND EVANGELICAL PROPHESYING ...... 24 NOTES ...... 29 QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION ...... 31 Antoni Blanch, sj. , was professor emeritus of comparative literature at Comillas Pontifical University (Madrid). His two most recent works are El hombre imaginario: una antropología literaria [Imaginary Man: A Literary Anthropology] (1995) and El espíritu de la letra. Acercamiento creyente en la Literatura [The Spirit of the Letter: Approaching Literature with Belief] (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.

CRISTIANISME I JUSTÍCIA Edition - Roger de Llúria, 13 - 08010 Barcelona Tel. +34 93 317 23 38 - [email protected] - www.cristianismeijusticia.net Printed by: Edicions Rondas S.L. - Legal deposit: B-4738-2014 ISBN: 978-84-9730-330-9 - ISSN: 2014-6566 - ISSN (virtual edition): 2014-6574

Translated by Joseph Owens - Cover illustration: Roger Torres Printed on ecological paper and recycled cardboard February 2014

The Fundació Lluís Espinal lets it be known that its data are registered in a file under the name BDGACIJ, legal title of the Fundació Lluís Espinal. These are used only for providing the services we render you and for keeping you in form ed of our activities. You may exercise your rights of access, rectification, cancelation or opposition by writing to the Fundació in Barcelona, c/Roger de Llúria, 13. INTRODUCTION

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

Our interest in this is to understand radically renewed life in general terms how this great change in Tolstoy came by saying that his spirit was consumed about and what consequences it had. To with a passion to rectify the unjust that end we will have to delve, first of situation of the Russian workers and all, into the meaning of the severe and to struggle against the personal crisis that Tolstoy experienced royal powers that caused the situation. precisely at the height of his literary In undergoing this transformation he success. How and why did he undergo felt especially inspired, for the first time a dramatic mental and moral depression in life, by a dramatic awareness of the that sunk him into nihilistic darkness? person of and the revolutionary Fortunately the crisis did not last long; proclamations of his Gospel. Both these he soon recovered from it and was factors, the rebelliousness of the social transformed into what might be called revolutionary and the evangelical spirit «a new man». Anticipating the analysis of the prophet, converged so forcefully of this study, we can describe Tolstoy’s in this gifted writer and teacher that we 3 do well to apply to the radically leftists and helped to organize popular renewed Tolstoy the title «social and movements for reform. What is even evangelical prophet». more surprising in this evolution of Indeed, when perusing some of the Tolstoy is that everything he did and hundred or so essays and newspaper wrote from that moment on was pro - articles published by Tolstoy in his later foundly inspired by some of the boldest years, the reader encounters an author proposals of Jesus as recounted in the very different from the earlier artist who Gospels, which Tolstoy himself trans - described so magnificently the great lated directly from Greek into Russian. in Russia and the su - Motivated by this surprising prophetic percilious customs of the Czarist aris - vocation, he wanted to make the Good tocracy to which he himself belonged. News known to the general public In this second phase of his life he has Our objective in these pages is to become a didactic, polemical author recover the essence of this teaching of who writes with the anguished intensity the later Tolstoy so as to make it availa - of a social and political reformer. He is ble to our own cultural and political also much more inclined to take action epoch in Spain and Europe, a time when by getting involved in concrete educa - blatant mediocrity and self-absorbed tional projects with uneducated peasants seem to prevail. I hope and installing health clinics in the vast that this portrait of a more revolutionary he owned. He studied with and spiritual Tolstoy will serve as a intense interest the modern social re - stimulus to our present generation of formers of Europe as well as the rele - perplexed, indignant, and rebellious vant Russian thinkers, many of whom citizens. Tolstoy deserves to be number - had been exiled for their revolutionary ed among the great moral teachers, who ideas. He surrounded himself with unfortunately are scarce in our times.

4 1. THE SOCIO-POLITICAL SITUATION OF RUSSIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE

Under the despotic regime of the czars the conditions prevailing in Russian society were still almost feudal. A scandalous distance separated the and a small class of well-off landlords and merchants from the enormous mass of workers and peasants. We should not forget that these rural workers ( mujiks ) were still subject to a feudal system, which was legally abolished in 1861 but existed in fact until the of 1917.

