An essay in universal history

15. THE CULT OF STALIN

While chastising the West for its political sins, the MP continued to glorify Stalin in the most shameful way, having truly become the State Church of the Bolshevik regime. Already during the war, the cult of Stalin, probably the greatest persecutor in the history of the Church, reached idolatrous proportions. He was “the protector of the Church”, “the new Constantine”. The first issues of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, as we have seen, were filled with oleaginous tributes to the “God-given Supreme Leader”.

And yet Stalin never changed his basic hostility to the Church. In 1947 he wrote to Suslov: “Do not forget about atheistic propaganda among the people”. And the bloodletting in the camps continued…²⁰⁶
Together with the cult of Stalin went the enthusiastic acceptance of communist ideology and studied refusal to contemplate the vast scale of its blasphemies and cruelties. Thus just after the war the MP expressed itself as follows concerning the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: “On this day in all the cathedrals, churches and monasteries of our country there will be offered the bloodless Sacrifice, whose beginning was laid by Him Who brought into the world the ideas of love, justice and equality. Deeply moved church-servers will come out onto the ambons and bless their children to hurry from the churches to the voting urns. They will bless them to cast their votes for the candidates of the bloc of communists… They themselves will cast their votes… The ideal of such a person is – Stalin…”²⁰⁷
However, the apotheosis of the Moscow Patriarchate’s cult of Stalin came on the occasion of his birthday in 1949, when a “Greeting to the Leader of the peoples of the USSR” was addressed to him in the name of the whole Church.²⁰⁸ “Without the slightest hesitation,” write Fr. Gleb Yakunin and a group of Orthodox Christians, “we can call this address the most shameful document ever composed in the name of the Church in the whole history of the existence of Christianity and still more in the thousand-year history of Christianity in Rus’.”²⁰⁹
On March 5, 1953 the greatest mass-murderer and persecutor of Christians in history was dying. “His face was discoloured,” wrote his daughter Svetlana, “his features becoming unrecognizable… He literally choked to death as we watched. The death agony was terrible… At the last minute, he opened his eyes. It was a terrible look, either mad or angry, and full of the fear of death.”
“Suddenly,” continues Simon Sebag Montefiore, “the rhythm of his breathing changed. A nurse thought it was ‘like a greeting’. He ‘seemed either to be pointing upwards somewhere or threatening us all…’ observed Svetlana. It was more likely he was simply clawing the air for oxygen [or pointing at the demons coming for his soul]. ‘Then the next moment, his spirit after one last effort tore itself from his body.’ A woman doctor burst into tears and threw her arms around the devastated Svetlana…”²¹⁰
And therein lay the tragedy for Russia and the world: that so many still loved this most evil of men. For in the days that followed millions poured into Moscow to mourn over the destroyer of their country and their Church. The hysteria was so great that hundreds were crushed to death. Their grief was genuine – and therefore their guilt, and its punishment, continued. To this day the wrath of God over the Russian land continues unassuaged…
One of the few who did not lament Stalin’s death was Lavrenty Beria, the terrible Georgian executioner and head of the security services. It is possible that he killed Stalin. According to Molotov, Beria actually said: “I did away with him, I saved you all.”²¹¹ Certainly, he openly rejoiced in Stalin’s death, while even Molotov, whose beloved wife Polina was still in prison when Stalin died, genuinely mourned him. Moreover, Beria was probably the one satrap who really did not believe in communism – after all, he wanted his grandchildren to go to Oxford University!
The MP was quite different: it showed no let-up in its worship of Stalin, even after his death. Thus in Izvestia on March 10, 1953, there appeared Patriarch Alexis’ letter to the USSR Council of Ministers: “In my own name and in the name of the Russian Orthodox Church I express my deepest and sincerest condolences on the death of the unforgettable Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, the great builder of the people’s happiness. His death is a heavy grief for our Fatherland and all the peoples who dwell in it. His death has been taken with deep grief by the whole of the Russian Orthodox Church, which will never forget his benevolent attitude towards the needs of the Church. His radiant memory will never be erased from our hearts. Our Church intones ‘eternal memory’ to him with a special feeling of unceasing love.”²¹² And in 1955 he declared his church’s continued loyalty to Stalin’s successors: “The Russian Orthodox Church supports the totally peaceful foreign policy of our government, not because the Church allegedly lacks freedom, but because Soviet policy is just and corresponds to the Christian ideals which the Church preaches.”²¹³
The Catacomb Church condemned the MP’s cult of Stalin. ²¹⁴ So did ROCOR. In response to the MP’s description of Stalin as “the chosen one of the Lord, who leads our fatherland to prosperity and glory”, Metropolitan Anastasy, first-hierarch of ROCOR, wrote that this was the point “where the subservience of man borders already on blasphemy. Really – can one tolerate that a person stained with blood from head to foot, covered with crimes like leprosy and poisoned deeply with the poison of godlessness, should be named ‘the chosen of the Lord’, could be destined to lead our homeland ‘to prosperity and glory’? Does this not amount to casting slander and abuse on God the Most High Himself, Who, in such a case, would be responsible for all the evil that has been going on already for many years in our land ruled by the Bolsheviks headed by Stalin? The atom bomb, and all the other destructive means invented by modern technology, are indeed less dangerous than the moral disintegration which the highest representatives of the civil and church authorities have put into the Russian soul by their example. The breaking of the atom brings with it only physical devastation and destruction, whereas the corruption of the mind, heart and will entails the spiritual death of a whole nation, after which there is no resurrection.”²¹⁵