Lenin’s Ideas on Realist Literature and Art
Author Prof. Zhou Zhonghou is from School of Liberal Arts, Renmin University of China,Beijing
During 1908—1911, Lenin wrote a series of articles to comment on Tolstoy, the great Russian critical realist writer of the 19th century. It was under the reactionary ruling of Stolypin. Lenin’s articles dealt head-on blows at the reactionary forces trying to wage a united attack at Marxism by commenting on Tolstoy, and explained realism through Tolstoy at the Marxist stance and with the Marxist views and methods. Lenin’s theories on realism are an important content in the history of development of the Marxist thought on literature and art. Lenin’s creative thought on literature and art will be discussed next in detail.
Firstly, realist writings have to have the width and depth to reflect social life.
Engels once praised the great writer Balzac for depicting, in his writings, a “centric picture” of the social life in France during 1816-1848, “around the centric picture”, “the entire history of the French society is gathered” (Selected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 2nd edition, vol.4, p. 684).
Lenin adopted Engels’ thought to comment on Tolstoy, praising Tolstoy, the genius artist, for depicting an unmatched picture of the life in Russia. He pointed out that Tolstoy reflected the social life in Russia in an extremely broad way, and advocated that realism writings had to have the width to reflect the social life. Such width is manifested as reflecting the then major social contradictions, i.e., the contradictions between the peasants and the noble landowners, that between the peasants and the capitalists and that between the noble landowners and the capitalists.
According to Lenin, realism art had to have not only the width to reflect, but also the depth to reveal social life. From Tolstoy’s path of creation and the great amount of his writings, we see the width and depth of his reflection of the complicated social contradictions in Russia.
As early as in the 1850s, Tolstoy published the autographical trilogy Childhood, Boyhood and Youth, which shows his psychological type and ideological exploration at the early stage. The hero, the young noble master Nikolenka gives himself to the bad habit of vanity and accepted the noble master-like prejudice on the one hand, but on the other, sees the hypocrisy and selfishness of the class and has begun to realize the gap and contradiction between the nobles and the working people. He has a happy and care-free childhood, but begins to clean his soul as a youth to pursue “the true meaning of life”. The trilogy exposes the noble society from the perspective of morals on the one hand, but on the other, beautifies the patriarchal relations in the noble landowners’ mansions. It shows sympathy to the peasants while viewing them as ignorance, showing the contradictory moral factors in the author’s mind. It is an autographical trilogy which clearly shows the author’s moral purity and introspective spirit.
If the hero in the trilogy has begun to realize the contradiction and gap between the peasants and the landowners, Tolstoy had a more profound and sober mind when publishing A Landlord’s Morning in 1856. The hero Nekhludoff, after dropping out of college and returning his hometown, feels the dire poverty of the peasants immediately. Out of the universal love, he takes some reform measures like reducing labor and the rent and building houses for the peasants. However when he persuades the peasants to move to the new houses from their tumbledown cottages, an old couple could not believe that the landlord may have such a good heart, and feel there must be some tricks behind the “good intention”. They cry and beg Nekhludoff to not kick them out. The ironic mistake crashes Nekhludoff’s illusion that he might save the peasants through “reformation” or in similar ways, also his try to make the landowners and nobles purify their mind in the enough philanthropic almsgiving. The two different worlds at the two social polarities could by no means communicate with and understand each other. From that, we see more of Tolstoy’s explorations of the issue of peasants.
In 1863, Tolstoy published a novella The Cossacks. It tells the story of the young noble Olenin who’s tired of the upper class, so left the comfortable life in the city behind before joining the army in Caucasus. He is determined to live a simple and natural life with the Cossacks in the mountains. However, in his love with a Cossack girl, he exposes his selfish nature as a noble and is despised by the locals. He has no choice but to return to the city. Here the author idealized the mountain people’s patriarchal life, expressed the wish that young nobles may get rid of the upper class to the embrace of the great nature, “to their true nature”, and expressed the great dissatisfaction with and deep concern over the noble class. The work brought forth the slogan of “going popular”, indicating the further development of his mentality. Yet he hadn’t found the way out, thus had to resort to an ideal situation far away from the reality. It showed his contradictory struggles in the world outlook.
