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Marxian
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Archive.
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Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy.I simply had to give up reading Ayan Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Ok, it has a thriller element that could have kept me reading, but the notion that individuals, even swashbuckling entrepreneurs, have the individual freedom to act under capitalism puts the book beyond any possibility of the suspension of disbelief.
I’ve had to turn to more substantial fair for my reading delectation.
Resurrection, by Leo Tolstoy. This by far the novelist's greatest book, and I don’t say that lightly, given the majestic achievements of War and Peace, and Anna Karenina. Yet it has been curiously condemned to relative oblivion, perhaps because it is a dangerous book to anyone in power.
Resurrection is literally about a new birth, a new beginning. The leading protagonist, Dmitry Nekhlyudov born into the land-owning aristocracy, is drawn into the new dawn of a realisation that the whole of Russia’s judicial and political system is founded on a crushing immorality, that reduces the peasants to less than animals in the yes of the law. The catalyst to this realisation is Maslova, the woman he loved and raped. She was of too low a class (a maid) for him to marry. Instead, he abandoned her. She bore his child, lost it out of poverty and turned to prostitution. He next meets her in the law courts, he as a court official, she as a condemned prisoner.
Sheer guilt makes him stop and think. Sheer guilt makes him recognise the wrong there is all around
This is the resurrection that Tolstoy saw fit to be at the heart of a practical application of the Christian faith as he understood it. Resurrection to Tolstoy was material, not spiritual.
Bethink Yourselves by Tolstoy.
| The Russo-Japanese War brings out a pacifist furvour in the author. Again, a treatise on anarchism that has largely been ignored. As a consequence, its revolutionary impact has not been felt. Good, but not a patch on The Slavery of Our Time.
The Slavery of Our Time by Tolstoy.
| How could a book like this have been written and not change the world? The truth is – it has been suppressed! This book says it all. Slavery exists and we are the slaves.
A documentary about Tolstoy has been shown recently by British state propaganda (BBC). State propagandist Alan Yentob spoke through the whole two hours plus without mentioning the word anarchist. Now that’s censorship!
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