Material for preparing an integrated lesson and elective “history + literature”
on the topic “Attitude Russian society to Stolypin's reforms. Civil motives in the works of Leo Tolstoy.” 9th, 11th grades
Leo Tolstoy's views on the agrarian modernization of Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century.
A huge number of very diverse works are devoted to the life and work of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy - both in our country and abroad. These works reflected many important questions concerning the unique artistic gift of the great writer and thinker of Russia, whose ideas still attract close attention creative, seeking, “passionate” people, awaken the human conscience...
Great ascetic work on studying Tolstoy’s heritage and introducing our contemporaries to it is carried out by employees of the State Memorial and Natural Reserve “Museum-Estate of Leo Tolstoy “Yasnaya Polyana””
(director - V.I. Tolstoy), the State Museum of Leo Tolstoy (Moscow), a number of institutes Russian Academy sciences (primarily the Gorky Institute of World Literature RAS).
On September 2, 1996, at the Tula State Pedagogical University, named after the outstanding writer and philosopher, the Department of Spiritual Heritage of Leo Tolstoy was created, which has been the organizer of the International Tolstoy Readings since 1997. A number of educational institutions in the country are working on the “Leo Tolstoy School” experiment.
At the same time, many questions concerning the ideological heritage of Leo Tolstoy and his influence on society still remain insufficiently studied, and sometimes cause heated discussions. Let us consider only one, but very important problem, namely: the views of Leo Tolstoy at the beginning of the twentieth century. to transform the Russian village, taking into account its real economic and sociocultural problems in the context of the dramatic process of domestic modernization: it was during these years that the Stolypin agrarian reforms were carried out.
The writer was acutely aware of the colossal gap between the lives of the bulk of the peasantry and the majority of noble landowners, which caused his angry and decisive protest. It is noteworthy that back in 1865 he noted in his notebook: “The Russian revolution will not be against the tsar and despotism, but against land ownership.” On June 8, 1909, L.N. Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “I felt especially keenly the insane immorality of the luxury of the powerful and rich and the poverty and oppression of the poor. I almost physically suffer from the consciousness of participating in this madness and evil.” In his book “Pacification of Peasant Unrest” (M., 1906), he strongly protested against the torture of starving peasants with rods. "Sinfulness lives of the rich”, based primarily on the unfair solution of the land issue, was considered by the great Russian writer as the key moral tragedy of those years.
At the same time, the methods he proposed for solving the problem, actively promoted in the press (for example, in the article “How can the working people free themselves?”, 1906), objectively did not at all contribute to the evolutionary solution of the most pressing economic and sociocultural problems of Russian agriculture, since they denied the possibility of joint creative work representatives of all classes. Meanwhile, only by combining efforts is the civilizational renewal of any nation possible, and, consequently, the modernization of its economic and sociocultural life. The historical experience of Stolypin’s agrarian reforms clearly proved this: despite all the difficulties, Russia at that time achieved noticeable socio-economic success, and, above all, thanks to the dedicated teamwork of employees of zemstvos, ministries, as well as members of economic, agricultural and educational societies - t .e. all persons interested in the revival of the country.
What are the reasons for this approach of L.N. Tolstoy to modernization? First of all, we note that he quite consciously denied most of the material and technical achievements European culture beginning of the twentieth century, consistently taking an “anti-civilization” position, idealizing patriarchal moral values and forms of labor (including agricultural labor) and not taking into account the significance of the modernization processes rapidly taking place in Russia. Sharply criticizing Stolypin's agrarian reform, he did not understand that, despite all the costs, it was an attempt to eliminate archaic communal traditions that hampered agrarian progress. Defending the inert communal foundations, Tolstoy wrote: “This is the height of frivolity and arrogance with which they allow themselves to twist people’s statutes established over centuries... After all, this alone is worth something, that all matters are decided by the world - not just me, but the world - and what a matter! The most important ones for them.”
Unlike L.N. Tolstoy, who idealized the peasant community, his son Lev Lvovich Tolstoy, on the contrary, sharply criticized communal traditions. In 1900, in his book “Against the Community,” he noted that “the personality of the Russian peasant is now up against a wall, like a wall, in the communal order and is looking for and waiting for a way out of it.” In the article “The Inevitable Path” published there, L.L. Tolstoy, convincingly proving the need for change, wrote: “The serf community is the greatest evil of modern Russian life; community is the first cause of our routine, our slow movement, our poverty and darkness; It was not she who made us what we are, but we became so, despite the existence of the community... and only thanks to the endlessly tenacious Russian man.” Speaking about attempts to improve peasant farming with the help of multiple fields and grass sowing (which was pointed out by numerous defenders of the community), L.L. Tolstoy rightly noted that these efforts cannot “eliminate the main negative aspects of communal ownership, the interstriation of fields ...”, and at the same time time cannot “instill in the peasant the spirit of citizenship and personal freedom he lacks, and eliminate the harmful influence of the world...” What was needed was not “palliative measures” (compromises), but cardinal reforms of agrarian life.
As for L.N. Tolstoy, he probably intuitively realized the fallacy of his many years of adherence to the archaic - now no longer noble, but peasant. “Tolstoy’s departure from Yasnaya Polyana,” noted in the 7th volume History of world literature(1991) - was one way or another an act of protest against the lordly life in which he took part against his own will, and at the same time - an act of doubt in those utopian concepts that he developed and developed over a number of years.”
It is noteworthy that even in raising his own children according to the method of “simplification” (education “in a simple, working life”), which he actively promoted in the press, Leo Tolstoy failed to achieve success. “The kids felt the disagreement of their parents and unwittingly took from everyone what they liked best,” recalled his youngest daughter Alexandra Tolstaya. - The fact that my father considered education necessary for every person... we ignored it, catching only that he was against learning. ... a lot of money was spent on teachers and educational institutions, but no one wanted to study” ( Tolstaya A. Youngest daughter // New world. 1988. No. 11. P. 192).
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Among the family. 1897 |
The general approaches of the writer and philosopher to artistic creativity(including the creation of literary texts). In a letter to P.A. Boborykin in 1865, he defined his position as follows: “The goals of the artist are incommensurable... with social goals. The artist’s goal is not to undeniably resolve the issue, but to make one love life in its countless, never-exhaustible manifestations.”
However, towards the end of his life his approaches changed dramatically. This is clearly evidenced by one of his last notes on art: “As soon as art ceases to be the art of the entire people and becomes the art of a small class of rich people, it ceases to be a necessary and important matter and becomes empty fun.” Thus, universal humanism was replaced, in fact, by a class approach, albeit in a specific “anarchist-Christian” ideological form with characteristic Tolstoy moralizing, which had a detrimental effect on the artistic quality of his creations. “As long as Count L.N. Tolstoy does not think, he is an artist; and when he begins to think, the reader begins to languish from non-artistic resonance,” philosopher I.A. Ilyin, one of the most deeply understanding of the spiritual traditions of Russia, later rightly noted.
Let us note that such a criterion as democracy was completely unreasonably put forward by L.N. Tolstoy as the central criterion of any creative activity. The origins of this trend were laid by V.G. Belinsky, to which the authoritative connoisseur of Russian art, Prince S. Shcherbatov, drew attention: “Ever since the time of Belinsky, who said that “art is a reproduction of reality and nothing more...”, a drying wind blew and a certain epidemic began, carrying a destructive infection,” he noted in his book “The Artist in Bygone Russia,” published in Paris in 1955. “Nekrasov’s tears and populism ruined the holiday of the 18th century; both inflamed hostility towards the aesthetics of life. Aesthetics was seen as the most important obstacle to ethics and public service to the social idea. An idea that also infected our noble class, who lived festively and beautifully in the previous century. Hence all the everydayness and hopeless scum, along with a certain fanaticism and rigorism - scum that envelops, like fog, an entire era mired in ugliness and bad taste.”
The concept of sin as a key element of human nature was placed at the center of both ethics and the entire system of philosophical views of L.N. Tolstoy. Meanwhile, as European history shows, such an approach (in general not characteristic of the Orthodox tradition) also carried negative consequences: for example, it was the excessive immersion in the feeling of one’s own guilt that turned out for Western European civilization not only in mass psychoses, neuroses and suicides, but also in fundamental cultural shifts, the result of which was the total de-Christianization of the entire Western European culture (for more details, see Delumeau J. Sin and fear. The formation of a sense of guilt in Western civilization (XIII-XVIII centuries)./Trans. from French Ekaterinburg, 2003).
