567

p What is it that "someone’s will" wants from all of us and from the whole world? Tolstoy replies: "The will ... of Him Who sent is the rational (good) life of the whole world. Therefore, the aim of life is to bring truth into the world."  [567•****  In other words, "someone’s will" demands from us that we serve goodness and truth. Or, put differently again, "someone’s will" is for us the only source of truth and goodness. Tolstoy thinks that if it were not for the fact that "someone’s will" guides people to goodness and truth they would wallow in evil and delusion. This is what Feuerbach calls the devastation of the human soul. Everything good in the human soul is taken from it and ascribed to "someone’s will" which created man, as well as the rest of the world. Tolstoy de- 568 vastates the human soul entirely, by saying that "all the good that there is in man is only that which is divine in him”. So I ask Messrs. Homunculus, Volodin and all those who share their view of Tolstoy whether it is not "terrible to live" with a man who indulges in such devastation of the human soul. And I shall maintain that it is very terrible until the reverse has been proved to me.

p As a matter of fact, I was wrong in saying that Tolstoy indulged in devastation of the human soul. To be more precise, one must put it like this: Tolstoy preferred the human soul empty and tried to fill it with good content. Not finding a source in the human soul itself, he appealed to "someone’s will”. How did this assumption of the emptiness of the human soul, which one constantly finds in his writing, originate?

p In asking this question, I would beg the reader to remember what I said above concerning the fact that Tolstoy arrived at his faith by means of a certain reasoning supported by a certain feeling.  The rational aspect of this process is now sufficiently clear to us. It is easy to see that, after assimilating the viewpoint of teleology, a person would be acting inconsistently if he continued to regard himself as an independent source of morality. But we already know that the reasoning which leads to teleology does not withstand serious criticism. What prevented Tolstoy from noticing the weak aspect of this reasoning? I have already replied to this question in part, by saying that Tolstoy’s childhood beliefs were deeply engrained in his soul. I should now like to examine the matter from a different angle. I should now like to find out how Tolstoy’s mood was created, the mood thanks to which he clutched at his childhood beliefs as the only sheet-anchor, closing his eyes to their lack of foundation. Here again I shall turn to his Confession.

p Having described how he remained apart from the ideological movement of the sixties and how his life was concentrated "on his family, his wife and children and therefore on concerns about improving their means of livelihood”, Tolstoy informs us that he began to have painful moments of despondency and perplexity. "Amid my thoughts about domestic things which greatly occupied me at the time,” he says, "the question would suddenly come into my head: ’Very well, you will have 6,000 dessiatines, and 300 head of cattle in Samara Gubernia, but what then?...’ And I was quite taken aback and did not know what to think. Or, beginning to think how I would bring up the children, I would say to myself: ’What for?’ Or, discussing how the people could attain prosperity, I would suddenly say to myself: ’But what do I care about that?’ Or, thinking about the fame which my works would bring me, I would say to myself: ’Very well then, you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere and 569 all the writers in the world, but what of it?...’ And I could find no answer."  [569•* 

p What do we see? Concern about private happiness does not satisfy Tolstoy, concern about the prosperity of the people does not interest him in the slightest “(but what do I care about that?”). The result is spiritual emptiness which indeed precludes all possibility of life. It must be filled at all costs. But with what? Either with concern for private prosperity or with concern for the prosperity of the people, or, finally, with both together. But we have seen that concern about private prosperity did not satisfy Tolstoy and concern about the prosperity of the people did not interest him; therefore nothing whatever could have come from a combination of the two. And this means that there was nothingeither in private or public life that could have filled the spiritual emptiness which so tormented our great writer. He was forced willy-nilly to turn from earth to heaven, i.e., to seek "in someone ’else’s’ will" the essential answer to the question "what am I living for?" Herein lies the explanation of why Tolstoy did not notice the invalidity of his childhood beliefs. The viewpoint of teleology was inevitable in his position. It was not he who devastated his soul; it was devastated by his environment. And when he sensed its emptiness and wanted to fill it with some sort of content, for the reason already indicated he could find no other content but that which came from above, dictated by "someone’s will”. That was the point.

p Is it “joyful” to live with a person who can iind nothing capableof exciting and interesting him either in private or in public life? It is not only not “joyful”, but quite “terrible”. And for him, too living was not joyful, but actually terrible. It was joyful living with those of Tolstoy’s contemporaries who said to themselves in the words of Nekrasov’s famous song:

p The lot of the people,
Their happiness,
Freedom and light,
Are above all else.^^170^^

p But Tolstoy was quite differently inclined. The idea of the people’s happiness and the people’s lot had no power over him; 570 it was driven away by the indifferent question: "but what do I care about that?" This is why he was and remained apart from our liberation movement. And this is why people who sympathise with this movement understand neither themselves nor Tolstoy when they call him "a teacher of life”. Tolstoy’s misfortune is precisely that he could not teach either himself or others how to live.

p Tolstoy was and remained to the end of his life a real barin.  At first this real barin calmly enjoyed the good things of life which his privileged position gave him. Then,—and here the influence on him of those who thought about the happiness of the people and about its lot is felt,—he arrived at the conviction that the exploitation of the people, which was the source of these good things, was immoral. And he decided that "someone’s will”, which had given him life, forbade him exploit the people. But it did not occur to him that it was not enough to refrain oneself from exploiting the people, but that one must promote the creation of social relations under which the division of society into classes would disappear, and consequently the exploitation of one class by another also. His teaching on morality remained purely negative: "Do not be angry. Do not fornicate. Do not take oaths. Do not fight. This for me is the essence of Christ’s teaching."  [570•*  And in its one-sidedness this negative morality was far inferior to the positive moral teaching that developed among those who put the "people’s happiness" and "its lot" "above all else”. And if today even they are ready to see Tolstoy as their teacher and their conscience, there is only one explanation for this: life’s hardships have shaken their faith in themselves and in their own teaching. It is a great pity that this has happened, of course. But let us hope that things will soon be different again. There is a very clear hint of this in the very interest in Tolstoy. I think that the stronger this interest becomes, the nearer we shall be to the time when people who are not content with negative morality see that Tolstoy cannot be their moral teacher. This may seem paradoxical, but it is really so.

_p People will say to me: but Tolstoy’s death grieved the whole of the civilised world. I shall reply: yes, but look at Western Europe, for example, and you will see for yourselves who " simply loves" Tolstoy there and who loves him "within limits”, fie is "simply loved" (with a greater or lesser degree of sincerity and intensity) by the ideologists of the upper classes, i.e., by those who are themselves prepared to be content with negative morality and who, lacking broad social interests, strive to fill their spiritual emptiness with religious seeking of different kinds. While Tolstoy is loved "within limits" by the conscious representatives 571 of the working population, who are not content with negative morality and who have no need to search painfully for a meaning for their life, because they have long since found it “joyfully” in a movement towards a great social aim.

p But "within what limits" do the people in the second category love Tolstoy?

_p This is easy to answer. The people in the second category value in Tolstoy a writer who, although he did not understand the struggle for the reorganisation of social relations and remained completely indifferent to it, nevertheless felt deeply the inadequacy of the present social order. And, most importantly, they value in him a \vriter who used his tremendous artistic talent in order to portray this inadequacy vividly, although, it is true, only episodically.

These are the “limits” within which truly progressive people of our day love Tolstoy.