In the 1860s, the masterpiece War and Peace came out. Tolstoy presented his skill at selecting typical examples, shaped characters through detailed behaviors, detailed expression and unique manners. Tolstoy, as a thinker and artist, grew up in the fight against serfdom and its residue and the urban and rural capitalist forces. In War and Peace, he created the images of two ideal young nobles, namely, Pierre Bezuhov and Andrew Bolkonsky.
Andrew Bolkonsky was born to a noble. Though having a prominent family background, he was closer to the people and is thus tired of the empty luxury parasitic life in the upper class. With an aristocratic sense of honor, he joins the army and becomes a military officer. He is brave and considerate in the battle. In the baptism of the war and in the contact with the ordinary soldiers, he gradually overcomes his vanity and pride as a noble, and feels individual significance. In a battle, he is badly wounded. Before he dies, he reads the Gospels and begins to realize the true meaning of life, i.e., “universal love”, loving all without any goal, reason or condition…Pierre is an illegitimate child of a millionaire, who, like the other young nobles, firstly wastes his life in the upper class, and lives an uninhibited life. His wife, “the beautiful animal” Allen becomes depraved and he sees the corruption and sins of the upper class, which makes him so bitter at the upper class. To clear the dirt in him and to recover manor nobility, he accepts the idea of universal love, begins to engage in philanthropy, and launches agricultural reforms in his manor. However, the reforms fail to save the peasants from the burdens. During the war, he tries to assassinate Napoleon out of the sympathy for the people, only to fail. In the prison, he goes through all kinds of hardships and brutalities. From a patriarchal peasant who believes in God, universal love and predestination, he sees the “harmony of the soul” and “eternal merits”, forms the world outlook to “love all”, and takes the road of “self moral-perfection”. After Andrew dies of illness and puts an end to his revolutionary and fighting life, Pierre is still exploring and pursuing. Tolstoy gave his own hard work spirit and personality to Pierre. As an untiring and learned thinker-type writer, Tolstoy created truth-pursuer Pierre, which is totally understandable given the fact that Tolstoy he himself was an explorer of the truth. Of course, he should not view “love all” as the way and method of solving social contradictions.
The publication of Anna Karenina in 1877 was an important symbol that marked the new development of Tolstoy’s critical realism, also a fluoroscopy of his world outlook on the eve of dramatic changes, which future exposed the contradiction in his theories. A special example would be Levin. Young man Levin owns a land of 3,000 Russian mu. Living in the 1870s when “everything seems to be disturbed”; the fast-developing capitalism shocked every class and field, and the Russian feudal patriarchal rural economy was destroyed, thus causing great upheavals in the entire society, Levin, like a great number of insightful nobles, feels painful about the decay of the landlord economy, but refuses to admit the feasibility of any new system. He dreams of a reform scheme capable of detouring around the monster of capitalism and solving the class contradictions in the society with the power of Russia itself (especially with the repentance of the nobility and the forbearance gene in the peasants).
Levin hates everything of capitalism like the urban civilization, the Western European way of running a manor, etc. He wishes to adjust and improve the relations between the peasants and the landowners on the basis of guaranteeing the aristocratic landowners’ land ownership, and tries hard to find a “way of labor beneficial to me and the laborers” and “a non-bleeding revolution.” He then makes his manor an experimental zone to enable Russia to detour capitalism. He participates in some labors and asks the peasants to get engaged in part of the management, and digs the land and harvests the wheel in person, just like a master who has been totally “democratized”. Masters are after all masters. Levin’s exploration and reform goes against the rules of the history, thus naturally encounters a failure. Desperate Levin has no other choices but to find reassurance from family harmony and the religious “universal love”. Till now, the hero in Tolstoy’s masterpiece becomes more “democratized” before finally becoming a nihilist who believes in religion and lives for the God and for the soul. From it, we may see that the destination of Tolstoy’s thought at the later stage, i.e., the patriarchal peasants’ concept, was taking shape.
The turn of the 1870s and 1880s saw a dramatic change in Tolstoy’s world outlook. In A Confession, he wrote, “1881, for me, was the most intense period for me to change my outlook on life from inside. I said no to the life of the class in which I used to be a member.” Tolstoy, a Russian upper class noble who had made arduous and hard explorations for his way out, had finally become the speaker for the patriarchal peasants’ thought and emotions under the education of social reality. Tolstoyism came into being.
