Read "What Shall we do?" by Leo Tolstoy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I saw that the cause of the sufferings and depravity of men lies in the fact that some men are in bondage to others; and therefore I came to the obvious conclusion that if I want to help men I have first of all to leave off causing those very misfortunes which I want to remedy, -- in other words, I must not share in the enslaving of men.
I was led to the enslaving of men by the circumstance that from my infancy I had been accustomed not to work, but to profit by the labour of others, and that I had been living in a society which is not only accustomed to this slavery but which justifies it by all kinds of sophistry, clever and foolish.