Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1908
Source: From RevoltLib.com
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
‘The savage instinct of military murder has been so carefully cultivated and encouraged over the course of a thousand years that it has dug deep roots in the human brain. One must hope, however, that a humanity better than ours will manage to free itself from this dreadful crime. But what will this superior humanity think of the so-called refined civilization which we are so proud of? Almost the same as we think of the tribes of ancient Mexico with their cannibalism, who are at once war-like, pious, and bestial.’ (Letourneau)
‘War will only be annihilated when people cease to have any share in violence, and are prepared to suffer all the persecutions they will bring upon themselves for doing so. This is the only way to annihilate war.’ (Anatole France)
‘Ask the majority of Christians what they consider the greatest evil from which Christ freed humanity and they will say: from Hell, from eternal fire, from punishment in the next world. As a corollary to this they think that salvation is something that someone else can achieve for us. The word hell, sparingly used in the Scripture, has done much harm to Christianity as a result of false interpretations. People run away from external hell which they are made to fear most of all. The salvation that man needs most and that which gives him freedom is redemption from the evil within his soul. There is something far worse than external punishment. It is the sin of the soul being in rebellion against God; the soul, endowed with God’s strength, yielding itself to the force of bestial instinct; the soul which lives in the sight of God, yet fears the threats and fury of men, preferring human glory to its own peaceful awareness of virtue. There is no disaster worse than this. And it is this that the unrepentant person carries with him to the grave. And it is this we ought to fear.
To gain salvation, in the highest meaning of the word, means to raise the fallen spirit, cure the sick soul, give it back its freedom of thought, conscience and love. In this lies the salvation for which Christ died. It is for this salvation that we have been given the Holy Spirit, and it is towards this salvation that the Christian teaching is directed.’ (Channing)
‘It seems so easy to tell the truth, yet it takes a great deal of inner strength to do so.
The level of a person’s honesty is an indication of the level of his moral perfection.’
This is how it has been for a long time among the non-Christian and the Christian world alike, and continues even today. But I believe that now, at precisely this moment, after the pitiful, pointless Russian revolution, and more especially after the extremely impertinent and senseless cruelty of the manner in which it was suppressed, Russians, who are less civilized than the other nations, i.e. less corrupt intellectually, and still adhering to a vague concept of the idea of the Christian teaching, Russians, who for the most part are the agricultural workers, will finally understand where the means of salvation lie and be the first to make use of it.
A military tribunal is being held in a provincial town. There is a table and on the table a mirror with a two-headed eagle over it and an inscription stamped beneath; there are also legal texts and neatly arranged sheets of paper with printed headings. At the table, in the seat of honor, sits a rotund man in military uniform with galloons and a cross around his neck; he has an intelligent face, expressing good nature, and is looking especially kindly at the moment having just had lunch and received reassuring news of his child’s health. Next to him is another officer, of German origin, displeased with his appointment and reflecting on the report he will give to the chief. In the third seat is an extremely young officer, a dandy, a convivial-looking fellow who, while lunching at the colonel’s table, cracked a witty joke that amused everyone. He is recalling the joke and smiling, almost noticeably. He is longing to smoke and waiting impatiently for the interval. At a separate table sits the secretary. Before him is a pile of papers in which he is totally absorbed so as to be ready to hand over the required paper as soon as the chief demands it.
Two young men, one a peasant from the Province of Penza, the other a petty bourgeois from the town of Lubin, both dressed as soldiers, bring in a third man, very young and also dressed in a soldier’s greatcoat. This young man is pale. He glances around once at his tribunal and then fixes his gaze ahead. He has already spent three years in prison for refusing to take the oath and perform military service. In order to be rid of him after these three years he has been offered the chance to take the oath and then be released on the grounds that like a soldier he has spent three years in service, albeit in prison. But the young man has stated in church the same as he said before the assembly: that as a Christian he can neither take the oath, nor be a murderer. On this occasion he is being tried again for his new refusal. The secretary reads the document called the indictment. It states that the young man has refused to receive his pay and that he considers military service sinful. The good-natured chairman asks: ‘Do you plead guilty?’ ‘I have done and said all that is stated here but I do not consider myself guilty,’ the young man answers in a faltering, trembling voice.
The chairman nods his head as an indication that the reply is in order; he then glances at the document and asks: ‘How do you explain your refusal?’
‘I have refused, and still do because I consider military service sinful,’ he falters. ‘It is against Christ’s teaching.’
The chairman is satisfied by this and nods his head approvingly. Everything is in order.
‘Have you anything further to add to your statement?’
With a trembling lower lip the young man talks of how it is written in the Gospels that it is forbidden not only to kill but to hold bad feelings towards one’s fellow men.
The chairman approves of this too. The German frowns disapprovingly, and the young officer listens, with his head and eyebrows raised, as if hearing something new and interesting.
The accused, becoming more and more flustered, states that the oath is straightforwardly forbidden and that he would consider himself guilty unless he refused, and that he is now ready…
The chairman stops him, considering that the accused is speaking unnecessarily and failing to keep to the point.
