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Home , Bolsheviks, Leonid Krasin, Lev Kamenev, Mikhail Frunze, Old Bolshevik, Savva Morozov

Japanese Slavic and East European Studies Vol.35. 2014

SPECIAL ARTICLE

Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers1

Nobuo Shimotomai (Hosei University)

Following the liberalization of religion in , activities of the Orthodoxy became salient by the beginning of the twenty-first century. This process is alongside the reinvigoration of the other religions like Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. Gods survived and are alive in Russia. The demise of the atheist state, the USSR, and its opening of religious activities during the period may be the reason why de-seculalization began to predominate recently. The dichotomy of atheist Russia versus the religious West in the twentieth century has been reversed today, and replaced by a religious Russia confronting with a secularizing West in the twenty- first century. The turning point was believed to be the perestroika period, when General Secretary of the Mikhail Gorbachev changed religious policy in the USSR, especially at the 1000th anniversary of baptization of Kiev in 1988. In 988 Orthodoxy become the official religion, which continued until 1917. But atheist ideology was imposed from October 1917 by the , as Fagan put it, “the enforced collective pursuit of a bright communist future was merely a subversion of Russia’s previous sense of messianic destiny” (Fagan: 3). However, things were a little more complex than has been generally supposed. The fact was that policy change had taken place earlier in the 1980s, when the leaders were confronted with Ronald Reagan’s declaration that the was an “Evil Empire”. By 1982, Patriarch I. Pimen asked the of the Soviet Communist Party to change its policy, and in May 1983 allowed the renovation of the Danilovskii Monastery. It was a former diplomat and chair of the religious commission on the Soviet Council of Ministry, Konstantin Kharchev, who

23 Nobuo Shimotomai advanced this program (Nezavisimaya gazeta, 20 Aug., 2013). He recollects that this motivated to use religion politically by Soviet authority. However, it would be naïve to conclude that such changes in policy on religion could have been carried out by a mere official like Kharchev.2 It was, Yuri Andropov, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Andrei Gromyko, then Foreign Minister and a Politburo member, who had advanced these new ideas into practice, apparently to counter Reagan’s anti-Soviet campaign. Andrei Gromyko, in turn, was at the height of his power after the death of Leonid Brezhnev, and in November 1982 he even rehabilitated his mentor and Stalin’s Foreign Minister, V. Molotov at that time (Shimotomai 2002, 203). In his official biography published in the USSR, Gromyko was exceptionally open about the religious character of his family. He revealed that his family descended from the , who were sent to Vetka, in 1686, following the religious repression by the Orthodox Church. Incidentally, another political heavy weight at that time, D. Ustinov was also from the Old Believers(Kozhurin:8). Old Believers were the name of various religious dissidents in the Russian Orthodoxy that were against church reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon in the middle of the 17th century (Gromyko:12). Nikon, then Patriarch, wanted to change rites, according to the Modern Greek standard, but faced with furious traditionalists who adhered to the old rites (Ware: 258). Pious and stubborn traditionalists were called as Raskolniki (splitters), and were ousted to such places like Vetka, Belarus, including the ancestors of the Gromykos. Needless to say, the Old Believer as a subject of Russian religion is nothing new. However, they were mostly dealt with, in conjunction with the minority issue of religious dissidents, in the Russian Far East or in the countries like USA or in the pre-war colonial Manchuria. Or almost as a purely religion phenomenon, devoid of economic or political implications, though recently Russian economic historians began to research on textile industrialists-merchants in in the late 19th century and beginning of the Russia.3 However, the depth and significance of their activities, especially in the beginning of the twentieth century, were broader and had direct political connotations. Oleg Shavnazarov, a Russian historian, referred to the relations between and the Old Believers, which evoked new academic

24 Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers interest in the Old Believers (Voprosy Istorii, No.8, 2002, 88) in the beginning of the last century.4 In fact this topic of political character of the religious minority in Russia was also neither new, nor limited to twentieth century Russia. During the nineteenth century, there had been debates on the ‘’ potential of the Old Believers by such like M. Bakunin and Narodniks (Sud’ba:149). It was the famous Aleksander I. Gertsen who had first advanced the thesis of the anti-governmental and revolutionary potential of the Old Believers, though this myth of their revolutionary character was far from the reality, as the following history has demonstrated (Tarantsev 1: 320). This discourse was repeated in the beginning of the twentieth century when emerged as a new ideology. This coincided with the golden age of the Old Believers, between 1905 and 1917, following the rift of discrimination from the October 1905 . Revolutionaries such as the Russian Social Democrats also were interested in attracting new attention to these trends. What were the actual relationships between the Tsarist state, dissidents’ religious groups and the social upheavals of the , culminating in the revolution of 1917? As an anti-establishment religious group which in principle were anti-imperial who regarded them as anti- Christian, the Old Believers were also realistic enough to request the separation of the Tsarist state from the State religion, thus obtaining autonomy of their confession in 1905. In the beginning of the twentieth century some dissident–oligarchs from the Old Believers like N. A. Bugrov and Sabba Morozov were among them. A new wave of social upheavals have brought to what called the‘Old Believers who wore European cloths of Marxism.5 It looks paradoxical, but Archie Brown is right when he argues the origin of communist ideas come from the Old religious Christianity.6 The present author also wants to revisit these old and new problems.

