---
layer: reference
lastUpdated: 2026-05-27
tags: [research, biryukov, doukhobors]
lang: en
source: tolstoy-lit.ru
volume: 3
chapter: 10
---

# Volume III, Chapter 10. The Agricultural Communes

**Source:** https://tolstoy-lit.ru/tolstoy/bio/biryukov/biografiya-biryukov-3-10.htm

**Text:** P. I. Biryukov (1860–1931), *Biography of L. N. Tolstoy*, Volume III. Public domain.
**Translation:** English translation for the tolstoy.life research platform (2026-05-27), from the continuous Russian capture in [`../ru/chapter-10.md`](../ru/chapter-10.md).

---

Toward the end of the 1880s the so-called Tolstoyan colonies, or communes of educated husbandmen, attained a considerable development. There is no doubt that L. N. influenced their formation, and therefore it is of great interest to clarify his attitude toward them.

In the middle of the 1880s the ideas of Marxism began to penetrate into the revolutionary milieu of the Russian intelligentsia. The soil for them had been prepared: the rout of the "People's Will" party, the executions, the arrests, and the flight of its leaders. The cruel execution of the Russian Emperor Alexander II, and the repeated terrorist attempts that followed it, repelled from the revolutionary movement that part of the moderately progressive intelligentsia which had supported it secretly, both with material means and with various manifestations of sympathy. It was at this time that a new revolutionary teaching appeared, one that pushed the question of violence against state power off into a far and indefinite distance, that gave strictly scientific foundations to its doctrine, and that attracted the progressive — for the most part young — Russian intelligentsia by its principles of collectivism, its sympathy with the working class, and its emancipation from every kind of so-called superstition, survival, sentimentality, mysticism, and the rest of the "rubbish" — that is, a teaching which freed its adepts from religious and moral obligations, ever unsteady in our young people, deprived of a free moral schooling and upbringing. This teaching, christened with the name of its founder, was spreading with great rapidity under the name of Marxism, of scientific socialism, and of political social-democratic idealism and realism. The new revolutionary intelligentsia was transformed from shaggy and unkempt nihilists into the correct adepts of a new teaching, which demanded of them no immediate personal change of life, but instead offered them — and called them to — a collective submission to the eternal, inexorable laws of historical and economic materialism, of the concentration of capital, of the socialization of the instruments of labour, and of disciplined party political struggle. All that was unsteady, wavering, wearied in the fruitless search for a "new" solution to the questions of life threw itself to meet this teaching. But among Russian society and among the studying youth there was found a group of people who were not satisfied with such a solution. In these people there lived a need for personal inner moral work, a need for communion with that mysterious principle, or first cause, of the world, the conception of which no caustic acid of the strictest dialectical analysis can drive away from the human intellect. In these people there lived a need for an absolute, that is, a religious, criterion of morality. And this need was deeply and broadly satisfied by L. N. Tolstoy with his religious-philosophical writings. The publishing house *Posrednik* ("The Intermediary"), which was nothing other than the printed organ of L. N., naturally became the centre of the interests of this group of people.

As I have already mentioned earlier, toward the end of the 1880s I managed the book-warehouse of *Posrednik* and lived in the very premises of the warehouse, in Petersburg, in the Peski quarter, at the corner of the Greek Prospect and 8th Peski Street, in a little wooden house. We used to hold conversations there about questions of faith, of morality, and of the social conditions of life. There gathered, chiefly, studying youth of both sexes — students, women students, women medical assistants.

From this living communion — which has left in me the memory of a joyful, good undertaking — there proceeded, of course, as from a centre, the propaganda by word and deed of L. N. Tolstoy's views. At these gatherings all the new works of L. N. were read, for the most part such as were then forbidden by the censorship. They were warmly and sincerely discussed, and often little sparks of genuine youthful feeling of love for one's neighbour were kindled in the hearts of a studying generation not yet spoiled by life. We felt ourselves absolutely free, and spread our wings to fly heavenward. There were also visitors from the provinces, who brought us news of how the work of spreading our "faith" was going on in the various corners of Russia; an active correspondence was kept up with like-minded people and with Lev Nikolaevich.

