Page:The American Review of Reviews - Volume 24.djvu/61

 horse, and sitting it with the air of a nobleman and soldier. But among the muzhiks—and Moscow, the Russians say, is “a city of muzhiks”—there was very little appreciation of the fact that a great man dwelled in Israel. The most appreciative answer which I ever received from a muzhik was that “he is a good barin.” This peassant had read “War and Peace,” and also a little pamphlet by the count on sobriety, which he condemned on the excellent ground, Yes, but Gosudar Imperator drinks champagne.” Among most of the muzhiks there was a singular unanimity of suspicious fear. Some condemned him as a beshozhnik, or atheist, and others told the most absurd stories as to his relations with the government, one informing me coolly that he was paid by the authorities to encourage military service. In short, the great mass seemed utterly ignorant, of everything except Tolstoy's name and his practice of wearing peasant's clothes.

There is no doubt that this lack of influence, combined with his celebrity abroad, accounts largely for the indulgence with which Tolstoy is treated by the Russian Government. As a philosopher, Tolstoy has certainly more disciples in the smallest of European states than in his own great country. From practical Tolstoyism the Russian Government has hitherto had little to fear. Anti-militarism is really the only applicable part of his teaching, and the anti-military sects of Russia are much older than Tolstoy, and in no way traceable to him, though he has certainly gained them much moral support by his writings in the foreign press. It is a very strange thing, and quite characteristic of Europe's outlook on Russia, that these sects are encouraged in countries where military service, or war taxes, which Tolstoy himself regards as precisely the same thing, are obligatory. The Russian Government, says Tolstoy, is entitled to the severest condemnation for upholding conscription; but this condemnation is equally deserved by every other country, whether it maintains a conscript or a volunteer army. But having once established conscription, Tolstoy recognizes that it is an absurdity for Westerners to condemn the Russian Government for refusing to recognize conscientious objections, no such objections being listened to for a moment in any other country. Tolstoy sees this more keenly than most persons, and pays scant attention to expressions of sympathy coming from abroad.

Tolstoy's influence certainly has tended to increase abroad; why has it not increased commensurately in his own country? The novelty and uncompromising character of his doctrines, when stated in the abstract, have attracted foreigners. But in Russia the novelty is not so great. Tolstoy is not a pioneer in Russia. The democratic faith in the people which, rather than Christianity, is the practical basis of his gospel, is many years older than Tolstoy. The great Russian social movement of the middle of last century, of which Tolstoy is but the heritor, produced a host of enlightened men and women such as he, who succeeded in doing for a time what he has done for a lifetime—in undergoing the process of oprostechenie, becoming first of all simple. These people were as well aware as Tolstoy that only through simplicity they could make themselves one with the people, and that only by sharing the burdens of their lives could they lift up out of the dust a people to whom all appeals from above would have been addressed in vain. Turgenieff, the historian of the movement, shows us how this movement ended in disillusion and disenchantment. It was too ardent to last, and too little in accord with actuality to succeed even for a time. Turgenieff's dreamer of high dreams, who could find community with the muzhiks only by drinking himself to intoxication in their company, was a characteristic type. Even the practical Bazarof, who admitted no dreams and no ideals, found that the muzhik could not understand his language. The emulators of Turgenieff's heroes in real life had no more success. Suicide, Siberia, and expatriation were the ends of most. But the first ardor of this reforming movement had been exhausted before Tolstoy came under its influence, and the one Russian who succeeded in showing how far identification with the people was peaceable has therefore had few imitators in his own country.

It is very remarkable that Tolstoy should have succeeded so far where his predecessors have failed. He came of a family whose habits, we are told. were so luxurious that his grandfather sent his linen to be washed in Holland; his education was unfavorable; he was hampered by family attachments, and he began to change his views at a time when the old ardor for self-sacrifice had been killed by failure and disenchantment. Moreover, as a practical man, he had always a clear idea of the limitations of Russian popular life. The real explanation of his success seems to be that he was never led away by reformatory zeal. He had taken the peasant Sutayeff as a model and master himself, and he regarded the peasant’s life, not as something to be raised and lifted up to his own level, but as an ideal already materialized. The earlier reformers had regarded the Russian peasantry as so much valuable raw material, which would display its true value when impregnated with revolutionary moral and political ideas. Tolstoy never had any-