1 Bolsheviks and Old Believers

The first part concerns the relations between the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, (RSDLP) and the Old Believers. Conventional

25 Nobuo Shimotomai wisdom of the secular and atheist character of the Russian revolutionary movement in the beginning of the twentieth century is simply wrong. At the time, revolutionist thinking and rise of religiosity went side by side. This was even true of the Russian Marxists. The second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (1903) is famous for the schism of, and the birth of, Bolshevism, or the radical faction led by Vladimir I. , a departure from the , or moderate faction. Bolsheviks eventually became core of the future Communist party organization. However, the lesser-known fact of this congress is the fact that the Social Democrats, including Lenin, adopted a strategic alliance with the religious minority at this congress, among others, with the Old Believers. The organ of this party ‘ (the Spark)’also had been deeply related to the Old Believers influence at that time, a fact not researched by historians. The decision to publish‘Iskra’was first made in April 1900 at the Pskov meeting where the revolutionary and the legal Marxist Peter Strube were in attendance. Georgii Plekhanov in Munich also endorsed this publication. From December 1900 the organ was published by Lenin, Plekhanov, Yuri Martov and A. N. Potresov. The name of the last person, Potresov, is less known, but was the key figure regarding the relationship with the Old Believers. Pskov itself had few industrial workers or Social Democrats, but it had a community of Old Believers, especially Pomortsy, bespopovtsy or Priestless, at that time, and they were instrumental in bringing organizational help to Marxist publication including this paper “Iskra”. It was Potresov, among others, who had contact with this religious organization and Potresov even nicknamed himself as‘Old Belief (Starover)’. He continued to work for this newspaper, even after Lenin had left this organ in 1905. It was natural that the Old Believers and the Social Democrats became natural partners. Among them was Lenin’s secretary and famous researcher, the future first Cabinet Secretary of the Soviet government, Vladimir Bonch- Bruevich, whose documents are located now in the Lenin Library at the ‘rukopis’ or manuscript department. His memoirs, letters and other documents contain also some interesting documents. By the advent of the twentieth century, the Old Believers were diverse and far from consolidated entity. Amongst two important trends, Popovtsy was a moderate wing that had retained the priesthood. The leader of the Popovtsy,

26 Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers textile industrialist was known as a magnate. On the other hand, bespopovtsy had no priests, and was considered more radical (Ware: 112). Bonch-Bruevich himself was busy in Geneva and was absent from the activities of the second congress of the RSDLP, which took place in Brussel and . Still he had submitted a thesis on the “Russian Old Believers and Sects”, read by G. Plekhanov himself at the congress. Sects were the result of the schism in the Old Believers, but assumed a diversified character due to these schisms. The core of this thesis was that the Old Believers and sects became ‘the central channel for the democratic trends against the establishment’and was declared to cooperate with them and invite to the Social Democratic channel.7 For the infant Social Democratic movement, the Old Believers and the sects became pertinent partners for the support of the information network, finances and the organization. In his report to the Party, Bonch underlines that the Old Believers and sects had roots in peasants and rural areas, and through their fraternal relationship they can keep contact with the urban political culture, and thus were able to exert influence in their struggle with the Imperial autocracy in both spiritual and political spheres. He underlines the difference with the schism, or raskol and the sects, or spiritual Christianity. In the seventeenth century a schism occurred in the Greek Orthodox Church where it split into two parts, namely the supporters of the official Nikon Reform in the middle of seventeenth century, or orthodox trends, and its critics, or the Old Believers. They had the same faith regarding doctrine, but had diverged on matters pertaining to rites, like the number of fingers etc. Bruevich, as a Marxist analyst of religion, saw class divisions among them. The Old Believers were the petit bourgeois, both rural and urban, by class origin, and they represented the lower echelons of religious people (Bruevich: 383). Marxists tends to see class difference between the Popovtsy and Bespopovtsy. Popovtsy, or Priestlied ones, were more inclined to compromise the ruling elites and there were some movement to search for ‘Edinoverie’or Unity believers, in 1800. They belonged to the Patriarchal church, but kept the old rites. Meanwhile, bespopovtsy were more oriented towards‘peoples’ democratic’elements, and were prone to ‘spontaneous and uncontainable resistant movements’, according to Bruevich. Meanwhile, various sects, or Spiritual Christianity, emerged, who