The masterpiece which reflects Tolstoy’s patriarchal peasant view of the world in the fullest and most concentrated way is his Resurrection published in 1899, which is another climax of the European critical realism literature. The mentality and course of “resurrection” of the hero Duke Nekhludoff best reflect the above spirit.
Nekhludoff is the final character, the one to summarize Tolstoy’s autographical heroes. He is also a typical example of “noble confession”. To ask Maslova for forgiveness and do a “cleaning of the soul”, he passes between the two social polarities and the urban and rural areas. In the contact with the prisoners, exiles and the peasants, his horizons are broadened and his realization of the reality becomes increasingly clear. Finally, he denies all established systems, fundamentally negates the life of the aristocratic landlord class, and takes the side of the patriarchal peasants. With what the others heard and saw, the author exposed all evils in the Russian society under the ruling of the Tsar, and presented the “most sober realism”. The hero now has stopped being a merciful master who knows charity and nothing more, but a criminal who was once “brutal” and committed a towering crime. He has stopped being a social reformist who stubbornly sticks to the landlord landownership, but a “resurrected” new person who has experienced a zigzagging and painful course and finally “refuses his class” and its way of life. It’s not a direct extension of the series of “confessional nobles”, but sublimation at a higher level. Hence his “summarization” as a summarizing figure is not a quantitative addition, but a qualitative leap like the leap of Tolstoy’s thought. Nevertheless, though Nekhludoff breaks up thoroughly with his class, he has some association with the nobles. So when Maslova refuses to accept his sacrifice, but marries the political prisoner, he doubts if his move is depreciated. He believes that something has to be done to change it, but Tolstoy made him take the road of Pierre and Levin by asking him to seek answer in “human love” and “non-violent resistance against the evils”. Now Nekhludoff is made to conquer his “beastliness” with his “humanity” and depart from the road of the hero’s “resurrection” revealed in the “most sober realism”. The novel now openly explains the “resurrection” with the idealist theory of humanity, bringing the Tolstoyist ideas like “self moral-perfection” and “the religion of love” which crumbled people’s fighting will and advocated the cancellation of revolution to the highest level of all. From Nekhludoff, we could see the final stage of mental growth of artist Tolstoy, as well as the ultimate destination of the continuous explorations of thinker Tolstoy. Nekhludoff is a concentration of the author’s pains, happiness, failures and hopes, and his lifelong experience and painstaking efforts. It is safe to say that Nekhludoff, to a large extent, embodies the autography of Tolstoy, and is a portrait of Tolstoy in art.
After understanding the formation and whole significance of Tolstoyism, we feel astonished at Tolstoy’s spirit of “probing to the end” to pursue the true meaning of life and his great enthusiasm. His pure moral spirit of resolutely refusing his “respectable” class status and comfortable way of life and becoming the speaker for the patriarchal peasants is more commendable. The significance of an artist to the society and the true value of his creation are always directly proportional to the depth and width of his reflection of the era. As a writer who advocates that art shall present “the reality inside man”, Tolstoy naturally viewed the tempo of the mind as an important component of the tempo of life, and took the understanding of the essence of man as the basis of mastering the tempo of the mind. Throughout his life, he explores the spirit and art. His path of creation alone may be called a unique history of art. Tolstoy is indeed great and his works will be eternal.
When commenting on Tolstoy’s realistic writings, Lenin said, “…a really great artist… must have reflected in his work at least some of the essential aspects of the revolution” (Selected Works of Lenin, 3rd edition, vol.2, p. 241).
Here he did not ask an artist to reflect the whole essence of the revolution, since it’s multi-sided and multi-layered. It’s not pragmatic to require reflecting the whole essence of the revolution, but some of the essential aspects of the revolution have to be reflected to give a work the depth of realism. Lenin pointed out, “Tolstoy’s works express the strength and the weakness, the might and the limitations, precisely of the peasant mass movement” (Lenin on Literature and Art, 1st edition, p. 289), hence he called Tolstoy “the Mirror of the Russian Revolution” (Ibid, p281).
