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On Resistance to Evil by Force
Written in 1925, On Resistance to Evil by Force is one of the most important tracts composed by white émigré philosopher Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin.
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First published January 1, 1925
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 15, 2021
Simply superb.
One need not be a christian to appreciate the absolute nobility of soul reflected in Ilyin's masterful understanding of the human experience - and the role of an essential spirituality in truly raising up the human condition.
Ilyin sets this understanding in opposition to Leo Tolstoy's 'sentimental hedonism' and the doctrine of non-resistance. He brilliantly exposes the corruptive influence of this naive and spiritually deadening 'morality' - illustrating its hypocrisy and anti-spiritual nature.
This exposé is not the typical 'religious'/'philosophical' exercise in abstract hair-splitting mental masturbation, so common in works related to the spiritual quest. Ilyin's vision - and wisdom - is one of those rare moments of integration between the spiritual and the real world(s). He raises the meaning of mortal life up from the usual escapist domains related in nearly all abstract 'spirituality' - this would include everything from the 'esoteric'/'occult' realm of 'mystical''spheres' and the achievement of 'ultimate godhood', to the deformed 'christianity' with its surrender of the will and all the personal responsibility that entails...in exchange for a 'heavenly reward', to the 'new age' 'self-help' sentimentalism of today...the self being the operative word.
Ilyin masterfully illustrates a very real-world nobility of the soul - and it's this nobility that becomes an expression of the Divine on Earth. With this comes the responsibility to defend the Honor of the Good when one witnesses its 'defamation, perversion, and extinction'.
This volume is more vitally relevant today than ever before. What Ilyin saw in his day - the horrors of evil in the communist takeover of Russia - is now more insidious and fateful to the Noble Soul, and truly meaningful Spirituality, than even back then. His descriptions of the 'egoistic philistine' embodied in Tolstoy's 'devilish[ly] evil anti-spirtuality' reveals itself in every facet of mortal life today.
The most profound point made is this: those who recognize the assaults against all decency and dignity of the soul - and by extension, the Spirit - of mortal life, and refuse to commit themselves to fighting it, are complicit by default...and contributing to the corruption of their own inner life and souls.
This book isn't for everyone - it challenges to the very depths...and heights. The noble soul will find in it a validation of everything felt in these corrupt times, but could find nothing sure to articulate it. Ilyin's work is a source of strength to such a these. It is perhaps the last true Divine Revelation to a disintegrating and spiritually bankrupt world.
I rarely give five-stars - I'd have given this ten if I could.
One need not be a christian to appreciate the absolute nobility of soul reflected in Ilyin's masterful understanding of the human experience - and the role of an essential spirituality in truly raising up the human condition.
Ilyin sets this understanding in opposition to Leo Tolstoy's 'sentimental hedonism' and the doctrine of non-resistance. He brilliantly exposes the corruptive influence of this naive and spiritually deadening 'morality' - illustrating its hypocrisy and anti-spiritual nature.
This exposé is not the typical 'religious'/'philosophical' exercise in abstract hair-splitting mental masturbation, so common in works related to the spiritual quest. Ilyin's vision - and wisdom - is one of those rare moments of integration between the spiritual and the real world(s). He raises the meaning of mortal life up from the usual escapist domains related in nearly all abstract 'spirituality' - this would include everything from the 'esoteric'/'occult' realm of 'mystical''spheres' and the achievement of 'ultimate godhood', to the deformed 'christianity' with its surrender of the will and all the personal responsibility that entails...in exchange for a 'heavenly reward', to the 'new age' 'self-help' sentimentalism of today...the self being the operative word.
Ilyin masterfully illustrates a very real-world nobility of the soul - and it's this nobility that becomes an expression of the Divine on Earth. With this comes the responsibility to defend the Honor of the Good when one witnesses its 'defamation, perversion, and extinction'.
