The article aims to point out that when we speak of Tolstoy’s religiosity as an essentially ethical enterprise, and in this sense indebted to Rousseau’s moral theory, must not lose sight of the sense of political struggle implicit in his reading of the Gospels. The aim of Ethics concerns individual transformation, whereas Tolstoy’s last work (the last thirty years of his life, 1880-1910, which also include Resurrection) is against the army, the police, the death penalty, the prison system, private property, the official church and the distance between classes.
Keywords: Autobiography, Moral Theory, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Tsarist Russia, Tchernychevski.