The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories

The story of “Ivan the Fool” portrays Tolstoy’s communistic ideas, involving the abolition of military forces, middlemen, despotism, and money.

The moral of this tale points out how the hero Ivan might have avoided the terrible consequences of a quarrel with his neighbor (which grew out of nothing) if he had lived in accordance with the scriptural injunction to forgive his brother’s sins and seek not for revenge.