27 Nobuo Shimotomai only believed in ‘God’s law’, discarding secular elements. Sects basically rejected a close proximity between church and state (Bremer: 157). Following this line of the report, V. Lenin’s resolution characterized the Old Believers and sects as the oppositionists against the regime, a phenomenon of democratic and religious movements as a kind of social protest. Then it claimed to spread socialist activities among these dissident religious groups. However, atheist Yuri Martov was against being involved with religious groups. His strict secular Marxist ideas might have forced him to take such position. Among others, the Social Democrats had cooperated with various dissident religious groups, including the Old Believers, on confidential and underground networks for disseminating information, pamphlets, etc. For these purposes, Lenin organized a commission to work with the Old Believers and sects. In this framework, a special publisher, printing office and transportation network were created.8 For these purposes, Lenin and V. Bonch-Bruevich set up the publisher in 1903. V. Bonch-Bruevich recalled this fact in 1925, when the NEP was at its height, but after that he had silenced and rewrote only in 1951 and 1952, before his death of 1955. Examples are given in the work of organ for religious groups, Rassvet, when the Social Democrats departed with Tolstoyans with whom they had cooperated. This Social Democratic organ for sectarians was issued by Bruevich in Geneva, nine issues in all.9 The Lenin library contains related documents. This organ was officially admitted as the Social Democratic Party organ for sectarians at the August 1903 party congress. Although this was somewhat downgraded as the ‘probationary’ publication, as Plekhanov had admitted. Lenin endorsed this publication, not for sectarians, but for peasants. Lenin, along with other people, strongly supported this publication, partly because Lenin could learn the Old Believers’ know-how regarding the underground activities and resources they possessed. In fact, Bruevich recalled forty years later that the Bolsheviks could get financial support through contact with them in Switzerland, Europe and the USA. It was also difficult for Lenin to publish party documents overseas, and to transport to Russia for distribution. From this point of view, religious dissenters were valuable, even for revolutionaries. Still opinions were divided among the Russian Social Democratic Workers

28 Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers

Party, or RSDRP, leaders on the issue of publications for religious-dissidents. Again, Yuri Martov was vocal against publications for religious groups of the Orthodoxy, including the Old Believers. Bruevich himself admitted that the aim of publication was not limited to the Old Believers, by saying that this was also aimed at sectarians in general.10 By 1904, the editorial board of‘Iskra’ was still debating its continuation, and even the father of Russian Marxism, G. Plekhanov also became skeptical towards the publication. One year later even Lenin also became negative and thus they ceased publication.11 As Bruevich recalled in his 1924 pamphlet on this, Leninist publications were printed overseas and were imported secretly through the channels of the Old Believers and sectarians. Their model was the Molokan warehouse experience in in the beginning of the century. The sect Molokans (“Milk Drinkers”) was those who drink milk (moloko) during Lent, instead of wine in the Orthodox. They had printed texts in Turkey and Persia and brought them into Russia (Bruevich:311). A certain Ivan Sergeev, a former Molokantsy revolutionary, brought documents in this way from Geneva. Rassvet, the organ of the Russian Social Democrat Workers Party for the Old Believers published in London, was transferred to the house of Lev Tolstoy, who used to live in at that time. This work was also done by a Latvian Social Democrat, a certain Besman, from the Old Believers, who also developed a secret Romania route through the Donau River. The Donau transport route was carried out by fishermen, from Nekrasovtsy, a sect of the Old Believers. Their recollections signify that the Social Democrats, the Old Believers, and the Spiritual Christians including Molokans, were interconnected each other at that time. Tsarist repression created these curious symbioses of revolutionaries with dissident-religious groups. Anyway, oppositionist, either religious or political, printings were printed outside Russia (Romania and others), and were brought into Russia, following the example of Old Believers experience. ‘Iskra’, the organ of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party also had deep relations with the Old Believers community. Leftist writer Maxim Gor’kii had a twisted relation with Lenin, and he was openly against the Bolshevik takeover of power and criticized him in June 1918. He disclosed the fact that‘Iskra’ was financially supported by the rich Old Believer

