Leo Tolstoy

Charity was not an answer, but Tolstoy could never accept the idea that any problem was completely insoluble. He spent several years working on an essay in which he tried to apply his new religious views to practical social issues. The title What then Must We Do? openly echoed that of Chernyshevsky’s banned novel What Is to Be Done?, in which the main female character organized cooperatives among working-class girls, often real or potential prostitutes, and managed to put their lives back on track. Chernyshevsky did not doubt that given support, guidance and education, the poor would rationally choose what was more beneficial for them.

Tolstoy knew better. He spent time and money researching the reactions of the destitute to the patronizing help of intellectuals. He soon learned that while small gifts, commonly of two or three kopecks, were met with a sort of ritual gratitude, attempts to donate significant sums only provoked animosity and resentment towards the benefactor. The poor interpreted excessive generosity as a paternalistic attempt to subjugate them to the rules and discipline of a society they rejected. Anger and cheating served as perverse means to defend their human dignity.

In his essay Tolstoy proceeded from his own first-hand experience of big city misery to address the problems of division of labour, the nature of money, property, taxation and so on. The structure of his argument was rambling and even included a detailed history of Britain’s colonization of the islands of Fiji, but his conclusions were clear and straightforward. He was convinced that the lifestyle of the leisured classes, centred on artificial needs and dependent upon taxation and property rights, brought destitution to working people and could only be sustained through coercive institutions like the army, the courts and the police.

A social and political order based on violence and injustice was rapidly losing the air of legitimacy it had once held in the eyes of the oppressed. The only way for the rich to avoid imminent catastrophe was to renounce privilege and go back to manual labour, a natural life and the eternal principles of Christian morality. The nineteenth century had seen many refutations of modernity, but no other mainstream thinker had dared to be so uncompromising.

As far as Tolstoy was concerned, no idea, belief or conviction had any value unless it shaped personal behaviour. It took him several years to overhaul his lifestyle completely, but he was constantly making changes. He began working in the fields, wearing peasant clothes and grew a peasant-style beard that was easier to take care of. He reverted to simple food, gradually becoming a complete vegetarian, stopped smoking and drinking and renounced the hunting that had once been his favourite sport. He explained each step in a passionate article. Tolstoy dismissed his personal servants and started to bring water to the house, cut wood and clean his room. The most difficult thing to get used to, by his own admission, was taking out and washing his chamber pot, but he did that too. He also renounced financial transactions and carried only small amounts of cash for the needy. Arguably the most eccentric of his new preoccupations was shoemaking, something he engaged in with such real passion that every success in the craft caused childlike happiness.

Ilya Repin, Leo Tolstoy Ploughing, 1887, oil on card.

Tolstoy’s behaviour provoked in people who surrounded him emotions that ranged from mild amusement to outright indignation. Fet ordered a pair of boots, insisted on paying six roubles and provided an invoice with a pledge to wear them regularly. Most likely, he did not keep his promise. The boots are still on display in the Tolstoy museum in Moscow and do not look worn out. As an atheist, conservative and aesthete, Fet could not approve the ‘new direction’ taken by his friend.

Turgenev’s feelings were stronger. In June 1883, as he readied himself for death, Turgenev wrote a farewell letter to Tolstoy. Too weak to hold a pen, he scribbled with a pencil:

I cannot recover – there is no use thinking of it. I am writing to you particularly to tell you how glad I am to have been your contemporary and to express to you my last, sincere request. My friend, return to literary activity! That gift came to you from whence come all the rest. Ah, how happy I should be, if I could think that my request would have an impact on you!! . . . My friend, great writer of the Russian land, heed my request. Let me know if you receive this bit of paper, and permit me once more to embrace you heartily, heartily and your wife and all yours. I can’t write more, too tired. (TP, p. 203)