The false red flag: lies and repression
The false red flag: lies and repression PAUL CUDENEC An authentic mood of revolt had been swelling up in Russia for some time before 1917, with a previous attempted revolution in 1905-06 violently repressed by the tsarist regime. A great inspiration behind this mood was the back-to-the-land Christian anarchism of the revered Russian novelist and thinker Leo Tolstoy, [11] author of War and Peace . Contemporary observer Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu wrote in 1910: “We know that Tolstoy’s ideas about land are those of the majority of Russian peasants”. [12] This radical outlook regarded the earth as a common treasury for all, like air and water: the land belonged to those who dug it and not to speculators. “Land and freedom” was the slogan that captured the imagination of peasant families, whose ideal was the mir , a village community based on traditional values and involving democratic decision-making, sharing of resources and mutual aid. These peasants lived simply, healthily and largely b