29 Nobuo Shimotomai industrialist, Sabba Morozov (Gor’kii: 1990). Traditionally, Sabba was only referred to as a capitalist in Soviet historiography. Gor’kii himself also wrote a short essay on him, where Sabba was referred to as influential liberal capitalist and contributed to the Iskra paper before the 1905 revolution. This fact was also referenced in Soviet historiography by historian B.I. Pak (Istoria SSSR, No. 6, 1980). Pak, however, never mentioned the fact that Sabba Morozov was from an Old Believers family. Thus, readers could not understand the relationship between the revolutionary movements and dissident capitalists. Following the demise of the Soviet Union, Russian economic historians, in turn, emphasize the pioneering role of industrialists from the Old Believers background like Morozovs, Ryabshinskiis and Soldatenkovs. Russian economic historians such as V. Kerov paid attention to the role of capitalists, or merchants. D. Raskovs’ study on the economic initiative of the Old Believers concludes that they were more active on industrial and trade activities than usual Russian people and they produced on almost half of the textile industry, though by 1870 their weight somewhat lowered.12 The reason why capitalists like Sabba Morozov could finance revolutionary movements must be explained. Were they exceptional? In this respect, a reliable biography was written by T. Morozova and historian I. V. Potkina in 1998. According to these authors, the Morozov family originated in Guslitzy, located southeast of Moscow, a typical Old Believers village.13 They were obstinate believers of the old rites and texts, who regard Moscow as the third Rome. His grandfather Sabba Vasilyevich Morozov (1770-1860) was a serf, but energetic enough to organize his own guild as a merchant. He was once suppressed, but succeeded to build modernized cotton and textile factories in Orekhovo-Zuevo area near Moscow, and eventually was buried at the Rogozhskoe Cemetery, as was typical for pious Popovtsy. The Old Believers were regarded as anti-imperial and dissident from the official point of view, and were forbidden to have their own Church hierarchy, but at the time of liberal Ekaterina II, they were allowed to have a cemetery outside a Moscow check point through Vladimir Street. The Morozovs, along with Ryabshinskiis and others were the caretakers of this cemetery, where they continued their religious activities, albeit covertly. A

30 Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers grandson of Sabba’s mother came from the Soldatenkovs, another rich merchant or, oligarch from Moscow. By the middle of the nineteenth century the business network of the Morozovs widened and their house became the focus of the Moscow intellectuals like historian V. O. Klyuchevskii, P. N. Milyukov and others (Taranets 1:331). Sabba’s factory was known as typical of an Old Believers modernized factory by the end of the nineteenth century. They were progressive and they were generous regarding merchant activities, though Soviet historians had tended to view the factory as exploitative in character, following Leninist, or ideological interpretations, that are no longer more supported. Historian D. Laskov in his book on the economic institutions of the Old Believers characterize that their economic style was, 1) secular asceticism, 2) hardworking, 3) frugal, and 4) mutual trust and communality (Raskin:145). This reminds us of Protestant work ethics formulated by the famous Max Weber. The issue was Sabba’s own political orientation. In this respect, Potkina’s biography negates the revolutionary myth of Sabba, especially that propagated by Soviet historians (Potkina). For example historian Pak had asserted that Lenin asked him to give financial aid. In 1903, he contributed to the Bolsheviks three times, through Mikhail Gor’kii and his lover and actress Andreeva. , a Bolshevik and engineer, was instrumental in this and was dispatched to the Morozov factory in 1904 to obtain 24,000 rubles. Krasin had set up the Chemical factory, necessary for textile industry, and had been trusted by the Morozovs. Thus Lenin characterized Krasin as the ‘financial ministry’ of the Bolshevik party, whose connection with the ‘liberal capitalists’ enabled them to establish an illegal communication and laboratory for bombs, etc. However, the biography of Potkina negated these as myths created by a Soviet writer, M. Gor’kii, or Soviet historians. The fact was that the factories run by the Old Believers were characterized by harmoniousness between labor and management, and had generous policies towards workers who were also fellow Believers. Contemporary historians were fascinated by the innovative factory system developed by the Old Believers. Legal-Marxist historian M.I. Tugan Balanovskii’s book on the “Russian factory,” and Marxist N. Nikoliskii also wrote a book on the role of the religious leaders on the development of Russian textile and other industries. It was not accidental that M. Gor’kii was entrusted to edit the