1.1. An unsustainable social After the long, drawn-out victory of situation Russia over in 1812, which left the coun try in a calamitous , Russia had not developed industrially Russian mili tarism suffered humiliation and so had not experienced the bour - in two other conflicts: the war against geois revolution that transformed so - the Turks in Crimea (1858) –in which ciety in western Europe at the end of Leo Tolstoy took part, along with his the 18th century. In Russia the profes - brother Nicholas – and the naval defeat sional middle class was quite small and at the hands of distant Japan (1905). lived mainly in the large cities of the This socio-political situation was country. As grossly unjust as Russia’s already precarious and disastrous for social inequality was, it was made even the peo ple, but it was made still worse worse by the countless wars that the by the increasingly frequent demonstra - czars waged to defend their borders or tions of popular resistance to the regime, to conquer new territories. which the police repressed ruthlessly. 5 The first public rebellion with wide 1.2. The restlessness of a support was that of the «Decembrists » sensitive and lucid spirit of 1825 in , in which Given such a situation, it is easy to some nobles took part for the first time. imagine the dismay that would be felt The revolt was quickly squelched by by a spirit as sensitive and lucid as that the czar, who a few days later staged of Leo Tolstoy as he witnessed the great the execution of its main leaders in the abuse of power and the widespread main plaza. Nevertheless, the rebels did misery of the people. It is true that not disappear. Clandestine groups when he was quite young he had par - continued to be formed, many inspired ticipated in some of Russia’s wars as an by the short-lived French revolution of 1848 (the same year in which the Com - officer, but he had been so affected by munist Manifesto of Marx and Engels the monstrous cruelty of the violence appeared in England). The Russian he saw that he developed a decidedly revolutionary movement was also pacifist posture in his later years. He invigorated in the years following by also became ever more concerned the removal from power of the second about trying the alleviate the terrible French emperor, Napoleon III, and by injustice that weighed heavily on the the revolutionary struggles of the Paris lives of so many millions of poor Rus - in 1871. In fact, this defeat sian workers. After he emerged from of another French emperor was partly his profound personal crisis, he was the result of the effective intervention determined to dedicate his life to a two - of the powerful Russian army. All these fold political struggle: against physical political movements in Europe aroused violence and against social injustice. keen interest in Russia not only among Fortunately, little effort is required politicians but also among university to find confirmation of this new direc - and the writers in literary tion in Tolstoy’s life. In one of the most circles. They boldly expressed their interesting books he wrote in this pe - concerns and their hopes, some in more riod, My (1882), he gives us conservative fashion (such as the direct access to the personal itinerary nationalists, Slavophiles, and Orthodox he took in pursuing his vocation of Christians) and others more progres - altruism and transcendence. Before sively by demanding civil citing from this confession, however, similar to those existing in the demo - we will provide more information cratic of the West. There also about the setting in which existed a third, minority tendency that Tolstoy found himself, for he was was nihilist, anarchist, and revolu- assuredly part of a reformist and even tionary; terrorist commandos from this revolutionary movement that included sector committed assaults and went so many contemporary Russian thinkers far as to assassinate Czar Alexander II and writers who dissented from the in 1881. official doctrine.

6 2. REFORMIST THOUGHT IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA

Among the European Enlightenment authors who were most read in Russia at that time were Rousseau, Diderot, Kant, and Hegel, all of whom proposed new forms of common life for humanity. They did so quite rationally but also with a decidedly utopian spirit. The models of society they proposed featured freedom and and therefore were directly opposed to the political tyranny of the feudal regime.

2.1. The intellectuals who for the most genuine values of the influenced Tolstoy Russian people. He had an evident in - Tolstoy was influenced by Russian fluence on the «populism» of Nicholas intellectuals living in exile or clandes - Chernichevski, who insisted with his tinely. One of these was Visarion followers on the primordial importance Bielinski, an ethics professor and of religious compassion. These three socialist of the Hegelian left who from authors, therefore, had a great influence actively criticized the existing on Tolstoy’s thought. system. Tolstoy was perhaps even more The Russian anarchist authors influenced by a liberal anti-Hegelian Bakunin and Kropotkin were of a more exile named whose revolutionary bent; they were disciples utopian condemned the of the French thinker Proudhon, who western bourgeoisie. Herzen advocated proposed radical libertarian approaches radical and urgent changes, but he to social change. His followers included insisted that they always be undertaken the most extremist , such as with moderation and with full respect the nihilists and terrorists Nekrasov, 7 Pisarev, and Netxayev, who were appro - order to awaken compassion among the pr iately described as «demons» by better off. Dostoyevsky in his , The Possess - Among the earliest of them, writing ed (1871). To be sure, both terrorism and in the 1840s, was Nicholas Gogol, whose nihilist thought were prevalent among famous stories include Dead Souls and progressive young Russians during the . The following genera - 1830s and 1840s when Nicholas I ruled tion (in the and 1870s) was more with an iron fist. Frustrated in their conscious of Russia’s tragic situation, romantic attempts to live with a free - and they created works of great value dom that was beyond their reach, those that cogently portrayed the dramatic young men surrendered to the futility of tension that resulted when desperate existence; rejecting traditional values, individuals rose up in opposition to the they ended up committing suicide or established social system. In this regard , engaging in terrorist crime. three great authors contemporaneous with Tolstoy are worthy of mention: with his Fathers and 2.2. Committed literature Sons (1862), Fyodor Dostoyevsky with It is interesting to note that all these his Notes from Underground (1864) various ideological types were repro - and The Possessed (1871), and Anton duced as literary characters in a number Chekhov with his Aunt Vanya (1902). of the novels and dramatic works pro - The turn of the century saw the start of duced by the great Russian authors of the official Marxist strain of «socialist the epoch. The writers of the school of » in works of Maxim Gorki «socialist realism» described graphi - such as The Mother (1902) and The cally the misery of the poor masses in Lower Depths (1917).

