Thou Shalt Not Kill (essay)

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Thou Shalt Not Kill is an essay by Leo Tolstoy, written in 1890. It argues that when rulers order armies to kill, they become murderers themselves, and assassinations of rulers should not surprise us. Some scholars say the assassination of Umberto I of Italy inspired Tolstoy. Tolstoy condemns world leaders who denounce terrorism while ordering murder, and his tone is strongly anti-government and anarchist. He says the world’s suffering comes from the social order that puts most people under a few powerful men. Tolstoy later remarked, in 1907, that the pamphlet simply says that Christians should not kill. The essay was translated into English in 1900 by Leo Weiner and Aylmer Maude. It was censored by the German government in 1903, at Russia’s request, and copies were destroyed. In 1908, Vladimir Molotshnikov was arrested in Novgorod for smuggling Tolstoy’s works, including this one. In Britain during World War I, Charles William Daniel was arrested for distributing it after he gave a copy to a jury at his trial. The essay’s ideas about rulers and murder appear in Tolstoy’s later works, such as The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894), What I Believe (My Religion) (1884), Traveler and Peasant (1909), and Last Message to Mankind (1909).