A short but powerful condemnation of the death penalty and a government that uses it and a society that tolerates its government using it.
Its very passionate and a little wild but its all the more powerful for it. Written in 1908 shortly after reading in the newspaper that twenty peasants had been hung. He's disgusted both that the Russian government and its ruling class are content to allow the conditions for crimes of desperation to occur and that they are quite content with resorting to such bloody and sickeningly routine methods of dealing with the social consequences of their system.
*It turned out to be an error, and only twelve peasants had been executed. Tolstoy notes this and was thankful that eight people were not killed but was glad of the error as the number shocked him into response.