8 3. THE THOUGHT OF TOLSTOY BEFORE HIS CONVERSION

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

3.1. The sensitivity of an orphan him anguish at the absurdity of existence. The first chapters of this diary, which was published in 1852 with the title The young Tolstoy also experienced Childhood, Adolescence, and , from those early years great distress as already give evidence of a great writer he witnessed the treatment aristocratic in the making; he recounts his first families inflicted on their servants, even experiences and reflections in very subjecting them at times to humiliating precise form. Quite noteworthy, for corporal punishments. His autobiogra - example, are the descriptions of the phy makes it clear that even as a youth gripping emotions this child felt as he he was conscious of how he was being dealt with the early loss of his mother deceived by teachers and even by and his father. Starting from those early priests who offered him instruction. years the specter of death would Already planted in his soul was the continually haunt his mind as a menace seed of inconformity and rebellion that that frightened him and provoked in would stay with him all his life. 9 Still another notable characteristic 3.3. ...and peace of Tolstoy’s early years was his great Fortunately these tumultuous years of love of reading; he devoured the great his youth were followed by a time of Russian authors but also Homer, personal tranquility and happiness. He Dickens, Dumas, Stendhal, and many settled into the peace and quiet of his others. Most of all he adored Rousseau, estate at Yasnaya Poliana, far from Mos - reading all 24 volumes of his works in cow, and married the young princess French. This philosopher of the En - Sophia Bers. With great enthu siasm the lightenment exercised a tremendous young couple undertook to create and influence on Tolstoy’s thought in such educate a large family. It was also in themes as conceptions of love, methods those years that Tolstoy was able to for educating young people, advocacy write the two great novels already men - of equality for all human beings, and tioned; they won for him well deserved complete confidence in Nature. universal fame. Assisted by his wife, this genial writer dedicated long years to study and to intense creative work in 3.2. War... order to realize his literary dream. At At the age of eighteen, then, Tolstoy the same time, he was actively involved seemed already well prepared to deal in the education of his , and he with life, although he was still not in took a personal interest in the trying control of his passions. For some years situation of the small farmers who were he would experience all kinds of moral working their lands. disorders and violent impulses, which were calmed only when his opportune enlistment in the army of the 3.4. Conversion finally subjected him to rigorous dis ci - In the first chapters of My Confes sion pline. The war against the Turks soon the author describes two phases of his broke out, however, and this terrifying personal journey; the description was experience of lethal violence of humans written fifteen years later, by which against humans so revolted him that, time Tolstoy had suffered his terrible after leaving the military, he became a existential crisis and was a changed champion of non-violence and an ada - man. He had experienced a «descent mant opponent of obligatory military into hell» and had emerged from it service. In view of what I will say later, trans formed into a different person. It we do well to recall here that during was precisely that conversion, which these years of youthful passion and dur - had a clearly religious character, that ing his time at the university of Kazan moved him to write the retrospective Tolstoy had abandoned his orthodox confession which I will now comment religious beliefs. As he himself notes, on. he enjoyed reading Voltaire’s scornful Cultural anthropologists are correct remarks about the church. when they assert that the heroes of an - 10 cient myths and legends did not reach happy though I was, I felt that I their full protagonism until they after could no longer live. An invincible they had gone through a harrowing force was driving me to end my life. personal trial. Tolstoy seems to have […] I don’t mean that I wanted to undergone something similar before kill myself. The force that was entering into his new phase of heroic driving me beyond life was stronger rebellion. We have evidence of a very than I was; it was an aspiration obscure, complex event, but we are similar to my old aspiration to live, lacking details about it. We can get except that it was in the other some idea of what happened, however, direction. I had to be shrewd with by citing a statement made by the myself in order not to yield to it himself, which was later summed up by excessively. And there I was, a his friend in the happy man, having to hide the rope biography published the year of his 1 from myself in order not to hang death. myself from a beam amid the «I was fifty years old. I loved and dressers of my room where every was loved. I had good children, a night I undressed alone. […] My large estate, glory, health, and life seemed to me a stupid farce that physical and moral vigor. I was able was being staged for me by some - to harvest like any villager; I one else. Forty years of work, of worked ten hours a day without suffering, of progress, just to see tiring. But my life came to a sudden that there is nothing! Nothing. stop. I could breathe, eat, drink, Nothing would be left of me but . But I was not alive. I no corruption and worms. […] And longer had any desires. I knew that worst of all, I could not resign there was nothing to be desired, not myself. I was like a man lost in the even knowledge of the truth; the woods, overcome with terror be - truth was that life was absurdity. I cause he is disoriented and running had reached the abyss and saw aimlessly without being able to stop clearly that there was nothing even though he knows that every before me but death. Strong and step leads him further astray…»