From such communion it was not difficult for us to learn that in certain places in Russia groups of educated persons were gathering, wishing immediately and directly to apply to their lives the convictions they professed. And so we learned that one such group was settling in Smolensk Province, on land acquired by a certain Alekhin, a person little known to us. Of course, this projected experiment aroused in all of us the most lively interest and sympathy, and I was charged with collecting detailed information about it. Having obtained Alekhin's address, I wrote to him, asking him to communicate all that he could about his undertaking, for persons keenly interested in it. There were already among us persons wishing to join them. To my inquiry I soon received a detailed reply, very fully depicting the foundations and intentions that had guided the founders of the commune.

Alekhin's reply fully satisfied us. It was an exposition of the views of L. N. in their application to the life of a communistic, intelligentsia agricultural colony. To anyone who read this exposition of the fundamental tenets of the commune-members it became clear that it was woven out of the works of L. N., whereby particular attention was directed to communal agricultural labour, which figured, as it were, as the result and the foundation, the alpha and omega, of the Christian life. This was a one-sided, somewhat narrow interpretation of L. N.'s views; but since the striving to embody them was sincere, and since such an interpretation embraced a large region of life's questions, it drew many young forces to itself.

This phenomenon was so significant in the matter of the spread of L. N.'s views in Russian and in European society that I permit myself to dwell upon it somewhat longer.

In itself the striving at once to realize one's religious, moral, and social convictions is entirely lawful and exceedingly attractive. But since such a striving arises for the most part in very young people, it is accompanied by such great mistakes and manifestations of inexperience that for the most part it ends in complete failure.

Let us consider some of the causes of the failure of these colonies.

As the religious, New Testament foundation of such communes they usually take the text from the Acts of the Apostles IV, 32:

> "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common."

This touching union of the first Christians aroused in the young people a sincere desire to imitate them; but their strength for this was small. The chief, fundamental thing was lacking — the union of souls and hearts, attained by long inner work of humility and self-renunciation. These people wanted to solve the reverse problem: let us call all our property common, and by this we shall attain the union of souls and hearts. But this was a false inference. The community of outward material goods is attained only as the result of an inner union — either in consequence of a complete self-renunciation in the service of one another, or in consequence of a complete, humble submission of all to one higher authority that establishes the community of property. Here there was neither the one nor the other. And therefore, however much they called their property common, they could not attain a union of heart and soul, and therefore there was in their life no binding cement, and their edifice inevitably crumbled. But for a time this edifice was nevertheless built up, and its beauty struck and attracted people. I myself had occasion to experience its charming influence. I spent several days there, and there breathed upon me a spirit of some uncommon simplicity and seriousness of this life in the society of young people of both sexes, who had so quickly and so simply settled for themselves all the social questions.

Rumours of their life reached L. N.; he was greatly interested in it, and at the same time a certain uneasy feeling made him be constantly on his guard and warn against the danger of being carried away by this outward attractive form.

Unfortunately, in these people, who had so easily changed their dress, there was not enough humility to keep them from condemning people who had not yet managed to change theirs and were seeking other paths toward the realization of their ideal. This absence of humility, and the self-conceit that took its place, repelled many from them.

Here is what L. N. wrote about this colony to his friend N. N. Ge:

> "Alekhin was with me in the autumn; he and all of them live wonderfully. For example, the sexual question they solve by complete abstinence — a holy life. But — Lord, forgive my transgressions — a heavy impression was left with me. Not because I envy the purity of their life out of my own filth — that is not so; I acknowledge their loftiness and rejoice in it as in my own — but something is not right. My dear soul, do not show this letter; it would distress them; and I, perhaps, am mistaken. For I told him all that I wished."

