The article reconstructs the dispute that evolved in the first decade of the 20th century between Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy – who both in addition to being world‑famous fictionists, played an essential part as notable public figures in Russian philosophical and political life. The outbreak and the course of the First Russian Revolution (1905– 1908) prompted both thinkers to define their positions on the most important problems of Russian thought. In this dispute, Gorky represented the position of socialist humanism, social revolution, civilizational development, activism, the culture‑formingr ole of the intelligentsia and Western‑style modernization. Against these hopes Tolstoy advocated archaic anarchism, negation of civilization, rural primitivism, personal and moral excellence, in short a Russian Sonderwege. The author puts forward that this debate is an important extension of the famous discussion triggered by the publication of the Vekhi almanac („The Milestones”, 1909).