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 Speech by Lunacharsky at the grand opening of the monument to Leo Tolstoy

Comrades and citizens, in the days that are dedicated to honoring one of the greatest writers and thinkers of the world, representatives of the Soviet government and the Communist Party in all their statements, printed and oral, emphasized to a sufficient extent that some features of the teachings of L. N. Tolstoy diverge radically from the teachings of the Communist Party, with the principles underlying our construction, and I do not want to repeat this here again.

I want to emphasize here, at the foot of this statue, what deeply unites us with the giant of conscience, which was Tolstoy.

If we take into account that Tolstoy belonged to the ruling noble class, to rich people, that, in addition, he was given by fate a huge artistic talent that could turn him into a multimillionaire and make him a proud personality, ready to look down on everyone who is less grants, then it will become clear what a gigantic strength of conscience this person had to have in order to get away from all human pride and proclaim with unheard-of power the principle of equality and love between people.

Of course, we know that he was helped to leave the camp of the nobility by the fact that the advancing capitalism not only brought new wild forms of oppression of the petty people, but also beat the nobility. However, a number of other nobles, as a result, only became hardened, turned into bison, hating any progress, both technical and moral, turned into ossified Kashcheis who wanted to secure their parasitic state and immortality and be the dead one that keeps the living.

One had to be that genius of conscience, which was Tolstoy, in order to make this exceptional path. He did not stop at any station, and in this sense he was a great revolutionary. He did not give in to promises to improve a little or patch up a little, to embellish that edifice of untruth that was erected before his eyes and which had a thousand-year past behind it - he literally demanded everything. He wanted complete equality, he wanted the triumph of labor on earth, he wanted real brotherhood, which would destroy all the boundaries between individual states, which would destroy all class differences, so that on earth there were only people-brothers and above them one human truth.

For this it was necessary to produce gigantic destructions, and Tolstoy actually called for these destructions - for the destruction of the state, which, in his opinion, should not exist, for the rejection of narrow patriotism, for the destruction of the church, which had become the assertion of the rule of the ruling class, for the destruction of the family in the form in which it exists in bourgeois society, to the destruction of private property.

In this sense, Tolstoy's preaching was truly devastating. When a false civilization tried to hide behind the achievements of science or art, he did not stop at smashing them too: - truth, equality, love is above all, and where this beginning does not exist - no conquests of science, no charms of art will bribe me and will not make me bow before them.

Destructive force, the method of destruction that Tolstoy welcomed and wanted to carry out, he believed in the word and personal example. In our opinion, he greatly exaggerated the significance of this weapon. We do not think that by way of word and example, without any struggle against the rapists, anything could be done. Let us leave the time, which has already largely settled this dispute, to settle it definitively. But when we ask ourselves to what ideals Tolstoy's feelings were directed, we immediately feel Tolstoy's deep affinity and closeness.

And so, in spite of much that separates us, in spite of all our reservations, we proudly feel much closer to this great man than so many flabby people, whose love does not move them to any feats, to any struggle, and who say with their lips: “Tolstoy is our great teacher,” but who, to a much lesser extent, with all the blood of their hearts, with all the energy of their lives, contribute to the onset of that truth and that love for which Tolstoy lived and preached.

Against the same untruth, towards the same goal, yet by different paths—this is the formula that unites us with Tolstoy. Therefore, with respect, with pride that such a person lived among us, we are now opening this monument.

We know that Tolstoy did not care for the monuments that stand in the squares and rise in a toga, in a frock coat or in a blouse - it doesn't matter - between passing cars and passers-by. The government, on the other hand, has received some reproachful letters based on a misunderstanding: why do hundreds of thousands of rubles go to Tolstoy's anniversary when there is so much need in the country? It was easy for us to answer this: after all, all this small, after all, money (when compared with the significance of this honor), which the government appropriated, really returned to the people in the best possible form - in the form of a hospital, a school that was created here in the form of museums, which are cultural centers.

Everything is resolutely used completely for the benefit of the people, as Lev Nikolayevich himself would approve if he lived. And I think that he would not be angry with us that here, in this school, we will open a statue depicting him.

Those of us who yesterday were able to view the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, 1 where all the iconography, all the images of Leo Tolstoy are selected, could not help but grow in our souls the conviction that the very appearance of Lev Nikolayevich is closely connected and perfectly conveys his peasant social humanity, simplicity and greatness of the spiritual forces hidden in it.

I hope that these main features, which are captured in the best images of Tolstoy, are sufficiently captured by the artist Korolev, the author of the statue that we will now open before you.

Let, like a seal that is applied to some important documents, Tolstoy's appearance imprints the work of his life, and let, as one of such seals, here, in the place of the mighty influence of Tolstoy's genius, this statue will rise. (Applause).

At the Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, an All-Union exhibition on the theme “Leo Tolstoy in the Fine Arts” was opened on the anniversary days.