L.N. Tolstoy’s attitude towards such a key thing for Russians - in everything historical eras- a concept like patriotism. On the one hand, according to the testimony of the Hungarian G. Shereni, who visited him in Yasnaya Polyana in 1905, he condemned patriotism, believing that it “serves only the rich and powerful self-lovers who, relying on armed force, oppress the poor.” According to the great writer, “The Fatherland and the state are something that belongs to the past dark ages; the new century should bring unity to humanity.” But, on the other hand, when addressing topical foreign policy problems, Leo Tolstoy, as a rule, took a pronounced patriotic position. This, in particular, is evidenced by his statement in a conversation with the same G. Shereni: “The German people will no longer be in sight, but the Slavs will live and, thanks to their mind and spirit, will be recognized by the whole world...”
An interesting assessment of the creative heritage of Leo Tolstoy was given by Max Weber, whose scientific authority for modern humanities scholars is beyond doubt. In his work “Science as a Vocation and Profession” (based on a report read in 1918), he noted that the thoughts of the great writer “were increasingly focused around the question of whether death has any meaning or not. Leo Tolstoy's answer is: for cultured person- No. And precisely because no, that the life of an individual, civilized life, included in endless progress, according to its own internal meaning, cannot have an end or completion. For those who are included in the movement of progress always find themselves faced with further progress. A dying person will not reach the peak - this peak goes to infinity. ...On the contrary, a person of culture, included in a civilization that is constantly enriched with ideas, knowledge, problems, may get tired of life, but cannot be fed up with it. For he captures only an insignificant part of what spiritual life gives birth to again and again, moreover, it is always something preliminary, incomplete, and therefore for him death is an event devoid of meaning. And since death is meaningless, then cultural life as such is meaningless - after all, it is precisely this life that, with its meaningless progress, condemns death itself to meaninglessness. IN later novels For Tolstoy, this thought constitutes the main mood of his work.”
But what did such an approach give in practice? In fact, it meant a complete denial of modern science, which in this case turned out to be “meaningless, because it does not give any answer to the only important questions for us: What should we do?, How should we live? And the fact that it does not answer these questions is completely undeniable. “The only problem,” emphasized M. Weber, “is in what sense it does not give any answer. Maybe instead she can give something to someone who asks the right question?
In addition, it is necessary to take into account both the narrow circle of people who finally believed in Tolstoy’s social ideas, and the fact that most interpretations of Tolstoyism turned out to be incompatible with the modernization of the twentieth century, which actually determined the content and nature of civilizational development. “The rulers of the thoughts” of the intelligentsia were teachers and teachings that went far from the old religiosity, one of the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries, V.M. Chernov, later noted in his memoirs. - Leo Tolstoy alone created something of his own, but his God was so abstract, his faith was so emptied of any concrete theological and cosmogonic mythology that it provided absolutely no food for religious fantasy.
Without exciting and striking images, this purely cerebral construction could still be a refuge for the intelligentsia who had developed a taste for metaphysics, but for the more concrete mind of the common people, the specific religious side of Tolstoyism was too innocent and empty, and it was perceived either as a purely moral teaching, or was a stage towards complete disbelief.”
“Tolstoy’s theological creativity did not create any lasting movement in the world...,” emphasizes, in turn, Archbishop of San Francisco John (Shakhovskoy). - Tolstoy has absolutely no positive, integral, creative followers and students in this area. The Russian people did not respond to Tolstoyism either as a social phenomenon or as a religious fact.”
However, these conclusions are not shared by all researchers. “Tolstoyism was quite powerful and large-scale social movement, - notes the modern philosopher A.Yu. Ashirin, - it united around itself people of the most diverse social strata and nationalities and geographically extended from Siberia, the Caucasus to Ukraine.” In his opinion, “Tolstoy’s agricultural communes were unique institutions social ethics, who for the first time carried out a social experiment in introducing humanistic principles and moral norms into the organization, management and structure of the economy.”
At the same time, the generally accepted approach in Soviet historiography of the twentieth century does not seem entirely legitimate. a sharply negative assessment of the campaign of condemnation launched against Leo Tolstoy at the beginning of the same century - a campaign that to this day is identified exclusively with the “anti-autocratic” and “anti-clerical” views of the great writer. Representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, who most keenly felt the tragedy of the time, understood that the path proposed by the great master of words was the path of imitation of peasant life; a path to the past, but not at all to the future, because without modernization (bourgeois at its core), it is impossible to update almost all aspects of social life. “Leo Tolstoy was a gentleman, a count, “imitating” himself as a peasant (the worst, fake Repin portrait of Tolstoy: barefoot, behind a plow, the wind blowing his beard). Noble tenderness for a peasant, the sorrow of repentance,” noted writer I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov.
It is characteristic that even on his Yasnaya Polyana estate L.N. Tolstoy was never able to resolve the “land issue,” and the daughter of the writer T.L. Tolstoy, who, on his advice, surrendered all the arable and mowing land in the village. Ovsyannikovo “at the complete disposal and use of two peasant societies,” later noted that as a result, the peasants not only stopped paying rent, but began to speculate in land, “receiving it for free and renting it out to their neighbors for a fee.”
Thus, Tolstoy’s naive “democracy”, faced with the realities of village life (the thirst for enrichment at the expense of others), was forced to give in. This was a logical result: the writer did not know deeply peasant life. Contemporaries more than once noted the conspicuous poverty and unsanitary conditions in the huts of the Yasnaya Polyana peasants, which came into sharp contradiction with Tolstoy’s humanistic calls for improving people’s lives. Let us note that landowners-rationalizers often did much more to improve the economic life of “their” peasants. At the same time, the peasants of Yasnaya Polyana generally treated well the landowner who helped them more than once, as evidenced by their published memoirs.
It is also significant that Tolstoy failed to create a single convincing image of the Russian peasant in his works (Platon Karataev is the artistic embodiment of purely intellectual ideas “about the peasant”, far from the harsh reality of the Russian village; it is no coincidence that M. Gorky often used this image as the personification of illusory ideas about the obedience of the Russian people). It is characteristic that even Soviet literary critics, who tried in every possible way to “modernize” the writer’s work, were forced to join such conclusions.
Thus, T.L. Motyleva noted: “Karataev seems to concentrate the properties developed in the Russian patriarchal peasant over centuries of serfdom - endurance, meekness, passive submission to fate, love for all people - and for no one in particular. However, an army consisting of such Platos could not defeat Napoleon. The image of Karataev is to a certain extent conventional, partly woven from the motifs of epics and proverbs.”
As L.N. Tolstoy believed, who idealized the “labor natural existence” of the peasantry in the Rousseauist spirit, the land issue in Russia could be solved by implementing the ideas of the American reformer G. George. Meanwhile, the utopian nature of these ideas (similar to the main postulates of modern anti-globalists) has been repeatedly drawn to the attention of scientists both at the beginning of the 20th century and today. It is noteworthy that these concepts received official support only from the radical wing of the Liberal Party in Great Britain.
As is known, L.N. Tolstoy himself did not support radical methods of solving agrarian problems. This circumstance has been repeatedly pointed out not only by literary experts, but also by domestic writers. Thus, V.P. Kataev in the article “About Leo Tolstoy” noted: “In all his statements, he completely denied the revolution. He appealed to the workers to abandon the revolution. He considered revolution an immoral matter. However, not a single Russian, or even foreign, writer destroyed with his works with such amazing force all the institutions of Russian tsarism, which he hated... like Leo Tolstoy...”
According to the testimony of his daughter A.L. Tolstoy, back in 1905 he predicted the complete failure of the revolution. “Revolutionaries,” said Tolstoy, will be much worse than the tsarist government. The tsarist government holds power by force, the revolutionaries will seize it by force, but they will rob and rape much more than the old government. Tolstoy's prediction came true. The violence and cruelty of people who call themselves Marxists have surpassed all the atrocities committed so far by humanity at all times, throughout the world.”
Obviously, L.N. Tolstoy could not approve not only of the unjustifiably exalted at the beginning of the twentieth century. methods of violence, but also the denial of religious spiritual principles, characteristic of revolutionaries, organically inherent in the Russian person. “God,” wrote V.I. Lenin in one of his letters to A.M. Gorky, “is (historically and in everyday life) first of all a complex of ideas generated by the dull oppression of man and external nature and class oppression - ideas that consolidate this oppression lulling the class struggle." Such ideological attitudes were deeply alien to L.N. Tolstoy. The followers of the religious and philosophical teachings of Leo Tolstoy also resolutely opposed social democratic propaganda, for which they were subsequently persecuted by the Soviet authorities (officially “Tolstoyism” was banned in 1938).
However, the writer’s views, reflecting his painful spiritual evolution, were extremely contradictory. Just two years later, in his book “On the Significance of the Russian Revolution” (St. Petersburg, 1907), he noted that “it is no longer possible for the Russian people to continue to obey their government,” because this meant “continuing to bear not only ever-increasing... disasters... landlessness, hunger , heavy taxes... but, most importantly, to still take part in those atrocities that this government is now committing to protect itself and, obviously, in vain.” The reason for the change in position was the harsh measures taken by the government to suppress the revolution.