Well what aspects of the revolution are reflected through Tolstoy, “the Mirror of the Russian Revolution”? They are the nature and characteristics of the Russian Revolution, according to Lenin. The Russian Revolution is a peasant and bourgeois revolution in nature, the core issue and basic content of which is land. In his works, Tolstoy explored the issue of land in two phases in general. Before he took the side of the patriarchal peasants, he sought reformation. After the shift in his world outlook, from the patriarchal peasants’ perspective, he put forward the peasants’ demand for land and drew the conclusion to negate the aristocratic landowners’ land ownership. To some extent, Tolstoy’s works reflect both the strength and the weaknesses of the Russian Revolution. Lenin pointed out; “Tolstoy’s works express the strength and the weakness, the might and the limitations, precisely of the peasant mass movement” (Collected Works of Lenin, 2nd Chinese edition, vol.20, p. 20).
In Lenin’s words, “His heated, passionate, and often ruthlessly sharp protest against the state and the official church that was in alliance with the police conveys the sentiments of the primitive peasant democratic masses, among whom centuries of serfdom, of official tyranny and robbery, and of church Jesuitism, deception and chicanery had piled up mountains of anger and hatred. His unbending opposition to private property in land conveys the psychology of the peasant masses during that historical period in which the old, medieval landownership, both in the form of landed estates and in the form of state ‘allotments’, definitely became an intolerable obstacle to the further development of the country, and when this old landownership was inevitably bound to be destroyed most summarily and ruthlessly.” (Collected Works of Lenin, 2nd Chinese edition, vol.20, p20)
Tolstoy’s works expressed the peasants’ spontaneous resistance and anger against the Tsarist ruling, and expressed their democratic emotions, mentality and demands. The weaknesses of the Russian Revolution reflected in Tolstoy’s works were mainly in two aspects: first, the free and equal small peasants’ social life pursued by the peasants had some tincture of utopian socialism; secondly, the peasants, in order to build such a unclear social life, tended to waver and compromise in the fight, even buy the preach of “nonviolent resistance against the evils”.
Tolstoy’s exposure of “some essential aspects of the revolution” was also reflected in his revealing of the nature of the revolution objects. Lenin pointed out that Tolstoy ruthlessly exposed the nature of the past Russian economic, political and legal systems.
Lenin associated Tolstoy’s realism with the revolution closely, calling him “the Mirror of the Russian Revolution” and saying that his works reflected “some essential aspects of the revolution”. On the one hand, it’s because Tolstoy did reflect the peasant and bourgeois revolution in his works, but on the other hand, it’s because Lenin, as the great proletarian revolutionist, in order to expose the evil and baneful trick of the then reactionary forces in Russia to distort Tolstoy and to use Tolstoy’s works, focused on the relations of Tolstoy’s works with the revolution so as to serve the proletarian politics. However it is not right to make any narrow-sense explanation of Lenin’s political comments on Tolstoy. Some of the realist works failed to reflect the revolution, and some did not take the revolution as the main object to reflect. It is not right to take it the symbol of a realistic work whether it reflected the revolution. Yet we may understand Lenin’s “Leo Tolstoy is a Mirror of the Russian Revolution” and “some essential aspects of the revolution” in a broader sense. According to Lenin, realistic works are a mirror of social life and reflect some essential aspects of it.
This thought of the theory of reflection held by Lenin is based on his dialectical materialist and historical materialist philosophy. He put forward the thought when writing Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, in which he also adhered to the theory of reflection. His theory of reflection is a dynamic theory of reflection which holds that writers should never reflect the nature of the reality in a mechanic and naturalist way, but in a dynamic way.
Secondly, the subjective conditions for realistic writers.
In his comments on Tolstoy, Lenin proposed that realistic writers should have subjective conditions. The subjective conditions mentioned by Lenin mainly involve:
Firstly, rich life experience in rural areas. Lenin praised, “Tolstoy had surpassing knowledge of rural Russia, the mode of life of the landlords and peasants. In his artistic productions he gave descriptions of this life that are numbered among the best productions of world literature” (Collected Works of Lenin, 2nd Chinese edition, vol.20, p40). Like Lenin analyzed, Tolstoy became “a genius artist” and “depicts an unmatched picture of the Russian life” firstly because he had a surprising knowledge of rural Russia and the mode of life of the landlords’ and that of the peasants’.
