One of these latter made his début in the rôle of Saviour about 1840, and after having drained the peasants of Simbirsk and Saratov of money, fled to Bessarabia with his funds and his disciples. Later he returned, accompanied by twelve feminine "angels," and with them was deported to Siberia.
But the popular mind is not discouraged by such small matters. Side by side with the impostors there existed men of true faith, simple and devout dreamers. Taking advantage of freedom to expound the Gospel, they profited by it for use and abuse, and it seemed to be a race as to who should be the first to start a new creed.
Even as the douchobortzi had given birth to the molokanes, so were the latter in turn the parents of the stoundists.
CHAPTER XII
THE STOUNDISTS
This sect believed that man could attain to perfection of life and health only by avoiding the fatigue of penance and fastings; and that all men should equally enjoy the gifts of Nature, Jesus Christ having suffered for all. Land and capital should belong to the community, and should be equally divided, all men being brothers, and sons of the same God. Wealth being thus equalised, it was useless to try to amass it. Trade was similarly condemned, and a system of exchange of goods advocated. The stoundists did not attend church, and avoided public-houses, "those sources of disease and misery." The government made every effort to crush them, but the more they were persecuted, the more they flourished. The seers and mystics among them were considered particularly dangerous, and were frequently flogged and imprisoned—in fact, the sect as a whole was held by the Russian administration, to be one of the most dangerous in existence. It originated in the year 1862, and from then onwards its history was one of continuous martyrdom.
Like the molokanes, the stoundists refused to reverence the ikons, the sacraments, or the hierarchy of the orthodox church, and considered the Holy Scriptures to be simply a moral treatise. They abominated war, referring to it as "murder en masse," and never entered a court of law, avoiding all quarrels and arguments, and holding it to be the most degrading of actions for a man to raise his hand against his fellow. All their members learnt to read and write, in order to be able to study the Scriptures. They recognised no power or authority save that of God, refused to take oaths, and protested against the public laws on every possible occasion. Their doctrine was really a mixture of the molokane teachings and of Communism as practised by the German colonists, led by Gutter, who settled in Russia about the end of the eighteenth century and were banished to New Russia in 1818.
Strengthened by persecution and smacking of the soil, it was no wonder that stoundism became the religion par excellence of the Russian moujik, assuming in time proportions that were truly disquieting to the authorities.