“Leo Tolstoy combined in himself two characteristic Russian traits: he has a genius, a naive, intuitive Russian essence - and a conscious, doctrinaire, anti-European Russian essence, and both are represented in him to the highest degree,” noted the outstanding writer of the 20th century. Hermann Hesse. - We love and honor the Russian soul in him, and we criticize, even hate, the newly-minted Russian doctrinaireism, excessive one-sidedness, wild fanaticism, superstitious passion for the dogmas of the Russian man, who has lost his roots and become conscious. Each of us had the opportunity to experience pure, deep awe of Tolstoy’s creations, reverence for his genius, but each of us, with amazement and confusion, and even hostility, also held in his hands Tolstoy’s dogmatic programmatic works” (quoted from: Hesse G. About Tolstoy // www.hesse.ru). It is interesting that V.P. Kataev expressed largely similar assessments: “His ingenious inconsistency is striking. ...His strength was in constant denial. And this constant negation most often led him to the dialectical form of negation of negation, as a result of which he came into contradiction with himself and became, as it were, an anti-Tolstyan.
The people who most subtly felt the depth of the patristic traditions understood that the “ideological tossing” of L.N. Tolstoy and the doctrines he developed were far from the national Orthodox principles of life. As noted in 1907 by the elder of the Optina Hermitage, Fr. Clement, “his heart (Tolstoy. - Auto.) is looking for faith, but there is confusion in his thoughts; he relies too much on his own mind...” The elder “foresaw many troubles” from the impact of Tolstoy’s ideas on “Russian minds.” In his opinion, “Tolstoy wants to teach the people, although he himself suffers from spiritual blindness.” The origins of this phenomenon lay hidden both in the noble upbringing that the writer received in childhood and youth, and in the influence on him of the ideas of the French encyclopedist philosophers of the 18th century.
L.N. Tolstoy clearly idealized the peasant community, believing that “in agricultural life, people least of all need the government, or, rather, agricultural life, less than any other, gives the government reasons to interfere in the life of the people.” The ahistorical nature of this approach is beyond doubt: it is precisely the lack of real state support the cause of agrarian undertakings for many decades was one of the main factors in the backwardness of the Russian village. At the same time, considering the Russian people to live “the most natural, most moral and independent agricultural life,” L.N. Tolstoy, speaking from an anarchist position, naively believed that “as soon as the Russian agricultural people stop obeying the violent government and stop participating in it , and taxes would immediately be destroyed by themselves... and all the oppression of officials, and land ownership... ...All these disasters would be destroyed, because there would be no one to cause them.”
According to L.N. Tolstoy, this would make it possible to change the very course of the historical development of Russia: “... in this way, stopping the procession along the wrong path (i.e., replacing agricultural labor with industrial labor. - Auto.) and indicating the possibility and necessity…. a different... path than the one followed by the Western peoples, this is the main and great significance of the revolution now taking place in Russia.” While respecting the humanistic pathos of such ideas, one cannot help but recognize their author’s obvious lack of understanding of the objectively inevitable processes associated with the development of bourgeois modernization at the beginning of the twentieth century.
L.L. Tolstoy, speaking as an ideological opponent of his father, emphasized: “I wanted to say that the Russian peasant community, in the form in which it is now, has outlived its time and purpose. That this form is archaic and slows down the Russian peasant culture. That it is more convenient for a peasant to cultivate the land when it is in one piece around his yard... That the gradual shrinking of plots increasingly complicates the communal issue... That the peasant must be given rights and, above all, the right to land, in order to thereby place him in the first condition of civil freedom.”
One should also take into account the tragic internal evolution of Leo Tolstoy. His son L.L. Tolstoy, who observed this evolution for many years, noted: “He suffered due to three main reasons.
Firstly, his physical, previous strength was leaving and his entire bodily, worldly life weakened over the years.
Secondly, he created a new world religion, which was supposed to save humanity... and since... he himself could not understand the countless contradictions and absurdities that flowed from it, he suffered, feeling that he would not succeed in the task of creating a new religion.
Thirdly, he suffered, like all of us, for the injustices and untruths of the world, unable to give him a personal rational and bright example.
All Tolstoyanism is explained by these feelings, and its weakness and temporary influence are also explained.
Not I alone, but many young or sensitive good people fell under it; but only limited people followed him to the end.”
What was the positive significance of Tolstoy’s ideas in relation to the problems of agrarian modernization in Russia? First of all, let us highlight the principle of self-restraint of one’s own needs, which Leo Tolstoy stubbornly insisted on: for the peasants and landowners of Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. it was of particular significance, since the transition from extensive to intensive farming was impossible without a conscious and voluntary rejection of the traditions of archaic economic psychology with its reliance on “maybe”, “Oblomovism”, unbridled exploitation natural resources(including destruction of forests).
At the same time, however, we note that the great humanist never succeeded in realizing this principle even in his own family, and Leo Tolstoy was unable to go beyond self-flagellation. One of his letters to V.G. Chertkov is typical, in which he admitted: “We now have a lot of people - my children and the Kuzminskys, and often without horror I cannot see this immoral idleness and gluttony... And I see... all the rural labor , which goes around us. And they eat... Others do for them, but they do nothing for anyone, not even for themselves.”
At the beginning of the twentieth century. L.N. Tolstoy was visited three times by Tomas Masaryk (in the future - not only a prominent liberal politician, the first president of Czechoslovakia in 1918-1935, but also a classic of Czech sociology and philosophy). During conversations with Tolstoy, he more than once drew the writer’s attention to the fallacy of not only Tolstoy’s views on the Russian village, but also the very life practice of “simplification,” tirelessly promoted by Tolstoy himself and his followers. Noting the poverty and squalor of the local peasants, who most of all needed concrete help, and not “moralizing” (“Tolstoy himself told me that he drank from a glass of syphilitic, so as not to reveal disgust and thereby humiliate him; he thought about this, and to protect your peasants from infection - no about that”), T. Masaryk sharply but fairly criticized Tolstoy’s ideological position to lead a “peasant life”: “Simplicity, simplification, simplify! Lord God! The problems of town and countryside cannot be resolved by sentimental morality and by declaring the peasant and the countryside to be exemplary in everything; Agriculture today is also already industrializing, it cannot do without machines, and the modern peasant needs more high education than his ancestors...” However, these ideas were deeply alien to L.N. Tolstoy.
In fairness, we note that at the beginning of the twentieth century. Not only L.N. Tolstoy, but also many other representatives of the Russian intelligentsia were characterized by idealistic ideas about both the Russian peasant and the communal order. The origins of such an attitude went back to the ideological delusions of the last century: it is no coincidence that the outstanding Russian historian A.A. Zimin focused on the phenomenon of “theology of the people,” which was characteristic of noble literature XIX century and even then acted as a fruitless alternative to specific educational work among the peasantry.
Of course, such a psychological and “ideological-political” attitude did not carry a positive charge, preventing an objective analysis of agrarian problems, and most importantly, the consolidation of rural society in order to solve these problems locally. The roots of this approach lay mainly in the “anti-capitalist” position of the bulk of the intelligentsia during this period, which rejected bourgeois norms both in public life and in the field of government. However, such ideological and psychological attitudes did not at all indicate the “progressiveness” of mass intellectual consciousness, but rather the opposite: its stable conservatism (with a clear emphasis on the archaic).
At the beginning of the twentieth century. The position of the “repentant intellectual” was most clearly represented in the works of L.N. Tolstoy. Subsequently, critically assessing this feature of the Russian intelligentsia, which survived until the 1920s, the Soviet literary critic L. Ginzburg noted: “The repentant nobility made amends for the original sin of power; the repentant intelligentsia is the original sin of education. No disasters, no experience... can completely remove this trace.”
Of course, such sentiments (even dictated by a sincere desire to help the “common people” and get rid of the intelligentsia’s “guilt complex” towards them) did not have a positive impact on the national modernization of the early twentieth century. They obscured the truly pressing problems facing Russian society, including in the agricultural sector.
Well, let’s sum it up. The basis of not only socio-economic, but, to a certain extent, also religious views of L.N. Tolstoy were deeply patriarchal (and, in fact, archaic) psychological and life attitudes, which contradicted not only bourgeois modernization, but also, most importantly, civilizational renewal of Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century.
