Revolution:
How the Bolsheviks Created a New Religion by Eliminating the Church
By Douglas W. Bailey
In 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks ushered in a new era in Russian history. Gone were the days of the all-powerful tsar and the ruling elite. The Bolsheviks flipped the political table upside-down with their radical move to raise the lower orders of society to the top, and tear the bourgeoisie down. When the coup ended, so did the correlation between ownership of property and political power.
But the Bolsheviks were not merely concerned with shifting political power from the top to the bottom. They sought for nothing less than the formation of a New World, and a New Man to live in that world. To do this would not be easy, and the Bolsheviks understood they would not be able to simply build upon the pre-existing religious beliefs and cultural mores of the time. Despite their atheism, and perhaps inadvertently, they took from Christ’s teachings the idea that “new wine cannot be put into old bottles.” In order for a transformation of the magnitude they sought to take place, they would have to start from scratch. And in order to start from scratch, they would have to demolish the existing structure.
One of the pillars of that structure, and perhaps the one bearing most of the load, was the Russian Orthodox Church, and as such, would have to be the first thing to go. Ironically, in the quest to eradicate Russia of her Church, the Bolsheviks erected a church of their own, complete with its own set of beliefs, value systems, and conventions of behavior.
Identity in Orthodoxy
Defining their own national identity has long been a question for the Russian people, and the debate continues to rage on today. One of the reasons for this is their unique geographical location between Europe and Asia. For everything that means geographically, it is compounded when talked about in cultural and geopolitical terms. The Russian philosopher and writer, Pyotr Iakovlevich Chaadaev, raised the question in the early part of the 19th century: “We are neither of the West nor of the East, and we have not the traditions of either.” Deciding whose traditions to adopt would be the subject of debate for years to come, and the answers were as unclear then as they are now. But with all the varying opinions between East and West, and which direction the Russians should take politically and culturally, there was never a question of who they were spiritually.
Pravoslavia, or Russian Orthodoxy, has been the pillar of Russian identity since the 10th century, when Vladimir cut down the pagan gods and idols and united his people through baptism and Christianization. For years, they practiced the faith and passed it down faithfully from generation to generation, until it became so ingrained in the Russian conscience that the secretary of education, Sergei Uvarov, made it an official part of the curriculum:
When we…investigate those fundamental principles which comprise Russia’s most valuable possession…it becomes clear that of those chief principles without which Russia cannot flourish, grow stronger, exist – we have just three:
1. The Orthodox Faith
2. Autocracy
3. The National Character
Of those three, Orthodoxy stands at number one. Uvarov explains why:
Without love for the Faith of their forefathers, any people, like any private person, will inevitably perish. Weakening the Faith in the people is tantamount to draining them of their blood and ripping out their hearts. Doing so would mean dooming them to the paltriest of moral and political destinies.
This statement might easily be dismissed in today’s culture as religious fanaticism, or at least extreme exaggeration, but even the Bolsheviks, who rejected Orthodoxy and the belief in God altogether, saw the wisdom in Chaadaev’s message and espoused the idea that a faithless people would be a weak people. It is precisely for this reason that they instituted their own faith. They understood that when they took away the pillar of Russian identity, they would have to replace it with a pillar of their own, lest it all come crashing down.
The Cement Church
As in most Christian religions, the Orthodox Church places very high importance on the written word, as contained in the Bible. The scriptures are the source upon which doctrines are based, and they are the instructions the people must follow in order to be saved.
In 1932, the Central Committee of the Communist Party created scriptures of their own when they formed the Writers’ Union, and “Socialist Realism was declared the sole method appropriate for Soviet literature.” As a result, “the business of writing novels soon became comparable to the procedure followed by medieval icon painters.” And just as the icons were a window into Heaven for the Russian people, so the novels of Socialist Realism became a window into the New World.
Among the vast works of socialist realism, one in particular that provided this window into the New World was Gladkov’s Cement. In its time, Cement was among a small group of novels that had been cited with enough regularity by the Writers’ Congress to be considered “canon.” And just as the Bible (which contains the canonical works of the Orthodox Church) is a good source for Christian theology, so Cement is a source for Bolshevik ideology:
In the opening of the novel, the hero, Gleb Chumalov, a soldier in the Red Army returns from the front to his hometown along the Black Sea. Unfortunately, as he tries to become reacquainted with his old surroundings, he realizes that not much familiar remains. His wife acts almost as a complete stranger, his daughter has been turned over to the State, and the cement factory is in shambles. After a few futile attempts to turn his wife’s heart back to him, Gleb decides to turn his efforts the factory. He knows that the only way to resurrect the town is through the resurrection of the factory.
