Tolstoy as Believer

Author(s): Martin Green

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), Vol. 5, No. 2 (Spring, 1981), pp. 166-177
Published by: Wilson Quarterly
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40256117 .
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 REFLECTIONS

Tolstoy As Believer

Leo Tolstoy'sreputationrests primarilyon two great novels-

Warand Peace and AnnaKarenina- written duringhis middle
years.But CountTolstoywas a manof unconventionalbeliefs.A
would-be social reformerin tsarist Russia, ever at war with
himself and his family, he died in 1910 trying to escape home,
fame, and fortune.CriticMartinGreenlooksat the evolutionof
Tolstoy'sdisruptiveideas,whichcame to influence,in turn,Ma-
hatma Gandhiand MartinLutherKing.

by Martin Green

Although most people would rank Ryova" (Leo the cry-baby) because of
Leo Tolstoy among the world's his emotional responses to others'
giants because he wrote War and sufferings (and joys).
Peace and Anna Karenina, the novel- Tolstoy was born in 1828 into what
ist himself, in the second half of his he called the military "caste" in Rus-
life, thought of those great epics as sia. Even during the 19th century,
works to be ashamed of. tsarist Russia had a peculiarly rigid
Indeed, when Lev Nikolayevich, social structure; and the term
Count Tolstoy died, in 1910, his de- "caste" was not inappropriate. The
votees (including novelist William aristocrats were soldiers, and their
Dean Howells in America) regarded sons became soldiers after them.
him primarily as a moral reformer, a When they were not in the Army (or
strong critic of injustice, war, and, serving as civil administrators), they
among other things, exactly the kind lived on their vast rural estates, with
of fiction he had created in his big- hundreds of serfs to tend the fields.
gest novels. Tolstoy's family owned a beautiful
To ideological Tolstoyans, his spir- place, Yasnaya Polyana* 130 miles
itual heir would not be the Nobel south of Moscow. Tolstoy described
laureate in literature, Boris Paster- the rolling countryside, and the
nak, but Mahatma Gandhi, who, in hunting there, over and over again in
turn, influenced Martin Luther King. his novels. His father (portrayed as
Tolstoy's piety and sense of justice the dashing Nicholas Rostov in War
were evident early in his life. A Tolstoy biographer Henri Troyat translates
hypersensitive child, he was known Yasnaya Polyana as "Clear Glade," or "Ash
to the rest of his family as"Lyova Glade."

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 REFLECTIONS: TOLSTOY

Tolstoyat age 73.

By the time of this
1901 woodcut, Tol-
stoy had renounced
his famous novels
and had become a
staunch advocateof
nonviolence and of
a stern Christian
faith.

By R. Bryden for Woodcut Portraits of

Twelve Men of Letters of the 19th
Century. J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1899.

and Peace) had been an officer in the and to cut a handsome figure in the
Army that fought against Napoleon drawing rooms of St. Petersburg, to
at the turn of the 19th century. And gamble and duel, to drink and dance
his grandfather (the sardonic Prince with the gypsies.* "A man who pro-
Bolkonsky in War and Peace) had nounced French badly," he wrote at
been a general under Catherine the the time, "aroused in me a feeling of
Great. Of the four Tolstoy brothers, contempt." Later, he said of his
three, including Leo, became officers youth, "I began to grow depraved.
in the tsarist Army. ... I tried to be elegant."
Tolstoy drifted, more or less, into Alternating between the rustic life
military service. Having left Kazan and the dolce vita, the young Tolstoy
University in 1847 without taking a faithfully recorded, in a diary, his
degree, the young man was tempted escapades and gambling losses and
for a time to give up his property and then severely chastised himself for
live the simple contemplative life at his profligacy.
Yasnaya Polyana. *A remote cousin- called the "American Tol-
Yet, ever torn by contradictory de- stoy" because of his trip to Alaska, from which
sires, Tolstoy also longed to be a he returned tattooed - was a famous duelist
dandy, like poet Aleksandr Pushkin, and gambler, who married a gypsy.