At the same time, noting a whole series the defects inherent in Tolstoy’s ideological doctrine, we must not lose sight of its positive aspects. During the period under review, the works of L.N. Tolstoy became widespread in Russia. Despite their obvious utopianism, they also carried a positive charge, clearly and convincingly revealing the most acute economic and social contradictions of the traditional agrarian system, the mistakes and shortcomings of both the authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church. These works became a real discovery for thousands of people both in Russia and abroad, who experienced the joy of familiarizing themselves with the amazing artistic world L.N. Tolstoy; were a powerful incentive to deep moral renewal. “He was the most honest man of his time. His whole life is a constant search, a continuous desire to find the truth and bring it to life,” wrote the great philosopher of the 20th century. Mahatma Gandhi, paying special attention to the role of Leo Tolstoy in the development of the ideas of non-violence and his preaching of self-restraint, for “only it can give true freedom to us, our country and the whole world.” The recognition of the significance of this invaluable universal spiritual experience by both modern researchers and Orthodox church hierarchs is also characteristic. Thus, at one time, Metropolitan Kirill, who now heads the Russian Orthodox Church, in his 1991 article “Russian Church - Russian culture - political thinking” focused on Tolstoy’s “special accusatory directness and moral anxiety, his appeal to conscience and call to repentance.”
L.N. Tolstoy was undoubtedly right when he sharply criticized not only the basic principles, but also the forms of implementation of bourgeois modernization in Russia: from the point of view of humanism, the new reforms were largely inhuman in nature and were accompanied by the loss of a number of centuries-old peasant cultural and everyday life traditions. However, we must take into account the following points. Firstly, despite all the costs, bourgeois reforms (primarily Stolypin’s agrarian reforms) were not only historically inevitable, but, most importantly, objectively necessary for both the country, society, and the most enterprising peasants seeking to escape from the oppressive clutches of communalism. collectivism and “equalization”. Secondly, it’s worth thinking about: perhaps some outdated traditions should have been abandoned then (and not only then)? For many years a powerful barrier to the development of both agriculture and the entire peasantry were such traditions (closely related to prejudices and community customs) as the notorious habit of relying on “maybe” in everything, disorganization, paternalism, everyday drunkenness, etc.
As is known, L.N. Tolstoy himself did not want to call himself a “fatalist,” however, as the famous Saratov literary scholar A.P. Skaftymov convincingly proved in 1972, in fact Tolstoy’s philosophy of history was fatalistic, and this was precisely what it consisted of main ideological flaw. As an argument, we will cite another testimony of T. Masaryk. According to his confession, during a visit to Yasnaya Polyana in 1910, “we argued about resisting evil with violence... he (L.N. Tolstoy. - Auto.) did not see the difference between a defensive fight and an offensive one; he believed, for example, that the Tatar cavalry, if the Russians had not resisted them, would soon have become tired of the killings.” Such conclusions do not require special comments.
The critical remarks we have made, of course, do not at all cast doubt on the significance of Leo Tolstoy’s ideas. On the contrary, it is an objective, unbiased analysis, without the inherent Russian mentality the ability to “go to extremes”, in our opinion, will help to better imagine the place and role of the multifaceted creative heritage of the great thinker in relation to the specific historical situation of the last years of the existence of Imperial Russia; understand the reasons not only for the outstanding spiritual breakthroughs of the mighty genius of world literature, but also for those real life failures that he had to endure...
S.A. KOZLOV,
Doctor of Historical Sciences,
(Institute of Russian History RAS)
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Burlakova T.T. World of Memory: Tolstoy places Tula region. Tula, 1999.
It's her. Humanistic educational system orphanage: Implementation of the philosophical and pedagogical ideas of L.N. Tolstoy in the practice of the Yasnaya Polyana orphanage. Tula, 2001.
Tolstoy: pro et contra. The personality and creativity of Leo Tolstoy in the assessment of Russian thinkers and researchers. St. Petersburg, 2000.
Ashirin A.Yu. Tolstoyism as a type of Russian worldview // Tolstoy collection. Materials of the XXVI International Tolstoy Readings. The spiritual heritage of Leo Tolstoy. Part 1. Tula, 2000.
Tarasov A.B. What is truth? The Righteous by Leo Tolstoy. M., 2001.
A number of RuNet information resources are also dedicated to the rich creative heritage of Leo Tolstoy:
1. Find definitions of the words “personality” and “society” in two or three dictionaries. Compare them. If there are differences in the definition of the same word, try to explain them.
2. From the completed part of the history course, highlight the event that particularly interested you. Using the knowledge acquired in this chapter of social studies, formulate questions aimed at analyzing a historical event (for example: “What was society like before this event?”, etc.). Try to find the answer to them in a history textbook. If you have any difficulties, contact your teacher.
3. Read the figurative definitions of society given by thinkers of different times and peoples: “Society is nothing more than the result of a mechanical balance of brute forces”, “Society is a vault of stones that would collapse if one did not support the other”, “Society “It’s a yoke of scales that cannot lift some without lowering others.” Which of these definitions is closest to the characteristics of society outlined in this chapter? Give reasons for your choice.
4. Make as complete a list of various human qualities as possible (a table with two columns: “Positive qualities”, “ Negative qualities"). Discuss it in class.
5. L. N. Tolstoy wrote: “In immoral society“all inventions that increase man’s power over nature are not only not good, but undoubted and obvious evil.”
How do you understand the words “immoral society”? Considering that the above idea was expressed more than 100 years ago, has it been confirmed in the development of society over the past century? Justify your answer using specific examples.
6. In the collective work of Russian philosophers, the inherent traits of people are presented in the following context: “No matter what region of the globe we go to, we will meet there human beings about whom it is legitimate to say at least the following:
They know how to make tools using tools and use them as means of producing material goods;
They know the simplest moral prohibitions and the unconditional opposition of good and evil;
They have needs, sensory perceptions and mental skills that have developed historically;
They can neither form nor exist outside society;
The individual qualities and virtues they recognize are social definitions that correspond to one or another type of objective relationship;
Their life activity is not initially programmed, but of a conscious-volitional nature, as a result of which they are creatures who have the ability of self-coercion, conscience and consciousness of responsibility.”
Find in the studied chapter of the textbook and quote those provisions that characterize each of the properties named in the given passage, inherent in man. Are there any of the properties mentioned that you encountered for the first time in this text? Which of the following properties do you consider the most important and why? How do you understand the words “foundation of humanity”? What other human qualities would you build on this foundation? If any of the above signs is not entirely clear to you, ask your teacher to clarify it.
7. Reveal the meaning of the Arabic proverb “People are more like their times than their fathers.” Think about how the life of society in our time differs from what it was like when your parents finished school. Discuss these issues with your parents. Together with them, determine how the generation of your parents, who were at your age, differed from your generation.
Discuss in class the new features of young people today.
8. After consulting with teachers, collect information about graduates of your school who have chosen various professions. Find the most successful ones. Prepare a stand with materials about their work activities.
Selection by Maxim Orlov,
Gorval village, Gomel region (Belarus).
I observed ants. They crawled along the tree - up and down. I don't know what they could have taken there? But only those that crawl upward have a small, ordinary abdomen, while those that descend have a thick, heavy abdomen. Apparently they were taking something inside themselves. And so he crawls, only he knows his path. There are bumps and growths along the tree, he goes around them and crawls on... In my old age, it’s somehow especially surprising to me when I look at ants and trees like that. And what do all the airplanes mean before that! It's all so rude and clumsy!.. 1
I went for a walk. A wonderful autumn morning, quiet, warm, green, the smell of leaves. And instead of this wonderful nature, with fields, forests, water, birds, animals, people create another, artificial nature in their cities, with factory chimneys, palaces, locomobiles, phonographs... It’s terrible, and there’s no way to improve it... 2
Nature better than man. There is no bifurcation in it, it is always consistent. She should be loved everywhere, because she is beautiful everywhere and works everywhere and always. (...)
Man, however, knows how to ruin everything, and Rousseau is quite right when he says that everything that comes from the hands of the creator is beautiful, and everything that comes from the hands of man is worthless. There is no integrity in a person at all. 3
You must see and understand what truth and beauty are, and everything you say and think, all your desires for happiness, both for me and for yourself, will crumble to dust. Happiness is being with nature, seeing it, talking to it. 4
We destroy millions of flowers to build palaces and theaters with electric lighting, and one color of burdock is worth more than thousands of palaces. 5
I picked a flower and threw it away. There are so many of them that it’s not a pity. We do not appreciate this inimitable beauty of living beings and destroy them without sparing - not only plants, but animals and people. There are so many of them. Culture* - civilization is nothing more than the destruction of these beauties and their replacement. What? A tavern, a theater... 6
Instead of learning to have a love life, people learn to fly. They fly very badly, but they stop learning about the life of love, just to learn how to fly somehow. It's the same as if birds stopped flying and learned to run or build bicycles and ride them. 7
It is a big mistake to think that all inventions that increase the power of people over nature in agriculture, in the extraction and chemical combination of substances, and the possibility of great influence of people on each other, such as ways and means of communication, printing, telegraph, telephone, phonograph, are good. Both power over nature and an increase in the possibility of people influencing each other will be good only when people’s activity is guided by love, the desire for the good of others, and will be evil when it is guided by selfishness, the desire for good only for oneself. Excavated metals can be used for the convenience of people's lives or for cannons, the consequence of increasing the fertility of the earth can provide adequate nutrition for people and can be the reason for the increased spread and consumption of opium, vodka, communication routes and means of communicating thoughts can spread good and evil influences. And therefore, in an immoral society (...) all inventions that increase man’s power over nature and means of communication are not only not good, but undoubted and obvious evil. 8
They say, and I also say, that book printing did not contribute to the welfare of people. This is not enough. Nothing that increases the possibility of people influencing each other: railways, telegraphs, backgrounds, steamships, guns, all military devices, explosives and everything that is called “culture” has in no way contributed to the welfare of people in our time, but on the contrary. It could not be otherwise among people, the majority of whom live irreligious, immoral lives. If the majority is immoral, then the means of influence will obviously only contribute to the spread of immorality.
