Published in 1884, 'The kingdom of God is within you' is perhaps
Tolstoy's most significant work of non-fiction. Due to the Russian
censors, it was first published in Germany, but its dominant idea
of non-violence echoed across the international stage throughout
the 20th century. In essence, the book is a defence by Tolstoy of
the position on non-violence he adopted in 'My Religion'; and
therefore also an assault on the Orthodox Church. 'Nowhere,' says
Tolstoy, 'is there evidence that God or Christ founded anything
like what churchmen understand by the Church.' And in what it now
proclaimed, Tolstoy believed the church was wasting its time: 'The
activity of the church consists in forcing, by every means in its
power, upon millions Russian people, those antiquated, time-worn
beliefs which have lost all significance.' Freshly informed by
Quaker ideals of non-violence; and full of both story telling and
rhetoric, here is Tolstoy calling for a change in consciousness in
society. He does not accept that 'this social order, with its
pauperism, famines, prisons, gallows, armies and wars, is necessary
to society.' That which is, is not that which must be. Rooted in
the Sermon on the Mount, Tolstoy's Christianity is not primarily
concerned with worship or salvation, but with a new way of behaving
in society - behaviour informed by the pointlessness and sin of
violence. Tolstoy tellingly reflects on the army at work - whether
in internal repression or in national wars - and asks: 'How can you
kill people when it is written in God's commandment 'Thou shall not
murder?' Gandhi was 'overwhelmed' by the book, said 'it left an
abiding impression', and in time, a correspondence started between
the two men. The book convinced Gandhi that Hinduism and
Christianity were one and the same at their core, and informed his
passive resistance first in South Africa and then India; and later,
of course, that of Martin Luther King in the USA.
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