As to the administrative reforms, the zemstvo, the tribunal, the school, all this has scarcely made any impression upon the people except as bringing an increase in the tax, expressed by the immemorial formula so much per soul. The taxes coming in much less than the increase in the rates, extreme measures have to be taken to obtain the payment of them. The muzhik has only one way of escaping prosecution, and that is to give himself over, body and soul, to the usurer. In short space of time the misery is universal. A single man gets rich at the expense of all the others: it is the kulak (the fist), the monopolist.
Bread is lacking in many places. In its place they eat, not cake, but preparations of straw, bark, or grass, all that which is called by the expressive term cheat-hunger.[56] It is plain to see that the muzhiks, reduced to these extremities, lose their interest in a society which treats them a little less kindly than if they were common cattle. All that they know of public affairs is that it is necessary to pay the tax. The most palpable advantage which they get from the time spent in discussing the common interests is the bumper of vodka with which discussions are kept alive: thus they forget themselves for a few hours.
Then, in hatred of the present, minds turn back to the past, and, above all, yearn eagerly for the future. The peasant’s naïve imagination is consoled by his dreams; the ardor of his desires is spent in Utopias. The idea of free lands haunts these enthusiastic minds. The story is secretly whispered about of the promises made by the Shah of Persia to emigrants who will come and settle in his dominions: his subjects shall pay no taxes and have no superiors. Solid masses of people set out suddenly, and depart for “the country of the white waters.” There it is that the popular ideal is to be realized. Many outlaw themselves without leaving their residences, and refuse to answer any of their obligations towards the commune or the mir. Others take refuge in the neighboring forest, go and settle in the desert, in the steppe. A considerable number go on pilgrimages to the holy places. Finally, there are those who go to swell the class of true Nihilists; that is to say, people who make their lives even a bold negation of all that is accepted, affirmed, around them,—the class of wanderers, or that of occults.
The attitude of these refractory men and women strikes the people, and is not slow to inspire them with a respect which is thus explained. The Russian people’s heads are stuffed with legends. One of the widest spread is that of the centenarian who lives in the desert, taking no other food than a consecrated wafer once a week; and, though he has not the slightest notion of the alphabet, yet he reads the Holy Book, the book with the leaves of gold, where is found the answer to every question, the rule for all conduct. We see now how reality and legend can come to be confounded. In the lonely hut where this hermit dwells apart, fitted as he is ordinarily by his intelligence and his will for the exceptional part which he is going to perform, he allows himself endlessly to reflect on all sorts of subjects. He ruminates at his leisure, in the solitude, over all the difficulties of the life from which he has torn himself away. He gropes after his definition of things good and of things evil; he slowly builds up his solemn casuistry.
The peasants one after another take the road to his hermitage. They are sure of bringing away good advice about disputed cases. Their cases include every subject,—family affairs, commune affairs, church affairs. Every thing is discussed, exposed to the cenobite’s criticism, to his interpretation. It is a matter of course that religious questions fill a large part in this programme, worked up by the anxieties of the throng, and the prophetic explanations of the hermit. But the programme also takes up economic or social questions. It prepares for the coming of a new law. This law is the outcome of a duty, and this duty is summed up in the formula, “To live according to justice;” or, in other words, “according to the will of God.”
The schisms formed, as we have just seen, are those of unimportant people. They have nothing in common with those which the irksomeness of living develops, in similar lines, in Russia, among the upper classes of the nation. Quite contrary to the sects born in the aristocracy, the schisms among the common people take their rise in the need of existence. They serve the instinct which impels the creature to seek not only life, but the best form of life. That is why they act so powerfully on the masses; that is why they cross time and space, making proselytes, apostles, martyrs.
The surprising thing is that the rich and aristocratic Count Tolstoï should become the apostle of such a religion. Like the sectaries of the rustic class, he builds a complete religious, political, and social system upon a new interpretation of the Gospels.
His religion, properly speaking, takes as its foundation the maxim of the Evangelist, “Resist not the one that is evil.” And it is not in an allegorical sense, it is by the letter, that these words of Jesus must be understood. The law laid down by Jesus’ disciples is precisely the opposite of that of the disciples of this world, which is the law of conflict. This doctrine of Jesus, which is sure to give peace to the world, is contained wholly in five commandments:—
1. Be at peace with everybody. Do not allow yourself to consider any one as low or stupid.
2. Do not violate the rights of wedlock. Do not commit adultery.