xviii THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE it necessary to protest. But when the book was already in type, the Censor required that whole sentences should be altered, and that instead of what I said about the evil of landed property, a remark should be substituted on the evils of a landless proletariate. 1 I agreed to this also, and to some further alterations. It seemed not worth while to upset the whole affair for the sake of one sentence, and when one alteration had been agreed to it seemed not worth while to protest against a second and a third. So, little by little, expressions crept into the book which altered the sense and attributed things to me that I could not have wished to say. So that by the time the book was printed it had been deprived of some part of its integrity and sincerity. But there was consolation in the thought that the book, even in this form, if it contains something that is good, would be of use to Russian readers whom it would otherwise not have reached. Things, however, turned out otherwise. Nous cotnptions sans notre hdte. After the legal term of four days had already elapsed, the book was seized, and, on instructions received from Petersburg, it was handed over to the " Spiritual Censor." Then Grote declined all further participation in the affair, and the " Spiritual Censor " proceeded to do what he would with the book. The " Spiritual Censorship " is one of the most ignorant, venal, stupid, and despotic institutions in Russia. Books which disagree in any way with the recognized state re- ligion of Russia, if once it gets hold of them, are almost always totally suppressed and burnt; which is what happened to all my religious works when attempts were made to print them in Russia. Probably a similar fate would have overtaken this work also, had not the editors
The Russian peasant is usually a member of a village commune, and has therefore a right to a share in the land belonging to the village. Tol- stoi disapproves of the order of society which allows less land for the sup- port of a village full of people than is sometimes owned by a single landed proprietor. The " Censor " will not allow disapproval of this state of things to be expressed, but is prepared to admit that the laws and customs, say, of England — where a yet more extreme form of landed property exists, and the men who actually labor on the land usually possess none of it— deserve criticism. — Tr.