Secondly, true feelings. Lenin praised Tolstoy for not only having a surprising knowledge of the life he depicted, but also “the deepest feelings and strongest anger”, “with the utmost power, faith and sincerity” and the exploring spirit to treat the life, the characters and the things he depicted. That’s why his works were so outstanding that they may be called masterpieces in the treasure of world literature. Lenin stressed that realistic writers had to have true feelings. Here the objective reality and the subjective sincerity are dialectically unified. In his articles on Tolstoy, Lenin reiterated and confirmed that Tolstoy’s works “resist… against the lies and hypocrisy in the society with great power” with “enormous sincerity”, thus achieved “the most sober realism”; Lenin was sure about Tolstoy’s “enormous sincerity”, “he tears off all masks” and, with this exploring and pursuing spirit, Tolstoy achieved “the most sober realism”. That prompts people to study the subjective conditions of the realistic writers.
Thirdly, life and practice are the foundation of the contradictions in and shift of the world outlook of the realistic writers. Lenin pointed out, “The contradictions in Tolstoy’s views are not contradictions inherent in his personal views alone, but are a reflection of the extremely complex, contradictory conditions, social influences and historical traditions which determined the psychology of various classes and various sections of Russian society in the post-Reform, but pre-revolutionary era.” (Lenin on Literature and Art, 1st edition, p291) That is to say, the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views, including those in his world outlook, were determined by the complex, contradictory conditions, social influences and historical traditions. In Lenin’s words, “The standpoint of life, of practice, should be first and fundamental in the theory of knowledge” (Lenin on Literature and Life, 1st edition, p21). The era in which Tolstoy lived saw the serfdom reform in 1861 and the revolution in Russia in 1905. In Anna Karenina, thorough Levin, Tolstoy said, “now and here” “all has turned and everything just starts rearrangements”. In the era of dramatic changes, there were contradictions, which determined the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views. Lenin also pointed out, “But the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views and doctrines are not accidental; they express the contradictory conditions of Russian life in the last third of the nineteenth century” (Selected Works of Lenin, 3rd edition, vol.2, p243), “Precisely for this reason that year marked the historical end of Tolstoyism, the end of an epoch that could give rise to Tolstoy’s teachings and in which they were inevitable, not as something individual, not as a caprice or a fad, but as the ideology of the conditions of life under which millions and millions actually found themselves for a certain period of time.” (Collected Works of Lenin, 2nd Chinese edition, vol.20, p103) Being determines consciousness. Life and practice determined the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views. Lenin’s analysis of the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views also applied to the other realistic writers.
Lenin also described that life and practice shifted Tolstoy’s world outlook. He pointed out, “The drastic demolition of all the ‘old pillars’ of rural Russia sharpened his attention, deepened his interest in what was going on around him, and led to a radical change in his whole world outlook.” (Ibid, p40) The old pillars of the patriarchal clan system in Russia collapsed irretrievably, and the capitalist order was just established. The drastic changes in the Russian society greatly influenced Tolstoy’s world outlook. The corruption and decay of Russia under the ruling of the Tsar, the declining and cruelty of the aristocratic landowners and the peasants’ poverty and hardship had all changed Tolstoy’s world outlook as an aristocratic landlord. He did not understand the emerging capitalism, and was full of hatred toward it since capitalism, appearing in the form of primitive accumulation, caused the peasants and the nobles to go bankrupt. The landed notability declined, and the bourgeoisie brought to him terror and hatred. The great peasant movements gradually strengthened the element of peasants’ democracy in his works. Till the 1880s, he finally broke up with the landlords and the nobles, and his world outlook shifted from that of the landowners and nobles’ to that of the patriarchal peasants’. Lenin’s comments on the shift of Tolstoy’s world outlook also apply to the other realistic writers.
Fourthly, younger generation should critically inherit realistic writers’ literary heritage. In his comments on Tolstoy, Lenin pointed out, “This heritage is accepted and is being worked upon by the Russian proletariat” (Collected Works of Lenin, 2nd Chinese edition, vol.20, p25). Tolstoy, as a great realistic writer, has very complex and contradictory world outlook and works. With historical materialism and dialectics, Lenin correctly analyzed the complex and contradictory Tolstoy, providing for us a right way of commenting on the other realistic writers.
