The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-11-07
The Writings
of Tolstoy and
the Bolsheviks
By EN-. YAROSLAYSKY.
TRANSLATED from the "Pravda" by
Valentine V. Konin.)

Valentine V. honln.)
an oar day, all attempts to
idealize the teachings of Tolstoy,
to justify or to mollify his non
resistance his appeal to spirit
his call to moral perfection his
doctrines of conscience and
'brotherly love, his sermons OF
Gscetism and quietisnt, ETC., witI re-
suit IN immediate and the most
profound HARM"
". /. Lenin in "Tolstoy and
his Epoch"
IN the occasion of the eightieth
v anniversary of Tolstoy's birth,
Lenin was forced to reveal the
hypocrisy of the liberal press. "All
the defamation and the flowery
phrases about the great God search
er represent no more than false
hood" he wrote in his article, Toll
stoy as a Revolutionary Mirror. "a
Russian liberal does not believe in
Tolstoy's God, nor does he sympa-
thize with Tolstoy's criticism of the
existing regime. He attaches him
self to the popular name simply to
multiply his little capital and to
play the role of leader in the ma
tional opposition. By means of
laundering, ripping phrases he tries
to drown out the inevitability of a
straight and clear answer to the
problem: What causes the roaring
contradictions of Tolstoyana; what
faults and weaknesses of our revo-
luton does it express?"
Within the twenty years follow
ing the appearance of this article,
the world has witnessed the great
imperialist war. The storm of the
revolution has resounded in almost
all parts of the world. In the coun-
try of the great writer and thinker
Tolstoy, this storm has swept away
completely the class of the land
owners nobility-the class from
which Tolstoy came. This storm
has overturned and cleaned out
without a vestige the relics of
feudalism, the social roots of which
had fed the creative power of Toll
stoy for many decades. This storm
has brought the proletarian class
into power, whose social nature and
political role had remained incom-
prehensible to Tolstoy until the end
of his days. The strong union Of
the peasant and the proletarian
classes, which is now beginning to
be realized, had always been to him
an incredible thing. :
D. Makowitsky has preserved the
notes of an interesting dialogue
that took place in Tolstoy's family
prior to the Revolution of 1905.
Tolstoy's son Ilya, on the occasion
of the surrender of Port, Arthur,
passed a rumor that a/revolution
was expected.
"The revolution will come" said
Ilya.
ut is already here" replied Toll
stoy.
People are expecting the peasant
revolt in the spring" said Ilya.
"The peasants will take the land
away and will massacre all the land
owners"
Tolstoy: That won't happen.
Ilya; Yes, it will. The peasants
from Yasnaya won't do it out of re-.
spect for you, but the others will.
Tolstoy: No. The peasants will
not do it. You can incite the hyp-
Noticed factory~workers but not the
peasants.
1lya: The socialists are aiming at
the land; they promise to divide
lit.
Tolstoy: This can be done by the
government, not by the revolution.
This is how on the verge of the
revolution, Tolstoy conceived the
situation. The revolution had be-
gun, but the peasants wouldn't take
the land away. Perhaps the "hyp-
Noticed factory workers" only, were
able to act like that.
ITO Be Continued)