Gladkov’s novel is saturated with biblical imagery – a convenient way for the Bolsheviks to use already existing lore, perverting it slightly, to engrain their ideology into the minds of the people. Nowhere does this imagery function more than in the factory, as it parallels Solomon’s temple.
The temple, in Biblical lore, is the Lord’s house, it is where the Lord’s presence is, and it is where sacred ordinances are performed that draw one nearer to God. Likewise, the factory is where the spirit of the proletarian revolution resides, and it is where the “ordinance” of labor is performed, which draws one nearer to the New Man. “There’s only one thing that matters, Comrade…and that’s work among the masses…work, work, work…we’re staking everything on our labor. Our brains and our hands tremble – not from strain but from the desire for new labors. We are building up socialism, Comrades, and our proletarian culture.”
Gleb fully understands the importance of the factory, and as Christ cleansed the temple of moneychangers when he came into Jerusalem during the week of the Passover, so Gleb must cleanse this “temple,” which has been desecrated, overgrown with weeds, roaming goats and peddlers ripping off scrap metal to use for cigarette lighters. Like the Israelites without their temple, the people of the village have become depraved without the factory, and Gleb has come to restore it.
But in his attempt to restore the factory to its former glory, Gleb runs into bureaucratic hurdles. Because of his experience as a soldier, Gleb is ready to tear through these hurdles, as he would have as a soldier on the front. But in peacetime, these chaotic methods have become unacceptable. Gleb must be re-educated in order to function as a productive citizen of the State. He must learn to submit his will to the will of the Party, even if it means putting up with the inefficiency of bureaucracy.
One might find it interesting that Cement deals with this theme rather than the more familiar theme of “class struggle.” Why doesn’t the novel focus on the transition from a capitalistic class society to the more perfect system of communism, the ultimate goal of the Bolsheviks? In short, after the war, most of the Bolsheviks’ problems came from their radical left-wing brothers, not from the wealthy elite or ruling class. So, instead of providing edifying tales about the class struggle, which was a battle they had already won, the Bolsheviks generated myths that worked to subdue individual spontaneity in favor of a conscientious member of a community, ruled from above.
Katerina Clark writes about the “spontaneity/consciousness dialectic” spoken of in her essay on the Soviet novel:
“Consciousness” is taken to mean actions or political activities that are controlled, disciplined, and guided by politically aware bodies. “Spontaneity,” on the other hand, means actions that are not guided by complete political awareness and are either sporadic, uncoordinated, even anarchic…or can be attributed to the workings of vast impersonal historical forcers rather than to deliberate actions.”
It is this spontaneous nature that Cement condemns. Gleb finally learns to let his actions be guided and controlled by the Party, and as a result, the factory is restored and the people saved.
Just as the parables in the Gospels are meant to apply to the lives of Christians, so the plot and characters of Cement are meant to apply to all Soviet citizens. Gleb is the model for the New Man, and in order to be transformed as Gleb, every man must first and foremost, learn to submit to the direction of the Party. Once under that guidance, the citizen will be purified through labor in the factory, and the production that results from that labor will be used towards building the New World.
Summary of the Cement Church
The Soviet Union created “scripture” for the people when they instituted the Writers’ Union and used a select group of models as the template for all subsequent novels. Cement, by Gladkov, is one of those selected as canon. It taught the people that 1) the Party is God, and as such 2) personal will must be submitted to the Party, that 3) the factory is the temple where one can be transformed into a New Man through 4) the ordinance of labor.
The Gulag Church
For those who did not submit to the Party, who continued to act “spontaneously” (or were perceived or suspected of acting spontaneously), a hell was prepared in the form of penal labor camps. After the revolution, the Bolsheviks created a government agency known as the Gulag to oversee the operation of these camps and ensure the punishment and/or reform of the criminals and political dissidents sent to them, simultaneously advancing the literal building up of the New World. Over time, the term gulag acquired the more general meaning of the system of more than 450 labor complexes spread throughout the Soviet Union. The gulags have come to be known for the harsh treatment of their prisoners: meager food rations, inadequate clothing, overcrowding, poor housing facilities, almost non-existent health care, and incredibly hard labor.
It is estimated that more than 18 million people passed through the gulags throughout the existence of the Soviet Union, and during the Great Purges of the Stalinist era, five to seven million people were imprisoned at any one time. Nearly ten percent of the 18 million died from the appalling conditions.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was one of the millions of Soviet citizens who experienced the hell of the gulag. In 1945, while serving as a commander in the Red Army, he was arrested for private criticisms he made of Stalin. Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years in the labor camps, and it was this experience that inspired him to write One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. From this fictionalized account of life in the labor camps, we see that even in hell, the Bolsheviks were able to take from the prisoners their religion and institute one of their own.