31 Nobuo Shimotomai history of factories in the Soviet period, partly because they were partially originated in the Old Believers factories. Sabba himself widened his activities through religious connections and capitalist-industrialism, including Nizhne-Novgorod markets and others. Financial Minister S. Witte was also supportive of the Old Believers’ work. Sabba also invited Tsar Nikolas II, though he was regarded as religious enemy. Potlina said that Sabba was not a rigidly religious person, though he believed in the faith. He was also a patron of the Moscow Art Theater, or MKhAT, which also originated in the local theater for textile workers in 1897. Its famous director Konstantin Stanislavskii was also an Old Believer. In fact Orekhovo-Zuevo factory had a summer theater at that time. Sabba’s involvement in supporting revolutionary causes was scandalously revealed when he suddenly committed suicide on 13 May 1905 in Cannes, France. After his death, a 1,000,000 ruble insurance certificate was given to the Bolshevik party. Thus scandal occurred over the death of this merchant, industrialist. M. Gor’kii and leftists took the view that he committed suicide. The other took that that he was forced to die. The official view by the police was that he was blackmailed to commit suicide. However, contemporary authors negated both revolutionary myths and plots on the murder, following his activities in 1905. Most subtle was his behavior around the on 9 January 1905. On this, M. Gor’kii in his memoir on 1922 maintained that Sabba was on the spot with him and was against the shooting and helped revolutionary movement. However, Potkina found that Sabba was at that time in Liga and was absent from the capital, thus negating the authenticity of Gor’kii (Potkina:178) More importantly, Potkina found the programmatic memo regarding labor problems, where Sabba wrote, not as a sympathizer of the revolutionary cause, but as a pragmatic realist entrepreneur. The action of workers should be based on the request of the improvement of his conditions, and should also depend on national economy. This position had nothing to do with revolution. In fact, Morozov never used the term revolution. What he had in mind was, far from revolutionary ideas, but reform of the state apparatus and civic request for legislation on factory. It was far from a revolutionary cause. In essence, Morozov’s request was for a liberal-democratic program on the parliamentary reform, following the model of British constitutionalism.

32 Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers

Though in his factory there were strikes and other movements, and social democrats were agitating for revolutionary causes, but these findings are important for understanding Sabba Morozov’s position. Anyway he committed suicide, and was found dead in a French resort in May. On 29 May, he was buried in the Rogoziskoe Cemetery. Still their family believed that he had been involved in personal affair with Nina Andreeva.

2 Soviets and Old Believers

The Soviet system appeared for the first time in history in 1905 at - Voznesensk, in conjunction with the revolutionary movement. However, if one researched in detail, one would found this thesis cannot be maintained. The Soviet, of course, reappeared in February 1917 almost spontaneously in Russia. It is also well-known that V. Lenin, after coming back from Switzerland in April, called for the famous slogan of all powers to the Soviet. But it is also well known that the Bolsheviks were traditionally against this form of government, including Stalin and Molotov who was in charge at the initial stage of revolution. Why and who, then, organized such a movement from below? Lenin himself had changed his mind and wrote a famous book before the October 1917 “State and Revolution” where he showed in detail that the Soviet was revival of the of 1871, when Parisian masses formed a spontaneous organization. But how could ordinary Russian working masses organize such a broad movement, or prototype of future state organ, without learning from experience of far-away Paris? In fact the historical origins of the Soviet were never analyzed nor persuasively explained by Russian and foreign scholars, though such historian as Sergei G. Kara-Murza and others simply admitted that the historical causes were unknown. Meanwhile Russian historian Oleg Shakhnazarov hinted that the origin of the Soviet was related to the Bespopovtsy (Voprosy Istorii, No.8, 2002, p79.). The present author also sees historical connections between Old Believers self-organization and the origins of the Soviet. In Christianity, the church is a body of Christ, but the Old Believers as dissidents were deprived of the church organization in principle. They are also divided into two trends, namely, Popovtsy and Bespopovtsy and were further fragmented into several dozen subcategories.