First of all, we have to see and admit the contradictions in Tolstoy’s literary heritage. At the time, from the reactionary litterateurs serving the Tsarist government, bourgeois literalism to the Menshevik liquidationism and opportunism, all lavished praises on the backward and reactionary parts in Tolstoy’s theories. They stood at a reactionary stance, and were metaphysical. With Marxism and dialectics, Lenin truthfully analyzed the complex and contradictory Tolstoy. He pointed out the significant contradictions existing in Tolstoy’s world outlook and creation in a profound way, “The contradictions in Tolstoy’s works, views, doctrines, in his school, are indeed glaring. On the one hand, we have the great artist, the genius who has not only drawn incomparable pictures of Russian life but has made first-class contributions to world literature. On the other hand we have the landlord obsessed with Christ. On the one hand, the remark ably powerful, forthright and sincere protest against social falsehood and hypocrisy; and on the other, the ‘Tolstoyan’, i.e., the jaded, hysterical sniveler called the Russian intellectual, who publicly beats his breast and wails, ‘I am a bad wicked man, but I am practicing moral self-perfection; I don’t eat meat any more, I now eat rice cutlets.’ On the one hand, merciless criticism of capitalist exploitation, exposure of government outrages, the farcical courts and the state administration, and unmasking of the profound contradictions between the growth of wealth and achievements of civilization and the growth of poverty, degradation and misery among the working masses; on the other, the crackpot preaching of submission ‘resist not evil’ with violence. On the one hand, the most sober realism, the tearing away of all and sundry masks; on the other, the preaching of one of the most odious things on earth, namely, religion, the striving to replace officially appointed priests by priests who will serve from moral conviction, i.e., to cultivate the most refined and, therefore, particularly disgusting clericalism.” (Selected Works of Lenin, 3rd edition, vol.2, p242) Lenin made an exquisite analysis of the contradictions in Tolstoy’s world outlook and writings, revealed the two-sidedness of Tolstoy’s world outlook. On the one hand, it’s the most sober realist, but on the other it’s the most delicate, thus very bad fideism; on the one hand, he “tears off all masks” from the feudal nobles and the bourgeois oppressors and exploiters, thus was a great critic of all the political, religious, social and economic systems in that reactionary era, but on the other, he advocated “self moral-perfection”, and was crackpot preaching of submission ‘resist not evil’ with violence.
Secondly, Lenin provided a standpoint for us to analyze the realistic writers’ world outlook and the contradictions in their writings in his comments on Tolstoy. He said, “…the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views must be appraised not from the standpoint of the present-day working-class movement and present-day socialism (such an appraisal is, of course, needed, but it is not enough), but from the standpoint of protest against advancing capitalism, against the ruining of the masses, who are being dispossessed of their land — a protest which had to arise from the patriarchal Russian countryside.” (Lenin on Literature and Art, 1st edition, p283) These are two standpoints, i.e., the standpoint of the present-day working-class movement and that of the patriarchal peasants. To comment on the contradictions in his views from the former standpoint, we could see clearly the specific manifestation and essential contents of the contradictions in Tolstoy, but may find it difficult to go to the end of the social origins and class nature of such contradictions. From this standpoint, we see the contradictions in his views which are not favorable for the present-day working class movement and present-day socialism, and those which belong to the future. However it is not enough. To comment on the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views from the same standpoint may lead to an excessively high and unrealistic analysis of the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views. To comment on Tolstoy from the latter standpoint, we would find “the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views are indeed a mirror of those contradictory conditions in which the peasantry had to play their historical part in our revolution”, “undoubtedly, the message of Tolstoy’s writings conforms to this peasant striving far more than it does to abstract ‘Christian Anarchism’, as his ‘system’ of views is sometimes appraised” ③.
In so doing, people won’t make any unrealistic comments on the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views, nor set excessively higher requirements so that they may be able to better explore the social and class origins of the contradictions in his views.
