Lesson 13

Tolstoy and the Dukhabors

In Part One, I promised to tell you the story of a group of Russian Christians called Dukhobors. The name Dukhobor is a Russian word meaning Spirit wrestler . Their story is important because they are one of the few groups in all history to understand the awesome implications of Christianity. These implications are not taught, and maybe not even suspected, by many who call Christ their Lord today. A very famous Russian writer helped the Dukhobors escape persecution. His name was Count Leo Tolstoy . or as many people call him, simply Tolstoy. I think you'll find this little known story very interesting.

Although they weren't call Dukhobors until the late 18th century, their commitment to the Lordship of Jesus first began in the late 17th century. It was people who rejected the earth-shaking truth found in the Bible that first called them Spirit Wrestlers. The intention was to poke fun at them in a mean way, just as it was when followers of Christ were first called Christians.

Dukhobors, just like the American Colonists, believed in the equality of all men before God. That means no man rightly rules another including the czar, the king, the pope, the priest, the president or any other wizard. Both the Dukhobors and the Colonists rejected all pretended authority, especially human governments. They recognized God alone as ruler on earth just as in the rest of the universe at all times and places.

Dukhobors were simple men and women from the peasant class. They were ignored at first, but then they began to live together in groups sharing everything in common. This was both in recognition of the reality that God owns everything and men own nothing, and in obedience to the Gospel which commands people to turn from the domain of darkness. Their firm but peaceful resistance to the violent men who made up the Russian state and the men who made up the Russian Orthodox Church brought persecution upon them under Catherine II. She was empress of Russian from 1762 to 1796. Alexander I was emperor from 1801 to 1825. He allowed these Christians to settle near the Sea of Azov just to the north of the Black Sea where they worked the land and made flourishing farms.

Dukhobors would not allow themselves to be drafted into the army because they regarded any kind of killing or training to kill as a violation of God's law. That made the Emperor very angry. As with most wizards his power and wealth depended upon the ability to murder large numbers of people as efficiently as possible. As an example to others the Dukhobors were forcibly ejected from the lands they had labored so hard and long to make productive. They were moved to a barren area east of the Black Sea in what is now called the Georgian SSR. This was their punishment for giving their allegiance to God alone. But instead of starving to death they built new and thriving communities.

In 1887 the military draft was again imposed upon the young men of the Dukhobor community. In the 1890's they put into practice their principle of passive resistance to evil. Again they were forcibly moved from their beautiful farms and homes to an area where the land was very poor indeed. To be sure they would not thrive once more they were allowed no land to farm. Of the four thousand men, women and children, one thousand died of starvation and other hardships. During this time there were many incidents of Dukhobors standing firmly for God's government.

One incident, news of which traveled the rounds of the villages had to do with Grandpa Chernenkov of the Kars area settlement. He was neither a reservist nor in any way affiliated with the military establishment. Nonetheless, he felt so deeply moved by the young trainee's stand, that he too desired to make his position clear to the authorities. He therefore presented himself to the Alexandropol Military Administration Center and informed the officer in charge that he, Syoma Chernenkov, did not recognize the Emperor of Russia as supreme authority, and that from now on he was going to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, serving only Him. The officer, who was a kindly elderly man by the name of Bairakov, told him the administration would take his confession into cognizance, but in the meantime he was to go home and rest at peace in his Christian beliefs. Grandpa Chernenkov went home gravely disappointed. He waited for some reaction and when nothing occurred after a week, he was back at the administration center, insisting that he was of the same opinion as the young Doukhobors who were refusing to serve in the army, and that he wanted to share their fate. The officer tried to convince him to go home, explaining that his case would be considered later. But Grandpa Chernenkov insisted that he didn't recognize the emperor because he was an antichrist, and exploiter who was keeping the people in backwardness. He kept this up until the officer was compelled to lock him up, for if he didn't, his own clerks could very well report to his superiors that Bairakov was displaying sympathy towards the Doukhobors who were already being classified as insurgents. {1}

People who did not recognize the Emperor made the Russians very angry. They would shout at the Dukhobors You are flouting authority! You are creating an insurrection! But it was the Russians who were flouting authority, God's authority. It was the Russians who rose up against God's government and laws and dreamed up their own.