11 4. THE NEW LIFE AFTER CONVERSION

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

4.1. The meaning of life religious faith in the God who saves and gives meaning to suffering; this faith In My Confessions he asks: «Why is it gives them life despite their painful that so many people can live without knowing the true meaning of life?». By submission. «I discovered then that the way of answer, he suggests that perhaps people’s faith is a type of knowledge they haven’t looked for it where it’s which allows them to live in peace». really to be found. Some people make The peasants’ idea of the God who saves the mistake of being content with their them did not correspond precisely to the ignorance; others seek meaning in ideas of theologians; rather, it was the pleasure or power or physical force; still mysterious reality of infinite Life by others are satisfied with being confined which they feel blessed «because with - to their small circles of security and out God there is no life» (Chapter XII). submission. It is interesting to observe Starting from this conviction, how Tolstoy dwells on this last case Tolstoy studied what happens in other because he thinks that such is the religions practiced by large numbers of situation of most Russian peasants. people. He concluded that those other From this point on in his reflections he immense masses of humiliated and is always mindful of the peasants maltreated humanity also have faith in because he has discovered in them a the God of Life, and that is what saves 12 them. That was what Tolstoy himself rection (1899), in which he tried to ex - experienced in his frequent encounters press symbolically his own return to the with his own peasants as he accompa - Christian faith. The novel is the story of nied them in long hours of prayer and the conversion of a Russian prince who other Orthodox religious practices. He has been a great sinner but who is now felt that he was in solid communion obliged to pass judgment in court on a with millions of simple folk. girl whom he abused and abandoned At the same time he realized with ten years before. The court accuses the ever greater clarity that it was precisely girl unjustly of murder and sentences pride and the desire for wealth of so her to life imprisonment in . The many powerful and educated persons prince, who was not able to get her that hid from them the deep meaning of acquitted, is now profoundly moved existence, as had also been the case with and repentant. In order to receive her himself. He therefore from that point on pardon he follows her to the prison, and never stopped repeating that those were finally she forgives him out of love. In exactly the ideas that Jesus proposed order to do penance for his offenses, the with great clarity in his Gospel. 2 prince renounces his family and all his properties and dedicates himself to Tolstoy entered into a state of perma - living as a , spending long hours nen t rebellion against the abuses of the meditating on the Gospel. public powers, and as a new convert he became indignant at the way the Ortho - dox Church understood and ex plained 4.3. «Political resurrection» the Christian faith. He de nounced the church’s dogmatic rigor and its close It was clear that this novel described alliance with the dominant political not only a «religious resurrection» but also a «political resurrection», that is, a regime. For him these were completely radical transformation of this aristocrat’s contrary to the Gospel (Chapters XIV- way of understanding the victims of XVI). political power. When he visits the Siberian prison colony, the prince gets to know some of the revolutionary 4.2. «Religious resurrection» workers who are being punished there, These new religious sentiments and and he comes to admire and respect related views, to which Tolstoy adhered them for their willingness to sacrifice until the end of his life, were often not themselves in the struggle against well thought out and would sometimes injustice. This novel also denounces a stray from orthodoxy. As a result, the series of social and political wrongs Russian Orthodox Synod soon admon - and condemns the corrupt tribunals of ished him and ended up excommuni - justice, the abuse of servants by the cating him in 1901. Curiously, the im - upper class, the extreme cruelty of the mediate cause of this severe sanction penal system, the imposition of the was one of his last great novels, Resur - death penalty without appeal, and other 13 injustices. For Tolstoy all this is directly sisters, children of the same Father. related to his own complete conversion Since Tolstoy himself was still strug - to the Gospel of Jesus, which in God’s gling with his own disordered way of name demands renunciation of violence life, he thought that the most important and advocates mutual love, pardon, and way to reach this was to eradicate mercy. the unjust arrogance with which masters still treated their servants. Consequently, at the end of this famous 4.4. The Kingdom of God is book the author insists on the need to among you struggle against pride, to become These themes are the same as those detached from all superfluous goods, presented in an essay Tolstoy published and always to avoid lying. As a way of in 1893 with the title, The Kingdom of dominating these passions he recom - God is Among You. Here also he insists mends , sobriety in everything, on the evangelical precept of never and working in the fields with the returning evil for evil and never doing peasants. Only in this way will the harm to one’s neighbor or even one’s Kingdom of God, which has already enemy since the greatest commandment come, become firmly established in this is to love one another as brothers and perverse world.

