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V.D. Bonch - Bruevich and the Doukhobors: on the Conscientious Objection Policies of the Bolsheviks
ABSTRACT
Vladimir D. Bonch - Bruevich was unique among Bolshevik intellectuals for his lifelong interest in Russian religious sectarianism. In the early 20th century he published a number of works on sects, making him Russia's major scholar in this field. For many years Bonch - Bruevich maintained contact with Tolstoyans and, in particular, Tolstoy's former secretary and publisher V.G. Chertkov, himself a remarkable figure who tried to speak on behalf of pacifist sects in post - revolutionary Russia. Bonch - Bruevich's position as administrative head of Lenin's government enabled him to influence Bolshevik policies on behalf of the sects. One result of such influence was the adoption of the decree on the right of conscientious objection in early of the decree on the right of conscientious objection in early 1919. This article traces the uneven history of relations between the Bolsheviks on the one hand and the Doukhobors, Tolstoyans and other pacifist sects on the other -- from the early 1900s to the middle of the 1930s, when Stalin finally annihilated all vestiges of pacifist religious dissent in the USSR.
In a commentary on the revolutionary events of 1905, Lev N. Tolstoy rejected the idea that Russia should follow the path of the Western European countries and set up liberal democracy. Suffrage and representation may give citizens the impression that they are actively participating in power and lead them to believe that in obeying their government they are obeying themselves. To Tolstoy, this kind of autonomy was dangerously misleading. In his view, modern democracy was turning every citizen, who had to recognize "the legality of all violence perpetrated upon him", into worse than a slave.(f.1) Sharing in the power of government meant not freedom but the possibility of being ordered to act contrary to one's own conscience. Paradoxically, a citizen of a despotic state, who was merely the victim of a government he had not helped to establish, could enjoy greater freedom by remaining free within. Tolstoy considered that in this respect the people of Russia lived in more favourable conditions than those of Western nations. The absence of "constitutional slavery" meant hope for the Russian people.
Tolstoy put forward...