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Tolstoyan movement

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Vladimir Chertkov (left) with Leo Tolstoy (right)

The Tolstoyan movement is a social movement based on the philosophical and religious views of the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Tolstoy's views were formed by his deep study of the teachings of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount.

Tolstoy was happy that groups of people "have been springing up, not only in Russia but in various parts of Europe, who are in complete agreement with our views."[1] However, he also thought it was a mistake to create a specific movement or set of beliefs named after him. He urged people to listen to their own conscience instead of just following him. After getting a letter from a follower, he wrote:

To speak of "Tolstoyism," to seek guidance, to inquire about my solution of questions, is a great and gross error. There has not been, nor is there any "teaching" of mine. There exists only the one eternal universal teaching of the Truth, which for me, for us, is especially clearly expressed in the Gospels...I advised this young lady to live not by my conscience, as she wished, but by her own.[2]

Beliefs and practices

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Tolstoy organising famine relief in Samara, 1891.

Tolstoyan identify themselves as Christians, but they usually do not belong to an official Church. Tolstoy was a harsh critic of the Russian Orthodox Church, which led to his excommunication in 1901.[3] Tolstoyans focus more on following the teachings of Jesus than on his miracles or divinity. They try to live a simple and plain life. They are often vegetarian, do not smoke, do not drink alcohol, and practice chastity.

Tolstoyans are Christian pacifists. They believe in nonresistance, meaning they oppose all violence. Tolstoy's understanding of Christianity was defined by the Sermon on the Mount and can be summed up in five simple ideas:

  1. Love your enemies
  2. Do not be angry
  3. Do not fight evil with evil, but return evil with good (this is an interpretation of turning the other cheek)
  4. Do not lust
  5. Do not make promises or oaths.[4]

They do not support or take part in the government, which they see as immoral, violent, and corrupt. Tolstoy rejected the state and all institutions that come from it, like the police, courts, and army. Because of this, many now see Tolstoyans as Christian anarchists.[5] Tolstoy's ideas have influenced anarchist thought, especially anarcho-pacifism. They were also an inspiration for Mahatma Gandhi and his philosophy of nonviolence.

The revolutionary Leon Trotsky summed up Tolstoy's social philosophy in five points: 1. "It is not some kind of iron sociologic laws that produce the enslavement of peoples, but legal codes." 2. "Modern slavery rests on three statutes: those on land, taxes and property." 3. "Not alone the Russian state but every state is an institution for committing, by violence and with impunity the most horrible crimes." 4. "Genuine social progress is attained only through the religious and moral self-perfection of individuals". 5. "To get rid of states it is not necessary to fight against them with external means. All that is needed is not to take part in them and not to support them."[6]

Vegetarianism

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The vegetarian movement started in Europe in the 19th century. The first Vegetarian Society was founded in Manchester in 1847.[7] Tolstoy became a well-known supporter of the movement. He and his two daughters became vegetarian in 1885. His essay The First Step (1892),[8] and others were promoted by vegetarian societies around the world.

His vegetarianism was part of his Christian philosophy of non-violence. At that time, vegetarian restaurants were rare, and they often served as meeting places for Tolstoyans and other social reformers. Most Tolstoyan vegetarians still ate eggs and dairy. However, not eating meat was not a strict rule for all Tolstoyans; some still chose to eat meat.[7] Historian Charlotte Alston has written that "from meat eating to fruitarianism, the movement embraced and tolerated a wide variety of positions".[7]

Notable vegetarian Tolstoyans included Felix Ortt, president of the Dutch Vegetarian Society, and Arthur St. John of the Croydon Brotherhood Church.[7][9]

Groups and colonies

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Africa

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Mohandas K. (later Mahatma) Gandhi and other residents of Tolstoy Farm, 1910

Inspired by Tolstoy's ideas, Mohandas Karamchand (later Mahatma) Gandhi set up a cooperative colony called Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg, South Africa. The colony was on 1,100 acres (4.5 km2) of land. It was paid for by Gandhi's friend Hermann Kallenbach and was used by people practicing nonviolent resistance from 1910.[10]

North America

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Ernest Howard Crosby was a notable Tolstoyan in the United States. He supported the Christian Commonwealth Colony in Columbus, Georgia. This colony was started in 1896 by Christian socialists and was on 932 acres (3.77 km2) of land.[11] The people living there were also influenced by the ideas of Henry George and Edward Bellamy.[1][12]

N. O. Nelson, a Tolstoyan, founded the Leclaire cooperative village in Edwardsville, Illinois in 1890. It was based around a plumbing supply factory. While this village did well, Nelson's other projects failed. The village was later taken over by the town of Edwardsville in 1934.[13]

Some Tolstoyans also moved to Canada to start new communities.[14]

Europe

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In Russia, government censorship meant that many of Tolstoy's non-fiction works from the 1880s and 1890s were published outside the country first. This slowed the spread of his ideas in Russia. However, with Vladimir Chertkov (1854–1936) promoting Tolstoy's ideas, a movement began in the 1890s. It grew even stronger after Tolstoy's death and after the 1917 Revolution. Farming communities were set up in several Russian provinces.

