"What I Believe" (Russian: V chem moia viera?) is a work by Leo Tolstoy in which he expounds his general views on life. This edition of the book was banned following its publication in Russia. In February 1901, the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated Leo Tolstoy. The author describes the changes which happened to his mind. He also tells about the long way he had covered before coming to his ideas. The basis for the latter is also described in this book, proving them to be well-grounded and thought-out. Deputy of the First State Duma Victor Obninsky wrote the following in the newspaper Utro Rossii (Russian Morning) on November 4, 1910, "...What do we have to justify our new crime?.. We ruined Pushkin and Lermontov, drove Gogol insane, sent Dostoyevsky to rot in prison, exiled Turgenev to foreign land, and finally threw Tolstoy, eighty-two years of age, onto a wooden bench at an out-of-the-way station!.. Our life seems to be a ceaseless descent into a bottomless dull pit, where nothingness, a spiritual death, awaits us."