As the title suggests, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich follows a man for one day in a labor camp, from the time he wakes up till the time he goes back to bed. It is essentially a tale of survival, in which Ivan Denisovich and his gang of workers expend all their energy in an effort to secure a little more food for themselves and perhaps a little more warmth in the cold. It is a routine that must be repeated day in and day out, week after week, year after year. Every ounce of energy must be harnessed just to survive, and in this state, Ivan and the others haven’t the time or energy to spend on things spiritual. Religion, for all intents and purposes, goes by the wayside. So much so that the way to tell a new arrival is by whether or not he still crosses himself. “As for the Russians,” Ivan says, “they had even forgotten which hand to cross themselves with.” What does it matter which hand to use when both are numb from the freezing cold?
Orthodoxy is the least of Ivan’s concerns, and in the place of that system of beliefs and rituals, stands the makeshift religion of the labor camp, where a spoon becomes as important as the icon of a saint, cigarettes are a divine manifestation, the Chief Guard’s directions on marching are a “sermon,” and having your prison number painted on your cap is “like being anointed on your brow by a priest.”
Perhaps the most interesting facet of the Gulag Church is that, as depressing as the rites and rituals become for the prisoners, as poorly as the Soviet system treats them, they still buy into the basic tenants of the Cement Church. Namely, that the Party is God, and that labor is the ordinance through which salvation is obtained.
While setting up to build a section of wall, one of the prisoners in Ivan’s group observes that it’s already noon. Ivan Denisovich agrees, noting the sun’s position directly overhead. But the captain overhears this conversation and steps in to set the prisoners straight. He lets them know that when the sun is overhead, it means that it is not noon, but one o’clock. “’ How so?’” questions Ivan. “’Any old man knows that the sun’s at its highest when it’s time for dinner.’ ‘Any old man – maybe!’ snapped the captain. ‘But since then a decree has been issued that the sun is at its highest at one o’clock.’ ‘Who issued the decree?’ ‘The Soviet Government!’” At this point, Ivan Denisovich drops the argument and resigns himself to the idea that even the sun is subject to the Party.
When this is realized, all else follows. If the sun is subject to the Party, then certainly men are as well, and they do the labor they are asked to perform. What’s more, they are, in a way, redeemed through this act. The only time Ivan Denisovich is not concerned with survival is when he is laying bricks! Somehow, the act of labor liberates Ivan from the day-to-day worries of food, shelter, and warmth. He is able to concentrate on the physical act of building a wall, and in that way, gives physical meaning to his existence in the labor camp. In effect, Ivan Denisovich is transformed from a selfish and spontaneous individual, concerned only with his own health and well being, to a conscientious member of Soviet Society, working with his fellow citizens to complete a brick wall for the New World. This idea – transformation through labor – is a profoundly Soviet and Stalinist concept, a basic tenant of their “religion.”
Summary of the Gulag Church
So, although the Bolsheviks didn’t create the Gulag Church the way they planned and engineered the Cement Church (with its beliefs and goals clearly lined out in scripture), the harsh treatment of criminals and dissidents in the labor camps at once destroyed Orthodoxy and necessitated the formation of a new religion. While pathetic in its rites and rituals, this religion still supported the basic tenants of the Cement Church in the end: the Party is God, and through submission to its will, the New Man can be formed through labor.
Apostasy and the Formation of New Churches
The apostasy of the Church that Jesus Christ established in the Old World was due in large part to the persistent persecution from both Judaistic and pagan opposition. Vast numbers, including many officers in the ministry, deserted the Church, and nearly all of the apostles were killed. The end result of this opposition was an apostasy from the Church. But even more serious than the opposition from without were the dissensions from within, “whereby an absolute apostasy of the Church from the way and word of God was brought about.” Christ’s Church fell when the people within began changing the doctrines and grabbing for power.
The Cement Church and its counterpart, the Gulag Church, fell apart in the same way. The Bolsheviks argued that their ideology would create a world where all were equal, where everyone would work for the common good, where there would be no rich and no poor, and therefore no benefits attached to wealth or disadvantages attached to poverty. But within their own organization was where that philosophy was trampled on the most, and as a result, the church they created fell.
This parallel in no way suggests that the Soviet Union would have continued on and that their quest for a New World would have been accomplished had there not been corruption from within, but corruption certainly didn’t help their cause.
The Russian people were not idiots, and they could clearly see that the practice of Bolshevik ideology did not lead to its intended results. What is more, they saw that while they were forced to surrender their will to the Party and to labor for the cause, others were receiving all sorts of benefits and advantages without performing any labor at all. Bolshevism was not so equal in its treatment of individuals after all. As Vladimir Brovkin explains in his treatment on culture and society after Lenin:
It was not the party of the proletariat in the country building socialism. It was a party bereft of revolutionary spirit, a party of social-climbers, and bureaucrats, a party whose elite was far from confident in the success of the enterprise it had embarked upon…The Bolshevik organization…was a mobilization and recruitment agency producing cadres for state administration. It was a propaganda and tax-collection agency…It was a self-sustaining and perpetuating ruling elite claiming to be proletarian and Marxist.
