Marxism or Tolstoysm?

Abstract

Hazlitt discusses aesthetic movements in the United States and Europe in the early twentieth century emphasizing how Leo Tolstoy’s view about art is the guard striking similarities in some aspects with the aesthetic values defended by the literary Marxists. In fact, in some points, new Marxists are probably much closer to Tolstoy than Karl Marx. The author criticizes Tolstoy for his rejection of “high class” culture as a corrupt expression and to understand education as being, in essence, mere indoctrination with false and immoral ideals and to have discarded all professional critics, seen as perverted and self-confident scholars.