AUTOCRACY, DESPOTISM and DEMOCRACY an Historical Approach to the Relationship Between Orthodoxy and Politics
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AUTOCRACY, DESPOTISM AND DEMOCRACY An Historical Approach to the Relationship between Orthodoxy and Politics PART 5: THE AGE OF THE ANTICHRIST (1917 to 1945) Vladimir Moss © Copyright: Vladimir Moss, 2013. All rights reserved. 1 You deserve to die, because you have not guarded your master, the Lord’s Anointed. I Samuel 26.16. An evil will shortly take Russia, and wherever this evil goes, rivers of blood will flow. It is not the Russian soul, but an imposition on the Russian soul. It is not an ideology, nor a philosophy, but a spirit from hell. Elder Aristocles of Moscow and Mount Athos (1911). From the day of [the Tsar’s] abdication, everything began to collapse. It could not have been otherwise. The one who united everything, who stood guard for the truth, was overthrown… St. John Maximovich. An apparition different from everything that had been seen on earth until then, had taken the place of Russia. We had before us a state without nation, an army without country, a religion without God. This government, which was born by revolution and nourished by terror . had declared that between it and society no good faith could exist in public and private relations, no understanding had to be respected. That is how there was no more Russia but only an emptiness that persists in human affairs. Sir Winston Churchill, The Aftermath. For liberation, something more is necessary than an economic policy, something more than industry. If a people is to become free, it needs pride and will-power, defiance, hate, hate and once again hate. Hitler. The nation, this collective organism, is just as inclined to deify itself as the individual man. The madness of pride grows in this case in the same progression, as every passion becomes inflamed in society, being refracted in thousands and millions of souls. Metropolitan Anastasius (Gribanovsky) of New York. State? What is that? Well then, open your ears to me, for now I shall speak to you about the death of peoples. State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it tells lies too, and this lie crawls out of its mouth: “I, the state, am the people.” This is a lie! Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883). Life has become better, life has become happier. Stalin (1937). Totalitarianism probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth. George Orwell. 2 Contents IN TRO DUCTIO N ..........................................................................................................5 PA RT 1:TH ERU SSIA N REVO L U TIO N (1917-22)......................................................7 DUAL POWER........................................................................................................7 THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION ........................................................................14 THE BALFOUR DECLARATION ......................................................................20 THE SPIRIT OF LENINISM ...............................................................................30 THE YOUNG MAO ..............................................................................................42 THE CHURCH AND THE REVOLUTION .......................................................45 THE JEWS AND THE REVOLUTION...............................................................60 THE MURDER OF THE TSAR ...........................................................................68 THE RED TERROR ..............................................................................................71 VERSAILLES: DEMOCRACY AND SELF-DETERMINATION....................83 FROM SERBIA TO YUGOSLAVIA ...................................................................94 THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR................................................................................97 FROM WAR COMMUNISM TO NEP ............................................................108 SELF-DETERMINATION IN THE RUSSIAN BORDERLANDS................119 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH IN EXILE ...............................................................130 THE SECOND GREEK REVOLUTION ..........................................................139 PART 2. THE RISE OF THE DICTATORS (1922-1933) ......................................151 LIBERALISM, COMMUNISM AND FASCISM ............................................151 TOTALITARIANISM AND RELIGION: (1) FASCIST ITALY.....................163 TOTALITARIANISM AND RELIGION: (2) NAZI GERMANY..................167 TOTALITARIANISM AND RELIGION: (3) SOVIET RUSSIA ...................174 THE RISE OF STALIN .......................................................................................178 FROM THE VOLGA FAMINE TO THE “LIVING CHURCH”....................191 GREEK ECCLESIASTICAL IMPERIALISM ..................................................210 THE INTRODUCTION OF THE NEW CALENDAR ....................................218 THE FALL OF RENOVATIONISM..................................................................240 THE RUSSIAN CHURCH DECENTRALIZED...............................................243 THE DECLARATION OF METROPOLITAN SERGIUS .............................248 THE BIRTH OF THE CATACOMB CHURCH ...............................................255 STALIN’S WAR ON RUSSIA ...........................................................................265 KING ALEXANDER I OF YUGOSLAVIA......................................................285 THE OLD CALENDARIST MOVEMENT.......................................................300 THE RISE OF HITLER.......................................................................................315 THE VATICAN AND RUSSIA ..........................................................................325 AMERICA’S HUNDRED DAYS .......................................................................329 PART 3. THE SECOND WORLD WAR (1933-1945) ...........................................332 APPEASEMENT: FROM ABYSSINIA TO MUNICH....................................332 THE GREAT PURGES .......................................................................................344 THE FRUITS OF SERGIANISM.......................................................................350 A PARABLE OF SOVIET REALITY ................................................................354 THE SERBS AND THE CONCORDAT ...........................................................358 3 ROCOR AND ECUMENISM............................................................................366 THE RUSSIAN DIASPORA..............................................................................370 PERSECUTION IN ROMANIA .......................................................................377 THE MOLOTOV-RIBBENTROP PACT .........................................................384 THE BALKANS AND THE FASCISTS.............................................................390 1941: APEX OF TOTALITARIANISM.............................................................402 THE NAZIS INVADE RUSSIA .........................................................................404 THE STALIN-SERGIUS PACT.........................................................................415 THE BIG THREE.................................................................................................430 THE BALKANS AND THE COMMUNISTS...................................................437 THE MOSCOW COUNCIL OF 1945................................................................444 VICTORS’ JUSTICE ...........................................................................................459 THE UNITED NATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS........................................473 EPILOGUE: THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN HOLOCAUST ............................478 4 INTRODUCTION And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of demons, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Revelation 16.13-14. This book is a continuation of my earlier books in the series entitled Autocracy, Despotism and Democracy: Part 1: The Age of Faith (to 1453), Part 2: The Age of Reason (to 1789), Part 3: The Age of Revolution (to 1861) and Part 4: The Age of Empire (to 1917). The French revolution gave birth to three evil ideologies, or secular religions: liberalism, communism and nationalism. During the “long” nineteenth century that lasted from 1812 to 1914, these three ideologies were checked and restrained from taking control of the whole of Europe by the mighty Russian Empire. But after Russia had been weakened by the Crimean War and fell during the First World War and the Russian revolution, these three evil spirits spread their pernicious influence throughout almost the whole world. The first spirit, liberalism, which was born during the first, liberal phase of the French revolution, was seemingly the most innocent, the least violent and the closest to Christian values – which is why it has deceived such vast numbers of Christians who regard it as the natural political expression of Christian values. The second, communism, which was born in the second, Jacobin (and Babeuvian) phase of the revolution, is the most obviously antichristian – but still captured the minds of very many intellectuals to a greater or lesser degree in the period up to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and still has an uncanny ability to re-appear in mature liberal societies and take them over, as we see in the European Union today. The third, nationalism, was born in the