The means of influence of culture can be beneficial only when the majority, albeit small, is religious and moral. It is desirable that the relationship between morality and culture be such that culture develops only simultaneously and slightly behind the moral movement. When culture overtakes, as it does now, it is a great disaster. Perhaps, and even I think, that it is a temporary disaster, that due to the excess of culture over morality, although there must be temporary suffering, the backwardness of morality will cause suffering, as a result of which culture will be delayed and the movement of morality will accelerate, and the correct attitude will be restored. 9
They usually measure the progress of mankind by its technical and scientific successes, believing that civilization leads to good. This is not true. Both Rousseau and all those who admire the savage, patriarchal state are just as right or as wrong as those who admire civilization. The benefit of people living and enjoying the highest, most refined civilization, culture, and the most primitive, wild people are exactly the same. It is just as impossible to increase the benefit of people through science - civilization, culture - as it is to make sure that on a water plane the water in one place is higher than in others. The increase in the good of people only comes from an increase in love, which by its nature equals all people; Scientific and technical successes are a matter of age, and civilized people are just as little superior to uncivilized people in their well-being as an adult is superior to a non-adult in their well-being. The benefit comes only from increased love. 10
When people's lives are immoral and their relationships are based not on love, but on selfishness, then all technical improvements, the increase in human power over nature: steam, electricity, telegraphs, all kinds of machines, gunpowder, dynamites, robulites - give the impression of dangerous toys that are given in children's hands. 11
In our age there is a terrible superstition, which consists in the fact that we enthusiastically accept every invention that reduces labor, and consider it necessary to use it, without asking ourselves whether this invention that reduces labor increases our happiness, whether it does not destroy beauty . We are like a woman who tries to finish the beef because she got it, although she doesn’t feel like eating, and the food will probably be harmful to her. Railways instead of walking, cars instead of horses, hosiery machines instead of knitting needles. 12
Civilized and wild are equal. Humanity moves forward only in love, but there is no progress and cannot be from technical improvement. 13
If the Russian people are uncivilized barbarians, then we have a future. Western peoples are civilized barbarians, and they have nothing to expect. For us to imitate Western peoples is the same as for a healthy, hard-working, unspoiled fellow to envy a bald young rich man from Paris sitting in his hotel. Ah, que je m"embete!**
Do not envy and imitate, but pity. 14
The Western nations are far ahead of us, but ahead of us on the wrong path. In order for them to follow the real path, they need to go a long way back. We only need to turn a little off the wrong path that we have just embarked on and along which the Western peoples are returning to meet us. 15
We often look at the ancients as children. And we are children in front of the ancients, in front of their deep, serious, uncontaminated understanding of life. 16
How easily what is called civilization, real civilization, is assimilated by both individuals and nations! Go through university, clean your nails, use the services of a tailor and hairdresser, travel abroad, and you’re ready for the most civilized man. And for the peoples: more railways, academies, factories, dreadnoughts, fortresses, newspapers, books, parties, parliaments - and the most civilized people are ready. This is why people are grasping for civilization, and not for enlightenment - both individuals and nations. The first is easy, requires no effort and is applauded; the second, on the contrary, requires intense effort and not only does not arouse approval, but is always despised and hated by the majority, because it exposes the lies of civilization. 17
They compare me to Rousseau. I owe a lot to Rousseau and love him, but there is a big difference. The difference is that Rousseau denies all civilization, while I deny false Christianity. What is called civilization is the growth of humanity. Growth is necessary, you cannot talk about it whether it is good or bad. It is there - there is life in it. Like the growth of a tree. But the bough or the forces of life growing into the bough are wrong and harmful if they absorb all the force of growth. This is with our false civilization. 18
Psychiatrists know that when a person begins to talk a lot, talk incessantly about everything in the world, without thinking about anything and only rushing to say as many words as possible at the very first moment. short time, they know that this is a bad and sure sign of a beginning or already developed mental illness. When, at the same time, the patient is completely confident that he knows everything better than anyone, that he can and should teach everyone his wisdom, then the signs of mental illness are already undeniable. Our so-called civilized world is in this dangerous and pitiful situation. And I think - it is already very close to the same destruction that previous civilizations suffered. 19
External movement is empty, only internal work a person is freed. The belief in progress, that someday things will be good and until then we can arrange life for ourselves and others in a haphazard, unreasonable way, is a superstition. 20
* Reading the works of N.K. Roerich, we are accustomed to understanding Culture as “veneration of light”, as a building, calling moral force. In the above quotes from Leo Tolstoy here and below, the word “culture,” as we can see, is used in the meaning of “civilization.”
** Oh, how bored I am! (French)
Reproduction: I. Repin.Plowman. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy on arable land (1887).
1 Bulgakov V.F. L.N. Tolstoy in the last year of his life. - Moscow, 1989, p. 317.
2 Tolstoy L.N. Collected works in 20 volumes. - Moscow, 1960-65, vol. 20, p. 249.
3 L.N. Tolstoy in the memoirs of his contemporaries. In 2 volumes - Moscow, 1978, vol. 2, p. 182.
4 20-volume volume, vol. 3, p. 291.
5 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 129.
6 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 117.
7 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 420.
8 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 308.
9 20-volume volume, vol. 20, pp. 277-278.
10 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 169.
11 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 175.
12 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 170.
13 Tolstoy L.N. Complete works in 90 volumes. - Moscow, 1928-1958, t.90, p.180.
14 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 242.
15 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 245.
16 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 242.
17 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 404.
18 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 217.
19 PSS, vol. 77, p. 51.
20 Makovitsky D.P. Yasnaya Polyana notes. - Moscow, "Science", 1979, "Literary Heritage", vol. 90, book 1, p. 423.
21 20-volume volume, vol. 20, p. 219.
Among all the most unique features Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy would like to highlight the most important thing - his relevance. It is strikingly modern. His novels are read by the whole world, movies are made based on his books, his thoughts are divided into quotes and aphorisms. Not many people have received such attention in world literature.
Lev Nikolaevich left us 165,000 sheets of manuscripts, a complete collection of works in 90 volumes, and wrote 10 thousand letters. Throughout his life he searched for the meaning of life and universal happiness, which he found in in a simple word- good.
An ardent opponent of the state system, he was always on the side of the peasants. He repeatedly stated that “the strength of the government rests on the ignorance of the people, and it knows this and therefore will always fight against enlightenment...”
He condemned and criticized the church, for which he was anathematized; did not understand the predilection of people to hunt and kill animals and considered as hypocrites all those who cannot and do not want to kill animals out of compassion or their personal weakness, but at the same time do not want to give up animal food in their diet...
He rejected the idea of patriotism in any sense and considered himself a supporter of the idea of \u200b\u200bthe brotherhood of people throughout the world. Particularly interesting are Tolstoy's thoughts on patriotism and government, which are included in the list of the most little-known publications of Leo Tolstoy. Excerpts from this publication are relevant to this day, when the situation around the world has become extremely tense:
About patriotism and government...
“Patriotism and the consequences of its war provide huge income to newspapermen and benefits to most traders. Every writer, teacher, professor secures his position the more he preaches patriotism. Every emperor and king gains more glory the more devoted he is to patriotism.
The army, money, school, religion, press are in the hands of the ruling classes. In schools they kindle patriotism in children with stories, describing their people as the best of all nations and always right; in adults they kindle the same feeling with spectacles, celebrations, monuments, and the patriotic lying press; most importantly, they incite patriotism by committing all kinds of injustices and cruelties against other peoples, arousing in them enmity towards their own people, and then using this enmity to incite enmity among their own people...
...In the memory of everyone, even not the old people of our time, an event took place that most obviously showed the amazing stupor to which the people of the Christian world were driven by patriotism.