14 5. AN OFFICIAL OF THE CZAR WHO REPUDIATES WAR

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

5.1. An essay on war author inserts into the text with a cer - tain frequency his opinions about the Tolstoy’s repudiation of war was so events narrated –insertions that bother profound that from that moment on he some naïve readers. Tolstoy wanted this never stopped expressing his anti- master work to be seen not just as military views in public, in private, or another novel about the war but as an even in his writings. Soon after those «epic essay» which featured characters terrible war experiences he published and events that were both historical and the three volumes of Sebastopol (1854- fictitious but also accompanied them 55) about the blood-drenched defense with the author’s political and moral of Crimea. Once he was peacefully reflections. Moreover, faithful to his settled into Yasnaya Poliana, he dedi - growing concern for the common folk, cated himself to writing his monu men - this philosopher- refused to tal work, War and Peace , which dealt consider the principal of with the Napoleonic campaigns in those extended military campaigns to Russia. In the course of this story the be the generals or the politicians –not 15 even Napoleon or Alexander I or how they are overcome by the very Kutuzov. Rather the real champions human and also religious sentiments were the great masses of villagers and that he had never forgotten from that soldiers since they were the ones who middle phase of his own life. Consider, participated most personally in the bat - for example, the thoughts of Prince tles and suffered most directly the Andrew after he has been wounded in disasters of that great war. Tolstoy espe - battle: «Love conceals death because cially wanted to highlight the role of love is God and dying means that I am that immense throng of Russian peas - an atom of that love returning to the ants who had been obliged to become eternal source». 4 cannon fodder. As far as history goes, they were certainly anonymous, but for Tolstoy they, along with their fami - 5.3. The unnecessary war lies, were the true heroes of all those Of course, since our author was writing deeds. so earnestly about the war, he could not help but ask about the causes for such a horrendous and far-reaching crime. 5.2. Closeness to those who suffer Many of his interventions in War and That was how Tolstoy understood the Peace are dedicated precisely to this reality, and that was how his intense serious question, including the 80 pedagogical urge inspired him to pages of the epilogue. Faced with the communicate it to his readers. What is impossibility of responding adequately truly admirable is the serene, benevo - to such a sweeping question, he lent, and compassionate manner in wondered how some writers could which this anti-war rebel succeeded in understand the war as necessary and conveying his ideas. He used no ideo - therefore just. In his perplexity Tolstoy logical slogans but simply tried to reproached the authors of war novels portray respectfully all those who suf - that never even bothered to ask such fered in the war: the peasant militiamen questions, and he also rejected the on both sides, the troops and their modern historians who saw war as officers, the poor village folk, and even necessary on the Darwinian principle the upper-class families. All of them in that survival among humans means their own way were victims of the grim eliminating one’s enemies. Years later, ogre of war. He gives a good example following his conversion, Tolstoy of the intimacy that can exist among condemned this mentality which held distressed human beings despite social that «war is inevitable», seeing pride differences when he recounts the con - and not instinct as being the principal versation between a peasant militiaman cause of this crime. He considered named Plato and the intellectual rebel pride to be the most horrendous of Pierre Bezukov in a French camp for human passions. Because it is freely prisoners of war. 3 In describing indi - consented to, it generates the equally viduals exposed to death, Tolstoy shows lethal passions of envy and hatred to 16 reinforce its destructive satanic force, of Jesus which reveals that peace among as we see in the biblical myth of Cain’s mortals is achieved only by over com - crime against Abel. ing the arrogance of self-will and by practicing humility, mercy, and frater - nal love, even toward one’s enemies. 5 5.4. Controlling the passions Among the followers of this pacifist Toward the end of his life Tolstoy rebel was , who was still a young reaffirmed his rejection of all violence lawyer in South Africa at the time. –physical, moral, and structural– and Gandhi read Tolstoy’s work and wrote he began a public campaign. He wrote several letters to the author professing and preached on the importance of complete allegiance to his program. controlling the passions, which he saw Later when confronting the British as the cause of all moral evil. He im - in India, Gandhi developed a posed extreme austerity on himself and style of ( ) that was in strove to deprive himself of all harmful accord with the Hindu tradition of stimuli. He was inspired by the Gospel purification and self-sacrifice.

