ABSTRACT
Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy does understand the appeal of violence and coercion, nurtured as it is by deep frustration about the injustice, cunning, and resilience of the ruling regime. In general, Tolstoy advocates the withdrawal of consent for, and participation in, institutions and conventions through which human beings inflict violence and injustice against each other. Tolstoy’s writings are more helpful when it comes to general ethical principles and long-term beacons rather than as concrete advice for effective and coordinated nonviolent activism. A Tolstoyan approach to activism seeks to draw attention to the violence and injustice inflicted by human structures, and to pointedly and prefiguratively withdraw from them. It exposes the violence and injustice by making a public spectacle of it, without inflicting any in return. Among the specific theoretical contributions of Tolstoyan activism is therefore a zealously pacifistic and anarchistic commitment.