In a letter to me, about that same time, he expresses such thoughts as these:

> "Interesting were the conversations with Romanov, a repetition of those that I had also had with Feinerman. In these conversations the error of these commune-members became very clear to me. I should never have thought of seeking out their deviations had they not been so severe toward others. The cardinal matter for a believing Christian is not only not to employ violence, but also not to make use of the violence of others; and therefore — as an inevitable consequence of this — not to acquire property and not to retain property already acquired, or recognized by others as mine. This is the fundamental obligation, and upon it all one's energy ought to be directed, and not upon standing in the position of a husbandman feeding himself by his own labours. The first — that is, the renunciation of property — leads to the position of a day-labourer and a husbandman; but the position of a secure husbandman not only does not lead to the denial of property, but often, on the contrary, to the affirmation of it. The chief matter, however, lies in condemnation. With my whole soul I rejoice over the life of the commune-members and over your life and Chertkov's, while they condemn. Romanov, it seems, has understood."

And in his diary L. N. recorded such a thought about communes:

> "Withdrawal into a commune, the communes, the maintaining of it in purity — all this is sin, error. One cannot purify oneself alone, or by oneself — to be cleansed thus together; to set oneself apart so as not to get dirty is the greatest impurity, like the cleanliness of a lady, obtained by the labours of others. It is just the same as to clean or to dig from the edge, where it is already clean. No — whoever wishes to work will climb into the very middle, where the dirt is; if he does not climb in, then at least he will not go away from the middle, if he has got there."

But L. N. himself sincerely rejoiced at every manifestation of the Christian life, whatever form this manifestation might take. With him there gathered, at times, representatives both of the solitary and of the communal life. In the conversations between such people, with L. N. taking part, the most serious questions of life were discussed; of one such chance "congress," or rather "coming-together," L. N. writes to Chertkov in August of that year:

> "Of late there have been visitors all the while, and all so joyful. Zolotaryov and Khokhlov, two youths, came on foot. They had worked all summer at Zolotaryov's — barefoot, sunburnt, without passports; quite like peasants. At first one is alarmed — one thinks: is this not merely the outward show of work, is it not a fashion, a piece of bravado? But you talk with them and see that this is only a consequence — that the foundation is to serve God, to love, to be a Christian. Just then Rugin arrived from the Alekhin commune, in which there had been a search, of which you, no doubt, know. Just then Bulygin also dropped in, and, finally, Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge the elder. It was so joyful for all to come to know one another, so good, that we talked, I am almost certain, with profit, in His name. Yesterday they all went their ways, and only Nikolai Nikolaevich remained."

One of our common friends, Evg. Iv. Popov, who had long lived in two such colonies — first at A——n's in Smolensk Province, and afterwards at Novoselov's in Tver Province — and who took a critical attitude toward many manifestations of this kind of life, communicated his thoughts to L. N. in writing, and the latter answered him with the following interesting letter:

> "Dear friend E. I., I write to you and to all your fellow-workers. Rugin, on his arrival, told much about your life, and we talked a great deal for and against the commune, about the very thing of which you write in your letter. I think thus: one cannot value enough the position in which you find yourselves, and the experiment that is being carried out among you. All of us, having thrown off something or other of worldly, human life, having made some efforts to take part in the common labour that sustains the life of people, are very much inclined to think that we have done all that is needed, that we are pure before men and may set our minds at rest; and therefore one cannot value enough that strict experiment which is being carried out in the commune and which shows what degree of severity of life and tension of labour must be maintained in order to be more or less pure from man-eating. (I am very fond of the exactness of this expression.) I say 'more or less' because the ownership of land and of stock violates complete purity. One cannot value enough that position in which there is no place for the lie of Christian sentimentalizing. 'I love, I pity, and I give what I have, but I possess it unlawfully, so that, without any compassion or mercy, I ought to give away what I have.' This sentimentalizing is impossible among you, where every act of pity and mercy is inevitably expressed in extra hours of work and in less and worse food, or in other discomforts. Such a position is precious for the testing of oneself, and one cannot prize it enough.
>
> But Bondarev is not right in saying that bread-labour includes love within itself, whereas love he did not include. Love not only to God, but to one's neighbour — which is only the consequence of love to God (of this I shall speak afterwards) — includes within itself bread-labour, so that bread-labour is only a particular case of love to one's neighbour, to say nothing of love to God. For love to one's neighbour requires, besides feeding and clothing, also the visiting of the prisoner and the sick — words by which one cannot but understand all those spiritual consolations that may be brought to the suffering. And love to one's neighbour requires that your light should shine before men, that is, the communicating to them of that truth which you know. All these requirements of love to one's neighbour — and, I think, many others besides — are not included in bread-labour. And the requirement of love to God is included in it still less. 'Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,' and so on — I understand as the law of love to my God, to that which is divine within me. And this love binds and draws one to much that is in no way included in bread-labour. It draws one to purity, to the preserving and the restoring within oneself of the divine essence. This, and, I think, much else besides, is not included in bread-labour. Yes, the man who shall love his God will inevitably love his neighbour (as is said also in John), and, loving his neighbour, will keep a sensitive watch over himself, so as not, hiding behind Christian sentimentalizing, to devour his brothers, and will prize the test of bread-labour. But a man who has set himself bread-labour as his aim may very easily violate in many respects both love to his neighbour (he may fail to console the suffering, to enlighten the benighted, and much else), and love to God (he may be a profligate, may fail to move and grow spiritually, and much else)."

Still more love and sympathy toward the life of the commune-members did L. N. express in his letter to them all, after the news had reached him of a gendarme search carried out there. Here is what he wrote to them:

> "Yesterday I received your letter, dear friends, and was very glad of the spirit in which it is written. It is that spirit by which we are alive and by which we give life to one another. Such an animation and uplift did I feel from your letter. Besides this, I am simply glad of communion with you, which I beg you to keep up. R. — thanks to him — did not so much bring us closer as, you know, ran a wet thing over a dry place, and it began to flow along that spot. Of late I have often been thinking of one long-familiar consideration, but which has of late come into my head with especial vividness and cheers me; namely: if one is to express in but a single, simplest and clearest proposition the meaning, the essence, the aim of life, then for myself I express it as it is said in John VI, 38, and especially 39: to raise up within myself, to bring to the highest possible degree of divinity, that spark, that understanding, which is given, entrusted, to me, as a child to a nurse. This definition of the meaning of life is broader than all others; it includes all the others. What, then, is needed in order to fulfil this, to raise up this child? Not ease, but labour, struggle, privations, sufferings, humiliations, persecutions — that very thing which is said many times in the Gospel. And it is this very thing — that which we need — that is sent to us in the most various forms, both in small and in large measure. If only we knew how to receive it as we ought, as work needful to us and therefore joyful, and not as something vexatious, disrupting our so well-ordered life. May God help you all to receive in just this way not only that visitation, but also the event, should they disperse you and disrupt your life, so joyful and, both for me and for all of us, so good. Usually in these cases the following mistake is made. People say: 'Here are circumstances that disrupt, or threaten to disrupt, our good life; we must somehow, as quickly as possible, get around, overcome these circumstances, so as to continue our good life.' But in reality one must look at the matter quite the other way: 'Here was the life that we established with great inner struggle and labour, and this life satisfied our moral requirements; but now there appear new circumstances, declaring new moral requirements: let us, then, try to answer in the best possible way these requirements.' These circumstances are not an accident that can be removed, but the requirements of new forms of life, in which I must test myself and to which I must prepare myself, as I prepared myself for the preceding form of life. I speak of the possibility that you may be dispersed, locked up, exiled (though this cannot be). For the rest, you know all this just as I do. As soon as the centre is one, then all the radii too coincide — I have observed this many times. I write this because I think this very thing for myself, and also because I love you all and wish for the greatest possible communion with you. Write who make up your fifteen persons. Write also how the work goes. Well, for now, farewell!"