Tostoy was a member of Russian aristocracy, the hereditary ruling class of Russia. His religions beliefs were very similar to those of the Dukhobors. Tolstoy befriended the Dukhobors and was among those who helped make it possible for the Dukhobors to emigrate to Canada . Most of them moved to what is now Saskatchewan in 1898-99. Being very good farmers the Dukhobors brought hundreds of thousands of acres into production within about ten Years.

The reason they chose to relocate to Canada was because the Canadians agreed to leave them free to practice their religion. Dukhobors would not be required to give an oath of allegiance to the government or serve in the military as they had been in Russia. But the Canadians soon showed themselves to be the same as the Russians. The Dukhobors were informed that they would be required to sign papers for each farm rather than holding them communally according to the original understanding.

When they were further informed that, when signing for each, the head of every family would also be compelled to take the oath of allegiance to the British king, the people began scheduling meetings with increased frequency and urgency. These meetings ultimately resulted in a firm, unequivocal decision being made by the Doukhobors, stating that they could never, under any circumstances, agree to take the oath of allegiance to any earthly king.{2} Of course, people who give allegiance to God alone cannot give allegiance to governments men have conjured up. So, the Canadians took the beautiful farms, orchards and houses from the Dukhobors and gave them to others who would swear allegiance, over two hundred and fifty thousand acres in all.

Many of the Dukhobors moved to British Columbia and bought land to farm with the money they had saved. No oath of allegiance was required this way. Again they prospered. They dug irrigation ditches, built roads and planted new orchards and farms. But the Canadians would not leave them alone. The Canadians were true believers in statism and they wanted the Dukhobor children to be indoctrinated into their secular belief system in the public schools. Canadians also wanted the Dukhobors to support statist activities financially with the money owned by God and entrusted to their stewardship. Whether in Russia or Canada, statism is the very opposite of Christianity. Statism is part of the domain of darkness. Christians are commanded to turn from the domain of darkness to the Kingdom of God, something the Dukhobors understood very well. They continued to resist and were involved in more and more struggles with the Canadian statist.

The leader of the Dukhobors was a man named Peter Veregin . In 1924 he was killed by a time bomb. In 1927 the younger Peter Veregin was brought from Russia to be their leader. He died in 1939 leaving a final message in which he recommended that the Dukhobors abandon communal life and accept the laws of the country while retaining their religions doctrines. We can easily understand why Veregin made this recommendation. No one likes to live an insecure life, never knowing when they will be forced off their land, imprisoned, tortured and killed because of their religion. Veregin thought it would be better to submit to the domain of darkness than to struggle any longer. The same choice faces every Christian no matter what time or place.

The persecution of Russian Christians did not end when the Dukhobors left. We have an eyewitness description of a session of the Ryazan Revtribunal in 1919 as they heard the case of a man identified as I. Ye---v. he was not a deserter at all but a man who simply and openly refused to enter military service because of his religions convictions. He was conscripted by main force, but in the barracks he refused to take up arms and undergo training. The enraged Political Commissar of the unit turned him over to the Cheka, saying: 'He does not recognize the Soviet government.' There was an interrogation. Three Chekists sat behind the desk, each with a Naguan revolver in front of him. "We have seen heroes like you before. You'll be on your knees to us in a minute!" But Y---v was firm. He couldn't fight. He was a believer in free Christianity. And his case was sent to the Revtribunal... One of the members of the Revtribunal-a juror-tried to elicit the views of the accused. (How can you, a representative of the working people, share the opinions of the aristocrat, Count Tolstoi?)... The court exits in order to confer. The sounds of a noisy argument come from the conference room. They return with the sentence: to be shot... The convoy came and led Ye---v to jail, saying to him: 'If everyone was like you, brother, how good it would be! There would be no war, and no Whites and Reds!'... They commuted his sentence to fifteen years of strict detention. {3}

True Christians have been under constant attack in Russia. In the twenties, a large group of Tolstoyans was exiled to the foothills of the Altai and there they established communal settlements jointly with the Baptists... Then arrests began-first the teachers (they were not teaching in accordance with the government programs), and the children ran after the cars, shouting. And after that the commune leaders were taken. {4}

All priests were insects-and monks and nuns even more so. And all those Tolstoyans who, when they undertook to serve the Soviet government on, for example, the railroads, refused to sign the required oath to defend the Soviet government with a gun in hand thereby showed themselves to be insects too. {5}

