Do Not Judge and You Will Not Be Judged (The Right to Punish in the Novel The Resurrection and Other Texts by Christian Anarchist Leo Tolstoy
Abstract
The article focuses primarily on the writer's views and attitudes about judgment and punishment. The philosopher Tolstoy, profoundly influenced by Rousseau since his youth, rejects industrial capitalism and its achievements, criticizes the profligate life of the upper class in cities, over-competition, the rule of money, and so on.
His ideas influenced many, even Gandhi or Einstein. Late Tolstoy, in his philosophical and religious writings and through public appearances, sharply criticizes the situation in Russia, which will bring him the attention of police and censorship and excommunication from the Orthodox Church.
In the autobiographical novel The Resurrection, he recounts the story of Prince Nechljudov, who, as a jury member, finds himself face to face with a prostitute Maslova, who got into the oblique area (also) by his doing. The girl is unjustly and unlawfully condemned, and Nechljudov accompanies her to Siberia.
The axis of the novel is the hero's moral revival, which includes a deepening belief that one has no right to judge and punish another person. The Christian anarchist and the announcer of non-violence Tolstoy also denies this right to a state which he sees as organized violence; in his view, the best guide on the path to good life is the Gospel.
If you want to change the world, appeals the "prophet of Jasna Polyana", you need to start with yourself. In 1908 in response to the steeply growing number of executions resulting from the suppression of the 1905 revolution, he wrote a treatise I Cannot Be Silent and became one of the most prominent figures of European abolitionism.