Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1908
Source: From RevoltLib.com
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
‘Among people living evil lives, every step in the direction of goodness invokes persecution rather than love.’
‘True bravery in battle is natural for him who knows that God is his ally.’
‘In the world you shall have tribulation: but cheer up: I have overcome the world.’ (John, XVI, 33)
‘Do not await the fulfillment of the divine cause you serve; but know that none of your efforts are fruitless, for they all advance the cause.’
‘The most important and necessary human deeds, for both doer and recipient, are those of which he does not see the results.’
In the year 1818 a governor-in-chief of the Caucasus, Moraviev, noted in his diary that five serfs had been sent from the Tambov region to the Caucasus because when they were conscripted they refused to serve. They were flogged several times with a knout and chased down the gantlet, but they would not give in and kept saying: ‘All men are equal, the Czar is a man like the rest of us; we will not obey, we will not pay taxes and, above all, we will not kill our fellow men in war. You can tear us to pieces but we will not give in. We will not put on military greatcoats, we will not eat soldiers’ rations, we will not be soldiers. We will take alms, but we do not want any money from the government.’
Men of this kind were flogged to death, exterminated in prison, and everything about them was carefully hidden; but over the course of the last century their number has been steadily increasing.
Thus, ‘in 1827, two guardsmen, Nikolaev and Bogdanov, in order to avoid military service, fled to a small monastery of sectarians that had been established in the woods by a merchant called Sokolov. When they were caught they refused to serve in the army, saying that it was incompatible with their beliefs; they also refused to take the oath. The military authorities decided to punish them for this by making them run the gantlet and then sending them to a penal battalion.’
‘In 1830 an unknown man and woman were arrested by the local police in Poshehonsk region in the province of Yaroslav. On examination the man explained that he was called Egor Ivanov and that he did not know where he came from, and that for sixty-three years of his life he had had no father other than Christ the Savior. His wife made the same declaration.
‘During the priest’s admonition in the local court, the two added that other than the one Heavenly Sovereign there was no other, and that they did not acknowledge the Czar, nor any other established civil or spiritual authority. When he was interrogated in the court of law Egor Ivanov repeated that he was seventy years old, that he did not acknowledge civil and spiritual authorities and that he considered them transgressors of the commandments of the Christian religion. Egor Ivanov was banished to the Solovetski monastery to be put to work, but for some reason he was kept in jail, where he remained until his death in 1839. He died firm in his delusions.’
‘In 1835 an unknown person, calling himself simply Ivan, was arrested in the Province of Yaroslav. He declared that he did not recognize the saints, the Czar, or any authority. He was sent to Solovetski monastery to be employed as a workman in the summer months. In the same year he was sent to the army by Imperial order.’
‘In the year 1849 a peasant recruit from the region of Moscow, Ivan Shurupov, aged nineteen, refused to take the oath despite every sort of coercion. The motive behind his refusal was that, in the words of God, he must serve only God alone, and he therefore did not wish to serve the Czar, nor to take the oath of allegiance, for fear of being a perjurer. The authorities, reasoning that if Shurupov was tried and the case became known it would cause damage, decided to confine him in a monastery. The Emperor Nikolai Pavlovitch inscribed the following resolution on Shurupov’s report: “Remove the above-mentioned recruit, under guard, to the Solovetski monastery.”’
These are some of the reports that went into print concerning individual cases – about one thousandth of those Russians who realized the impossibility of reconciling the professing of Christianity and obedience to the political authorities. In the last century there were entire communities, with many thousands of members, who recognized the incompatibility of Christ’s teaching and the existing order, and a great many still exist today: the Molokans, Jehovists, Klisti, Skoptsi, Old Believers and many others, all of whom for the most part conceal their non-recognition of political authority, but regard it as the product of the source of evil: the devil. In the last century the Doukabars, numbering tens of thousands, were particularly noteworthy and powerful in their straightforward denial of political authority. Despite all the persecutions, several thousands stuck to the truth and emigrated to America. The number of people who have realized the incompatibility of Christianity and obedience to the government has continually increased; in our time, and especially since the government created the most blatant contradiction to Christ’s teaching by demanding compulsory military service for all, the conflict between people of Christian belief and the political structure appears ever more frequently.
Thus, in very recent times, more and more young people are refusing military service and prefer to endure all the cruel torments to which they are subjected, rather than betray God’s commandment, as they understand it.
I happen to know of dozens of people in Russia who have suffered severe persecution on account of their faith, and others who are even now in prison. Here are the names of some of those who have been persecuted: Zalubovsky, Lubitch, Mokev, Druzhin, Izumchenko, Olkovitch, Farafanov, Ganja, Akulov, Tchaga, Cherchouk, Burov, Goncharenko, Sakharov, Tregubov, Volkhov, Koschavoi. And in prison now: Ikonikov, Kurtish, Varnavsky, Orlov, Mokri, Molosai, Kudrin, Panshikov, Siksni, Debriabin, Kalachev, Bannov, Makrin.
I know of similar people in Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria. There are a very large number in Bulgaria. Moreover, in recent times, refusals made on the same grounds have begun to occur in the Muslim world: among the Babids in Persia, and among the so-called ‘Legion of God’ here in Russia, recently founded in the Kazan.
The ground for these refusals is always the same, the most natural, inevitable and incontrovertible. It is the recognition of the necessity of following the religious commandments, above and before the State laws, when the two conflict. The State law demanding military service, or in other words the readiness to kill at the command of others, cannot but be contrary to any of the religio-moral laws that are always based on love of one’s neighbor. This is the same in all religions, not just Christianity, but Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Brahmanism, Confucianism.
The very precise definition of the law of love, that does not permit any exclusions, revealed by Christ nineteen hundred years ago, is recognized today by morally sensitive people of all faiths, no longer as a result of following Christ, but through spontaneous awareness.
This is the only means of salvation.
It looks at first as if refusals to perform military duties are isolated instances relating only to military service, but this is not the case. These refusals are in fact not just occasional acts, evoked by particular circumstances; they are the result of genuine and sincere observance of religious teachings. And this kind of observance naturally destroys the entire structure of life based on principles that are incompatible and contradictory to it. It destroys the structure, because if those who understand that participation in violence cannot be reconciled with Christianity did not become soldiers, tax collectors, judges, jury, policemen, or officials of any kind, the violence from which people now suffer would clearly not exist.