Today most of the Dukhobors in Canada have stopped resisting openly. But, the light of understanding they once had did not go out. It is still found in Russia. Russian Orthodox priest, Vladimir Shibaeff, 40, who was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1988, told a Washington, D.C. gathering that the Soviet Union still 'practices anti-religions persecution and enforces punitive actions against those who do not submit to the godless state. {6}

The godless Communist state has had a difficulty in suppressing true Christianity. Until just recently the godless Democratic state in this country has been far more successful. Only a handful of years have passed since Americans of this generation first recognized the God-King who demands that believers turn from the domain of darkness to the Kingdom of His Son.

When Russian statist persecute Christians for not submitting to the godless state, American statists call it a violation of human rights. When American statist do the same thing, they call it law enforcement. This is a textbook example of departmentalized thinking, or doublethink, as George Orwell called it.

Many Christians living in America have given their allegiance to God alone. They have renounced their U.S. citizenship and taken up citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel. Don't confuse this with the Israeli state; the state of Israel is part of the domain of darkness while the commonwealth of Israel is the same as the Kingdom of God. They decline to support the domain of darkness morally, militarily or financially. Those who resist strongly enough are forcibly removed from their homes and farms. They are prohibited from driving cars and trucks on the roads. They are prohibited from earning a livelihood in many cases. Their children are taken from them and indoctrinated in statism and other mysteries of the domain of darkness. They are put in jail. These are the same things done to Christians living in Russia.

Tolstoy is classed among the greatest writers who ever lived. He was the author of War and Peace. He was a Russian count by birth, but he often wore peasant clothing and spent time with peasants in their homes discussing religion. Tolstoy died in 1910 at the age of 72. If we open our minds we can learn much from his ideas. In the remainder of this lesson you will find a series of quotations taken from Tolstoy's writings. Please study them carefully.

Tolstoy approved of the Declaration of Sentiments adopted by the Peace Convention held in Boston, September 18, 19 and 20, 1838. Many Quakers signed that document. Quakers later helped the Dukhobors to leave Russia at the end of the century. Tolstoy quoted that Declaration in his paper titled " The Kingdom of God is Without You. "The dogma, that all governments of the world are approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the United States, in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with His will, is not less absurd than impious. It makes the impartial Author of human freedom and equality unequal and tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the powers that be, in any nation, are actuated by the spirit or guided by the example of Christ, in the treatment of enemies; therefore, they cannot be agreeable to the will of God; and therefore their overthrow, by a spiritual regeneration of their subjects, is inevitable. {7}

Tolstoy understood that when Christians pray Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven they are asking for human governments and human will to be done away with. Tolstoy knew that real Christianity is subversive of every government and that men have established a Christianity which serves to prop the government rather than destroy it. {8} Both then and now pseudo-Christians are alarmed that Tolstoy could believe such revolutionary ideas. They point to Romans 13 and other Biblical passages to prove that God wants us to submit to any group of men who claim to be a government.

A moment's reflection shows that this could not possibly be right. God's will is to be King of the Israel people just as He was for the ancient Israelites. That's what the First and Second Commandments are about. When men reject Him as God-King and set up human kings and rulers who govern contrary to the law of God we mustn't kid ourselves. Such groups are not ordained by God as governments and they are not recognized by Him. Even kings set up by the Israelites after their rejection of Yahweh the God-King were not recognized. We read about it in Hosea 8:4 - They made kings, but not through me. They set up princes, but without my knowledge.

So, how can we tell a government authorized by God from one that isn't? We must be able to discern good and evil. Those which punish evil and reward good are ordained by God, just like it teaches in Romans 13. And what conduct is evil? Read the ninth verse of Romans 13. It is the violation of the Ten Commandments that is evil, not what some men may decide is evil in their legislatures and courts, which are themselves part of the domain of darkness.

Tolstoy was aware that statism and Christianity are diametrically opposed with no possibility of neutrality or accommodation on either side. Tolstoy observed that the Church-fraud continues till now. The fraud consists in this: that the conversion of the powers-that-be to Christianity is necessary for those that understand the letter, but not the spirit of Christianity; but the acceptance of Christianity without the abandonment of power is a satire on, and a perversion of, Christianity.