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REFLECTIONS: TOLSTOY

Bored and unhappy, he went south tude toward life, in which conflicting
to the Caucasus in 1851. There he feelings fitted together like con-
joined his older brother, Nicholas, trasting colors, the excitement of war
whose regiment was battling the re- subsumed its terror. Even so, in his
bellious Muslim tribesmen of that Crimean War diary, he announced-
mountainous territory, which Russia quite unexpectedly - that he was
had annexed but not absorbed. (This thinking of devoting the rest of his
war lasted more than a half-century, life to founding a new religion, a
and Russia only won it in 1859 after demythologized Christianity. The
committing some 200,000 troops.) impulse faded, momentarily.
Tolstoy arrived as an observer, but Tolstoy had begun writing autobi-
after going along on a number of ex- ographical stories while he was in
peditions, he signed up as a cadet, or the Caucasus. His first published
junker,in the 4th Battery, 20th Artil- work, "Childhood," appeared in the
lery Brigade. magazine Sovremennik in 1852. It
was followed by two sequels ("Boy-
Contradictory Feelings hood" and "Youth") and by his first
During the next five years, the fu- war stories, "The Raid" and "The
ture pacifist pamphleteer fought in Woodfelling."
three wars. In addition to service in His ambiguous feelings about war,
the Caucasus, Tolstoy participated in when given literary expression and
an 1854 campaign in Bessarabia resolution, helped to make him a
against the failing Turkish empire, great writer. Together with Sten-
and in the Crimean War (1853-56) dhal, Tolstoy was the progenitor of
against the British and French. He all modern imaginative treatments
was intensely patriotic. In his diary of war, in literature and on film.
sketches from Sevastopol (1855-56), Equally important, Tolstoy's combat
the young artilleryman predicted experience planted the seeds of his
that the stout defense of the besieged later pacifism. He wrestled with his
Crimean seaport, "whose hero was feelings about war all his life. In the
the Russian people, will leave 1870s, he renounced all violence.
mighty traces in Russia for a long Much later, he condemned the
time to come." Russo-Japanese War (1904-05); yet
Yet, even during the 1850s, Tolstoy he still hoped for a Russian victory.
expressed contradictory feelings Yet another ambiguity enriched
about war and imperialism. He was Tolstoy's early great novels. As a
aware of the horror of the one and writer, Tolstoy could successfully de-
fretted occasionally about the injus- pict both romantic love and domes-
tice of the other. As long as he could ticity- an unusual talent in a novel-
take a predominantly aesthetic atti- ist of adventure. An author who es-

MartinGreen,53, is professorof English at Tufts Universityand a Wilson

CenterFellow. Born in London,he receiveda B.A. from CambridgeUniver-
sity (1948) and a Ph.D. from the Universityof Michigan (1957). His books
include The Von Richtofen Sisters: The Triumphant and Tragic Modes
of Love (1974), Childrenof the Sun: A Narrative of "Decadence" in Eng-
land After 1918 (1976), The Challenge of the Mahatmas (1978), and
Dreams of Adventure, Deeds of Empire (1979). His essay here is consid-
erablyadaptedfrom a book in progresson Tolstoyand Gandhi.

