The Kingdom of God is Within You; What is Art?. Лев Толстой

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СКАЧАТЬ but if it will not let them dwell in peace, they flee to another city or place; and so they are true pilgrims and strangers on earth, having no certain abiding place. … They are well contented that the dead may bury their dead, if they are only permitted to follow Christ."

      Without deciding upon the merits of this definition of a Christian's duty in regard to war, which we find set down in these two works, we cannot fail to see the urgent need for a decision in regard to the question itself.

      There are men—hundreds of thousands of Quakers, Mennonites, our own Duhobortzi, Molokani, men who belong to no sect whatsoever—who believe that violence and therefore military service is incompatible with Christianity; every year, for instance, we see in Russia a number of men refusing to obey the conscription because of their religious opinions. And how does the government deal with them? Does it release them? Oh, no! … Does it use force, and in case of disobedience punish them? Not exactly. … In 1818, government managed the affair in this wise.

      The following is an extract, hardly known to any one in Russia, from a letter of Muraviev-Karsky, which was prohibited by the Russian censor:—

      "Tiflis, October 2d, 1818.

      "This morning the commander of the fortress told me that five peasants belonging to the landowners of the government of Tambov had been recently sent into the province of Grusia. These men were intended to serve as soldiers, but they refused to obey. They were flogged several times and made to run the gantlet, but they were ready to give themselves up to the most cruel tortures, yea, even to death itself, to escape military service. 'Let us go our way and harm us not; we do no harm ourselves. All men are equal. The sovereign is a man like one of us, why should we pay him taxes, and wherefore should we risk our lives to kill in battle those who have never done us any harm? Draw and quarter us, if you will, and we shall never change our minds; we will never wear the uniform, nor mess at the soldier's table. Some pitying soul may give us alms but from the government we neither have had nor will have anything whatsoever.' Such are the words of these peasants, who assure us that there are many men in Russia like themselves. Four times they were brought before the Committee of Ministers, and it was finally decided that a report be made to the Czar, who ordered them to be sent to Grusia for discipline, and desired the Commander-in-Chief to forward a monthly report of the progress made in bringing these peasants to a proper frame of mind."

      The final result of this discipline is not known, for the matter was kept a profound secret, and the episode may never have been made public.

      This was the conduct of the government seventy-five years ago in the greater number of cases, always carefully hiding the truth from the people; and it pursues the same policy at the present day, except in regard to the German Mennonites, who live in the government of Kherson, and who in lieu of military duty serve a corresponding term as foresters—the justice of their refusal to obey the conscription being recognized.

      But they are the sole exception; all others who, from religious scruples, refuse to perform military duty are treated in the manner just described.

      At first the government employs all the methods of coercion now in use to discipline and convert the rebels, while at the same time the most profound secrecy envelops all these proceedings. I know of a process which was begun in 1884 against a man who had declined to serve—a long-drawn-out trial which was guarded by the Ministry as a great secret.

      The first step is usually to send the accused to the priests, and, be it said to their shame, they always try to win over the insubordinate. But as the influence exercised in the name of Christ is generally unsuccessful, the delinquent is sent from the clergy to the gendarmes, who, finding in him no political offense, send him back; whereupon he is despatched to the scientists, the doctors, and thence into the insane hospital. While he is thus sent to and fro, the delinquent, deprived of his liberty like a condemned convict, is made to endure every kind of indignity and suffering. Four such cases have come to my knowledge. The doctors generally release the man from the insane hospital, and then every underhanded and crafty device is employed to delay the accused, because his release might encourage others to follow his example. He is not allowed to remain among the soldiers lest they discover from him that conscription is not, as they are taught to believe, in accordance with the law of God, but opposed to it. The most satisfactory arrangement for a government would be either to execute the delinquent, or beat him with rods until he died, as was done in former times. But it is awkward to condemn a man to public execution because he is true to the doctrine which we all profess to believe. Nor is it possible to take no notice of a man when he refuses to obey. So the government either tortures the man in order to compel him to deny Christ, or tries to rid itself of him by some means which will hide both the man and the crime from the eyes of the world, rather than resort to public execution. All sorts of cunning manœuvers and tricks are employed to torment the man. He is either banished to some remote province, or exasperated to disobedience and then imprisoned, or sent to the reform battalion, where he may be subjected to torture without publicity or restriction; or he is pronounced insane and locked up in the insane asylum. For instance, one was exiled to Tashkent; that is to say, a pretense was made of transferring him thither. Another was sent to Omsk, a third was court-martialed for disobedience and imprisoned, and a fourth was put into a house for the insane. The same thing is repeated on every side. Not only the government, but the majority of liberal free-thinkers, as though by preconcerted agreement, carefully avoid alluding to what has been said, written, or done in this matter of denouncing the inconsistency of violence, as embodied in its most shocking, crude, and striking form, in the person of a soldier—this readiness to commit murder—not only with the precepts of Christianity, but with the dictates of mere humanity, which the world professes to obey.

      Hence all the information that I have gathered concerning what has been accomplished, and what is still going on in this work of explaining the doctrine of Christ and the light in which it is regarded by the ruling powers of Europe and America, has confirmed me in the conviction that a spirit inimical to true Christianity dwells in these authorities, exhibited chiefly by the conspiracy of silence with which they enshroud any manifestation of it.

      NOTE

      "The publication of this book ('The Net of Faith') was ended [completed] by the Academy in the last months of the present year (1893)."—Note received by the Publisher from Count Tolstoï while this work was going to press.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

OPINIONS OF BELIEVERS AND UNBELIEVERS IN REGARD TO NON-RESISTANCE

       Table of Contents

      The fate of the book, "My Religion"—The evasive answers of religious critics to the questions propounded in that book—1st answer, Violence does not contradict Christianity—2d answer, Necessity of violence for the purpose of repressing evil-doers—3d answer, Necessity of violence for the defense of one's neighbor—4th answer, The violation of the commandment of Non-resistance regarded as a weakness—5th answer, Evasion of the answer by a pretense that this matter has long since been decided—The cloak of church authority, antiquity, the holiness of religious men, explain for many the contradictions between violence and Christianity, in theory as well as in life—Usual attitude of the clergy and authorities in regard to the profession of true Christianity—General character of Russian secular writers—Foreign secular critics—Incorrectness of the opinions of the former and the latter caused by a failure to understand the true meaning of the doctrine of Christ.

      All the criticisms of the statements contained in my own book have given me a similar impression СКАЧАТЬ