The contradictions in Tolstoy’s views are a reflection of the social contradictions in Russia since the serfdom reform in 1861 till the revolution in 1905. As Lenin once said, “…the uniqueness of Tolstoy’s criticism and its historical significance lie in the fact that it expressed, with a power such as is possessed only by artists of genius, the radical change in the views of the broadest masses of the people in the Russia of this period, namely, rural, peasant Russia” ② (Collected Works of Lenin, 2nd Chinese edition, vol.20, p. 41).
The greatest majority of the people, especially the peasants, was angry about the serfdom residue and dissatisfied with the greedy capitalism, and complained about the autocracy, official church and legal authority. These all became the class origins of the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views. Before Tolstoy shifted his world outlook, the patriarchal peasants’ ideas were the important content of his world outlook. After he shifted his world outlook, Tolstoy became a patriarchal peasant-type thinker. Both his doctrine and writings reflected the patriarchal peasants’ anger and hatred toward the exploiters and the oppressors in Russia, expressed their emotions, wishes and demands for changing their tragic social status and poor living conditions, also presented the weaknesses of the patriarchal peasants in Russia. “Tolstoy mirrored their, sentiments so faithfully that he imported their naïveté into his own doctrine, their alienation from political life, their mysticism, their desire to keep aloof from the world, ‘non-resistance to evil’, their impotent imprecations against capitalism and the ‘power of money’. The protest and desperation of millions of peasants—they were combined in Tolstoy’s doctrine” ②.
That is to say, the contradictions in Tolstoy’s views were mainly those in the patriarchal peasants’ views. Lenin further pointed out that the duality in Tolstoy’s world outlook rightly reflected the duality in the patriarchal peasants, “Tolstoy reflected the pent-up hatred, the ripened striving for a better lot, the desire to get rid of the past—and also the immature dreaming, the political inexperience, the revolutionary flabbiness. Historical and economic conditions explain both the inevitable beginning of the revolutionary struggle of the masses and their unpreparedness for the struggle, their Tolstoyan non-resistance to evil, which was a most serious cause of the defeat of the first revolutionary campaign.” (Selected Works of Lenin, 3rd edition, vol.2, p245) The contradictions in Tolstoy’s views reflected the power, weaknesses, advantages and disadvantages of the patriarchal peasants’. Of course, the peasants’ weaknesses and disadvantages may sometimes be influenced by the reactionary ruling class and historical traditions. Lenin’s analysis of the social and class origins of Tolstoy’s contradictions also inspires us to reveal the causes and origins of the complex contradictions in the realistic writers faithfully and scientifically.
Thirdly, we have to critically carry forward Tolstoy’s literary heritage instead of accepting or denying it all. Since Tolstoy’s heritage is extremely complex and full of contradictions, we should not accept or deny it all without analyzing it. Lenin, on the one hand, squelched the fallacies of the bourgeois literalism and the Mensheviks who accepted all about Tolstoy and viewed him as a saint, and uncovered the vicious purpose of these enemies of Marxism of resisting and confronting the proletarian revolution by drumming for the reactionary side of Tolstoyism; on the one hand, he also criticized the wrong nihilist practice of denying all and of chucking away “Pushkin, Tolstoy and all the other writers” by the “proletarian culture school” led by Bogdanov.
