What Shall We Do?

After having passed the greater part of my life in the country, I came at length, in the year 1881, to reside in Moscow, where I was immediately struck with the extreme state of...

When I talked to my town friends about this pauperism which surrounded them, they always replied, "Oh! you have seen nothing yet! You should go to the Khitrof Market, and visit...

On the same evening that I returned from Liapin's house, I imparted my impressions to a friend: and he, a resident of the town, began to explain to me, not without a certain sat...

By my request I was appointed to make the census of the section of Khamovnitchesky police district, near the Smolensky Market in the Prototchni Lane between the Shore Drive and...

On the appointed day, the students who were to assist me started early in the morning; while I, the philanthropist, only joined them at twelve o'clock. I could not come earlier,...

The inhabitants of these houses belonged to the lowest population of the town, which in Moscow amounts to perhaps more than a hundred thousand. In this house, there were represe...

These unfortunate necessitous ones ranged themselves in my mind under three heads: First, those who had lost former advantageous positions, and who were waiting to return to the...

The second class of unfortunates, whom I hoped afterwards to be able to help, were women of the town. These women were very numerous in the Rzhanoff Houses; and they were of eve...

Still more strange were my dealings with the children. In my _rôle_ as benefactor I paid attention to the children too, wishing to save innocent beings from going to ruin in thi...

I have never since experienced such a feeling of compassion towards men and of aversion towards myself, as I felt in Liapin's house. I was now filled with the desire to carry ou...

This visit gave the last blow to my self-deception. It became very evident to me that my aim was not only foolish, but even productive of evil. Yet, though I knew this, it seeme...

I had lived in the country and had entered into relations with the country-poor. It is not out of false modesty, but that I may state the truth, which is necessary in order to u...

I recollect that during the whole time of my unsuccessful endeavours to help the unfortunate inhabitants of Moscow, I felt I was like a man trying to help others out of a bog, w...

but who, while living in the village kept himself from it for five years, came to live in Moscow without his wife (who used to keep him in order), began again to drink, and ruin...

From another point of view than the one stated, I also came to the same conclusion. Recollecting my connection with the town-poor during this period, I saw that one cause which...

I began again to analyze the matter from a third and purely personal point of view. Among the phenomena which particularly impressed me during my benevolent activity, there was...

It was hard for me to own this; but when I had got so far I was terrified at the delusion in which I had been living. I had been head over ears in the mud myself, and yet I had...

It is answered, money represents labour. I meet educated people who even assert that money represents labour performed by those who possess it. I confess that I myself formerly...

There are small tribes in Africa, and one in Australia, who live as the Sknepies and the Drevlyans lived in olden times. These tribes lived by breeding cattle and cultivating ga...

If the object of this sham pseudo-science of Political Economy had not been the same as that of all other legal sciences,--the justification of coercion,--it could not have avoi...

All slavery is based solely on the fact that one man can deprive another of his life, and by threatening to do so can compel him to do his will. We may see for certain that when...

No wonder that the slaves themselves, who have always been enslaved, do not understand their own position, and that this condition in which they have always lived is considered...

I always wonder at the often repeated words, "Yes, it is all true in theory, but how is it in practice?" As though the theory were only a collection of words useful for conversa...

I saw that the cause of the sufferings and depravity of men lies in the fact that some men are in bondage to others; and therefore I came to the obvious conclusion that if I wan...

Last March I was returning home late in the evening. On turning into a bye-lane I perceived on the snow in a distant field some black shadows. I should not have noticed this but...

We say, "It is not we who have done all this; it has been done of itself"; as children say when they break anything, that "it broke itself." We say that, as towns are already in...

How can a man who considers himself to be,--we will not say a Christian or an educated and humane man,--but simply a man not entirely devoid of reason and of conscience,--how ca...

The theory by which men who have freed themselves from personal labour justify themselves, is, in its simplest and most exact form, this: "We men, having freed ourselves from wo...

In reality, the position in which men who live by other men's labour are placed, is based not only on a certain belief but on an entire doctrine; and not only on one doctrine bu...

It is first persecuted, and not accepted. Then the fables of the fall of man, and of the first angel, are invented, and these fables are believed to be the teaching of Christ. T...

This doctrine had its commencement about half a century ago. Its chief founder was the French philosopher Comte. Comte, being a lover of systematic theory, and at the same time...

"Division of Labour" is the law pervading everything that exists, therefore it must exist in human societies too. That may be so; but the question still remains, whether the exi...

The division of labour has always existed in human society, and I daresay always will exist; but the question for us is, not if it has been and will still continue, but, what sh...

There was a time when the _Church_ guided the intellectual life of the men of our world. The Church promised men happiness, and, in compensation for this she freed herself from...

"But," you say, "it is this very division of labour, the freeing men of science and of art from the necessity of earning their bread, that has rendered possible the extraordinar...

To say that the activities of the arts and sciences have co-operated in forwarding the progress of mankind, and by these activities to mean that which is now called by this name...

I am always hearing this: people choose this way to put aside my arguments altogether without analyzing them. "He repudiates science and art; he wishes to turn men back again to...

But it is said to me, "You only give another narrower definition of art and science, which science does not agree with; but even this does not exclude them, and notwithstanding...

This question, which includes acknowledgment of the fact that our life is bad and unrighteous, and at the same time hints that there is no possibility of changing it,--this ques...

I have now finished, having said all that concerns myself; but I cannot restrain my desire to say that which concerns every one, and to verify my own deductions by several consi...

As it is said in the Bible, there is a law given unto man and woman,--to man, the law of labour; to woman, the law of child-bearing. Although with our science, "_nous avons chan...

offer to feed him in compensation for what the y ask him to do for them. offer to feed him in compensation for what they ask him to do for them.