These colonies, for the most part, lasted from two to three years. There were a considerable number of them. As far as is known to us, besides the first Alekhin colony in the Dorogobuzh district of Smolensk Province, there existed a similar colony, founded by his brother in Kharkov Province, near Kharkov; then one in Tver Province, founded by Novoselov; one on the Volga, in Samara Province; one in the south of Russia, founded by a group of young people, predominantly Jews, at Glodossy; and, finally, one in the Caucasus, near Nalchik. Besides this, under the influence of the same ideas, there was formed a whole series of solitary settlements of people who did not consider themselves ready for communal life. To them, too, certain members would attach themselves for work, moving from place to place. These settlements were more durable, and many of them exist even now, presenting valuable cultural centres.

This communal movement spread abroad as well, and was reflected in the formation of colonies in England, France, Holland, Germany, and America. Having undergone certain evolutions, these colonies exist even now.

Of course, the English, as the most practical and serious people, gave the greatest development to this undertaking. Their leader proved to be a young, talented pastor of one of the free-thinking sects, John Kenworthy, who came to L. N. in Moscow in the years 1895–1896. Accustomed to the free forms of public organizations, he, on returning to England, founded the "Brotherhood Church" near London, at Croydon; he began to publish a journal devoted to the propaganda of the ideas, and of various information useful to the commune, under the title "The New Order" (*New Order*). And then there was formed, not far from London, in Essex, in the little settlement of Purleigh, an agricultural colony, which, evolving, lasted a fairly long time, and traces of which may be found even now. Running a little ahead, I shall give a letter of L. N.'s to one of the members of the "Brotherhood Church," written in 1896 and vividly expressing L. N.'s attitude toward organizations of this kind:

> "Dear friend!
>
> I have received your interesting letter, and I greatly desire to answer you, especially with regard to the transformation and spiritual growth that has taken place in the midst of your friends of the 'Brotherhood Church.' I do not like this name, and it would be very good if the reform were to touch it too.
>
> I think that the greater part of the world's evil proceeds from our desire to see the realization of that toward which we strive, but for which we are not yet ready, and therefore we content ourselves with the semblance of that which ought to be. A coercive government is nothing other than the semblance of a good order, which is maintained by prisons, gallows, police, the army, and workhouses. A real order does not exist. But all that resists it is hidden from our eyes in prisons, houses of correction, and dens of vice. And I suppose that this malady remains so long incurable just because it is hidden.
>
> The same thing holds with brotherhood, or with church societies. They too are a semblance. There can be no community of saints among sinners. I think that the members of a community, in order to preserve the semblance of holiness, must commit many new sins.
>
> We are so made that we cannot become perfect each one separately, by turns or in groups, but (by the very nature of things) only all together.
>
> The warmth of one drop or particle is communicated to the others. And if it were possible to preserve the heat in one particle in such a way that it should not be communicated to the others and should not thereby diminish, that would be a proof that what we took for heat is not real heat.
>
> And therefore I think that if our friends were to direct upon their inner spiritual growth all that quantity of attention and energy which they devote to the maintenance of the outward form of the commune among them, it would be better both for them and for the work of God. Communes and other outward organizations seem to me useful and lawful only when they are the inevitable consequences of a corresponding inner condition. And therefore, if two people, on the consideration that it is more advantageous for them to live in one house and to eat one dinner, were to say to one another, 'Let us live in one house and dine together,' there is very little likelihood that they would hold out and live together without experiencing very many disadvantages and unpleasantnesses that would outweigh the expected advantages and joys; but if two people who often meet were to come to love one another and to become wholly indifferent to their manner of life and to their food, and were to say to one another, 'Why should we live apart, if our manner of life and our food are indifferent to us and it is pleasanter for us to live together?' — then it is very probable that such people would live together until death. More than that: if one of these people were indifferent to his manner of life and food and came to love the other, then such two people would draw together one to another. And therefore the chief foundation for the organization of a commune lies in the soul of each person. People are naturally drawn to one another (in this is the mystery of divine love), and, in order to unite, each must make himself capable of union, and then union will follow. Even if we think that union can be attained by our own efforts, in this case too we must, beforehand, become ready for union.
>
> It is also very interesting to me what you say about the anarchists and about their drawing nearer to us. God grant that this be so. Inform me in more detail when you learn of this.
>
> God help you in your work.
> Lev Tolstoy."

