In his last
novel Resurrection (Published in 1899) Tolstoy presented his all observation of
Russian society, and tried to expose every side of the Law, justice and morality of the
“civil” people in a class society. And it is true, not only for Russia,
but for all other class society of the whole world, and hold true for
the capitalist society, which also rests of the property and class relations.
What he
presented in the novel was, "“The upholding of class interests! I think
the law is only an instrument for upholding the existing order of things
beneficial to our class.”
In
a very clear way he exposed that ground of every crime present in the structure
of class based social system which commits perpetual violence on the masses of
the people to protect property rights of few people.
It is a piece
of work where Tolstoy had shown his hatred for the social culture and justice
of a society based on the property ownership. At a place when he watched a poor
worker died in the police custody, he says,
“One could see what possibilities of a higher life had been destroyed in
this man. The fine bones of his hands and shackled feet, the strong muscles of
all his well proportioned limbs, showed what a beautiful, strong, agile human
animal this had been. As an animal merely he had been a far more perfect one of
his kind than the bay stallion, about the laming of which the fireman was so
angry.”
And then he added,
"Yet he had been done to death, and no one was
sorry for him as a man, nor was any one sorry that so fine a working animal had
perished.”
At a Place he
clearly mentioned the partial and cheap conception of “justice” of a class
society,
"It is
usually imagined that a thief, a murderer, a spy, a prostitute, acknowledging
his or her profession as evil, is ashamed of it. But the contrary is true.
People whom fate and their sin-mistakes have placed in a certain position,
however false that position may be, form a view of life in general which makes
their position seem good and admissible. In order to keep up their view of
life, these people instinctively keep to the circle of those people who share
their views of life and their own place in it. This surprises us, where the
persons concerned are thieves, bragging about their dexterity, prostitutes
vaunting their depravity, or murderers boasting of their cruelty. This
surprises us only because the circle, the atmosphere in which these people live,
is limited, and we are outside it. But can we not
observe the same phenomenon when the rich boast of their wealth, i.e., robbery;
the commanders in the army pride themselves on victories, i.e., murder; and
those in high places vaunt their power, i.e., violence? We do not see
the perversion in the views of life held by these people, only because the circle formed by them is more extensive,
and we ourselves are moving inside of it."
Tolstoy also criticized
all show-offs done for the religious believes, and all misconceptions
which are created by priest in society.
Now, we can
also realize why Tolstoy in his last days of life had left his home and went
away from alone, it must be the reason of the degenerated values of class
society, which he was trying to expose, so that people will come to change them
by changing self, and don’t themselves involve in those activities. But, that
was not done, because that cannot happen, and 1905 Russian revolution was crushed
by violent force. At last what happen with Tolstoy, it can be clearly seen from
the novel Resurrection? Tolstoy at the end use his religious belief as opium to
convince himself that if every individual left greed and dishonesty then everything
wrong will disappear from the society. But, with these views he left everything
which is material, collective and present in the social relations that direct
the thoughts and views of every individual.
Among his entire
observations of society, one thing is clear that if Tolstoy’s believe in
God had been abolished and he had acquired the materialist world
view then he must be a revolutionary.
It is a reason
that on the death of Tolstoy, in 1910 Lenin has written, "Tolstoy the
artist is known to an infinitesimal minority even in Russia. If his great works are really to be made the possession of all,
a struggle must be waged against the system of society which condemns millions
and scores, of millions to ignorance, benightedness, drudgery and poverty—a
socialist revolution must be accomplished."
In India, most
of the people are not aware of any classical literature, which are the mirror of
the history, and if we left classical literature, we will see that Indians are
not even get the literature of Premchand, which is at least the mirror of
feudal and colonial India where capitalist relations were developing or thoughts
of Bhagat Singh or Rahul Sankrityayan etc.