After this the witnesses are summoned: the colonel of the regiment and a sergeant-major. The colonel of the regiment is the chairman’s usual bridge partner and a great devotee and master of the game. The sergeant-major is an agile, good-looking, obliging Pole of noble birth, and a passionate reader of novels. A priest enters too, an elderly man who has just taken leave of his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchildren, who have been staying with him; he is feeling upset after a quarrel with his wife on account of his having given their daughter a carpet which his wife did not wish to give away.
‘Would you be so kind, Father, as to swear the witnesses in, and to remind them of the sinfulness of giving false witness before God,’ asks the chairman, addressing the priest.
The priest puts on a stole, picks up a crucifix and a bible, and gives the usual words of admonition. Then the colonel takes the oath. He swiftly raises two clean fingers (fingers that are very well known to the chairman, who follows them in card games), and repeats the words of the oath after the priest, then he kisses the crucifix and the bible with a smack of the lips, as if he were enjoying himself. After the colonel, the Catholic priest enters and swears in the sergeant-major with equal rapidity.
The court waits calmly and seriously. The young officer, who has just been out for a quick smoke, arrives back in time for the testimony of the witnesses.
The witnesses testify to what has been said by the accused. The chairman expresses approval. Then the officer who has been sitting apart stands up: he is the prosecutor. He walks up to the desk, shuffles around the papers lying on it and begins speaking loudly, recounting everything the young man has done, which the whole court already knows, and which the young man has just expounded himself without any attempt to conceal the reason for which he is accused, but, on the contrary, increasing the grounds for conviction. The prosecutor declares that the accused, as he himself admits, does not belong to any religious sect, that his parents are Orthodox believers and, therefore, his refusal to fulfill his military service has no grounds other than obstinacy. He declares that this obstinacy of the accused and of other mistaken, recalcitrant people like him has forced the government to the decision of taking severe punitive measures against such types, and that these measures should, in his opinion, be used in this instance. Then follow a few unnecessary words from the defense. They all go out. Then the accused is led in again, followed by the court. The judges sit down and immediately stand up again and the chairman, without looking at the accused, reads the decision of the court in a quiet, even voice: the accused, a man who has already served three years for not letting himself be called a soldier, is firstly deprived of his military title and of various rights and privileges, and secondly, sentenced to four years imprisonment in a penal battalion.
After this the young man is led out under escort and all the participants resume their usual occupations and entertainments, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.
Only the young man, the keen smoker, feels some peculiar, disturbing sensation which he cannot get rid of, while he is haunted by the memory of the strong, noble, indisputable words the condemned man expressed with such emotion. During the adjournment this young man had wanted to disagree with the decision of his elders, but stopped short, swallowed his words, and agreed.
In the evening at the colonel’s home, during the interval between rubbers, everyone gathered around the tea table and the conversation turned to the recalcitrant soldier. The commander expressed his clear opinion that the reason for it all was lack of education: ‘They snatch hold of all kinds of ideas but they do not know what to do with them and it leads to all this nonsense.’
‘No, Uncle, I do not agree with you,’ a female student, a social democrat and a niece of the colonel, broke in. ‘One should respect the energy and staunchness of the man. One must only regret that this strength is falsely directed,’ she added, thinking about how useful these stoical people would be if only they defended the scientific truths of socialism, rather than outdated religious fantasies.
‘Come now, you’re a confirmed revolutionary,’ said her uncle, smiling.
‘And it seems to me,’ said the young officer who never stopped smoking, ‘that from the Christian point of view there is nothing to contradict him!’
‘I don’t know about points of view,’ said an old general sternly, ‘I only know that a soldier must be a soldier and not a preacher.’
‘In my opinion the most important matter of all,’ said the chairman of the tribunal, his eyes sparkling, ‘is that if we want to play six rubbers, we mustn’t waste precious time.’
‘If anyone wants more tea, I will serve it at the card table’, said the hospitable host, and one of the players, with an adept and practiced gesture, spread his cards like a fan. And the players took their seats.
At the entrance to the prison, where the escort with the recalcitrant prisoner awaited the instructions from the officials, a conversation ensued.
‘How come the priests don’t know?’ said one of the escorts. ‘If it isn’t in the books, that’s maybe why.’
‘It must be that they don’t understand,’ answered the prisoner. ‘If they understood they would say the same thing. Christ did not instruct us to kill, but to love.’
‘That must be so. But it’s a strange thing and a hard thing moreover.’
‘There’s nothing hard in it. Here I am locked away, and about to be shut up again, yet my soul feels so good I wish everyone felt the same.’
A middle-aged administrative officer approached. ‘Well, Semeonovitch,’ he addressed the prisoner with respect, ‘sentenced?’
‘Yes, I’m sentenced.’
The officer shook his head, ‘Well, there it is, but it’s hard to put up with.’
‘But one must do it,’ answered the prisoner, smiling and visibly touched by the sympathy.
‘That’s the way it is. Our Lord endured and He asked us to, but it’s hard.’
As he spoke these words, the handsome Polish sergeant-major entered with quick, dashing steps.
‘Stop all the chattering, march to the new prison!’
The sergeant-major was particularly fierce because he had been ordered to make sure that the prisoner did not talk to the soldiers. During the last two years he had been in prison he had perverted four men with whom he had come into contact; they had similarly refused to take the oath, been tried and were now serving sentences in various prisons.