The Wilson Quarterly /Spring 1981

168
 REFLECTIONS:TOLSTOY

pouses one cannot easily celebrate piness, he discarded his peasant mis-
the other. One does not find in Hem- tress and married 18-year-old Sonia
ingway (or in any other American Bers. He took her away from Moscow
writer, for that matter) the celebra- to his home in the country; there, he
tion of family life evident in, for in- believed, they would raise a big fam-
stance, the Kitty and Levin episodes ily and live out an idyll of domes-
oiAnna Karenina. ticity.
By extolling the virtues of hearth Sonia believed in traditional mar-
and home, Tolstoy implicitly criti- riage with a passion equal to Tol-
cized war and adventure while ap- stoy's own. She came from a large,
pealing to the bourgeois sentiments happy clan. Her father, a German
of Russia's novel-reading public dur- Lutheran doctor, raised his daugh-
ing the mid- 19th century. Although ters (who were older than his sons) to
there is often conflict in Tolstoy's look after their siblings. They were
writing, as in his beliefs, traditional trained as schoolteachers and were
domestic values clearly triumphed. also proficient housekeepers- ideal
Tolstoy had admired many women 19th-century wives and mothers.
and had dallied with prostitutes. But Sonia brought sheets to Yasnaya Pol-
he believedin a proper marriage to a yana as part of her dowry; her new
young and well-educated girl. He husband and his brothers were used
wanted to re-create the happy life of to sleeping under blankets on straw
his parents at Yasnaya Polyana. Lev- mattresses.
in's parents, Tolstoy tells us in Anna
Karenina, "had lived the sort of life "Do As You Like!"
which seemed to Levin the ideal of Sonia also had literary taste. She
perfection, and which he had had fallen in love with Tolstoy when
dreamed of restoring with a wife and she read, and memorized passages
family of his own." of, "Childhood." The wedding
None of Tolstoy's siblings, who seemed to both of them the begin-
were older, had achieved happiness ning of life-long happiness.
in the wedded state; thus, his faith in Before his marriage, Tolstoy had
marriage had a certain obstinate felt the urge to help the less fortu-
quality. He savored the works of nate. He had been engaged in educa-
English novelists Charles Dickens, tional experiments with peasant
George Eliot, and Charlotte Brontë, children, operating a free school in
who all celebrated respectable mar- his home at Yasnaya Polyana. He
riage and domestic happiness. and the student-teachers whom he
In 1862, Tolstoy, 34, was five years hired toyed with progressive meth-
out of the Army. He hated the new ods. Their school's motto was "Do as
ideas on sex and marriage that were you like!" There was no set curricu-
circulating in radical circles in St. lum, and lessons took the form of in-
Petersburg and Moscow.* Feeling formal chats. By the 1860s, Tolstoy
that this was his last chance at hap- had started 14 such schools in his
*The new "theories" were the work of three home district of Krapivna (popula-
groups: feminists, who championed equal tion: 10,000).Tolstoy also tried work-
rights for women; populists, who wanted edu- ing and eating with the peasants in
cated young people not to pursue private happi- the fields, to their astonishment.
ness but to serve "the people"; and variously
flavored socialists, who wanted to liberalize Once married and settled down,
marriage,as well as society. Tolstoy entered with new intensity

/Spring1981
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REFLECTIONS:TOLSTOY

upon the task of writing War and about marriage, but as practiced
Peace. But this enormous enterprise, among young radicals. Though artis-
he said ruefully, took him away from tically without merit, it became im-
the People and his efforts at social mensely popular among the young;
uplift. 30 years later, Lenin was influenced
Sonia, unimpressed, encouraged by it. It told of a marriage entered
Tolstoy to write. "He disgusts me into by both parties solely to help the
with his People," she confided to her woman achieve economic and politi-
diary. And she hated the presence of cal freedom; of husband and wife
his ex-mistress, Aksinia, who lived in working for social reform; and of the
the village of Yasnaya Polyana with husband sacrificing his joyous mar-
her son by Tolstoy. Although Sonia riage (by pretending suicide) in order
did not lack pity for the poor, she be- to give her still more freedom.
longed to Moscow, to upper-class so- Chernyshevskyportrayed the ideal
cial life, and to the world of the arts. marriage as a two-person political
cell; Tolstoy portrayed it as the joint
Praising Marriage creation and enjoyment of children,
During the first 16 years of their books, ideas, and feelings. Tolstoy's
marriage, however, Sonia's prefer- War and Peace obliquely contra-
ence for the sophisticated life was dicted Chernyshevskyand his admir-
submerged by her preoccupation ers. And the obliqueness of Tolstoy's
with her children (she bore 13, of criticism was in itself a further prov-
whom 8 grew to maturity). In those ocation to the radicals. During the
years, her family came first, with 1860s in Russia, as during the late
Leo's writing a close second. She 1960s in America, literary fashion
took on a large share of the burden of demanded that every artistic crea-
transcription, later claiming to have tion be "relevant," that it make a
copied out most of War and Peace radical "statement" of some kind.
seven times, in various drafts. Thus, the anonymous critic for the
Although Warand Peace (1865-69) Illustrated Gazette called War and
presents the saga of Napoleon, Tsar Peace "an apologia for gluttonous
Alexander, and the great war be- aristocrats, sanctimony, hypocrisy
tween Russia and France, it also and vice."
reflects the personal relations of
various Tolstoys and Leo's in-laws. Loving the Peasants
Because it praised marriage and At this stage, Tolstoy opposed po-
tranquility in private life, War and litical radicalism; he was interested
Peace was widely read in the Russian in domesticity, artistic and intellec-
intellectual world of the 1860s as a tual freedom, religion, and the aris-
salute to conservatism. At the time, tocracy. Although he had tried more
young Russian student activists were than once before the Emancipation
bent on disrupting the status quo of 1861 to free his own serfs, without
and altering all aspects of society, in- success for one reason or another, he
cluding marriage and the family. did not want them to cease being
In 1862, a leader of Russian radi- peasants. He was as enamored of the
calism, N. G. Chernyshevsky,had be- peasant life as he was of the country-
gun to publish (from prison) a novel side itself.
called What Then Must We Do? or "This summer," he wrote a friend
Tales of the New People. It too was in 1870, "I work, chop, spade, mow

