 | The Awakening — Book 2, Chapter 7By Leo Tolstoy (1899) |
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| The Awakening — Book 2, Chapter 7By Leo Tolstoy (1899) |
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Father of Christian Anarchism
: In 1861, during the second of his European tours, Tolstoy met with Proudhon, with whom he exchanged ideas. Inspired by the encounter, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana to found thirteen schools that were the first attempt to implement a practical model of libertarian education. (From: Anarchy Archives.)
• "People who take part in Government, or work under its direction, may deceive themselves or their sympathizers by making a show of struggling; but those against whom they struggle (the Government) know quite well, by the strength of the resistance experienced, that these people are not really pulling, but are only pretending to." (From: "A Letter to Russian Liberals," by Leo Tolstoy, Au....)
• "You are surprised that soldiers are taught that it is right to kill people in certain cases and in war, while in the books admitted to be holy by those who so teach, there is nothing like such a permission..." (From: "Letter to a Non-Commissioned Officer," by Leo Tol....)
• "The Government and all those of the upper classes near the Government who live by other people's work, need some means of dominating the workers, and find this means in the control of the army. Defense against foreign enemies is only an excuse. The German Government frightens its subjects about the Russians and the French; the French Government, frightens its people about the Germans; the Russian Government frightens its people about the French and the Germans; and that is the way with all Governments. But neither Germans nor Russians nor Frenchmen desire to fight their neighbors or other people; but, living in peace, they dread war more than anything else in the world." (From: "Letter to a Non-Commissioned Officer," by Leo Tol....)
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Book 2, Chapter 7
It was late and the distance to the prison was long, so Nekhludoff hired a trap. On one of the streets the driver, who was a middle-aged man with an intelligent and good-natured face, turned to Nekhludoff and pointed to an immense building going up.
"What a huge building there is going up!" he said with pride, as if he had a part in the building of it.
It was really a huge structure, built in a complex, unusual style. A scaffolding of heavy pine logs surrounded the structure, which was fenced in by deal boards. It was as busy a scene as an ant hill.
Nekhludoff wondered that these people, while their wives were killing themselves with work at home, and their children starving, should think it necessary to build that foolish and unnecessary house for some foolish and unnecessary man.
"Yes, a foolish building," he spoke his thought aloud.
"How foolish?" retorted the offended driver. "Thanks to them, the people get work. It is not foolish."
"But the work is unnecessary."
"It must be necessary if they are building it," said the driver. "It gives the people food."
Nekhludoff became silent, the more so because it was too noisy to be heard. When they had reached the macadamized road near the prison the driver again turned to Nekhludoff.
"And what a lot of people are coming to the city—awful," he said, turning around on the box and pointing to a party of laborers with saws, axes, coats and sacks thrown over their shoulders, and coming from the opposite direction.
"More than in former years?" asked Nekhludoff.
"No comparison. The masters are kicking them about like shavings. The market places are glutted with them."
"What is the reason?"
"They have multiplied. They have no homes."
"And what if they have multiplied! Why do they not remain in the villages?"
"There is nothing to do there. There is no land."
Nekhludoff experienced that which happens with a sore place—it is struck oftener than any other part of the body. But it only seems so because it is more noticeable.
"Can it be possible that it is everywhere the same?" he thought, and asked the driver how much land there was in his village; how much he himself owned, and why he lived in the city.
"There is but an acre to every person. We are renting three acres. There is my father and brother. Another brother is in the army. They are managing it. But there is really nothing to manage, and my brother intended to go to Moskow."
"Is there no land for rent?"
"Where could one get land nowadays? The masters' children have squandered theirs. The merchants have it all in their hands. One cannot rent it from them; they cultivate it themselves. Our lands are held by a Frenchman who bought them of the former landlord. He won't rent any of it, and that is all."
"What Frenchman?"
"Dufar, the Frenchman—you may have heard. He is making wigs for the actors. He is now our master, and does what he pleases with us. He is a good man himself, but his wife is Russian—and what a cur! She is robbing the people—simply awful! But here is the prison. Shall I drive up to the front? I think they don't admit through the front."
(Source: The Awakening by graf Leo Tolstoy, Translated by Smith, William E., AKA: The Resurrection. Text from Gutenberg.org.)
From : Gutenberg.org
Father of Christian Anarchism
: In 1861, during the second of his European tours, Tolstoy met with Proudhon, with whom he exchanged ideas. Inspired by the encounter, Tolstoy returned to Yasnaya Polyana to found thirteen schools that were the first attempt to implement a practical model of libertarian education. (From: Anarchy Archives.)
• "It is necessary that men should understand things as they are, should call them by their right names, and should know that an army is an instrument for killing, and that the enrollment and management of an army -- the very things which Kings, Emperors, and Presidents occupy themselves with so self-confidently -- is a preparation for murder." (From: "'Thou Shalt Not Kill'," by Leo Tolstoy, August 8,....)
• "...the dissemination of the truth in a society based on coercion was always hindered in one and the same manner, namely, those in power, feeling that the recognition of this truth would undermine their position, consciously or sometimes unconsciously perverted it by explanations and additions quite foreign to it, and also opposed it by open violence." (From: "A Letter to a Hindu: The Subjection of India- Its....)
• "Only by recognizing the land as just such an article of common possession as the sun and air will you be able, without bias and justly, to establish the ownership of land among all men, according to any of the existing projects or according to some new project composed or chosen by you in common." (From: "To the Working People," by Leo Tolstoy, Yasnaya P....)
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Book 2, Chapter 7
