# The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoï/Volume 11/Introduction

INTRODUCTION
Controversial articles, essays on timely topics,—arbitration, liquor drinking, vegetarianism, non-resistance, disarmament,—prefaces, private and public letters, magnanimous defense of the persecuted Dukhobors or spirit wrestlers, and reports on the famine-stricken districts of Russia make up the bulk of the present volume, which will be found to contain some of the author’s most vigorous and most characteristic utterances.
The famine articles, relating the measures instituted to assist the depressed and demoralized peasantry, and picturing the terrible conditions under which no small part of the population of Russia is degenerating, are intensely interesting. There are details which are like extracts from a novelist’s note-book. Count Tolstoï lays his finger on the deep, underlying causes of the famine: it is not crop failures; it is not a material, but a moral, famine. The differences between these papers published in the Russian edition and those that have found their way into print in Switzerland or elsewhere throw a curious light on the operations of the censorship. It is evident that the government fears the light of truth, and resents any criticism on its methods of dealing with its internal affairs. Yet no unprejudiced person can fail to accept Count Tolstoï’s theory that the paternalism which makes a child of the peasant, subjecting him to the whims of all sorts of ​functionaries, destroying his self-respect by flogging and his dignity by a State religion which does not appeal to his conscience, is bringing ruin upon Russia. The peasantry is the very bone and sinew of a country, and when agriculture fails, the country is doomed. Count Tolstoï advocates greater freedom of education, of religion, of movement, and he predicts that prosperity would soon return, and the chronic state of famine now obtaining and growing worse year after year would correct itself, if the terrible exactions of government would cease.
He returns again and again to his plea for Christians to unite on the five simple commands of Christ and put them into practice. The “Three Parables” and the “Letter to N. N.” contain a rather unusual and pathetic personal note which cannot help touching the heart, bringing out so evidently the man’s generous sincerity and simplicity.
His application of the rule of non-resistance to the tremendous international questions which are keeping Europe, and, indeed, the whole world, in the condition of a vast mine of dynamite, ready at any instant to explode with unimaginable consequences, is perhaps his most important contribution to the practical solution of the difficulty which confronts humanity at the present time. Occasionally a single man, or even a whole body of men, like the Dukhobors, who have been transported en masse to the Canadian wilderness, refuse to bear arms from conscientious motives. Count Tolstoï sees that the simplest and easiest method of disposing of the question of excessive armament of the nations is for all men to follow their example. War would then cease from sheer inertia. If every man in Russia refused to ​enter the army, the army would cease, and the millions of armed men which are now devouring like caterpillars would return to their peaceful vocations and bring prosperity to the tormented land.
His plea against the use of intoxicants is as chivalrous and convincing as anything that he has ever written. Possibly the believer in a moderate use of light wines will charge him with fanatic extravagance, but no one can doubt his zeal or his genuineness of conviction.
Taking the volume as a whole, though not free from a certain necessary fragmentariness, its consistency and its vitality—its inherent power to interest—will be found no less marked than previous volumes, though they be more coherent. It represents the present activity of the count, who, having passed his seventy-first birthday, still takes an intelligent and lively interest in whatever affects the welfare of humanity; like a prophet he sends forth his clarion voice against the oppressions of power and the dangerous teaching of a pseudo-Christianity. In this respect the volume excels in interest all the others, just as a man’s personality must be superior to what he produces. It is a sort of epitome of the life of a man who towers head and shoulders above the great men of his own country, and either now does, or is destined to, wield a greater influence than any other man of the century.
The translations in the present volume are due to several hands, but a large number of them have been made by Mr. Aylmer Maude of England, who is a personal friend of Count Tolstoï, and in immediate touch with his industrial, religious, and social activities. Many of the articles thus furnished have been from sources otherwise unattainable.