The German ruling classes inflamed the patriotism of their popular masses to such an extent that a law was proposed to the people in the second half of the 19th century, according to which all people, without exception, had to be soldiers; all sons, husbands, fathers, scholars, saints must learn to kill and be obedient slaves of the first highest rank and be unquestioningly ready to kill those whom they are ordered to kill:
kill people of oppressed nationalities and their workers defending their rights, their fathers and brothers, as the most arrogant of all rulers, William II, publicly declared.
This terrible measure, which most grossly offends all the best feelings of people, was, under the influence of patriotism, accepted without a murmur by the people of Germany. Its consequence was victory over the French. This victory further inflamed the patriotism of Germany and then of France, Russia and other powers, and all the people of the continental powers resignedly submitted to the introduction of general military service, that is, slavery, with which none of the ancient slavery can be compared in terms of the degree of humiliation and lack of will.
After this, the slavish obedience of the masses, in the name of patriotism, and the insolence, cruelty and madness of the governments knew no limits. The seizures of foreign lands in Asia, Africa, America, caused partly by whim, partly by vanity, and partly by self-interest, began to break, and more and more distrust and embitterment of governments towards each other began.
The destruction of peoples on occupied lands was taken for granted. The only question was who would first seize someone else's land and destroy its inhabitants.
All rulers not only most clearly violated and are violating the most primitive requirements of justice against the conquered peoples and against each other, but they committed and are committing all kinds of deceptions, frauds, briberies, forgeries, espionages, robberies, murders, and the peoples not only sympathized and sympathize with everything this, but they rejoice in the fact that it is not other states, but their states that commit these atrocities.
Mutual hostility between peoples and states has reached lately such amazing limits that, despite the fact that there is no reason for one state to attack another,
everyone knows that all states always stand against each other with claws extended and teeth bared, and are only waiting for someone to fall into misfortune and weaken, so that they can attack him and tear him apart with the least danger.
But this is not enough. Any increase in the troops of one state (and every state, being in danger, tries to increase it for the sake of patriotism) forces the neighboring one, also out of patriotism, to increase its troops, which causes a new increase in the first.
The same thing happens with fortresses and fleets: one state built 10 battleships, neighboring ones built 11; then the first builds 12 and so on in infinite progression.
- “And I’ll pinch you.” - And I’ll punch you. - “And I’ll whip you.” - And I use a stick. - “And I’m using a gun”...
Only angry children, drunken people or animals argue and fight like this, and yet this is done among the highest representatives of the most enlightened states, the very ones who guide the education and morality of their subjects...
The situation is getting worse and worse and there is no way to stop this deterioration leading to obvious death.
The only way out of this situation that seemed to gullible people is now closed by recent events; I'm talking about the Hague Conference* and the war between England and the Transvaal that immediately followed it.
*1st Hague Conference 1899. The peace conference was convened on the initiative of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia on August 29, 1898. The conference opened on May 18 (6), the Emperor's birthday, and ran through July 29 (17). 26 states participated. During the conference, international conventions on the laws and customs of war were adopted. The idea of global disarmament proposed by Emperor Nicholas II was not taken seriously...
If people who think little and superficially could still console themselves with the thought that international courts can eliminate the disasters of war and ever-increasing armaments, then the Hague Conference with the war that followed it clearly showed the impossibility of resolving the issue in this way.
After the Hague Conference, it became obvious that as long as governments with troops exist, a cessation of armaments and wars is impossible.
In order for an agreement to be possible, those agreeing must trust each other. In order for the powers to trust each other, they must lay down their arms, as parliamentarians do when they gather for meetings.
Until the governments, not trusting each other, not only do not destroy, do not reduce, but increasingly increase their troops in accordance with the increase in their neighbors, they strictly monitor every movement of troops through spies, knowing that every power will pounce on the neighboring one as soon as will have the opportunity to do so, no agreement is possible, and every conference is either stupidity, or a toy, or deception, or insolence, or all of this together.
The Hague Conference, which ended in terrible bloodshed - the Transvaal War, which no one tried and is trying to stop, was still useful, although not at all what was expected from it; it was useful in that it showed in the most obvious way that the evil from which peoples suffer cannot be corrected by governments, that governments, even if they really wanted to, cannot abolish either weapons or wars.
Governments must exist in order to protect their people from attacks by other nations; but not a single people wants to attack and does not attack another, and therefore governments not only do not want peace, but diligently arouse hatred of other peoples.
Having aroused hatred of other peoples towards themselves, and patriotism in their own people, governments assure their people that they are in danger and need to defend themselves.
And having power in their hands, governments can both irritate other peoples and arouse patriotism in their own, and diligently do both, and cannot help but do this, because their existence is based on this.
If governments were previously needed in order to protect their peoples from attacks by others, now, on the contrary, governments artificially violate the peace that exists between peoples and cause enmity between them.
If it was necessary to plow in order to sow, then plowing was a reasonable thing; but, obviously, it is crazy and harmful to plow when the crops have sprouted. And this very thing forces governments to make their own people, to destroy the unity that exists and would not be disturbed by anything if there were no governments.
What is government?
Indeed, what are governments in our time without which it seems impossible for people to exist?
If there was a time when governments were a necessary and less evil than that which came from defenselessness against organized neighbors, now governments have become unnecessary and a much greater evil than everything with which they frighten their people.
Governments, not only military ones, but governments in general could be, let alone useful, but harmless, only if they consisted of infallible, holy people, as is supposed to be the case among the Chinese. But governments, by their very activity, which consists in committing violence, always consist of the elements most opposed to holiness, of the most daring, rude and depraved people.
Therefore, any government, and especially a government that is given military power, is a terrible institution, the most dangerous in the world.
The government itself in a broad sense, including both the capitalists and the press, is nothing more than an organization in which the majority of people are in the power of a smaller section above them; this same smaller part submits to the power of an even smaller part, and this even smaller one, etc., finally reaching several people or one person who, through military violence, gain power over everyone else. So that this whole institution is like a cone, all parts of which are under the complete control of those persons, or that one person, who are at the top of it.
The top of this cone is captured by those people, either by that person who is more cunning, daring and unscrupulous than others, or by the accidental heir of those who are more daring and unscrupulous.
Today it is Boris Godunov, tomorrow Grigory Otrepyev, today the dissolute Catherine, who strangled her husband with her lovers, tomorrow Pugachev, the day after tomorrow the mad Pavel, Nicholas, Alexander III.
Today Napoleon, tomorrow Bourbon or Orléans, Boulanger or the Panamist company; today Gladstone, tomorrow Salisbury, Chamberlain, Rode.
And such governments are given complete power not only over property and life, but also over the spiritual and moral development, over the education, and religious guidance of all people.
People will build such a terrible power machine for themselves, leaving it to just anyone to seize this power (and all the chances are that the most morally crappy person will seize it), and they slavishly obey and are surprised that they feel bad
They are afraid of mines, anarchists, and not afraid of this terrible device, which threatens them with the greatest disasters at every moment.
To deliver people from those terrible scourges of armaments and wars, which they now endure and which are increasing and increasing, what is needed is not congresses, conferences, treatises and trials, but the destruction of that instrument of violence, which is called governments and from which the greatest disasters of people arise. .
To destroy governments, only one thing is needed: people need to understand that the feeling of patriotism, which alone supports this weapon of violence, is a rude, harmful, shameful and bad feeling, and most importantly, immoral.
Rough feeling because it is characteristic only of people standing at the lowest level of morality, who expect from other peoples the very violence that they themselves are ready to inflict on them;
harmful feeling because it violates beneficial and joyful peaceful relations with other peoples and, most importantly, produces that organization of governments in which the worst can and always gets power;
shameful feeling because it turns a person not only into a slave, but into a fighting cock, a bull, a gladiator, who destroys his strength and life for the purposes not of his own, but of his government;
immoral feeling because, instead of recognizing himself as the son of God, as Christianity teaches us, or at least as a free man, guided by his own reason, every person, under the influence of patriotism, recognizes himself as the son of his fatherland, a slave of his government and commits actions that are contrary to his reason and your conscience.
Once people understand this, and of course, without a struggle, the terrible cohesion of people called the government will disintegrate, and with it the terrible, useless evil it inflicts on the people.
And people are already starting to understand this. Here is what, for example, a citizen of the North American States writes:
“The only thing we all ask for, we farmers, mechanics, merchants, manufacturers, teachers, is the right to do our own business. We own our own homes, love our friends, are devoted to our families and don't interfere with our neighbors' affairs, we have jobs and we want to work.
Leave us alone!
But politicians don't want to leave us. They tax us, eat our property, register us, call our youth to their wars.