33 Nobuo Shimotomai

Without the church hierarchy, it was inevitable that differentiation took place among followers to keep faith and discipline. Thus there existed self- organization, despites oppression by both the government and the official Orthodox Church. Among others, despite the oppressive measures on the part of Tsar Nikolai I, uncompromising Bespopovtsy had developed a nationwide network. Religious leaders from each province were rich merchants and entrepreneurs. Bonch-Bruevich pointed out that Fedoseevtsy, strong trends within Bespopovtsy, organized their own structure among the local leaders. Surrounding them were those who organized the Soviets, or meetings. Under the control of the Soviets, subordinated believers or toiling masses were organized on factory level. In other words, the provincial level Soviets understood the masses through the factory level organizations. It looks like the working class Soviet in the twentieth century, but this practices of dissidents sects in the nineteenth century was pointed out in a small article written in 1947 by Bonch Bruevich(Bruevich: 373). The Old Believers, bespopovtsy above all, traditionally solved various problems in a collective manner, in the Soviet or other institutions. Because there was no hierarchy, they had developed a parochial organization. Something new from the point of religion had to be discussed and solved among Believers. Because they regarded the imperial state as antichrist, the use of such things as passports or pensions is prohibited. Conscription was also problematic and thus emerged anti-war faction from them. Bonch himself was involved in anti-war sect Dukhovors. Beguny, departed from Fedoseevtsy, also had Soviets as important organizational form. They were located in Yaroslavl, its head as Supreme Major Soviet. This Supreme Soviet sent various instructions to lower Soviets. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Soviet even extended to the death penalty. Local Soviets also had the same authority, as was pointed by Bruevich.14 Function of the priest was carried out by Nastavnik in this group, who were recruited among believers-laymen. Nastavnik (instructor), in its turn, was to depart from the groups selected. Nastavniks were not allowed to have house, and were provided by special accommodations. Underground network of shelters were developed for them.

34 Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers

3 Soviets and Regions

It is well known that the Soviet as a protest organization reemerged in February 1917 in Russia. As was pointed out, this institution has sprung only in Russia, not the empire as a whole. This fact was underlined by J. Stalin in his speech at the sixth Russian Social Democratic Workers Party Congress of . He elaborated that in the French revolution, local self-governing bodies turned into communes, but the Soviet organization was purely Russian. It implied that the original Soviet was Russian born and was alien, neither in , nor , where Rada, or Parliament was more prevalent form of local powers. Stalin as revolutionary from Georgia might have noticed the Russian origin of the Soviet as prototype of the self- government. Incidentally, the Old Believers were originally a Great-Russian phenomenon in character and, it can be said that the Soviet had come into ground from the soil of Russian political sculpture, which also gave rise to the Old Believers. It is known that the Bolsheviks had been less interested and were hostile to self-governing organizations like Soviets. It was acknowledged that Lenin and the Bolsheviks were even hostile to the Soviet in 1905. Even after Lenin had changed mind in his April thesis in 1917, still some Bolsheviks were reluctant to the ideas on the Soviet, as was permitted by Stalin at that time. It was J. Stalin who made a speech on the character of the real Soviet after the July Incident, at the Sixth Party congress of the RSDWP on 31 July. He declared that the Soviet is the most suitable type of workers organization for the power, but he cautioned that the Soviets are not the only form. Following in this way, he said that ‘This form is purely Russian’ (Protokoly: 118). Why he characterized in this way? He also continued that in the French Revolution, municipal communes played such a revolutionary role, having said that Stalin also suggested that already Soviet had lost power of revolution and should stop using the slogan of ‘All power to the Soviet’. Rural Soviets had already degenerated and became the organization of the upper classes. It is also worth citing the critical comment by Moscow Soviet leader V. Nogin against Stalin, to the effect that the Soviet never lost the significance of uniting the masses. He also criticized Stalin and, eventually

35 Nobuo Shimotomai

Lenin by saying that from April to July what has changed in Soviet and even mentioned that in two months the nation suddenly became ripe for (Protokoly:124). As we see, Nogin was perhaps deeply related to the Old Believers in Moscow and was optimistic on the role of the Soviet which came from the masses. But why did the Soviets emerge only at the Russian level, not as a phenomenon throughout the Empire, or why did Stalin called them ‘pure Russian in character’? Why, in retrospect, did it sprout from the Ivanovo- Boznesensk textile workers, who less developed politically, but were the bastion of this organization? The hypothesis that Soviets originated from the political culture of the Old Believers may be attractive, though proof is lacking. Among other things, Bespopovtsy had originated as prototype of a Soviet organization, because they were deprived of their church and other organizations, they had to develop their own institutions, that in turn, became revolutionized in a time of social upheavals. It is not accidental that it first came to the foreground in Ivanovo-Voznesensk in 1905, where most workers were the Old Believers by confession. If the Soviets, as emerging state organs, sprang from the tradition of the Old Believers background, then we must do research on the relationship between the Soviet activities on local level, and religious development, particularly the Old Believers background. Though space and data are not sufficient, surveys may still permit us to the relevance of this hypothesis. Here are three regions that is known as bastion of the Old Believers and the origin of the Soviet, namely Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Moscow and Vyatka.

