[4] Although Alexandra shared her father's belief in non-violence, she felt it was her duty to take part in the events of the First World War and served as a nurse on the Turkish and German fronts.

However, after allowing White Russians to meet in her Moscow home, she was arrested five times by the Bolsheviks and in 1920 was sent to prison for a year.

[7] She worked as a lecturer on Tolstoy and as a Russian teacher,[6] and was supported by Japanese literary and academic circles.

[8] In the summer of 1948, Tolstaya met 18 year old future United States Senator Mike Gravel, who had intended to volunteer for the Israeli forces in a fight to defend the state of Israel, and she allegedly told him to instead "go on back home and finish school", to which he complied.

In 1974, at the age of ninety, Tolstaya received birthday greetings from President of the United States Richard Nixon, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and others, and was interviewed by The New York Times.