28 July 1896.

We suppose that the letters cited sufficiently define L. N.'s attitude toward the agricultural, intelligentsia colonies and communes.

This attitude, as we see, is reserved. His sympathy plainly inclined to the side of personal, unorganized efforts. This sympathy clearly shows through in his letter to his friend V. I. A——v, to whom he wrote:

> "You say that you, as it were, complain of life. No, you do not complain; rather you are dissatisfied, not with it, but with yourself in it — as I, too, in my good moments am always dissatisfied. But you are always dissatisfied, because you are always striving toward the better and are always shifting your foot from one step to another. And God help you. Only the other day there arrived a former naval officer, now a friend and companion in life of B., and he told about the commune of A. They live there fifteen persons: eight men, seven women — splendidly, industriously, abstemiously; potatoes, peas, skimmed milk (not always), and tea — twice a week; and cleanly and lovingly, helping the poor of the neighbourhood. But one thing is not quite good: that some of them think and say that for a Christian there is no other life than in the commune; that in every other kind of life — such, for example, as yours, as mine — we take part in man-eating: we work to the value of thirty kopecks, but eat to the value of a rouble. And I like this — I like that vivid exhibiting of the sin which we are so apt to forget; but in answer to this, and in connection with the recollections of you, there comes into my head the following imaginary story, which I should like to write, had I the strength and the time. There lives a youth; he enters an educational institution, gives himself up to learning; but soon, having seen both the vanity and the unlawfulness of the leisure and the fatness of the men of science, he gives it up and goes into the revolution; but, having come to know the pride, the cruelty, the exclusiveness of the revolutionaries, he gives it up and goes to the people. Among the people, superstition, egoism, the struggle for existence repel him. He may even go for a time into Orthodoxy, into a monastery — hypocrisy. He gets into a commune, finds there too that it is not the thing, and leaves. There he comes together with a woman by whom he is captivated, the more so as she seems to share his strivings; he unites with her, has children by her, finds in her something quite other, not what he had expected, suffers torments with her; she abandons him; he is left alone, lives at a friend's, himself not knowing what to do, how to live, but, as everywhere and always, loving the people around him and helping them — and there he dies. And as he dies he says to himself: I am a failure, an empty, worthless man, good for nothing; whatever I undertook, I could not carry anything through to the end, useless even to anyone, unable even to attach anyone to myself. And he beats himself on the breast and says: an empty, worthless man am I. God be merciful to me a sinner. I think that it is well with him, and I should wish to be he. Such a man will be saved even outside the commune."

The same sympathy with individual labour is expressed also in a letter to me; he wrote thus:

