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(2) What is the relationship between Leninist Bolshevism and religion that led to the disastrous famine in Ukraine in 1932?
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)Wikipedia.
Continuing from the previous issue, SaImon Seberg MontefioriworkStalin, the Red Czar and His Courtiers.The following are some of the memorable passages from the
Important things are not decided in the conference room. They are decided on vacation.
At the end of 1931, when the famine was becoming more severe and a large scale famine was occurring, most party officials, including Stalin and his wife Nadja, were already on vacation.
The Bolshevik officials took vacations extremely seriously. In fact, even during the worst of the famine, at least 10 percent of the letters exchanged within Stalin's court were about vacations (20 percent were about health problems).
A network of vacation exchanges was the best way to get on Stalin's good side. More often than not, personnel matters were discussed and plots were hatched on the balconies of vacation homes in the sunshine than within the snowy walls of the Kremlin.
Hakusuisha, Simon Seberg Montefiori, translated by Toru Someya, Stalin: The Red Czar and His Courtiers, p. 144
Some line breaks have been made.
Politics is not decided only in the conference room. Important decisions are made in the hallways between meetings and even during vacations.
This may be true of all matters, not just politics.
How difficult the world can be...
The "bullshit" famine in Ukraine in 1932
The top officials of the Politburo knew exactly what was going on. Their letters describe the horrific scenes they witnessed from the windows of the executive luxury train.
Pjonnyi reported to Stalin from Sochi, where he was on vacation. The people I see from the train windows look exhausted, clad in rags. The horses, too, are all bones and skins. ......
But President Kalinin, a "village elder" who had become a comfort to Stalin, scoffed at the "political crooks" calling for "aid to a 'starving' Ukraine. Only a corrupt and decaying class could produce such a bunch of twisted people."
By June 18, however, Stalin admits to Kaganovich that the "obvious bullshit" of the so-called Ukrainian "famine" has some reality.
This "bullshit" famine is a tragedy that would not have occurred without the aggressive financing to build pig iron refineries and manufacture tractors in the first place.
It is estimated that at least 400,000 to 500,000 people died in this tragedy, with a maximum of 1,000,000. Apart from the Nazi genocide and Mao's terror, it was a tragedy unparalleled in human history.
For the Bolsheviks, the peasants were always the enemy. Lenin himself said, "The peasants must always be kept somewhat hungry.
Kopelev admits. He says, "Everyone of my generation, myself included, firmly believed that the ends justified the means. Before my eyes, people were starving to death." [omitted)
Sure, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. But all manner of carnage was justified on the grounds of building a wonderful "new world.
Hakusuisha, Simon Seberg Montefiori, translated by Toru Someya, Stalin: The Red Czar and His Courtiers, p. 167-168.
At least 4 to 5 million people died of starvation. And that too by man-made causes...
This sort of thing was happening during the Stalin era.
But under Stalin's regime, even that was not "theA Wonderful New WorldIt was justified in order to create a "story"... a story that is now becoming unimaginable in scale...
Was Lenin Bolshevism close to religion?
Revolution without firing squads is meaningless," Lenin is said to have said. So Lenin is said to have said. Throughout his life, Lenin praised the politics of terror of the French Revolution because Lenin's Bolshevism was based on the unique creed of "building a new social system on bloodshed.
The Bolsheviks were atheists, but they were not like secularist politicians in the usual sense. They dared to kill people out of the conceit that they were morally most righteous.
Bolshevism was not a religion, but it was extremely close to one. Stalin once told Beria that the Bolsheviks were "a kind of military and religious order.
At the time of Gerzhinsky's death, the founder of Chequer, Stalin called him "a pious knight of the proletariat."
Stalin's "Knights of the Belt and Sword" resembled the Knights Templar rather than any conventional secular movement organization, and even approximated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which was controlled by the Iranian leader Ayatollah.
They were willing to die, kill, and even sacrifice their own families for their belief in the historical inevitability of human progress. The intensity of their passion is unparalleled in the carnage and martyrdom that was repeated in the Middle Ages - and still is in the Middle East - for the sake of their faith.
The Bolsheviks believed themselves to be a special people "of noble blood. In 1941, in an attempt to confirm to General Zhukov the possibility of the fall of the capital, Stalin asked him: "What is the most important thing for you?
Will Moscow hold out? As a Bolshevik, tell me the truth. An Englishman of the 18th century would have said, "As a gentleman, tell the truth.
The "Knights of the Belt" were expected to have no less faith than the faith of the Messiah, to act with righteous impunity, and to convince others of the justification of their actions.
Stalin's "semi-Islamic" fanaticism was a common trait of all Bolshevik officials. Mikoyan's son called his father a "devoted follower of Bolshevikism."
The majority of the cadres were people who had grown up in a devoutly religious environment. They detested Judaism and Christianity, but in place of their parents' generation's faith in Orthodoxy, they created a religion that was even stricter than Orthodoxy, a kind of systematic anti-moral faith.
This religion - which its adherents humbly referred to as 'science' - had given man divine authority. ...... This new religion was as triumphant as Christianity had been in the past, and for the next thousand years. Many believed in the twenties that it would last," writes Nadjejda Mandelicitham. Everyone recognized the superiority of this new faith, which promised heaven on earth, not salvation in the next world."
The Party justified its "dictatorship" on the grounds of purity of faith. Their Bible was the teaching of Marxism-Leninism, which was considered "scientific" truth.
Ideology was extremely important, so all of the leaders had to be experts in Marxism-Leninism. Or at least they had to look like experts.
Therefore, in order to qualify as proficient in the profound, these uneducated and unskilled people worked day and night in tedious study of dialectical materialism, whipping themselves into a state of exhaustion. Learning was an extremely important task.
As for the couple Molotov and Polina, they even discuss the subject in their love letter. "My dear Paulička,...... you should definitely read Marx's classic papers,...... you should also read Lenin's collected works, which will be out soon, and some of Stalin's books. I hope to see you soon at ......"
Partisanship, Kopelev explained, was "almost a sacred concept." It was "an absolutely necessary requirement, to adhere faithfully to all the rules of party life with iron discipline."
In the words of one old Communist, it was not enough for the Bolsheviks to simply believe in Marxism. "They had to be men who absolutely believed in the Party no matter what. ...... who could unconditionally accept the dogma of the Party's infallibility - even if the Party was always wrong - at the expense of their own morals and conscience. I had to be a human being." There was no exaggeration when Stalin boasted that We Bolsheviks are a specially tailored people.
Hakusuisha, Simon Seberg Montefiori, translated by Toru Someya, Stalin: The Red Czar and His Courtiers, p. 168-170
Some line breaks have been made.
This was one of the most interesting sections of the book.
Religion was taboo in Soviet society, but the very structure of the Soviet Union was based on religious beliefs, what a paradox.
I have been thinking a lot about the theme of what religion is, but this was a very thought-provoking scene.
In June 2019 I visited Cuba, a socialist country, as the final destination of my round-the-world trip.
I've been thinking about socialism and religion in this article, and Stalin is now connected to what I was thinking about two years ago.
I still find Lenin Stalin very interesting. I will continue to think about them carefully.
be unbroken
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