17 6. A POPULIST, UTOPIAN SOCIALIST

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

He was also an activist and a magnifi - 6.1. A socialism of love cent propagandist thanks to his extraor - The socialist thought coming from the dinary mastery of the written word. His West was of great interest to Tolstoy interest in in the noblest and thanks above all to the teachings being broadest sense of the term led him to disseminated by exiled writers such as study in depth the principal political Bielinski and Herzen. Nevertheless, he and economic systems of his times, never fully accepted the «scientific» both in Russia and the rest of Europe. socialism proposed by Marx and He had frequent conversations with Engels because of its materialism and socialists who were returning from its advocacy of revolutionary violence Europe, some of whom he hired as and class struggle. What most bothered teachers for his children. His main pur - Tolstoy about Marx was his incitement pose in all his extraordinary activism of hatred and his will to power; there was to find the most suitable means for was nothing in his writings about reforming the system of absolute mon - fraternal love, only vague mention of archy that then held sway in Russia. love of or an illusory hope for a 18 . «What always sur - the dignity and freedom of individuals. prised me in Marx’s writings is that Tolstoy actually proposed such a they contain nothing about love; all is scheme for Russian farm workers, as hatred, ambition, and will to power. […] his essay The End of the Century All those base emotions are disguised explains in detail. This was a program with the pretext of an abstract and also proposed by the «populist» impossible love for the people» (Diary , movements with which he felt in close 13 February 1907). Despite these reser - harmony. vations, Tolstoy accepted some key ele - Tolstoy’s anti-capitalist, socialist ments of Marxist doctrine, such as the spirit was also manifest in the harsh need for workers to recover the real moral judgments he formulated against value of their labor instead of just the the bourgeois liberal system of the market value. (On this topic see the very West. He traveled to Europe (, interesting essay by Tolstoy, Money 6 England, and Switzerland) only twice, and Labor, 1886) . We are quite familiar but both times he returned disillusioned with the never-ending struggle Tolstoy by the state of those societies and their waged against the owners of large democratic systems. «The actual situa - estates and other forms of massive tion of those peoples who claim to private since their abuse of govern themselves () is power weighed heavily on many mil - nothing more than the result of com - lions of Russian peasants. Moreover, plex power struggles and intrigues some of the books he wrote later in life among parties and the insatiable thirst were clearly socialist and revolutionary, for power of some very rich indi vidu - among them such works as The Slavery als. … The system of universal suffrage of Our Time (1900) and To the Working diffuses the desire for power by Class (1902). Among unfinished works multiplying the number of centers and that were found after his death was a individuals who hold it» . Tolstoy also critique titled On Socialism, which was claimed to be scandalized by the life - published posthumously (1910). style of many wealthy European bour - geoisie who squandered money on extremely expensive works of and 6.2. Mystical socialism startlingly lavish feasts. His vehement Consequently I believe that Tolstoy’s rejection of art and poetry (including political thought was basically socialist, Shakespeare) toward the end of his life though with great reservations. His was due to his conviction that the socialism was more the «utopian» type bourgeoisie had made art into mer - in that it favored the historical current chandise. His distaste for Shakespeare of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, and was also due to the English genius’s others. He agreed, for example, with excessive use of subtle wordplay. the theory of organizing the people in Despite these convergences and small workers’ societies () discrepancies, Tolstoy adhered to a and labor which preserved profound socialism with transcendent 19 religious roots. More than utopian, his gion. The thinker Nicolai Cherni chev - socialism was evangelical in its firm ski soon assumed in these belief in the human fraternity that God movements; he became famous for his promises. That is why at one point he book What Can We Do? , in which he noted own in his diary that «this proposed some short-term, concrete socialism is a minimal application of ways to respond to the de plorable social Christianity, to which [] is conditions. Chernichev ski was a simple, unfaithful because of its serious lack of honest man, but he was also a good morality» (31 July 1905). organizer; he preached not only social If we apply to Tolstoy Ca - reform but moral reform based on self- mus’s lucid distinction between revolu - sacrifice and increased non-violent tion and rebellion, 7 our author would solidarity. At that time in Russia such certainly not have been a revolutionary populism clearly could not take the desirous of power but a true «man in form of a political party, nor it should rebellion», constant and even heroic in be understood in terms of what is his manner. Disagreeing, then, with the sometimes called «populist» politics in of the West, as our day, meaning demagogic and well as with the nihilist of rightward-leaning. Russia, this old rebel now allied himself The rapid spread of these groups in to a new Russian reform movement, Tolstoy’s time reflected the extreme populism. discontent and indignation that many people experienced as well as the urgent need they felt to take action 6.3. Russian «populism» against that appalling situation. This explains why Tolstoy himself was very Around the middle of the 19th cen tury partial to this movement which also there arose in Russia a series of poorly took an interest in the education of the organized grass-roots ments that peasants. In the populist movements of sought to defend the count less people the time there was a convergence of living in extreme poverty and lacking intense social concern and Christian legal protection. The move ments in - belief, and the latter sometimes took on cluded not a few intellectuals, revolu - apocalyptic tones. Without going to tionaries, repentant nobles, and dissi - such extremes, Tolstoy repeatedly dent monks and Christians, all of whom voiced his belief, as I have already were grieved by the extreme misery of stated, that a sounder, more just the masses. They drew their original universal order could arise only when inspiration from the socialist-humanist human beings overcame their passions writings that Alexander Herzen sent and their pride. And this was precisely from exile, but they also had great the criticism that the Russian Marxists respect for the people’s culture and leveled against the populists. Lenin traditional Slavic values and were himself criticized Tolstoy, whom he concerned to preserve the people’s reli - admired, for offering such intangible 20 hopes and proposing a peaceful revo - against political power. That the fiery lution that would be exceedingly slow. lord of Yasnaya Poliana should be It is possible that Tolstoy became unhappy with populism is quite com - aware of this on his own, which would prehensible, but his break from the explain his discrepancies with Cherni - populist movement only reinforced his chevski and his distancing himself from certainty of having received a new, populism, which seemed to him too transcendent mission, the mission of conservative and timid in its struggle prophet.