1) Ivanovo-Voznesensk Ivanovo-Voznesensk, now the Ivanovo region (oblast) is located northeast of Moscow. This place was already well-known that the first Soviet emerged in 1905 (1905-i). The present author had already demonstrated in his LL.D. thesis that in this textile region, known as the Russian Manchester, Ivanovo workers still asserted themselves even to the Soviet government during the 1925 labor disputes. Shimotomai had demonstrated the religious background of this area (Shimotomai 1982: 212). In fact, almost two-thirds of the city population were Old Believers. The history of Old Believer merchants goes back to the nineteenth century.

36 Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers

Even in 1810, the Old Believers built religious sites by oligarch O. Sokov. Between 1827-1831 Ivanovo factory producers, namely Gareliny, Polushiny, Durdenevskie, Borisoby, Buryliny and other Old Believers, basically former serfs, could begin to buy and develop textile and other industries.15 After 1905, this religious site had developed into a holy temple. Among the toiling masses, a compromising sect known as the Unity Believers were the majority. The social tides of the Old Believer oligarchs were also a salient phenomenon especially in 1905. Dmitrii Burylin (1852-1924) was among the renowned entrepreneurs –an Old Believer in this city. He was more generous towards the strikes and trade unions at that time-typical approach on the part of the manager towards workers-believers (Sovershenno-sekretno, No.4, 2008). His attitude made the rise of Soviet activities possible. Burylin’s attitudes towards local Bolsheviks were also interesting. His factories were nationalized, but he was appointed as the director of the museum that collected his property. was Ivanovo’s Bolshevik and he sent his captures at Bokhara and other Central Asian region to Burylin. Another capitalist from this region included A. Konovalov, who was an active member of Progressive Block and became the Minister of Trade and Industry in the Aleksandr Kerensky government in 1917. Mikhail Frunze was not an Old Believer by origin, but there emerged several revolutionary or active members of the Army. Andrei Bubnov was to be appointed to the People’s of Education in 1929, while the Soviet Marshal A. Vashlevskii came from a religious family. However ambivalence of the Old Believers towards the Soviet government was strongly felt by 1922 and there emerged the tragedy of Shuya in which Lenin ordered the killing of bishops and workers in this region. This tragedy was revealed by the architect of perestroika Aleksandr Yakovlev in 1990, which shook public opinion and turned liberals against even the Leninist legacy. Religious Ivanovo-Voznesensk workers, then, played the role of the organizer, as well as the grave digger, of the Soviet system.

2) Moscow Definitely, Moscow was the capital of the Third Rome and, then the Soviet government. What was the relationship between the two images of Moscow, one religious and conservative, and the other atheist and revolutionary?

37 Nobuo Shimotomai

Again the key words may be the Old Believers who were dominant in this city. Moscow was above all the capitol for them. The center of the two important trends, Popovtsy and Bespopovtsy, existed in this city. The former, Rogozhskoe cemetery was built at the end of the 18th century. By 1830s, this cemetery turned into a kind of trade-industrial union, as was pointed out by Taranets and other historians (Taranets, 2,167). At that time there were some 140 merchant families who were organized under a guild system. It was named as the Proletarian region in the Stalinist period (Shimotomai 1991:46). Today it is also located in the southeast of Moscow. It is also noteworthy that the “Rome” metro station is located near it. Thus, the Third Rome has connected the with the Old Believers. In 2005 the streets in front of this cemetery was renamed as Old Believers. The Preobrazhenskii Cemetery, on the other hand, was the center of the Pomortsy, or uncompromising Bespopovtsy. The cemetery exists now about ten kilometers north of the Rogozhskoe. This cemetery was headed by A, Guchkov, a famous merchant-industrialist, activist of the 1905 revolution and the leader of the ‘Oktyabrists’ faction and then Speaker of the third State , and the first Minister of the Army of the provisional government of 1917 after the . But he failed to persuade the radicalizing soldiers’ Soviet and had to resign in . Then he emigrated (Shimotomai 2013: 128). The area around the Preobrazhenskii cemetery was a textile and wavering industrial area. The Old Believers and textile workers have almost the same identity. Overlapping identities between the working class and the Old Believers were salient in this city. In the north-west part of Moscow, there also existed Old Believers areas around Yaroslavl Station. Indeed, this was the area where the 1905 revolution was most dynamic and influential: remnants of this revolutionary symbolism is still found such names like ‘1905 Street’, or ‘Barricade’, or the ‘Insurrection’ metro station. Among others, the Krasnaya Presniya district known as proletarian was also the bastion of the Old Believers. There were such factories like Sabba Mamontov factory, or the Schmidt furniture factory here. Nikolai Shmidt himself was also related to the Morozov family, and even the member of the Russian Social Democrats Workers Party. It was Aleksei Rykov, a moderate Bolshevik, whose parents were also the Old Believers, persuaded Shmidt to contribute to the Bolshevik