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 REFLECTIONS: TOLSTOY

In this turn-of-the-centurycartoon, Tolstoy, in ruralgarb, expresseshis dismay

to two peasants over Western-stylehigh society fashions in Moscow.

and, luckily for me, do not give one Tolstoy was attracted by the as-
thought to that lit-tra-tyure and cetic Christianity symbolized by the
those awful lit-try folk." Tolstoy de- Sermon on the Mount, but he re-
tested towns, factories, and indus- sisted the dogmatic theology, sacra-
trialism. He cherished the memory ments, and rituals of the Russian
of his parents' aristocratic life. Orthodox Church. He despised the
But even when acting the part of a magic and mystery of religion. "To
conservative landowner and famous reinforce the teachings of Christ with
novelist, Tolstoy was afflicted by miracles," he proclaimed, "is like
contending interests and convic- holding a lighted candle in front of
tions. He hated the bureaucratic ap- the sun in order to see it better."
paratus and autocratic cruelty of the During the 1870s, while he was
Russian state. He loved the peasants, writing Anna Karenina, he managed,
although they often exasperated him for a time, to assent to the church's
with their suspiciousness and stub- teachings. It was the obvious reli-
borness, and he admired the primi- gious option for a wealthy land-
tive tribesmen of the Caucasus and owner. But he soon found the
Samara. These feelings soon fired his church's elaborate theology and po-
desire to transform society - in his litical subservience to the Tsar un-
own fashion. To this end, he sought a acceptable. According to Tolstoy,
religion he could believe in. church leaders had "cut up the

The Wilson Quarterly ISpring 1981

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REFLECTIONS: TOLSTOY

cussed were meekness and humility,

Alekseev far better exemplified those
virtues than did Tolstoy.
Their long discussions occurred
against a backdrop of increasing un-
rest in Russia. During the 1860s,
Tsar Alexander II antagonized lib-
eral aristocrats by refusing their plea
for a national assembly. Newly freed
serfs were bitter about the Emanci-
pation of 1861 because they were
now forced to pay for land to which
they felt they had a natural right. In-
spired by writers like Chernyshevsky,
and other radicals, hundreds of uni-
versity students went to the country-
side in 1873-74 to incite the peasants
to rebel. The young agitators were
sent off to prison or exiled to Siberia.
Drawing h\ Ihu Repin. In 1876, the Land and Freedom Party
was formed by dissident students
teachings into shreds and tacked and the radical intelligentsia; one
their idiotic, vile explanations - anarchist faction urged the assassi-
hateful to Christ- onto every mor- nation of public officials.
sel." In 1881, Russia's political malaise
Meanwhile, the outside world in- reached a climax. Tsar Alexander II
truded on the private enclave of was assassinated in St. Petersburg
Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoy's children by a band of students, who were soon
began to need tutors, and tutors in arrested and sentenced to be exe-
late 19th-century Russia were ex- cuted. Tolstoy could not accept their
students who were also likely to be fate. Dangerous as it might be, he de-
ex-revolutionaries. cided to make a personal protest to
The first tutor Tolstoy hired for the new Tsar, Alexander III. He
Sergei, his oldest son, had been a turned to Alekseev for advice in
member of the revolutionary avant- composing his letter. When Sonia
garde in Russia during the 1860s. discovered what the two men were
This militant socialist, named Alek- planning, she furiously (and unsuc-
seev, had even journeyed abroad to cessfully) demanded Alekseev's dis-
live in an agricultural commune in missal. Tolstoy's idyll of marriage
Kansas. When Alekseev came to live was beginning to come apart.
at Yasnaya Polyana in 1877, Tolstoy, After this incident, Sonia made it
always interested in what made such clear that she opposed any political
men tick, eagerly conversed with activity, however high-minded it
him. The two men were to influence might be, that threatened her fami-
each other profoundly on political ly's security. Later that year, when
and religious issues. Sergei later Sergei was old enough for college,
described Alekseev as the first Tol- Sonia insisted that they all move to
stoyan. But, insofar as the prime Moscow, where the children could
elements in the new creed they dis- take part in the social life of their

