Bolshevism Like Radical Islamic Sect, Berdyaev Said, Slezkine Shows and Eidman Explains

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 6 – Traditionally, most analysts of Bolshevism trace its evils to its rejection of all religious faiths, but the great Russian religious writer Nicholas Berdyaev observed and émigré historian Yury Slezkine documents, its evils arose because it was in fact a millenarian and chiliastic sect much like Islamist radicalism, Igor Eidman says.

            Berdyaev noted, the Russian sociologist says, that “only in the consciousness of Russian Bolsheviks did revolutionary socialism remain a religion which they by fire and sword wanted to impose on the world. This is something like a new Islam whose adepts wanted to merit paradise by killing unbelievers” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5D202FF4B996E).

            Eidman expands this observation in the following way: “The Prophet Lenin (the messenger of Marx) created a holy state, a Soviet khalifate which tried to spread communism through the entire world with the help of ‘jihad’ in the form of a world revolution.  Communist shahids expected the paradise of communism if not for themselves then for their descendants.”

            Moreover, the sociologist continues, “the communists even had their own Sunni-Stalinists (the majority) and Shiia-Trotskyites (the minority) for whom Trotsky (like Ali) the only legitimate heir and spiritual successor of the prophet Lenin was killed by villains and usurpers.”

            In his new book The House of the Government, Slezkin argues that the communist faith like any new religion required victims and the blood of enemies, crusades, jihad and world revolution. It wasn’t important whether this religion had a God as such. What mattered was the attitude toward the leader and his doctrine.

            “Having become slaves of the dogma,” Slezkine argues, “the believers became slaves of its religious leaders.”  But in ways that resemble the trajectory of many faiths, the communist religion did not survive. He argues that this reflects its lack of mysticism, its insufficiently total control, and disputes among its followers.

            According to Eidman, none of these reasons are entirely convincing. He suggests that the real reason lies elsewhere: “The 20^th century becamse “the century of the triumph of rationalism, pragmatism, and consumerism.” Under their assault no religion like communism with its asceticism could expect to hold out for long.

            “Decommunization,” Eidman says, “became part of the pan-European process of secularization.  The old Christian religion turned out to be more flexible and, in a significantly changed form, survived by operating on tradition while communism which was not so rooted lost the majority of its followers” relatively quickly.

            As the sociologist notes, “the Bolshevik sect became a state religion and lasted for more than seven decades in this capacity before collapsing into a marginal sect,” one that in the form of the KPRF is “no longer militant but rather a thick-headed Putinized sect of those who long for the USSR.’”

            According to Eidman, “a totalitarian regime cannot exist without a state religion. Something similar the powers that be are trying even now to introduce into Russia. In contrast o communism, this is a utopia not of the future but of the glorious past, which ‘we can repeat,’ the utopia of ‘the Great Victory,’ of victorious war.”

            But the sociologist argues, “in the contemporary world, it is impossible to create a new mass religion,” and consequently, this current Kremlin effort is doomed to fail sooner rather than later.