Authors

Discussion

The pacifist movement emerged in the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century and was suppressed in the Soviet period, during the Stalinist repressions. It was organized by Tolstoyans, while its broader social base consisted of sectarians and religious seekers of various traditions, religious intelligentsia, and radicals disillusioned with violence. Between the 1940s and the 1970s, no organized pacifist movement existed in the USSR; it was revived only in the 1980s in the form of an independent peace movement. This new movement now drew on participants of the Soviet dissident movement, countercultural youth (above all, hippies), individual representatives of the refuseniks movement and persecuted religious communities (mainly Protestants), scholars concerned with ethical issues, and other marginalized social groups.The agendas of the movements of the early 20th century and of its final decades were strikingly similar. They included such issues (relevant for over a century) as opposition to the militarization of society and of social consciousness; defense of conscientious objectors and promotion of alternative civilian service; criticism of “patriotism” and nationalism; affirmation of internationalist and anti-border values; development of nonviolent methods of protest; advocacy of freedom of conscience and social peace; and the education of children in the spirit of nonviolence. Both movements were transnational in character: their participants actively collaborated with foreign pacifists and Christian anarchists.

The founders of these movements considered conscientious objection to military service on grounds of conscience to be the most important form of popular protest practice. In my paper, I intend to provide an overview of the development of this theme in the pacifist and peace movements of the early 20th century and of its later decades, both in connection with the history of conscientious objection and more broadly as part of the popular tradition of non-cooperation with the state. I will discuss how educated participants in the movement reflected on popular practices of refusal, which organizations in defense of objectors they created in the early 20th century and again in the late 20th–early 21st centuries, how they worked with conscientious objectors, engaged in human rights advocacy, and took part in debates on laws concerning alternative service. I will also trace the conceptualization of the notion of “conscience” in Russian and Soviet pacifist movements, the history of collaboration between Russian and Soviet pacifists and related foreign movements and organizations, and the ways in which conscientious objection was understood within Russian and late-Soviet Peace Studies.This study is based on a wide range of published (periodicals and memoirs) and unpublished sources: Tolstoyan archives in Russia, the archives of the Memorial Society, foreign archives of transnational peace orga