Entire myriads of people living at the expense of the state depend on the state, are supported by it in order to tax us; and in order to tax successfully, permanent troops are maintained. The argument that the army is needed in order to defend the country is a clear deception. The French state scares the people by saying that the Germans want to attack them; the Russians are afraid of the British; the English are afraid of everyone; and now in America they tell us that we need to increase the fleet, add more troops, because Europe can unite against us at any moment.
This is deception and untruth. The common people in France, Germany, England and America are against the war. We only want to be left alone. People who have wives, parents, children, houses, have no desire to go away and fight with anyone. We are peace-loving and afraid of war, we hate it. We only want not to do to others what we would not like to have done to us.
War is an inevitable consequence of the existence of armed people. A country that maintains a large standing army will sooner or later go to war. A man who prides himself on his strength in fist fighting will someday meet a man who believes himself to be the better fighter, and they will fight. Germany and France are just waiting for the opportunity to test their strength against each other. They have fought several times already and will fight again. It is not that their people want war, but the upper class inflames mutual hatred among them and makes people think that they must fight in order to defend themselves.
People who would like to follow the teachings of Christ are taxed, abused, deceived and dragged into wars.
Christ taught humility, meekness, forgiveness of offenses and that killing is wrong. Scripture teaches people not to swear, but the “upper class” forces us to swear on scripture that they do not believe.
How can we free ourselves from these wasteful people who do not work, but are dressed in fine cloth with copper buttons and expensive jewelry, who feed on our labors, for which we cultivate the land?
Fight them?
But we do not recognize bloodshed, and besides, they have weapons and money, and they will endure longer than us.
But who makes up the army that will fight with us? This army is made up of us, our deceived neighbors and brothers, who were convinced that they were serving God by defending their country from enemies. In reality, our country has no enemies except the upper class, which has undertaken to look after our interests if only we agree to pay taxes. They are draining our resources and turning our true brothers against us in order to enslave and humiliate us.
You cannot send a telegram to your wife, or a parcel to your friend, or give a check to your supplier, until you have paid the tax levied on the maintenance of armed men who can be used to kill you, and who will certainly put you in prison if you do not pay.
The only salvation is to instill in people that killing is wrong, to teach them that the whole law and the prophet is to do to others what you want them to do to you. Silently disdain this upper class, refusing to bow to their warlike idol.
Stop supporting preachers who preach war and make patriotism seem important.
Let them go and work like us. We believe in Christ, but they do not. Christ said what he thought; they say what they think will please the people in power, the “upper class”.
We will not enlist. Let's not shoot on their orders. We will not arm ourselves with bayonets against the good, meek people. We will not, at the suggestion of Cecil Rhodes, shoot at shepherds and farmers defending their hearths.
Your false cry: “wolf, wolf!” won't scare us. We pay your taxes only because we are forced to do so. We will pay only as long as we are forced to do so. We will not pay church taxes to bigots, not a tenth of your hypocritical charity, and we will speak our minds on every occasion.
We will educate people. And all the time our silent influence will spread; and even men already recruited as soldiers will hesitate and refuse to fight. We will instill the idea that a Christian life of peace and goodwill is better than a life of struggle, bloodshed and war.
"Peace on earth!" can only come when people get rid of the troops and want to do to others what they want to be done to them.”
This is what a citizen of the North American States writes, and the same voices are heard from different sides, in different forms.
This is what a German soldier writes:
“I made two campaigns with the Prussian Guard (1866-1870) and I hate the war from the depths of my soul, since it made me unspeakably unhappy. We, wounded warriors, for the most part receive such a pitiful remuneration that we really have to be ashamed that we were once patriots. Already in 1866 I took part in the war against Austria, fought at Trautenau and Koenigrip and saw quite a lot of horrors.
In 1870, as someone in the reserve, I was called up again and was wounded during the assault in S. Priva: my right arm was shot twice lengthwise. I lost a good job (I was...a brewer then) and then I couldn’t get it again. Since then I have never been able to get back on my feet. The dope soon dissipated, and the disabled warrior could only feed himself on beggarly pennies and alms...
In a world where people run around like trained animals and are incapable of any other thought except to outwit each other for the sake of mammon, in such a world they may consider me an eccentric, but I still feel within me a divine thought about the world which is so beautifully expressed in the Sermon on the Mount.
In my deepest conviction, war is only trade in large sizes, - the trade of ambitious and powerful people with the happiness of nations.
And what horrors do you experience at the same time! I will never forget them, these pitiful moans that penetrate to the marrow of my bones. People who never cause harm to each other kill each other like wild animals, and petty slave souls mix up the good God as an accomplice in these matters.
Our commander, Crown Prince Friedrich (later the noble Emperor Friedrich) wrote in his diary then: “War is an irony of the Gospel...”
People are beginning to understand the deception of patriotism in which all governments are trying so hard to keep them.
- “But what will happen if there are no governments?”- they usually say.
Nothing will happen; The only thing that will happen is that something that was no longer needed for a long time and is therefore unnecessary and bad will be destroyed; that organ which, having become unnecessary, has become harmful, will be destroyed.
- “But if there are no governments, people will rape and kill each other,”- they usually say.
Why? Why would the destruction of an organization that arose as a result of violence and, according to legend, be passed down from generation to generation for the production of violence - why would the destruction of such an organization that had fallen into disuse make people rape and kill each other? It would seem, on the contrary, that the destruction of an organ of violence would do that that people will stop raping and killing each other.
If, even after the destruction of governments, violence occurs, then, obviously, it will be less than that which is carried out now, when there are organizations and situations specifically designed for the production of violence, in which violence and murder are recognized as good and useful.
The destruction of governments will only destroy, according to legend, the transient, unnecessary organization of violence and its justification.
“There will be no laws, no property, no courts, no police, no public education,” they usually say, deliberately mixing the violence of power with various activities society.
The destruction of an organization of governments established to carry out violence against people does not in any way entail the destruction of laws, courts, property, police barriers, financial institutions, or public education.
On the contrary, the absence of the brute power of governments aiming only to support themselves will promote a social organization that does not need violence. And the court, and public affairs, and public education, all this will be to the extent that the people need it; Only that which was bad and interfered with the free manifestation of the will of the people will be destroyed.
But even if we assume that in the absence of governments, unrest and internal conflicts will occur, then even then the situation of the peoples would be better than it is now.
The position of the peoples now is this that it is difficult to imagine its deterioration. The entire people are ruined, and the ruin must inevitably continue to intensify.
All men are turned into military slaves and must wait every minute for orders to go kill and be killed.
What else are you waiting for? So that devastated peoples die of hunger? This is already starting in Russia, Italy and India. Or that, in addition to men, women should also be recruited as soldiers? In the Transvaal this is already beginning.
So, if the absence of governments really meant anarchy (which it does not mean at all), then even then no disorders of anarchy could be worse than the situation to which governments have already brought their peoples and to which they are leading them.
And therefore, liberation from patriotism and the destruction of the despotism of governments based on it cannot but be useful for people.
Come to your senses, people, and, for the sake of all the good, both physical and spiritual, and the same good of your brothers and sisters, stop, come to your senses, think about what you are doing!
Come to your senses and understand that your enemies are not Boers, not the British, not the French, not the Germans, not the Czechs, not the Finns, not the Russians, but your enemies, only enemies - you yourself, supporting with your patriotism the governments that oppress you and cause your misfortunes.
They undertook to protect you from danger and brought this imaginary position of protection to the point that you all became soldiers, slaves, you are all ruined, you are becoming more and more ruined, and at any moment you can and should expect that the stretched string will snap, a terrible beating of you and yours will begin. children.
And no matter how great the beating was and no matter how it ended, the situation would remain the same. In the same way, and with even greater intensity, governments will arm and ruin and corrupt you and your children, and no one will help you to stop or prevent this if you do not help yourself.
Help lies in only one thing - in the destruction of that terrible cohesion of the cone of violence, in which the one or those who manage to climb to the top of this cone rule over the entire people and the more surely they rule, the more cruel and inhuman they are, as we know from Napoleons , Nicholas I, Bismarck, Chamberlain, Rhodes and our dictators who rule the people in the name of the Tsar.
To destroy this linkage there is only one means - awakening from the hypnosis of patriotism.
Understand that all the evil from which you suffer, you do to yourself, obeying the suggestions with which emperors, kings, members of parliaments, rulers, military men, capitalists, clergy, writers, artists deceive you - all those who need this deception of patriotism in order to live from your labors.
Whoever you are - French, Russian, Pole, English, Irish, German, Czech - understand that all your real human interests, whatever they may be - agricultural, industrial, commercial, artistic or scientific, all these interests are the same , like pleasures and joys, do not in any way contradict the interests of other peoples and states, and that you are bound by mutual assistance, exchange of services, the joy of broad fraternal communication, exchange of not only goods, but thoughts and feelings with people of other nations.