/Spring1981
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class. From then on, the Tolstoys sisted by force. The authoritarian
lived at Yasnaya Polyana only in the state, like violent revolution, was un-
summers; Tolstoy became, in effect, acceptable to a man of religion; cul-
a lodger in his own house, disapprov- ture, which reflected the state's will,
ing of his family's stylish ways in was also contaminated. Tolstoy read,
silence. among others, the American aboli-
Moscow's fashionable social life, tionists, men like William Lloyd Gar-
and the grim existence of the under rison, James Russell Lowell, and
class, profoundly depressed Tol- Henry David Thoreau - and Chris-
stoy.* But the more he wanted to tian Socialists like Adin Ballou, a
leave, the more obligations his wife Unitarian-Universalist minister who
pressed upon him. She nagged him had long been forgotten by his fellow
about his duty to family, friends, and Americans when Tolstoy discovered
country and threatened to commit him in 1889.
suicide if he left her.
No More Meat
During the next 30 years, Tolstoy
became a savage critic of the old or- Ballou founded a Christian com-
der and an advocate of nonviolent re- munity in Hopedale, Massachusetts,
sistance to it. When workers rioted in in the 1840s and published Christian
1901, Tolstoy wrote to the Tsar: "The Non-Resistance. The community
army, that is, the men who are pre- broke up in the 1850s, partly because
pared to commit murder, is the two of its members found a way to
cause not only of all the calamities, make money there. The son of one of
but also of all the corruption of man- them became a general in the Civil
ners in the world." War and later ambassador to Italy,
He wrote no more novels like War and his daughter married an Italian
and Peace. Instead, he turned out in- prince. Thus, by 1889, the ideals of
spirational books and pamphlets, led Hopedale had, as so often happens in
protests against compulsory military the history of reform, foundered on
service, took up the causes of politi- personal ambition. But Ballou was
cal prisoners, denounced Russian still alive to receive Tolstoy's enthu-
foreign policy so harshly that he was siastic letters. Tolstoy saluted him as
threatened with imprisonment, and one of mankind's greatest blessings,
attacked the church so severely that translated his book, and wrote an in-
he was excommunicated. troduction to it that grew into The
Tolstoy's religious beliefs were Kingdomof GodIs Within You (1894).
very much intertwined with his ef- In keeping with his professed be-
forts to reform Russia. In effect, he liefs in a simple religion and a spar-
created the religion he had been tan life, Tolstoy gave up hunting,
seeking in the Sermon on the Mount meat, wine, and tobacco. Whether in
(and in Buddhist doctrine). This Moscow or at Yasnaya Polyana, he
radical faith taught that evil (both wore peasant smocks, hauled wood,
government oppression and revolu- and fetched water for his family.
tionary terrorism) must not be re- Under his influence, scores of
* young Russians refused military ser-
Always drawn to the poor, Tolstoy volun- vice; priests left the ministry; writers
teered to help take the 1881 Moscowcensus. He became civil resisters; city men went
insisted on canvassing the worst slums and
wrote about these visits in his own What Then to live on agricultural communes.
Must WeDo? (1902). Many of Tolstoy's disciples were ex-

