government—as the only moral and workable path. The opening of the treatise presents the revolution as a crisis in the people’s relationship to power and asks what Russians must do now. It traces how rulers everywhere arise from violence, degenerate through luxury and war, and are ultimately resisted as public conscience matures; it disputes social‑contract myths and economic determinism. The work contrasts two perilous roads—Eastern submission to despotism and Western democratized domination—then critiques parliaments, mass politics, industrial luxury, and colonial exploitation as a false “civilization.” It claims Russia has unique advantages for a peaceful transformation: a still-agrarian society, a living Christian moral sense, and clear evidence of the West’s dead end. The text explains obedience as a kind of hypnosis born of lost religious conscience, argues that government actually spreads crime, and answers objections about “order” and industry by urging a return to necessary, dignified rural labor. It concludes that one need not predict future institutions; the immediate duty is to refuse obedience to any violent authority, whether governmental or revolutionary. (This is an automatically generated summary.)