21 7. TOLSTOY THE PROPHET

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

7.1. Inspired by the Gospel studies and then his military career. Slowly but with great determination He did in fact have great insight into the he came to understand the horrible perverse social reality in which he circumstances in which most of his lived, and he was courageous in the compatriots were living, both in the judgments he passed on it. Not only did outlying areas of –which he he denounce serious injustices, but he canvassed with great emotion while promised people hope and did so, taking a census– and in the vast rural moreover, deeply inspired by the Gos - areas, including his own estates, where pel of Jesus. millions of peasants where suffering Even as a young man Tolstoy had a intolerably. It was, however, his pro - restless nature that rebelled against found emotional crisis and the subse - anything that prevented him from quent religious conversion at age fifty personally knowing the true meaning of that provoked in him a drastic reaction life, not only in theory but in his of protest and an anxious search for concrete experience. This rebellious more transcendent solutions. To some spirit led him to reject first university extent he found these solutions in the 22 major revolutionary movements outside he became impatient with their half- Russia, whose principles he experi - hearted revolutionary spirit. ment ed with in his own life and in his This rebellious aristocrat who writings even as he assessed their defied his monarch experienced these advantages and contradictions. allegiances and contradictions in ways that were at times painful and even disruptive of peace in his . These 7.2. Determined anarchist, eager vying forces gained even greater socialist… evangelical prophet potency in his spirit, however, when he Thus we begin to see this new Tolstoy, underwent his radical conversion to the aged but still vigorous. He was an Gospel of Jesus, which expanded his anarchist opposed to the state and all its struggles and hopes into an absolute repressive apparatus, but he did not horizon. The result was a dramatic in - yield in his deep conviction that the crease in his personal remonstrations, harsh violence of the powerful should as well as in the family tensions and never be resisted with violence. The public protests (against the police, for new Tolstoy was also a supporter of example, or the Orthodox Church). The socialism, whose doctrine he rejected in situation was not helped by the fact that part but whose hope for a new society he simply could not keep quiet; he had he enthusiastically embraced. Finally, to proclaim his message against all odds. Tolstoy was also a defender of the In sum, I believe that we are totally popular reforms that the Russian justified in granting the title «prophet» authorities were beginning to tolerate. to the gigantic spirit that was Leo Tol - He especially favored the reforms of stoy. He was a great evangelical prophet , the populist movement although later as well as a moral and political one.

23 8. MORAL, POLITICAL, AND EVANGELICAL PROPHESYING

We should keep in mind that this intense prophetic vocation of Tolstoy never ceased to be socially and politically noteworthy. We have already mentioned Tolstoy’s constant denunciations against the absolutist Russian regime in his early literary works.

8.1. A subversive Kingdom often eagerly heard by those who listened to him and read his books. There are countless invectives against what today we call «structural vio - These people were especially consoled lence» as well as against the suppres - by the protests that Tolstoy voiced but sion of liberty and the cruelty of penal that they themselves could not or did punishment. These condemnations were not know how to express. Their appre - always pregnant with serious moral ciation was borne out by many of the content in their defense of justice and letters that he received daily in the last especially of charity toward the most stage of his life. dispossessed and marginalized persons Tolstoy’s pronouncements had con - of both the city and the countryside. In siderable effect in a society that was its daring denunciations of solidly beginning to feel great indignation at established powers, the vigorous voice the many great injustices, and this of Tolstoy must have sounded to many effect was reinforced by his personal people like the voice of a «prophet example for he confessed himself to be crying out in the desert», but it was a sinner and applied to himself the same 24 moral corrective he was preaching. In the kingdom of God and its justice, and proposing his «five commandments of all the rest will be given to you in a revolutionary», for example, he was addition». (For example, that is how he describing his own efforts to live up to concluded his work, The Kingdom of them. His precepts were very practical, God is Among You. ) such as not getting irritated, not com - mitting adultery, not swearing falsely, not resisting evil with violence, and 8.2. Adherence to Jesus above all loving others as one loves In another of his essays, Religion and oneself. Like the ancient prophets, Morality (1893), Tolstoy argued that «a Tolstoy also preached radical moral lay morality unrelated to religion can - conversion and frequently cried out, not survive». It’s true that the theolo - «Do penance!». As a result of his full gical baggage of our prophet was nei - recovery of religious spirit, this prophet ther very broad nor very orthodox; it was no longer content with offering did not always conform to the dog mas simply ethical motivations but always and precepts of the Russian synod, which appealed to confidence in the power of he considered excessively onerous. His God, who for him was above all the independent, rebellious temperament God of love and mercy. This was the perhaps makes his heterodoxy more un - doctrine of Jesus that Tolstoy had found derstandable, but there can be no doubt in the Gospels. about the extraordinary adherence Tol - stoy felt to the figure of Christ, his - «I believe in God who is the Spirit torical and heavenly at the same time, of Love and the principle of every - the Christ who was going to come thing. … I believe that the meaning again at the end of history as an of life for every one of us consists assurance for believers both in this life solely in growing in love of God. and after death. His constant references […] In this life such love will bring in his books to the doctrine of Jesus, us a blessedness that grows day by especially as found in John’s gospel day, and in the other world the most 9 and the «», make perfect happiness.» it clear that Tolstoy the prophet was Interestingly, our prophet’s religious also «evangelical». The Gospel themes conviction was also strengthened by his he cited most often were those of never constant dealings with the peasants returning evil for evil, loving others as («they restored to me the basis of my oneself, giving more than what is faith», he writes in My Confession, requested, etc. chapter XIII). In fact, he was convinced Another distinctive feature of that their faith was what gave the poor Tolstoy’s prophetic character was that of this world the strength they needed he almost never appeared as a herald of to survive and move forward. That is terrible calamities or as a foreteller of why one of the Gospel sayings that utopian paradises. Faced with a morally Tolstoy repeated often was «Seek first corrupt social situation, he did not trust 25 only in human forces. He trusted even Tolstoy might be made better known as less in the forces of the revolutionary a prophet in our world today. We should socialists because he sensed that their first recognize that there were and still revolution would be very brutal. He are critics who consider his proposals feared that they would do no more than as extremely idealist and of little replace the existing regime with «scientific» efficacy in the political another just as autocratic and would realm. Many conservatives, scandalized besides «extinguish the last reserves of by his anarchism and heterodoxy, freedom» 10 . As a pacifist Tolstoy was criticized Count Tolstoy mercilessly, even less moti vated than before by any but he still had many admirers and will to gain power. He sensed that a followers. Even among revolutionary superior force was somehow moving Marxists he was praised for his radical him «as an en voy of God» (Diary , 11 opposition to the absolutist regime and August 1893), whom he desired to for his repudiation of . serve «not as a private individual but as Lenin himself went so far as to call him his ambas sador» ( Diary , 12 July 1900) 11 . the «patriarch of the revolution». As a result, his proposals became now Apart from these revolutionaries, even more transcendent. There can be there were many others who felt no doubt that Tolstoy in his final years, strongly drawn to his example and his full of confidence in the coming of teaching. The state and the church had God’s kingdom, was convinced that a prohibited the circulation of many of of happiness was arriving for Tolstoy’s writing in Russia, but they all. still were published clandestinely and «I believe that at this very moment were translated into French and English the great revolution that has been in abroad, where they reached ever wider the making for two thousands years audiences. In fact, from 1890 on many is truly becoming reality.» thousands of pilgrims came to visit this patriarch of Yasnaya Poliana, and «We find ourselves on the threshold groups were organized all around the of a new life. … In order to attain it country with the aim of living in accord we need only to free ourselves from with what the master preached, espe - the superstition that violence is cially his teachings regarding pacifism, necessary and accept instead the conscien tious objection, elimination of eternal principle of love.» large landholdings, and Christian soli - 12 (The End of the Century , 1905). darity. This growing and very diversi - fied «Tol stoyan» movement included young per secuted intellectuals, dissi - 8.3. A figure always present dent monks, a few converted nobles, To end this essay, we should ask about teachers, and journalists, all moved by the reception that this great moral a great desire to transform the situation teacher had in his own country and in Russia. Tolstoy also received count - elsewhere, as well as consider how less letters from abroad (twelve large 26 volumes in the Complete Works Europe for several years, but it was published in Russian in 1925). Many timidly restored again in 1928 when the letters came from intellectuals in Great first centenary of his birth was cele - Britain, France, and Switzerland, but brated. also from the and Thinkers have not been lacking Canada, where groups of his followers –, for example– who saw were organized. In addition, there were Leo Tolstoy as one of the great idealists at least two magazines published: The of history who ended up as a failure, as Free World in London and La Libre did Don Quixote. But we should ask 13 Pensée in Geneva. We should also ourselves: did Don Quixote really fail? remember that the subtle and very It’s true that he was often defeated, but humane drama tist was people were never able to curb his will one of Tol stoy’s many illustrious Rus - to keep fighting for a better world, and sian literary disci ples. Among Spanish that’s why his figure has always re - writers Tol stoy’s contemporary admirers mained alive as an inspiring moral included the likes of E. Pardo Bazán, B. symbol. So also should we understand Pérez Galdós, Clarín, Unamuno, Narcís the destiny of Leo Tolstoy. He was im - Oller, and Joan Maragall. Finally, we perfect and contradictory if you wish, should keep in mind that the outbreak but he was indomitable in his firm of the First World War in 1914 and the determination to proclaim a better Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 suddenly society for all and to work hard to bring eclipsed the memory of Tolstoy in all of it about.