This volume is more vitally relevant today than ever before. What Ilyin saw in his day - the horrors of evil in the communist takeover of Russia - is now more insidious and fateful to the Noble Soul, and truly meaningful Spirituality, than even back then. His descriptions of the 'egoistic philistine' embodied in Tolstoy's 'devilish[ly] evil anti-spirtuality' reveals itself in every facet of mortal life today.
The most profound point made is this: those who recognize the assaults against all decency and dignity of the soul - and by extension, the Spirit - of mortal life, and refuse to commit themselves to fighting it, are complicit by default...and contributing to the corruption of their own inner life and souls.
This book isn't for everyone - it challenges to the very depths...and heights. The noble soul will find in it a validation of everything felt in these corrupt times, but could find nothing sure to articulate it. Ilyin's work is a source of strength to such a these. It is perhaps the last true Divine Revelation to a disintegrating and spiritually bankrupt world.
I rarely give five-stars - I'd have given this ten if I could.
February 8, 2022
In America the belief in "Christian Pacifism" is very alive and well due to influence in American protestantism from the anabaptist groups.
Russia dealt with this abberation of Christian teaching over a century ago when Leo Tolstoy had great influence over many people.
Illyin demonstrates that pacifism is contrary to Christ's teaching for how Christians should respond to evil in the world and the oppression of the innocent by the wicked.
Russia dealt with this abberation of Christian teaching over a century ago when Leo Tolstoy had great influence over many people.
Illyin demonstrates that pacifism is contrary to Christ's teaching for how Christians should respond to evil in the world and the oppression of the innocent by the wicked.
November 7, 2022
Ilyin wrote this book to refute Leo Tolstoy's pacifism in defense of the Russian Whites fight against the Soviets after the Russian Revolution. Ilyin is a challenging writer, and this is one of the most difficult books I've read. He has a vocabulary all of his own, combined with his Eastern Orthodox Christianity make this a difficult book for a westerner to read.
There are many great quotes in the book, but it is difficult to get through this book. The title is very provocative, but the thesis of the book is not nearly so radical. In essence, Ilyin seems to be arguing that it takes true courage and Christian conviction to stand against evil, which all men at some point in their life will have to do. It may even require force.
There are many great quotes in the book, but it is difficult to get through this book. The title is very provocative, but the thesis of the book is not nearly so radical. In essence, Ilyin seems to be arguing that it takes true courage and Christian conviction to stand against evil, which all men at some point in their life will have to do. It may even require force.
October 27, 2022
A challenging read, the author a Russian Christian wrote the book to counter Tolstoy's argument that violence of any kind goes against the mandate to love our neighbor and to turn the other cheek. The author argues that Christians are compelled to resist evil by any means available to include violence because evil must be eradicated wherever it presents itself. The author, in my view, makes his case.
June 6, 2024
More than just a fiery and damning rebuttal to Tolstoy. Insightful and compelling.
January 31, 2023
A friend gave me this for my birthday. I briefly and reflexively thought it was a joke at first when I saw the cover. We often talk about Christianity, and Russian history, so I suppose that’s the angle. This book offers a solid glimpse of something most of us from the West will have trouble really understanding, the very heavily 1920s perspective of an Orthodox Christian Russian conservative refuting pacifism and non-violence in the wake of the revolution and usurpation of 1917.
A dense one but I made it through. Lots of clear-minded arguments against Tolstoy’s pacifism and pacifism in general, where the question of resisting evil is considered. Solid points are made about how evil is a shared burden throughout society and the spread of its effects, the responsibility of confronting it, and complicity of ignoring it. Also considered are the resulting effects of putting up a resistance when it must be to the utmost, which simpler or more zealous texts would brush aside. Far more sober-minded and comprehensive than I had expected. It’s certainly worth reading, and difficult going, for anyone with a remote interest in the subject.
This cover will likely get you put on a list if you read this in public. Who’s the 2000s-era-video-game-protagonist-dude to the right of Wrangel? Who is he planning to shoot, and why? He doesn’t seem trustworthy in the least.