This type of hypocrisy and bureaucratization is what inspired Russian writers to build up “churches” of their own, just as the hypocrisy of Christ’s apostate church inspired the protestants to build up their own churches.
Joseph Stalin has been quoted as saying that Soviet writers are the “engineers of human souls.” Ironically, the amount of literature written subverting Stalinist/Bolshevik ideology has come to outweigh the literature Stalin forced upon the people in his attempt to transform them. The writers did indeed take on the role of engineers, and through their literature, themes and archetypes were expressed that contrasted the ideology of the Soviet novel.
Mikhail Zoshchenko satirized the entire Soviet system in his short stories, using humor to poke fun at the inefficient bureaucracy and the citizens it produced, while Yuri Trifonov and Joseph Brodsky explored more seriously the malaise that permeated Soviet society due to the shortage of goods, and especially the lack of living space. They exposed a world in which people had to constantly seek for connections, and deals had to be made under the table in order to survive – hardly the world of sharing and caring and social equality that was to be functioning in the New World.
Tatyana Tolstaya and Victor Pelevin, while varying stylistically, uncover an even darker Soviet reality, where malaise would be a welcome emotion for characters that find themselves perpetually falling and flailing in a hopeless existence. “Meaning,” in many of Tolstaya’s short stories, is found only in physical objects that represent the past, the pre-revolution era, while Pelevin’s Oman Ra is defined by its complete absence of meaning. Life for Oman is nothing more than a series of absurdities forced upon him by Soviet protocol, and ultimately, his existence turns out to be one big illusion, fakery produced by the Soviet elite.
Also among the literature criticizing Soviet reality is Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, a revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate. On top of exposing the inconsistency in Soviet ideology and reality, Bulgakov attempts to develop an alternate ideology. He thwarts the idea that the Party is God by making fun of the scarcity of goods and the system of entitlement, and exposing the incompetence of the police in their investigations – they get everything wrong! He turns atheism on its head by bringing the devil and his angels to Moscow to torment those who don’t believe in him. Says Berlioz: “The majority of our population made a conscious decision long ago not to believe the fairy tales about God,” after which Bezdomny reasserts that God does not exist, and further makes the claim that it is not God but man who is in control of his own fate. It is at this moment that the devil begins showing Berlioz, Bezdomny, and the “majority of the population” that even if God doesn’t exist, the devil does, and either way, man is not in control of his own fate nor is the Party.
Although Bulgakov’s philosophy breaks down and there are some inconsistencies in the end, one thing that is clear is that acting and writing according to one’s conscience brings salvation. The fate of Pontius Pilate can shed light on the argument: after giving into protocol and bureaucracy – going against his conscience – Pilate allows for the crucifixion of Yeshua. Because of this, he is tormented for hundreds and hundreds of years, and does not obtain relative peace until Margarita forgives him of the deed. One of the most important ideals of Bolshevik ideology – submitting individual will to become a conscientious member of the whole – is here turned inside out. Individual will is what would have saved Pontius.
Summary of the New Churches
Perhaps Bulgakov was making the claim that the Soviet Union would continue to be tormented as long as the people continued to go along with the protocol, the bureaucracy, the ideology of the Bolshevik elite, etc. And according to other writers like Trifonov, Brodsky, Tolstaya, and Pelevin, Bulgakov may have been right. The torment did continue, and manifests itself in the various works of these Soviet writers – the “churches” they erected. Whether it be Brodsky’s church of looking to the past, Tolstaya’s church of pre-revolutionary objects, or Pelevin’s church of absurdity, the people now have a place to go to find relative peace. They can at least take comfort in knowing that the hypocrisy has been exposed, that they were not alone in their torment, and that their conscience, despite being repressed, was right all along.
Conclusion
In their attempt to eradicate religion, the Bolsheviks created a religion of their own, with the fundamental belief in the Party as God. They espoused a belief in work and labor as the ordinance that would transform a spontaneous individual into a conscientious member of the community, living and breathing under the direction of the Party. This prescription was meant to bring about a New World in which poverty, sickness, selfishness, and ambition would cease to exist. But the system brought about the opposite results. Poverty and sickness continued to exist and selfishness and ambition manifested itself the most within the highest cadres of the system.
The religion the Bolsheviks forced upon the people failed, and writers filled the vacuum with churches of their own, founded on themes and archetypes that directly contradicted the themes and archetypes of Soviet scripture. These new churches, whether they rely on humor, nostalgia, or absurdity, are where the people can now go for peace of mind.
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