The weapons burning of 1895

100 years ago this year--on 29 June 1895 -- a group of 7,000 Russian peasants in Transcaucasia burned their guns and swords. They were known as the Doukhobors, or spirit wrestlers -- a religious and social movement which continues to reject organised violence. Doukhobor traditons are preserved today in Canada, where many of the 1895 protesters settled after fleeing Tsarist persecution. KOOZMA TARASOFF, a member of the modern Doukhobor community, tells the history of the first direct disarmament in modern history.

The Doukhobors refused to comply fully with the tsar's government and to provide recruits for the army. (They did supply military recruits, from time to time, to a very limited extent. More often they paid their neighbours to carry out this repugnant duty.) Doukhobors refused to join the Orthodox Church, which was a close partner of the state. They believed in the God within, and felt that the official church hierarchy and its institutions were largely superfluous. For both of these reasons, the Doukhobors were exiled to the Caucasus and they became disenfranchised people once again. When military service was introduced in Transcaucasia in 1887 (in Russia it was introduced in 1874), Doukhobors were caught unawares. Many served, but were disturbed because military service was contrary to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill". Conscription became a signal for spiritual awakening, and pacifism again became a central force within the Doukhobor community.

In 1893, Peter V Verigin--head of the Large Party which evolved at the death of popular Doukhobor head Lukeria Kalmykova in 1886 -- was exiled in Siberia where he came into contact with anarchists and with the writings of Lev N Tolstoy. Verigin, inspired by Tolstoy. asked the Doukhobors not to swear an oath to Tsar Nicholas II or to associate with militarism.

Motivated by Verigin, Doukhobors first demonstrated publicly against militarism on Easter 1895. Matvey Lebedev and 10 Doukhobors decided to throw down their guns while training in the Elizavetpol battalion, stating that war and Christianity are incompatible. As a result, these resisters were treated harshly and were sent to disciplinary battalion and exile in the Transcaucasian cities of Yerevan, Baku, and Elizavetpol, along with 60 other young Doukhobor men in active service who had followed their example.

Then, at one minute after midnight on 29 June 1895, was the first major mass act of arms burning in human history. Protests took place at three sites: in Kars (now in Turkey), in Elizavetpol, and in the high northern plateau of Bogdanovka, in Georgia. In total 7,000 activists asserted themselves in public protest.

All preparations took place secretly, as Doukhobor men with horsedrawn wagons gathered weapons and placed them in a huge pile. They added wood and sprinkled the whole works with paraffin before placing a match to it. Around the fire stood Doukhobor men and women, singing psalms of peace.

In the morning officials came to investigate the site of the burning and found the melted remains of guns and swords--and hundreds of people still singing around the smouldering embers. The Cossacks attacked the assembly, beat them, and marched the battered group to the Governor. When 300 men handed in their reserve papers, the local authorities became furious and charged them with treason.

Due to this display of civil disobedience in 1895, members of the Doukhobor community endured severe beatings, floggings, and imprisonment under the tsar rather than submitting to conscription. This event of the spirit led to the exile of thousands of Doukhobors and the death of many others before the world learned about them.

One third of the Doukhobors, about 7500 people, fled to Canada in 1899, while 4000 were exiled to Gori, Signa, Tianeti, Dusheti, and Skra (now in Georgia). Today, some 30,000 Doukhobors reside in Canada, mostly in the west, while 500 live in California and Oregon.

Working to prevent the genocide of these people was a man of international stature: the Russian author and moralist Lev N. Tolstoy. who rushed to complete his book Resurrection to assist in paying their passage to Canada. Besides publicising their plight in Russia (and persuading English Quakers and others to extend practical, moral, and financial support to the Doukhobors), he advocated the total transformation of society. From the love of one's neighbour, Tolstoy (and the Doukhobors) argued, flows the repudiation of violence and wars.

With the continuing military threat to our global community, the eruption of nationalistic and religious wars, and other chronic problems (including environmental concerns, hunger, disease, and growing world debt, among others), the nations of the world are being forced to make the sort of radical change in their thinking and behaviour that Tolstoy would advocate. People of the world can no longer shut their ears to the law of love and the values of nonviolence, cooperation, and an international outlook--values that the Doukhobors have advocated for over three centuries.

My ancestors, the Spirit Wrestlers, trusted in 1895 that human beings ought to be able to change outdated behaviour to secure a new lease on life--to walk in the path of peace and nonviolence. When we observe the 50^th anniversary of the UN, when we recall the 50^th year of the devastation brought on by Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the result of the first use of atomic bombs by the USA, when we remember the 50^th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, when over 50 million people became the victims of organised mass violence, let us also remember and honour the 100^th anniversary of this important historic act of the spirit, an act that catapulted the Doukhobors into the international arena and remains a radical model for us all.