A dense one but I made it through. Lots of clear-minded arguments against Tolstoy’s pacifism and pacifism in general, where the question of resisting evil is considered. Solid points are made about how evil is a shared burden throughout society and the spread of its effects, the responsibility of confronting it, and complicity of ignoring it. Also considered are the resulting effects of putting up a resistance when it must be to the utmost, which simpler or more zealous texts would brush aside. Far more sober-minded and comprehensive than I had expected. It’s certainly worth reading, and difficult going, for anyone with a remote interest in the subject.
This cover will likely get you put on a list if you read this in public. Who’s the 2000s-era-video-game-protagonist-dude to the right of Wrangel? Who is he planning to shoot, and why? He doesn’t seem trustworthy in the least.
November 30, 2022
Compelling topic, but another black hole-dense Russian author. Trying to parse a page of this book is like welding without a mask on, painful after more than a few seconds without stopping for a break.
Easily Post-doctoral level discussion of armed resistance to the Soviets. If you can’t read The Brothers Karamazov or War and Peace don’t even open it.
Easily Post-doctoral level discussion of armed resistance to the Soviets. If you can’t read The Brothers Karamazov or War and Peace don’t even open it.
July 21, 2021
A book on the importance of using force to resist the decaying and violent influence of decadence and socialism/communism. Written during the time of the "Russian Revolution" when the soul of Russia was being defended by the White Army against the communist red army.
June 14, 2023
The Eastern mind has a different understanding of God than the West does. Our God is rational, Aristotelian even. He is a moral philosopher and a physicist. And a humanitarian. We’re comfortable with this God; He fits into our neat little boxes and abides by our rules. We like to puzzle ourselves with little riddles like “Can God make a boulder so big He can’t carry it?” or “Is something sinful because God does not do it; or does God not do it because it is sinful?” A game to pass the time as we challenge ideas of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence – words we were given in kindergarden to help us understand our creator.
But which comes first, morality or God? It’s a conundrum.
We Baptists have a real problem with the Old Testament; that we really don’t know what to do with. Not the dispensations; those we can easily explain away. As well as the different behaviors of the protagonists, they are human after all and we are all flawed and wicked. It is with God’s behavior – when he says “Wipe out a village” or “Leave nobody alive” or “Don’t even leave animals alive” those sound to us suspiciously like war crimes. We cannot square an omnipotent God with a God who would order those acts, as He so clearly does in so many parts of the Old Testament.
The Easterners don’t have the same problem. Specifically, the original church – the Nestorian or Syrian or ‘Church of the East.’ The first Church, founded by Thomas and Bartholomew and Thaddeus before even the great councils of Asia Minor. That old church looked absolutely nothing like our Baptist churches these days. Pews lined up; hymn on page 252; 30 minutes of preaching (and not a minute more). Potluck or maybe a buffet afterwards. The early church probably resembled Sufism (I’m actually doing a lot of reading on this; but there is painfully little available about the Church of the East. It was completely wiped out about 700 years ago). Sufism was probably ancient Christian philosophy brought into Islam early on; subsuming the old traditions and making the advance of Islam more palatable. The early Church’s God was unknowable and “holy” – other. And our place was not to judge his actions, but nor was it to act in His stead.
Ivan Ilyin was a Russian philosopher. He was a “White Émigré”; that is a defender of the White Army and exiled to Germany on Lenin’s “Philosopher Ship” with all Russia’s conservative thinkers. “Resistance to Evil by Force” is an exploration of the morality of fighting back, taken from Orthodox understanding of Christianity; and written sort of in opposition to Tolstoy’s ‘Quietist’ peaceful resistance. “Non-violent resistance” is very popular these days; everyone who wants to stand against their dictator channels Mahatma Gandhi and advocates for ‘peaceful resistance’. Peace is seen as the pre-eminent good; as ‘morality’ has replaced God in the imaginations of men. “God is sometimes moral, sometimes immoral, and the Bible proves that. But we need to aspire to a higher standard.” That is effectively the argument of the new philosopher kings.