> "I envy you that you are working — that is, I do not envy you, but I rejoice for you. Hold to the work as much as you can. Do not force yourself, do not grow very tired, but do not go out of the habit of work. I see by Bulygin, who is very good and firm, how hard this is, and how awkward one feels without it. In our position one must make an effort to enter into these conditions of work — a small effort, but an effort. And when one has made it, then it is well. I have not made it yet this year. I arrived late: everything was already ploughed, and besides I wanted to write, and besides I felt myself weaker; and so I was caught up by the gentleman's life, out of which one must tear oneself away — together with Masha — and tear oneself away without irritating anyone. I hope to do this; however badly it may seem to be going, I see signs of my drawing near to my light, and I pray for this.
>
> …From your letter I see that you are living well. God help you. Of Masha I do not cease to rejoice. From the morning she is with her schoolchildren, until twelve she teaches — reasonably, lovingly, patiently. Then she does a little work about herself, or makes rugs for the roof; then her own letters and mine, the copying, the milking of the cows; and she only waits for work with me. Then her relations with all the household are simple, even, friendly, but not jokingly trifling, as among others. All have grown so accustomed to her being not like the rest, but another, a strange, not a frivolous, but a kind person. And all love her. To say nothing of the fact that all needs concerning me or my wife almost always go through her."

Father and daughter suffered and consoled themselves together, meekly bearing all the obstacles that life set up against their strivings. And in L. N. this constant struggle called forth thoughts of death, of which he repented to his friends. About this same time he wrote to me, among other things:

> "Masha works just the same — simply, quietly, for the satisfaction of her own conscience. We meant, she and I, to cart manure, but gave it up, so as not to cause irritation. Now the haymaking is coming on, which we await as a pleasure. Masha is a great joy to me at home. Often, too, the luxurious, immoral life weighs upon me, the more so as it is felt by all that the untruth of it is known, and that there is no longer in it the former innocence, the former unconsciousness; and only upon Masha does the soul rest. As for myself, I will confess that more and more, oftener and oftener, I wish to die. Just now Chertkov writes about this and proves to me that it is a sin. I agree that it is so, and I repent of it. It comes from this: that, owing to ill health or to the years, my former activity has lessened, while I wish to work as before; I am dissatisfied with my work, and I have, as it were, already peeped through the door to the other side, and it allures me. I hope to outlive this. You know, on attaining each step of age — boyhood, youth, manhood — it is hard not to rejoice and not to look ahead. And so too, on attaining old age, with its future opening up. But, of course, this must not be. I keep on writing 'The Kreutzer Sonata.' It is not good. Popov has gone off to A——n's."

But now the communes are breaking up. L. N. is not distressed by this. He writes, among other things, to Khilkov:

> "The day before yesterday I received your letter, D. A., and just now I have read it through again. I shall try to answer the chief content of it, as I understand it. What harm is there that the communes have broken up? If we had considered that these communes were models of how the teaching of Christ ought to be realized in the world, and how the Kingdom of God should be established, then it would be terrible — then the breaking-up of the commune would show the unsoundness of Christ's teaching; but that is not how these communes were regarded — not only by us from outside, but also by those who took part in them. (If anyone did regard them so, then the breaking-up will correct this false view, and therefore the breaking-up is, in this sense, even useful.) These communes were a certain form of life, which certain people chose in their movement along the path indicated by Christ; other people chose other forms — or other people were placed in other conditions, as I was, and Ge, and all the people going along that same path. And, as you yourself write, that however good the separate settlements may be, they are good only so long as they are needed — all forms, as forms, are necessarily transitional, like waves. If the communes have broken up, it is only because the people who lived in them have grown out of their shell and have burst it. And in this one can only rejoice."

And in the diary of that time he records a similar thought:

> "I talked with N. about why the communes broke up.
>
> The communes did not deceive themselves that they were free from property if they owned it in common; rather, they saw that they retained property together just as before they had retained it separately. Those round about kept dragging it away, and they had to hold on to it, and to hold on was impossible, because among the people living together the degree beyond which a man cannot yield was not one and the same. Hence the discord. It turned out that one must live in that shuffling-together of black and white, and of those shades, in which we all find ourselves, and not single oneself out as one more or less light, and tint oneself with yet one more colour.
>
> One can live only intermingled with all sorts of people. But to live, holy ones together, is impossible. They will all die out.
>
> One cannot live, holy ones alone. And for the work of God it is disadvantageous. The one accords with the other."