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NOTES

1. Romain ROLLAND , Vida de León Tolstoi (1911), 7. This theme is developed superbly in Camus’s Ediciones La Nave, Madrid, 1935, pp. 115- 1951 essay, Man in Rebellion. 116. The author explains: «I am resuming here 8. This is precisely the title of the interesting study, sev eral pages of My Confession while Tolstoi, il profeta. Invito alla lettura degli preserving Tolstoy’s expressions». scritti filosófico-religiosi. Edit. Gabrielli, 2. See chapters VI-IX of My Confession. Verona 2000. 3. War and Peace , Book XIII, chap. XI. 9. Mi credo (1901), quoted by ROLLAND , op. cit., 4. Ibid ., Book XII, chap. XVI. p. 128. 5. See, for example, Tolstoy’s essay, On Power 10. See The End of the Century [1905] and On and Goodness (1888). Socialism [1910]. 6. Like Marx, Tolstoy saw that money had ceased 11. Quotes are taken from Tolstoi, il profeta , p. 63. to be a means and had become an end or a 12. Ibid ., last page. supreme value and that this was to the 13. For more complete information about Tolstoy’s detriment of the labor value of the worker, influence, an indispensable is the whose merit and dignity were measured by the recent, well documented work of Rosamund banking system and the stock exchange. Barlett, Tolstoy. A Russian Life. London 2010.

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QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

From an early age but especially after his personal crisis at around age 50, Tolstoy possessed a temperament that rebelled against the social injustices that oppressed the poor, the servants, and the workers of Russia. He never stopped asking the question «What must we do?» because he wanted with all his heart to change the unjust political situation in Russia. His most frequent answers and also his concrete proposals 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 and personal 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»? 31 • Was he a «dissident populist» with little tendency toward traditionalism, conservatism, or Slavic ? • 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 the ones we most need in the situation in which we find ourselves?

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