Leo Tolstoy

“ If to-day the Dukhobors in the Caucasus should yield, being unable any longer to bear the sufferings which overcome their old men and women, their wives and children, still, to-morrow, there would arise other contenders, ready on all hands, more and more boldly proclaiming their principles, and less and less liable to yield. Does truth cease to be truth because the men who professed it become weak under the pressure of torture ? That which is of God must conquer that which is of man.
"But what will happen if government is brought to an end? ”

“ They have known that when men become alive to this spirit, force will be abolished, together with government itself. Therefore the governments have continued to pursue their vocation by creating State institutions, by piling up laws and institutions one on the other, hoping under these to bury the undying spirit of Christ infused into the hearts of men. The governments have continued their labor, but at the same time the Christian teaching has done its work, more and more penetrating the minds and hearts of men. ”

“ However much wood one throws on the burning pile of sticks, thinking thus to put out the fire, the inextinguishable flame, the flame of truth, will only be temporarily smothered, and will burn up still more strongly, consuming everything heaped upon it. Even though it happen (as it always happens) that some of the contenders for truth become weak in the strife, and yield to the government, that, nevertheless, would not in the least change the position. ”

“ Just as in the burning of a pile there comes a moment when the fire which long worked obscurely within, only now and then by flashes and smoke proving its presence, suddenly wins its way on every side with a burning no longer to be subdued, so in the conflict of the Christian spirit with the pagan laws and institutions, there comes the time when this Christian spirit bursts forth everywhere, no longer to be kept under, and every moment threatening to destroy the institutions under which it was buried. ”

“ The crisis in the change of the form of our social life and in the replacement of forcible government by some other socializing principle, has passed already; and the solution before us is not by stoppage of the process, or by reversal of it, but by nothing else than a forward movement along that road which the law of Christ points out to the hearts of men. ”

“ But still less are those Christians at fault who refuse to participate in murderous exercises, and to join a body of men who are trained to kill any whom the government orders to be killed. They, also, cannot act otherwise. The nominal Christian, baptized and brought up in Greek orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism, might continue to follow violence and murder, as long as he does not discover the deception put upon him. ”

“ Because you must admit that men who so act, act in the name of the noblest qualities of man's soul, qualities which, if you do not recognize their nobility, you reduce man's life to the level of animal existence. Therefore, however government acts toward these men, it must inevitably forward, not their, but its own, destruction. ”

“ It is needful to prevent contagion from these ten of thousands who acknowledge no government, and do not wish to take part in government. But how? Certainly they cannot be killed. They are too many. It is no less difficult to put them in prison. It is only possible to ruin and torture them. ”

“ A process of birth is going on, and our whole action must be directed not to thwart, but to help, this process. And such help is given, certainly not by resisting the divine truth revealed to us, but, on the contrary, by an open and fearless admission of it. Such admission of truth gives not only full satisfaction to the conscience of those who so profess, but also the greatest possible welfare to all ”

“ There will be the thing which ought to be, that which is well-pleasing to God, which is according to the law He has put in our hearts and revealed to our minds. If government should be abolished by us in the way of revolution, certainly the question as to what will be after government is done away with would require an answer from the abolitionists. ”

“ He has actually overcome the world; not in a mystical sense of invisible victory over sin, as these words are interpreted to mean by the theologians, but in the simple, clear, and comprehensible sense that, if we will only have courage and boldly profess Him, soon not only will those horrible persecutions of the body of true disciples of Christ who carry out His teaching practically in their lives disappear, but there will remain no more prisons or gallows, no wars, corruption, idleness, or toil-crushed poverty, under which Christian humanity now groans. ”

“ The cause of these persecutions is, that for certain reasons three-fourths of the Dukhobors (that is, about 15,000 people, their whole population being about 20,000) have this year returned with renewed force and earnestness to their former Christian profession, and have resolved to comply in practice with Christ's law of non-resistance to evil by violence. This decision has caused them, on one hand, to destroy all their weapons, which are considered so needful in the Caucasus, thus renouncing the possibility of fighting, and putting themselves at the mercy of every marauder ”

“ The change which is now taking place in the social life of the nations, although we cannot exactly tell what form it will take in the future, cannot be bad, because it proceeds, and will be wrought out, not through man's arbitrary will, but as the result of a divine principle common to us all and resident in our hearts. ”

“ In point of fact, how can you, by reasonable and humane means, compel men who profess the Christian religion to join another body of men who are learning how to kill, and practising for that purpose? The deception of deceived people can be maintained by various kinds of stupefactions by administration of oaths, by theological, philosophical, and judicial sophistries. But as soon as the deception is by some means broken, and people like the Dukhobors, calling things by their right names, say, "We are Christians, and therefore we cannot kill," then the lie is exposed ”

“ But what if these tortures have not the desired effect, and these people still persist in declaring the truth, and by so doing attract more adherents? The position of governments is crucial; the more so that they can take no certain stand. You cannot denounce as bad the deeds of men like Drozhin, who was tortured to death in prison ”

“ Skarvan, imprisoned in Austria; or like all those others at present in prisons, men who are ready to suffer and to die, only to be faithful to the most simple, universally comprehensible and approved religious principles, which prohibit murder and participation in murder. ”

“ And if this is allowed, there will spring up marauding and chaos instead of order and security; no one's property or life will be safe. Thus reason the authorities; they cannot reason otherwise; and they are not in the least at fault in so reasoning. ”

“ The only means of inducing them to obey are blows, "executions," deprivation of shelter, cold and hunger in their families. Just these means are used. As long as the officials are not conscious of their wrong position they can do nothing else ”