"Joy of freedom"

The appeal of the daughter of Leo Tolstoy to the Communists and Komsomol members

Photo: pastvu.com

On November 7, he deserves to become a day of commemoration of the victims of communism. It is never worth reminding what turned out to be the decades of the existence of Soviet power for the country. The New Times publishes (in abbreviation) the appeal “to the Communists and Komsomol members” of the daughter of Leo Tolstoy Alexandra Tolstoy, read on the air “Radio Liberation” on September 9, 1953

Parties, Communists, Komsomol members! I do not want to tell you a prepared anti -communist speech, but I just want to tell you what will result from the heart, talk heart to heart with you. I’m already an old woman, some of you are not like a mother, but in my grandmothers I am fit. I saw a lot in my life. Since childhood, fate pamper me. In the house of my father Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, I had to meet outstanding people from the world of art, science, literature, which the rich period of the heyday of Russian culture gave us. I brought up in respect for the working people who my father loved so much. <...>

I also survived the revolution, lived in Soviet Russia for 12 years and is happy that I was able to give these years to the service of people by organizing schools, hospitals, cooperatives in the Yasnaya Polyana. I visited both prison and in the camp. Fortunately for myself, it was not on the side of the oppressors, but on the side of the oppressed. I traveled around the world, got acquainted with the life of various nationalities - Japanese, Americans, Europeans, other free democratic countries, but I cannot forget my homeland. I would like to see her free, like other countries where every citizen can build his life as he wants, to choose a job that suits him, to live where he wants to, without obediently in the entire party pointer. <...>

You all, party members, live only according to someone else's pointer, by order from above along the party line. You will be called a sabotage, a traitor, a traitor, a spy, and you are gone. Yesterday's comrade will turn your neck in the same way as he or you at one time folded the neck of others. And in the truth to tell who needs this Communist Party, this so -called dictatorship of the proletariat? Why are you doing all this? Is it not to revel in the rough physical power over non -partisan citizens who are immeasurably higher than you, at least one that they do not participate in your atrocities, but only silently tolerate suffering? Have you thought what colossal responsibility you bear to these people? <...> Are you not responsible to the homeland that you turned into a concentration camp?

Comrades! Are there really naive people among you who have retained dreams of the world revolution, about the unheard of the achievements of five -year -olds, about the equation of the masses? I can’t believe that after 36 years of experience, such naive people would have been found in Russia. And then what are you hoping for? Do you believe that you will avoid the fate of thousands of party members who were shot by their own? <...> For 15 years he imprisoned, referred to hard labor, he tortured, executed the closest minister of Stalin Beria. His turn came. Arrested. Maybe already executed. Or maybe it will still repent. A new executioner was appointed. And he and many will comprehend the same fate. If people will leave the kara, do you believe it or not, comrades, but you can’t leave God's punishment.

Or maybe some of you, party members, will still defend the idea. And what is she? In following the teachings of the obsolete Karl Marx? No wonder the socialists and workers of democratic countries have already moved away from Marxism. But even if you want to adhere to the theory of Marxism, read carefully “capital”, although you agree with you - terribly boring. And you will see how far the Soviet government went with Marxism. What is the idea? In the absence of application of primitive freedoms in Russia, which are used by all the so -called Capitalist countries, where people can say anything, print, where they can gather freely, profess any faith? Maybe the idea is to enslave the millions of people, attaching workers to certain cities and factories and peasants to collective farms? Maybe the idea is to prohibit the communication of Russian citizens with citizens of other countries? And I remember that one of the main means of propaganda, which was used by Comrade Lenin, was the fraternity between people of different nations. Why is the Soviet government so zealously protecting its borders? Is it because, open Russia your borders, Russian people would have left the crowds of the Soviet Paradise. <...>

Comrades! I could talk to you for hours about how even you, party members, are deceived by your Kremlin rulers. I will say only a few words to the new generation of youth, on which we, old people, have all our hope for the salvation and revival of our unfortunate homeland. I really hope that my words will not be in vain, that you will listen to me with your sensitive, not yet spoiled souls, understand how sincerely and warmth I treat you, memorize my work and my relationship with youth in the Yasnaya Polyan school. I recall one young man-Komsomol, secretary of the deputy-brimmate of enlightenment. I had to talk with him several times. For some reason, he believed me and told me about his experiences. He was deeply disappointed with party work. Overexposure of facts, lies, bureaucracy, cruelty. He asked me to take him to the Yasnaya Polyan school by the secretary of the Komsomol cell. But the party did not let him go. Each time that I had to talk to him, his doubts grew, his mood was done darker and darker. He did not want to be a Komsomol member anymore, but he could not leave. It seemed that there was no outcome. Once I came to the People's Commissariat, I wanted to go to the deputy wireworth, but they did not let me go. They ran along the corridor, fussed, whispering about something. "What's the matter?" - I ask. "Come on, citizen, do not interfere here!" I see a friend I know is running. “You know,” he says, “what happened?” The secretary of the deputy -bribery shot himself 10 minutes ago. As he sat at the desk, he sits. He shot at the temple. The whole table is flooded with blood. What can you do? Unconscious element ... "

Comrades! Who is an unconscious element? From my point of view, “unconscious elements” are those who realize that they carry the greatest power, the strength of the Spirit of God, or call it somehow differently, if you are able to move everything that is valuable in the world. This divine force gave us the mind. Why, I will ask you? Is it possible only in order to live according to someone else's pointer of people led by the smallest materialistic motives? Gave us a conscience. For what? Is it really in order to drown out her lies, falsity, deception? Gave us the power of creativity. For what? Is it really that we atrophy with this power by slave obedience? No, comrades! Life is sent to people to the joy. And joy is achieved only by the performance of the will of the one who has sent us to life! Joy in freedom, in love, in goodwill for all people! And believe me, friends, in achieving this ideal, you are not alone in this idea of ​​freedom and happiness of Russian people! ..

Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya (1884–1979) - youngest daughter L.N. Tolstoy. From the age of 16 she did secretary work with him. According to the will of her father, she received copyrights to a literary heritage. During the First World War, she graduated from sisters of mercy and went voluntarily to the front, was awarded with St. George medals. After the war, she devoted herself to the preservation and spread of her father’s spiritual heritage. In 1920, the GPU was arrested and sentenced to three years in the camp of the Novospassky Monastery. Thanks to the petition of the peasants of Yasnaya Polyana in 1921, she was released, she returned to her native estate, and after the Decree of the All -Russian Central Executive Committee became the keeper of the museum. In 1929 she left Russia. In 1939, in the United States organized and headed the Tolstoye Fund for Assisting Russian Refugees. The author of several books about L.N. Tolstoy.

On March 1, 1953, the radio station “Liberation”, which was renamed Radio Liberty, after 6 years, first reached the air. Financing was carried out by the US Congress. The programs were conducted from Munich. The radio was conceived as an informational source that replenishes freedom of speech and information that was absent in the USSR. The stars of Russian cultural emigration were involved in the work on the radio: writers Gaito Gazdanov, Alexander Bahrah, poet and art critic Vladimir Weidle. Alexander Kerensky, writer Boris Zaitsev, Menshevik Irakli Tsereteli and others took part in the programs.

First published in NT No. 44 of November 3, 2008 .