We can all see the faults – especially when ‘morality’ is emptied of the divine and filled with the prejudices of today. Who defines what is moral? That is the fight now. And we, the believers, are losing.
The final point, Iylin’s treatise is providing people the justification to fight back against evil. The problem with that is that we are all human. And violence is easily coopted by ‘dark powers the market does not control’; as is non-violence, incidentally. When the colonists fought the British for independence, it was not necessarily moral or amoral. It was a political struggle of a group of people to live a certain way. The taxes currently imposed upon us are far higher than those the British imposed 200 years ago; for example. But we wanted done with the monarchy. That doesn’t make the monarchy evil; it just means we Americans chose a different path “In the course of human events” and had to fight to do what we wanted. All good.
But evil? Fighting evil? Who defines evil – if not God? And a God that behaves the way He did in the Old Testament; inscrutable; mystical; bizarre even? How might I even begin to try and understand Him and what He thinks is a “holy war” or a “jihad” or a “crusade”? I can’t. So I best not try. So we return to fighting over politics, which we are very comfortable with. But we should not give divine inspiration to our wars. The reaper harvests and God sorts the wheat from the chaff. My point is, I think, Iylin missed the mark. Though I do appreciate his efforts to preserve his ancient faith, which the Communists were extirpating from an ancient Christian society.
But which comes first, morality or God? It’s a conundrum.
We Baptists have a real problem with the Old Testament; that we really don’t know what to do with. Not the dispensations; those we can easily explain away. As well as the different behaviors of the protagonists, they are human after all and we are all flawed and wicked. It is with God’s behavior – when he says “Wipe out a village” or “Leave nobody alive” or “Don’t even leave animals alive” those sound to us suspiciously like war crimes. We cannot square an omnipotent God with a God who would order those acts, as He so clearly does in so many parts of the Old Testament.
The Easterners don’t have the same problem. Specifically, the original church – the Nestorian or Syrian or ‘Church of the East.’ The first Church, founded by Thomas and Bartholomew and Thaddeus before even the great councils of Asia Minor. That old church looked absolutely nothing like our Baptist churches these days. Pews lined up; hymn on page 252; 30 minutes of preaching (and not a minute more). Potluck or maybe a buffet afterwards. The early church probably resembled Sufism (I’m actually doing a lot of reading on this; but there is painfully little available about the Church of the East. It was completely wiped out about 700 years ago). Sufism was probably ancient Christian philosophy brought into Islam early on; subsuming the old traditions and making the advance of Islam more palatable. The early Church’s God was unknowable and “holy” – other. And our place was not to judge his actions, but nor was it to act in His stead.
Ivan Ilyin was a Russian philosopher. He was a “White Émigré”; that is a defender of the White Army and exiled to Germany on Lenin’s “Philosopher Ship” with all Russia’s conservative thinkers. “Resistance to Evil by Force” is an exploration of the morality of fighting back, taken from Orthodox understanding of Christianity; and written sort of in opposition to Tolstoy’s ‘Quietist’ peaceful resistance. “Non-violent resistance” is very popular these days; everyone who wants to stand against their dictator channels Mahatma Gandhi and advocates for ‘peaceful resistance’. Peace is seen as the pre-eminent good; as ‘morality’ has replaced God in the imaginations of men. “God is sometimes moral, sometimes immoral, and the Bible proves that. But we need to aspire to a higher standard.” That is effectively the argument of the new philosopher kings.
We can all see the faults – especially when ‘morality’ is emptied of the divine and filled with the prejudices of today. Who defines what is moral? That is the fight now. And we, the believers, are losing.
