Leo Tolstoy on Poverty and Homelessness

[Naturyl]

"Thirty years ago in Paris I once saw how, in the presence of thousands of spectators, they cut a man's head off with a guillotine. I knew that the man was a dreadful criminal; I knew all the arguments that have been written in defence of that kind of action, and I knew it was done deliberately and intentionally, but at the moment the head and body separated and fell into the box I gasped, and realized not with my mind nor with my heart but with my whole being, that all the arguments in defence of capital punishment are wicked nonsense, and that however many people may combine to commit murder-the worst of all crimes - and whatever they may call themselves, murder remains murder, and that this crime had been committed before my eyes, and I by my presence and non-intervention had approved and shared in it. In the same way now, at the sight of the hunger, cold, and degradation of thousands of people, I understood not with my mind or my heart but with my whole being; that the existence of tens of thousands of such people in Moscow - while I and thousands of others over-eat ourselves with beef-steaks and sturgeon and cover our horses and floors with cloth or carpets - no matter what all the learned men in the world may say about its necessity - is a crime, not committed once but constantly; and that I with my luxury not merely tolerate it but share in it. For me the difference between these two impressions was only that there all I could have done would have been to cry out to the murderers, who stood around the guillotine arranging the murder, that they were doing wrong, and to have tried by all means to hinder it. Even then I should have known in advance that my action would not prevent the murder. But here I could have given not sbiten (soup) alone and the trifling sum of money I had with me, but the overcoat I wore and all I had at home. But I had not done it, and I therefore felt and feel and shall not cease to feel that as long as I have any superfluous food and someone else has none, and I have two coats and someone else has none, I share in a constantly repeated crime."