These independent Tolstoyan communities were eventually destroyed or taken over by the Soviet government in the late 1920s during its period of collectivisation.[1] Some colonies, like the Life and Labor Commune, moved to Siberia to avoid being shut down. Several Tolstoyan leaders, including Yakov Dragunovsky (1886–1937), were arrested, put on trial, and sent to Gulag prison camps.[15]

In England, John Coleman Kenworthy of the Brotherhood Church started a colony at Purleigh, Essex in 1896. This community closed after a few years, but its members went on to start the Whiteway Colony in Gloucestershire and the Stapleton Colony in Yorkshire, both of which still exist today.[1] However, Whiteway soon moved away from Tolstoy's principles. Gandhi, who visited in 1909, saw it as a failed Tolstoyan experiment.[16]

In the Netherlands, Johannes van der Veer was the key figure in the Tolstoyan movement. Tolstoy even wrote an essay in 1896 supporting van der Veer's anti-war stances.[17] Two colonies were started in the Netherlands: a short-lived one in Bussum and a more successful one in nearby Blaricum.[1] Tolstoyan communities in Europe often failed because the people did not get along well with each other or because they lacked farming experience.[18]

Prominent followers

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One famous follower of Tolstoy was the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. During the First World War, he read Tolstoy's book, The Gospel in Brief. He carried it with him everywhere and recommended it to others.

Tolstoy's pacifism was very influential. Alexander Fodor wrote:

We know that [Tolstoy's] pacificism, his advocacy of passive resistance to evil through nonviolent means, has had incalculable influence on pacificist movements in general and on the philosophical and social views and programs of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Cesar Chavez.[19]

Another prominent follower was Dorothy Day, an American social activist who helped found the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement.[20]

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References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Charlotte Alston (2010). "Tolstoy's Guiding Light". History Today.
  2. ↑ Tolstoy, Leo (2004) [1878]. What Is Religion? And Other New Articles and Letters. Kessinger. pp. 170–172. ISBN 9781417918607.
  3. ↑ Church and State. L Tolstoy — On Life and Essays on Religion, 1934
  4. ↑ Gerard Bane (2011). "Tolstoyan Nonresistance". A Pinch of Salt (Issue 23). p. 2.
  5. ↑ Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre (2010). Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel. Exeter: Imprint Academic. pp. 17–20. Leo Tolstoy
  6. ↑ "Leon Trotsky: Tolstoy, Poet and Rebel (1908)". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Alston, Charlotte (2020). Tolstoy and His Disciples: The History of a Radical International Movement. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 174–178. ISBN 978-1350159433.
  8. ↑ Tolstoy, Leo (1892). "The First Step". Retrieved 2016-05-21. ... if [a man] be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because ... its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling -- killing. Preface to the Russian translation of Howard William's The Ethics of Diet
  9. ↑ "The Late Capt. A. J. St. John, Glenyards". The Falkirk Herald. February 19, 1938. p. 10 – via Findmypast.
  10. ↑ "Tolstoy Farm". South African Historical Journal, No. 7. November 1975. Archived from the original on 2023-11-29. Retrieved 2025-11-28.
  11. ↑ "Commonwealth, Georgia" (PDF). The Georgia Archaeological Site File (GASF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-05-09.
  12. ↑ Bolster, Paul D. 1972. "Christian Socialism Comes to Georgia: The Christian Commonwealth Colony." Georgia Review 26 (1): 60–70.
  13. ↑ https://www.historic-leclaire.org/ accessed March 9, 2025
  14. ↑ "Leo Tolstoy's Teachings and the Sons of Freedom in Canada" https://doukhobor.org/leo-tolstoys-teachings-and-the-sons-of-freedom-in-canada/ Accessed March 28, 2025
  15. ↑ Charles Chatfield, Ruzanna Iliukhina Peace/Mir: An Anthology of Historic Alternatives to War Syracuse University Press, 1994. ISBN 0815626010, (p.245, 249-250).
  16. ↑ Hunt, James D. (2005). An American looks at Gandhi: essays in satyagraha, civil rights, and peace. Bibliophile South Asia. p. 43. ISBN 9788185002354.
  17. ↑ Tolstoy, Leo (1896). The Beginning of the End.
  18. ↑ Christoyannopoulos, Alexandre (2010). Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel. Exeter: Imprint Academic. p. 257. Tolstoyism and Tolstoyan colonies
  19. ↑ Ernest Hilbert's Introduction to the Maude Translation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. TOLSTOY, Leo. War and Peace, translated by Aylmer and Louise Maude. San Diego: Canterbury Classics / Baker and Taylor, 2011.
  20. ↑ Walter G. Moss, WISDOM FROM RUSSIA: THE PERSPECTIVES OF DOROTHY DAY AND THOMAS MERTON. (DOC file) 2011

Other websites

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