Colonel V. A. Pashkov and the Late Nineteenth-Century Protestant Movement in Russia, Jan M. Surer, 1999

e to evil, and love of others. In the spirit of populism, he had earlier begun to join in the physical labor done by the peasants on his estate, just as Levin does in Anna Karenina. Yet he became less able to countenance his own comfortable life in comparison with the peasants' poverty and was especially appalled at the lives of the urban poor. 1 Jones, Journal of Russian Studies , p. 14, after L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii . 90 volumes, Moscow, 1935-58, LII, p. 45. 45 46 In What Then Must We Do? (1886), he set out his new understanding of the reasons for this painful discrepancy. The State's compulsion (in the form of taxes and conscription) and the ownership of land were forms of slavery imposed upon some people by others, an act which the existence of money facilitated. Because of money and this slavery, some could live off the work of others. 2 Mere almsgiving was an inadequate remedy, for it was done by giving money not earned by one's own labor. Tolstoy tried to oppose this situation as much as he could, while allowing for the obligations of a family. In addition to promoting his view in his writings, he tried to do for himself what used to be done by servants, divided his property among his wife and children, and made some of his written works public property. 3 He became very interested in Henry George's proposal to nationalize the land by requiring a single tax on its use to be paid into a general fund. Since he had deeded his property to his wife and children, the opportunity to practice this plan on a small scale was denied him. But just as Nekhlyudov in Resurrection attempts such a scheme with his peasants, one of Tolstoy's daughters did likewise with her share of the property. Instead of taking the rent herself for the use of the land, the rent was placed 2 In What Then Must We Do? f see especially Chapters XIV, XVI, XVIII, and XXII. 3 Tolstoy gave his wife the rights to his works written before 1881. But in a final will, he arranged for all his works eventually to become public property. See Simmons, pp. 513-14 and 793-94. 47 into a fund for the use of the commune. 4 Tolstoy's attempts to practice his teaching .were often the source of much anxiety and discord for himself and his family. One could also argue that his views were impractical and too simplistic and that they ignored the increasing complexity and industrialization of the Russian economy. 5 For our immediate purposes, however, it is interesting to compare Tolstoy's doctrine and its practical fruit with that of Pashkov. On the question of doctrine, both believed in the need for individual spiritual and moral regeneration, but Tolstoy, like the populists, had eschewed the "mystical" elements of Christianity. His ceaseless, rational quest to improve himself had led him to base his life on Christ's teachings rather than on the Gospel as the Pashkovites understood it. Perhaps under the inf