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iled and quite a few ended their lives and "Master and Man"- on subjects
in prison or Army penal battalions. taken from folklore or religious tra-
Tolstoy's acolytes came from the dition. Written so they could be un-
aristocracy as well as the peasantry; derstood even by barely literate
they wanted revolution, but not peasants, these stories championed
violence. It was a doomed, almost the uncomplicated life and faith of
quixotic movement. Despite the the poor and rejected the accumula-
preachings of Tolstoy and his follow- tion of property. Artistically, these
ers, the tsarist government grew tales are very simple and very beau-
more rigid, and its other opponents, tiful.
more violent. It was not until some Tolstoy also wrote straight polem-
seven years after Tolstoy's death that ics- A Critiqueof Dogmatic Theology
the Russian Revolution successfully (1891), What Then Must We Do?
dethroned the Tsar. Then or later, (1902), A Confession (1882)- against
there was little role for pacifists to the Orthodox Church, the state, the
play. ruling class.
It was one of these tracts, The
The Dukhobors Kingdom of God Is Within You, that
Yet Tolstoy scored some minor vic- had an overwhelming effect on Gan-
tories in his time. Perhaps the most dhi, who was inspired by it to lead
useful was persuading the Russian his life of political and moral protest.
government to let the Dukhobors Describing Tolstoy in 1909 as the
emigrate in 1898. The Dukhobors, a "Titan of Russia," Gandhi declared
Christian communitarian sect in the himself to be Tolstoy's "humble fol-
Caucasus, believed that it was wrong lower." For his part, Tolstoy, having
to bear arms; they refused military read Gandhi's manifesto, respected
service. The state confiscated their the young reformer, "except for his
goods, imprisoned their young men, Hindu patriotism, which spoils
and sent in the Cossacks. everything."
Tolstoy and his followers, Vladi- Sonia 's Distress
mir Chertkov and Paul Biriukov
(who were exiled for their efforts), Tolstoy's tracts were mostly
aroused public opinion on the Du- banned from publication in Russia.
khobors' behalf inside Russia and They were printed abroad, however,
out (the English and American Quak- notably in Geneva, where Biriukov
ers were especially responsive). had settled, and in England, where
Money was raised by the sale of a Chertkov had set up the Free World
new Tolstoy novel, Resurrection Press. In one of the few books that
(1899), the first in more than 20 did come out in Russian, What Is
years. In the end, the Tsar relented, Art? (1898), Tolstoy finally repudi-
and thousands of Dukhoborswere al- ated high art and his own work as a
lowed to leave Russia and settle in novelist.
Canada. For the artist, Tolstoy wrote, "it is
The scant fiction Tolstoy wrote more important and useful to com-
during the latter part of his life was pose a tale, a touching little song, a
not like War and Peace and Anna divertissement or sketch or light in-
Karenina. He wrote short tales- terlude, or draw a picture that will
"God Sees the Truth but Waits," delight dozens of generations, that is,
"How Much Land Does a Man Need?" millions of children and adults, than

TheWilsonQuarterly/Spring1981
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 REFLECTIONS: TOLSTOY

The last photo-

graphof Leo and
Sonya together,
takenat Yasnaya
Polyana in 1910,
the year Tolstoy
died.

PhuiohxS. \ Tuhnn.

a novel, symphony or painting that When the tsarist authorities

will enchant a few representatives of banned the distribution of What I
the wealthy classes and then be for- Believe (1883) after the book was
gotten forever." printed, no copies were actually de-
Tolstoy thought of War and Peace stroyed, and Tolstoy's words found
and Anna Karenina as having been their readers. Many other manu-
written for the few. "Art must not be scripts, with titles like "Shame!" and
regarded as a means of procuring "Is There No Way Out?" were copied
pleasure," he argued, "but as an as- by hand or typed and circulated
pect of social life." The mark of qual- clandestinely - like the present-day
ity for a work of art, he felt, was the Samizdat literature of Soviet dis-
approval of the masses. sidents.
Although his later books were reg- None of this, of course, pleased
ularly suppressed by church and Tolstoy's wife. His new argumenta-
state censors during the 1880s and tive style seemed to Sonia boring
'90s, everything Tolstoy said and did and harsh; his new egalitarian ideas
aroused excitement. He had, of impractical when they were not
course, lost his former allies among wrong.
the conservatives, men like the poet In his diary, Tolstoy outlined the
Afanasy Fet and the Slavophiles Yuri ideal existence for his family: "Our
Samarin and Ivan Aksokov. And he life, food and clothes will be of the
was not acceptable to Marxist revo- utmost simplicity. Everything super-
lutionaries because he repudiated vi- fluous, piano, furniture, coach
olence. But, between those extremes, horses, will be sold or given away.
there were thousands of Russians to Concentrate exclusively on the sci-
whom Tolstoy was a hero. ences and arts that can be under-

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1981
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TOLSTOYAND THE 1905 REVOLUTION

On Sunday,January22, 1905, Russian workersmarchedon TsarNicholas
ITs WinterPalace in St. Petersburgdemandingan eight-hourworkdayand
a national constitution; several hundredwere slain by the Tsar's guards.
"BloodySunday" was followed by scattered uprisings, culminating in a
nationwiderailroadstrikeand the short-livedformation, in St. Petersburg,
of a Soviet of WorkersDeputies.At YasnayaPolyana, Tolstoywas upsetby
the civil unrest.He sided with the workerspush for change. But he detested
both the use of violence in tryingto achieve it and the rhetoricof the radical
activists who invokedKarlMarxand GeorgyGapon. Here, in a letterdated
September20, 1906, he gives his views to an admirer,critic V. V. Stasov,
head of the St. PetersburgPublic Library:

