,6 THE ROAD TO SERFDOM " SIR, —In your issue of
April 7th Mr. Geoffrey C. M. Makin has attacked some of my statements made in your previous issue concerning the decline of freedom and tolerance on the Continent of Europe—particu- larly in Russia. The importance of this question can scarcely be over- estimated, and I hope you will allow me to supplement my previous cursory remarks by a few documentary references. I had illustrated the degree of tolerance existing in Tsarist Russia by the fact that Tolstoy from his country seat in Yasnaya Polyana could continue to attack with complete impunity the Tsar and the Holy Synod and persistently preach disobedience against the fundamental laws of the State, while pilgrims from all the corners of the earth could travel unmolested to Yasnaya Polyana to pay tribute to him. On these points the Encyclopaedia Brivamica, 14th edition, article "Tolstoy" states:
"From the first. the Russian Government viewed Tolstov's activity with hostility. But it never attempted to do anything against him. Some of his more anti-Orthodox writings, as well as some of his bitterest attacks on the Romanoff dynasty, had to appear abroad. But what appeared in Russia was quite sufficient for a complete acquaintance with his teachings. In 1901 the Synod of the Russian Church excommunicated him—an act which has been much misinterpreted and which merely registered a fact he had himself proclaimed many years earlier, viz., that he had ceased to belong to the Church." Tolstoy's teachings included that: "Property, as the gratification of greed and lust and the assertion of a single man's monopoly over things that belong to all, was wicked." In Russia we are told: "His disciples were never numerous. . . . His larger influence, however, was immense." " . . . Visitors from all ends of the earth made Yasnaya Polyana a new Mecca."
This disposes of Mr. Makin's objections, particularly of his curious statement that Tolstoy was practically unknown in Russia.—Yours, &c., 3o Sandileigh Avenue, Withington.
MICHAEL POLANYI.
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