The so-called “accept-all” is actually not “accepting all”. The reactionary litterateurs working for the Tsarist government, the bourgeois liberalists and the Menshevik liquidationism and recallists, et al. all tried every means possible to kill and confront the positive and advanced contents in Tolstoy’s doctrine, views and works, but lavished praise on the negative and reactionary contents therein. To protect the shaking Tsarist autocracy and resist the proletarian revolution, they fanatically clamored the reactionary aspects of Tolstoy centered with “the belief in Christ” and “moral self-perfection”, especially “non-violent resistance to the evils”. As Lenin pointed out when criticizing bourgeois liberalism, “They cannot voice plainly and clearly their opinion of Tolstoy’s views on the state, the church, private property in land, capitalism—not because they are prevented by the censorship: on the contrary, the censorship is helping them out of an embarrassing position!—but because each proposition in Tolstoy’s criticism is a slap in the face of bourgeois liberalism; because the very way in which Tolstoy fearlessly, frankly and ruthlessly poses the sorest and most vexatious problems of our day is a rebuff to the commonplace phrases, trite quirks and evasive, ‘civilized’ falsehoods of our liberal (and liberal-Narodnik) publicists.” (Collected Works of Lenin, 2nd Chinese edition, vol.20, pp. 24-25)
Here Lenin held that the positive and advanced contents in Tolstoy’s views were harsh strikes to the reactionary fallacies held by bourgeois liberalism. They detoured around, covered, blocked off, even objected the positive and advanced contents in Tolstoy’s views and writings. The bourgeois liberalism unduly reticent on and kept quite in front of the positive and advanced contents in Tolstoy’s views and writings, but treasured and lavished praise on the negative and reactionary contents therein. They intentionally called the negative and reactionary contents therein Tolstoy’s “great good conscience”. Lenin criticized Tolstoy in his comments on him, saying, “Hence the asceticism, the non-resistance to evil, the profound notes of pessimism, the conviction that ‘everything is nothing, everything is a material nothing’, and faith in the ‘Spirit’, in ‘the beginning of everything’, and that man, in his relation to this beginning, is merely a ‘laborer … allotted the task of saving his own soul’, etc.” (Lenin on Literature and Art, 1st edition, pp314-316)
Lenin pointed out profoundly that the reactionary writers serving the Tsarist government, the bourgeois liberalists and the Menshevik liquidationism and opportunism were making use of the scum in Tolstoy’s heritage, the spiritual poison, to erode and paralyze the masses. Lenin refuted strictly, “In our days, the most direct and most profound harm is caused by every attempt to idealize Tolstoy’s doctrine, to justify or to mitigate his ‘non-resistance’, his appeals to the ‘Spirit’, his exhortations for ‘self moral-perfection’, his doctrine of ‘conscience’ and universal ‘love’, his preaching of asceticism and quietism, and so forth.” (Collected Works of Lenin, 2nd Chinese edition, vol.20, p104) It exposed the malicious intention of all reactionary forces to resist the proletarian revolution with the scum in Tolstoy’s doctrine, views and writings.
Lenin taught people to not refuse Tolstoy’s heritage simply because of the reactionary factors which may be utilized by the bourgeoisie therein. He summoned the proletariat and the vast people to carry forward the valuable heritage of Tolstoy in a critical way, and to learn revolutionary lessons and get the power of revolution from the critical democratic elements in Tolstoy’s ideas. Lenin proposed to find from Tolstoy’s heritage “which has not become a thing of the past, but belongs to the future” (Lenin on Literature and Art, 1st edition, p293). According to Lenin, the Russian proletariat had to explain to the working masses and the exploited people Tolstoy’s significance to criticizing the state, the church and the private ownership of land, not with the purpose of restricting the masses to self-perfection or the expectation for a pure life, but with the purpose of firing them with the enthusiasm of striking new blows at the Tsarist autocracy and the private ownership of land; it had to explain to the masses Tolstoy’s critiques of capitalism, but not to restrict the masses to cursing the capitalists or the force of money. The masses had to be taught to learn to adopt the established capitalist technical and social achievements in life and struggles, to unite into an army of socialist soldiers to topple capitalism and build a new society where the masses were no long poor and people were not exploited. As a matter of fact, the elements in Tolstoy’s heritage which belong to the future are not limited to ideological elements, but involve those in artistic depiction and esthetic feelings. Of course, it’s necessary to make detailed analyses of such elements which belong to the future. He pointed out, “Furthermore, critical elements are inherent in Tolstoy’s utopian doctrine, just as they are inherent in many utopian systems. But we must not forget Marx’s profound observation to the effect that the value of critical elements in utopian socialism ‘bears an inverse relation to historical development’” (Collected Works of Lenin, 2nd Chinese edition, vol.20, p. 103).
“The more the activities of the social forces which are ‘shaping’ the new Russia and bringing release from present-day social evils develop and assume a definite character, the more rapidly is critical-utopian socialism ‘losing all practical value and all theoretical justification’” (Ibid, pp103-104).
In conclusion, Lenin’s analysis of Tolstoy’s literary heritage has set a great example for us to objectively analyze realistic writers and critically inherit their literary heritage.