A Confession and Other Religious Writings by Leo Tolstoy

Author:Leo Tolstoy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-11-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Can there be a way out of this vicious circle, and if so, what is it?

At first it seems as if the people who should lead men out of this vicious circle are the governments that have taken upon themselves the responsibility of guiding the life of the people for their good. This is what those who have tried to alter the structure of life based on force, and to replace it with a reasonable structure based on mutual love and service, have always thought. It is what the Christian reformers thought, as also did the founders of various European theories of Communism, as well as the illustrious Chinese reformer, Mo Tzu45 who suggested that for the good of the people the government should not instruct school children in the science of war, and should not reward adults for military achievements, but should instruct both children and adults in the rules of respect and love, and give rewards and encouragement for deeds of love. So also thought and think the many Russian religious peasant-reformers whom I have known and still know, from Sytaev46 to the old man who has now on five occasions presented a petition to the Tsar asking him to revoke the false religion and propagate Christianity.

People naturally suppose that a government which justifies its existence by taking care of the welfare of the nation must, to ensure this welfare, wish to use the only means that can in no instance harm the people, but can only be conducive to the most fruitful results. But in no time or place have governments ever taken this obligation upon themselves, but on the contrary, they have always and everywhere shown the greatest fervour in defending the existing, false doctrine, and have used all possible means to persecute those who have attempted to inform people of the basic religious truths. In reality it cannot be otherwise: for governments to expose the falsity of existing religions and to propagate the true one would amount to the same as a person cutting down the branch on which he is sitting.

But if governments do not do this, it would seem certain that those learned men who have freed themselves from the deception of false religions, and who say they wish to serve the people who have provided for them, are sure to do it. But these people, just like the governments, do not do so: firstly, because they consider it pointless to expose themselves to unpleasantnesses and the risks of political persecution for unmasking a fraud which the government protects and which, in their opinion, will collapse of its own accord; secondly, because, considering all religion to be an outlived error, they have nothing to offer the people in place of the fraud they would destroy.

There remain those huge masses of uneducated people who are under the hypnotic influence of Church and State deception, and who therefore consider that the semblance of religion which has been instilled in them is the only true religion, and that there is no other, nor could there be.

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