The sanctification of political power by Christianity is blasphemy; it is the negation of Christianity.

After fifteen hundred years of this blasphemous alliance of pseudo-Christianity with the State, it needs a strong effort to free oneself from all the complex sophistication by which, always and everywhere (to please the authorities), the sanctity and righteousness of State-power, and the possibility of its being Christian, has been pleaded. {9} Tolstoy counts fifteen hundred years since the Church joined forces with the Roman Empire. That alliance has lasted until today. The result was that the Church became the pseudo-Church, the religious arm of the state.

In truth, the words a 'Christian State' resemble the words 'hot ice.' The thing is either not a State using violence, or it is not Christian. {9}

Tolstoy said that attempts such as that of the Dukhobors, who called themselves Christians of the Universal Brotherhood , to realize the Christian life were like the warm rains and the sun-rays which have not as yet brought spring... For, if the Kingdom of God, i.e., the kingdom on earth of truth and good, is to be realized, it can be realized only by such attempts as were made by the first disciples of Christ, afterwards by the Paulicians, Albigenses, Quakers, Moravians Brethren, Mennonites, all the true Christians of the world, and now by the Christians of the Universal Brotherhood. {10}

Tolstoy's main objection to the state was its bloody wars. To him the time to resist the state was when Christians were ordered to take up arms and kill or learn to kill. Thanks to the firm stand taken by many Christians all over the world, statists now permit a conscientious objector to decline armed service in most countries. Today, the battle line is drawn in a new place. No longer are just the draft laws resisted, the very theoretical foundations of statism are now under attack by Christian warriors.

All laws created under the theories of statism are an affront to our Lord. The very concept of state laws directly denies the sovereignty of God and asserts the sovereignty of the state. As a result we see Christians today attempting to close abortion clinics; we see parents rejecting the marriage license and birth certificate and educating their children at home; we see people refusing to pay taxes; we see doctors and barbers and drivers refusing to be licensed; and we see court orders ignored, all to flout man-made laws. None of this is done willfully. Rather it is done in obedience to the Greatest Commandment which requires us to love God with our entire being. Not the tiny, weak god worshipped by pseudo-Christians who is only king of one's heart, but the Almighty God who is King of the commonwealth of Israel, King of Kings, and Sovereign and Legislator of the Universe. How can we claim to love Him if we recognize state sovereignty?

The modern nation-states are not established through God or with His knowledge. Anyone who supports such imaginary entities does so contrary to God's will. They are part of the domain of darkness from which Christians are commanded to turn.

Well, there you have the story of the Dukhobors and Tolstoy. Knowing about them and what was done to them because of their beliefs is important. It helps us recognize what is being done to Christians who today, in all countries, stand firmly upon the teachings of our Messiah. American statists are determined to crush true Christianity out of existence. That means criminalizing true Christians and barricading the gates of the Kingdom forever. They much prefer to eliminate Christianity through thought control. If the alternative to statism is unknown, then people are much more likely to submit quietly, because ignorance makes resistance seem hopeless.

For seventy or eighty years the American Church-State cabal pretty well succeeded in its efforts. The Statists had a clear field. Their very significant advances on every front make it increasingly difficult for Christians to pretend that God has ordained the gross violation of His own laws. Paradoxically, the success of statism will be its undoing. Every unjust act of the godless police state serves to open the eyes of a few more. Many of these turn to the King of the Israelites seeking citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel. They find their strength in the Lord and put on all the armour which God provides. Ephesians 6:10-17. Against such an army statists have no chance.

The End

Footnotes:

1. Poploff, Eli;l Tanya; mir Publication Society, 1975, Grand Forks, B.C., Canada, pg. 66.
2. Ibid., pg 150.
3. Solzhenitsyn, Alexksandr I., The Gulag Archippelago, Harper & Row, 1973, pgs 303-305.
4. Ibid., pg. 51.
5. Ibid., pg. 28.
6. Politics, Elections and Administrations, by Tommy W. Rodger, Chalcedon Report, Oct. 1988, #279.
7. Tolstoy on Civil Disobedience and Non-violence, Signet Books, 1968, pg. 216.
8. Ibid., pg. 240.
9. Ibid., pgs. 206-207.
10. Ibid., pg. 165.

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