The final point, Iylin’s treatise is providing people the justification to fight back against evil. The problem with that is that we are all human. And violence is easily coopted by ‘dark powers the market does not control’; as is non-violence, incidentally. When the colonists fought the British for independence, it was not necessarily moral or amoral. It was a political struggle of a group of people to live a certain way. The taxes currently imposed upon us are far higher than those the British imposed 200 years ago; for example. But we wanted done with the monarchy. That doesn’t make the monarchy evil; it just means we Americans chose a different path “In the course of human events” and had to fight to do what we wanted. All good.
But evil? Fighting evil? Who defines evil – if not God? And a God that behaves the way He did in the Old Testament; inscrutable; mystical; bizarre even? How might I even begin to try and understand Him and what He thinks is a “holy war” or a “jihad” or a “crusade”? I can’t. So I best not try. So we return to fighting over politics, which we are very comfortable with. But we should not give divine inspiration to our wars. The reaper harvests and God sorts the wheat from the chaff. My point is, I think, Iylin missed the mark. Though I do appreciate his efforts to preserve his ancient faith, which the Communists were extirpating from an ancient Christian society.
November 29, 2024
I have yet to read such a robust and profound rebuttal of the kind of limp wristed, conflict averse, and weak willed "Christian" that pervades so much of the modern discourse. You are not holier than anyone for disingenuously reducing Christ to the Sermon on the Mount, and Christ most certainly would not have wanted us to sit by and watch as evil takes possession of our neighbors, friends, and family. Baring the cross is more than just becoming a spiritual recluse that shies from danger in some cave. It very well may entail using force to defend yourself, and more.
"I have come not to bring peace, but the sword" were the words Jesus spoke, and yet people like Tolstoy insist otherwise. Its no wonder Satan, in the form of the Soviets, turned a blind eye to his kind of "Christianity" as they worked tirelessly to hunt down and kill the devout and destroy their Churches.
Let your sword be a prayer, and your prayer be a sword.
"I have come not to bring peace, but the sword" were the words Jesus spoke, and yet people like Tolstoy insist otherwise. Its no wonder Satan, in the form of the Soviets, turned a blind eye to his kind of "Christianity" as they worked tirelessly to hunt down and kill the devout and destroy their Churches.
Let your sword be a prayer, and your prayer be a sword.
June 2, 2025
This was a difficult read for me, mainly because of verbosity of russian philosophers. It was worth it though. It was recommended to me for it's examination of violence (or resistance to evil by force) from the Christian (Eastern Orthodox) perspective.
I definitely left with a partial answer to my own questions. Partial because it provided some thoughts to use as a foundation for my own continued exploration of the question. Coming to terms with the possiblity of violence is not something you can nor should outsource to someone else.
The first 2/3rds was Ilyin taking Tolstoy to task for his views and setting up for the last 1/3rd of the book. Which is where the best insights came from IMO.
I definitely left with a partial answer to my own questions. Partial because it provided some thoughts to use as a foundation for my own continued exploration of the question. Coming to terms with the possiblity of violence is not something you can nor should outsource to someone else.
The first 2/3rds was Ilyin taking Tolstoy to task for his views and setting up for the last 1/3rd of the book. Which is where the best insights came from IMO.
January 26, 2024
Contains a lot of memorable quotes. Very densely written. Sometimes unnecessarily difficult to read. His point about the distinction between rightousness and sin has some utility, but I am not thoroughly convinced of it. Same holds for his critique of Luther. The book is still worth reading, but it demands a lot of patience and focus from the one reading it.
June 13, 2024
An excellent, thoughtful and thought provoking work. One of a handful of texts that required careful consideration and research as I worked through the author's argument. Not conclusive, at least not for me, by any means but certainly an important philosophical treatise on the subject. As a retired professional Soldier, I'm better for having read it.
May 9, 2022
If I ignore its larger context… I agree with its main point.
March 27, 2025
An amazing look at necessary use of force from a Christian perspective.
September 24, 2025
Ortho-Hobbesian Anti-Tolstoy
April 18, 2024
time to look east
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