Understand, that questions about who managed to capture Wei Hi-way, Port Arthur or Cuba - your government or another, are not only indifferent to you, but any such seizure made by your government harms you because it inevitably entails all kinds of influence on you by your government in order to force you to participate in the robberies and violence necessary to capture and retain what was captured.
Understand that your life cannot improve at all because Alsace will be German or French, and Ireland and Poland will be free or enslaved; no matter whose they are, you can live wherever you want; even if you were an Alsatian, an Irishman or a Pole, understand that any kindling of patriotism by you will only worsen your situation, because the enslavement in which your people find themselves occurred only from the struggle of patriotisms, and any manifestation of patriotism in one people increases reaction against him in another.
Understand that you can be saved from all your misfortunes only when you free yourself from the outdated idea of patriotism and obedience to governments based on it and when you boldly enter that higher realm. the idea of fraternal unity of peoples, which has long come into being and is calling you to itself from all sides.
If only people would understand that they are not the sons of any fatherland or government, but the sons of God, and therefore can neither be slaves nor enemies of other people, and those crazy ones, no longer needed for anything, left over from antiquity will be destroyed by themselves the destructive institutions called governments, and all the suffering, violence, humiliation and crime that they bring with them.
P.S. : At that time, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy could not know or imagine the existence in the future of such a friendship of peoples, the analogues of which had not yet existed in the world, and the friendship of peoples would be called the Union of Soviet Socialists. Republic That union, that friendship of peoples, which would fall apart in the early 90s and the idea of universal peace and brotherhood would be destroyed again. And the old peace and friendship will no longer exist.
A war will begin on our own land - in Chechnya, with the people whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought shoulder to shoulder for our peaceful existence in the Great Patriotic War... The peoples of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Moldova will simply be called guest workers, and the peoples of the Caucasus - chocks or khachs...
But there was a model of peace and brotherhood. Was. And there was no hatred towards each other. And there were no oligarchs. And the natural wealth was common to the people. And all nations had prosperity. Will there be a revival? Is it in our lifetime?
-) Money is not only a blessing, but also a huge misfortune for humanity.
-) Competition arises where and when there is a shortage of something.
-) Trade was born when exchange took the form of money.
-) An economy arises only when people need to wisely distribute rare goods, and the market is invented as the most rational and effective method to obtain such goods.
-) Simple commodity production existed both in the era of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs and in the era of Soviet leaders
Read an excerpt from the pedagogical works of the outstanding Russian teacher P. F. Kapterev.
About a truly educated person:
This is the kind of person who owns not only different
third-party knowledge, but also the ability to manage it, which
who is not only knowledgeable, but also smart, who has
a king in the head, unity in thoughts; who can not only
not to think, to act, but also to work physically and enjoy
be captivated by the beauty of nature and art.
This is the kind of person who feels alive and
an active member of modern cultural society, according to
understands the close connection of his personality with humanity, with
his native people, with all the former workers at
field of culture, which, to the best of its ability, moves people
Russian culture forward.
This is the kind of person who feels open in
itself all its abilities and properties and does not suffer from internal
early disharmony of their aspirations.
This is a physically developed person with healthy organs
body, with a keen interest in physical exercise,
sensitive to the joys of the body. Answer the questions: 1) What does it mean to be able to manage your knowledge? 2) What does it mean to be a “living and active member of modern cultural society”, to move human culture forward to the best of our ability? 3) Why is it necessary to develop all your abilities? 4) Reveal the connection between health and physical development and a person’s education.
From the work of a modern Russian scientist, academician I. N. Moiseev (reflections on the place of Russia in civilized development).
Today Russia is a bridge between two oceans, two centers of economic power. By the will of fate, we saddled the path “from the British to the Japanese,” just as in the old days the path “from the Varangians to the Greeks.” We have received a bridge between two civilizations, and we have the opportunity to draw from the best that is on both banks - if we have enough intelligence, as our ancestors got it, who took a book from the Byzantines, and a sword from the Varangians. This is a circumstance given to us by nature and history; it can become one of the most important sources of our prosperity and stabilization. And our niche in world society. The fact is that not only we need this bridge - everyone needs it. Not only Russia, but also the European Peninsula, the developing Pacific region, and even America. The whole planet needs this bridge! This is where our niche, destined for us, lies - the north of the Eurasian supercontinent. This niche does not divide, but connects peoples, does not oppose anyone and does not threaten anyone. Our great national goal is not the assertion of our ambitions in Europe, not the implementation of Eurasian doctrines and utopias in the spirit as preached by the Eurasians of the 20s, but the transformation of the north of the Eurasian supercontinent, this bridge between oceans and different civilizations, into a super-strong, reliably working structure.
Questions and tasks for the document
1. Determine how the author of the text relates to globalization.
2. How do you understand the words of N.N. Moiseev about “the opportunity to draw on the best that is on both banks”?
3. Why do you think the scientist considers Russia’s position “between... two centers of economic power” to be one of the sources of its prosperity?
what we see and perceive comes to us colored by expectations and predispositions. They are based on our culture: we see the world through glasses colored by our culture. The vast majority of people use these glasses without even knowing they exist. The predispositions inspired by invisible glasses are all the more powerful because the “cultural glasses” remain invisible. What people do directly depends on what they believe, and their beliefs, in turn, depend on the culturally colored vision of themselves and the world around them... In the course of historical development, great cultures of mankind arose and created their vision of the world. At the dawn of history, the world was seen as atavistic: not only people had souls, but also animals and plants - everything in nature was alive. The spring in the savannah inspired awe of the spirits and forces of nature, as well as the souls of the dead; a deer that found itself in the middle of a human settlement was identified with the spirit of an ancestor who came to visit his relatives; thunder was considered a sign given by the ancestor - the Mother or the almighty Father. Throughout recorded history traditional cultures were overloaded with stories about the sensory perception of invisible beings located in a symbolic hierarchy. The classical cultures of ancient Greece replaced a worldview based on myth with concepts based on reasoning, although the latter were rarely tested through experimentation and observation. Since biblical times in the West and for several millennia in the East, people's views have been dominated by the precepts and images of religion (or other accepted belief systems). This influence weakened significantly in the 16th and 17th centuries, when experimental science emerged in Europe. Over the past three centuries, scientific and technological culture began to dominate the mythological and religious views of the Middle Ages, although it did not completely supplant them. In the 20th century The scientific and technological culture of the West has spread throughout the globe. Non-Western cultures are now faced with a dilemma: whether to open up to Western culture or close themselves off and continue to follow traditional paths, maintaining their usual way of life, activities and cults. (E. Laszlo)
Culture is a powerful factor in human activity: it is present in everything we see and feel. “Immaculate perception” does not exist - everythingwhat we see and perceive comes to us colored by expectations and predispositions. They are based on our culture: we see the world through glasses colored by our culture. The vast majority of people use these glasses without even knowing they exist. The predispositions inspired by invisible glasses are all the more powerful because the “cultural glasses” remain invisible. What people do directly depends on what they believe, and their beliefs, in turn, depend on the culturally colored vision of themselves and the world around them... In the course of historical development, great cultures of mankind arose and created their vision of the world. At the dawn of history, the world was seen as atavistic: not only people had souls, but also animals and plants - everything in nature was alive. The spring in the savannah inspired awe of the spirits and forces of nature, as well as the souls of the dead; a deer that found itself in the middle of a human settlement was identified with the spirit of an ancestor who came to visit his relatives; thunder was considered a sign given by the ancestor - the Mother or the almighty Father. Throughout recorded history, traditional cultures have been replete with stories of sensory perception of invisible beings arranged in a symbolic hierarchy. The classical cultures of ancient Greece replaced a worldview based on myth with concepts based on reasoning, although the latter were rarely tested through experimentation and observation. Since biblical times in the West and for several millennia in the East, people's views have been dominated by the precepts and images of religion (or other accepted belief systems). This influence weakened significantly in the 16th and 17th centuries, when experimental science emerged in Europe. Over the past three centuries, scientific and technological culture began to dominate the mythological and religious views of the Middle Ages, although it did not completely supplant them. In the 20th century The scientific and technological culture of the West has spread throughout the globe. Non-Western cultures are now faced with a dilemma: whether to open up to Western culture or close themselves off and continue to follow traditional paths, maintaining their usual way of life, activities and cults. (E. Laszlo) C1. What does the author call “cultural glasses”? How do they affect people's lives? C2. Name the stages in the development of culture that the author identified, and select a brief description of each of them in the text. C3. Based on the text, course knowledge, and personal social experience, provide three explanations for the author's idea: “Culture is present in everything we see and feel.” C4. The author mentioned the dilemma facing modern non-Western cultures. Give one positive and one negative consequence of each choice.