Unless the people, the real people, the hundred million peasants who
work on the land, by their passive non-participation in violence make all
this frivolous, noisy, irritable and touchy crowd harmless and unneces-
sary, we shall certainly arrive at a military dictatorship, and arrive at it
by way of the great crimes and corruption which have already begun. In
order to replace an obsolete system by another one, it is necessary to set
up an ideal which is lofty, universal and accessible to all the people. But
the intelligentsia and the proletariat who are goaded on by them have
nothing like that- they have only words, and not their own, but other
people's. So this is what I think: I rejoice for the revolution, but grieve for
those who, imagining that they are making it, are destroying it. The vio-
lence of the old regime will only be destroyed by non-participation in vi-
olence, and not at all by the new and foolish acts of violence which are
now being committed.

stood by all. Equal treatment for all, and found his preaching foolish.
from governor to beggar." They and Sonia allowed him to have
To Sonia, such notions simply re- his opinions as long as he merely
flected the old socialist ideas of men wrote them down and "did nothing
like Chernyshevsky, who had earlier about them." While he lived with his
extolled the glories of the "new" family, Tolstoy remained under their
marriage. As she saw it, Tolstoy dur- control. By living at home, he also
ing the 1880s and '90s was behaving lived in considerable comfort; hence,
and writing like his radical critics of as critics noted, his public sermons
the 1860s. on simplifying one's life seemed
Saluted by much of liberal Europe tinged with hypocrisy.
and Russia as the victim of authori- To keep peace in the family, Tol-
tarian repression, Tolstoy was no stoy transferred to Sonia the copy-
hero in his own house. Almost his en- rights on his early books and gave
tire family - not just Sonia - was her control over his property. But he
against him. His five sons rejected continued to reside at Yasnaya Pol-
his schemes for reforming society yana or at the house in Moscow. He

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believed private property was evil; This was, of course, impossible. He

"Property equals theft," he pro- was recognized everywhere he went;
claimed. But self-dispossession was newspapers carried the story. His
as far as he felt he could go toward wife summoned her children and
poverty without incurring the wrath hired a special train to pursue him.
of his demanding clan. At one point, he fell ill and was taken
Tolstoy might wear a peasant to the stationmaster's house in the
blouse, cobble his own shoes, eat village of Astapovo, 200 miles south-
only oatmeal, but he was served by west of Moscow. When Sonia ar-
footmen wearing white gloves. His rived, she was not allowed to see
daughters wore the latest fashions, him. Even the cameramen of Pathé-
played tennis, and listened to the News were there, recording the
gramophone. Celebrities came to domestic tragedy- photographing
dinner. To his family, servants, and Sonia peering through the windows
guests, he was still Count Tolstoy, of the house in which her husband
the nobleman and novelist who had lay stricken with pneumonia. He fi-
an odd growing penchant for as- nally died on November 20, 1910.
ceticism.
As we have seen, the government, An Enduring Power
too, coddled Tolstoy. It let him write Thus, Tolstoy's 30-year crusade to
his subversive books and publish transform Russian society started in
them abroad or circulate them se- his middle years, after the two great
cretly. It did not punish him; it ar- novels, and ended with a frantic,
rested those who read the books and doomed attempt to escape from his
tried to implement their teachings. family, his fame, and his wealth. All
To the Russian authorities, Tolstoy had conspired to exacerbate the am-
was a valuable national property, biguities of his life.
albeit a man with ill-considered Although he had inspired scores of
theories that were heretical and po- young Russians and had helped to
tentially dangerous. bring the inequities of the tsarist re-
This suppression by indulgence gime to the fore, his pacifism and re-
was soft torture for Tolstoy. But he ligiousity were inevitably spurned
submitted himself to it, accepted it by the anarchists and militant Marx-
as a form of martyrdom that came ists who turned Russian society up-
his way, even though it was psycho- side down in 1917 and gave us the
logically more painful than the Soviet Union.
outright punishment (prison or the In the end, Tolstoy's love of social
gallows) he expected and half hoped justice and his credo of nonviolence
for. found no place in his own culture.
In October 1910, he awoke one His ideas could not prosper in Rus-
night at Yasnaya Polyana to find sia. Transformed into action in other
Sonia rifling his desk drawers seek- settings, first by Mahatma Gandhi in
ing his diary. Fed up with this con- British India, and later by Martin
trol and his self-contradictory life, Luther King in the American South,
Tolstoy, at age 82, tried to run away however, these ideas developed a
and hide. power that endures to this day.

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