38 Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers party. He was going to become the next Premier Minister, or to be precise, the Chairperson of the People’s Commissariat after V. Lenin in , but were to be ousted from the post by December 1930 and eventually purged in 1938, along with the Right wingers communists like or Nikolai Uglanov, the boss of the Moscow Communist. The Old Believer entrepreneurs were more reconciliatory towards the workers. Workers of Old Believer origin tended to go the streets to protest the government, rather than struggle with their managers, especially in the northwest part of Moscow. The name Barricade (a metro station) exemplifies the 1905 struggles. Soviet activities were also salient in this area, though some 250-300 Moscow Bolsheviks tended to neglect the significance of the Soviet at that time (Voprosy Filosophii, No.6, 2007, 30). Thus we can agree with the hypothesis of Oleg Shakhnazarov to the extent that the Soviet activities in 1905 were supported basically by the Old Believers workers of this area. In this part of Moscow we can identify the religious backgrounds of old Moscow and the Old Believers. Examples are given in the Vagan’skoe cemetery, where old Moscow elites including the Old Believers or associated figures were buried. The famous painter Vashilii Sulikov, who had painted famous Mrs. Morozov, symbol of the Old Believers is here. Older brother of V. Bonch-Bruevich Mikhail, who became the original is also buried. The Mossovet revived in Moscow in 1917 too. Their first organizer was , a Jewish moderate Bolshevik, who was less categorical than Lenin on atheism issue among the Bolsheviks in 1907-09. However, more salient representatives of Bolshevik-Old Believers origin was perhaps Victor Nogin, an from Tver. His family was closely associated with Sabba Morozov and his family. From 1893 he had worked in the Bogorodsk textile factory of the Morozovs. He was also associated with Iskra editorial as a revolutionary. On the issue of God-building in 1908, he was against the categorical atheist Lenin along with Bolshevik moderates like Mikhail Tomskii and Aleksei Rykov. It is noteworthy that the ‘Right Wingers’ in the 1920s were more or less against Lenin on the role of religion in 1908-09 debates on the proletarian God issue (Shimotomai 2013: 150). This rivalry would be repeated in the 1920s over the issue of agrarian

39 Nobuo Shimotomai policy. Nogin continued to be moderate among the revolutionaries through 1917 and highly evaluated role of the Soviet as mass organization, and thus led the Mossovet. He was the stubborn supporter of Soviet type of government, and was against the Lenin-Trotskii’s violent takeover of the power in the name of Soviet. It should be noted that such moderates like Rykov and Nogin were the first leaders of the Sovnarkom, or the first Soviet government. Nogin was appointed as the first Peoples Commissar of the Trade and industry, but he resigned with A. Rykov over the uncompromising Lenin’s policy and became the top of the textile syndicate, including nationalized industry of Morozovs and Guchikovs. But Nogin suddenly died after coming back from the US. A British historian on Moscow, R. Sakwa argues that he might have been assassinated16. Moscow from March 1918 became the capital of the . In 1919 the third international was set up in this city. From the Third Rome appeared the Third International.

3) Vyatka The third region where the Old Believers heritage was strongly felt was Vyatka region (from 1870), where they lived from 17-18th century. This was also an important point of transportation, both on river and land. This region was named after Kirov from 1934, when a famous revolutionary from this area was assassinated. This region was also the place where famous reformist-narodnik thinker A. Gertsen was exiled in the 1830s. Gertsen himself was an atheist, but was interested in this people and shortly worked as an official specializing on the Old Believers. That experience may have contributed his idea that narodniks-oppositionists should cooperate with these trends, an idea advocated from London. Because of this oppositionist political climate, many revolutionary and Soviet activists emerged. Examples are given A. Rykov (1924-1930) and V. Molotov (1930-1941), both successors of Vladimir Lenin as the Chair of the Peoples Commissariat, or the Soviet Premier Minister (Voprosy istorii, No.8, 2002, 83). Both were even neighbors in the same village, as was pointed out Molotov’s oral history document (Chuev: 178). He remembered with some proud of both A. Rykov and S. Kirov, though the former was ousted as rights-deviationist and was replaced by Molotov himself. In fact, grandfather

40 Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers of V. Molotov, Yakov Ye. Nevogatikov, was a famous Old Believer merchant. Molotov’s father, Mikhail P. Skryabin was steward and was also religious person, though not anti-Soviet views, according to Molotov’s own recollection. The Village itself was named after Sovietsk in 1918. Incidentally, famous F. Dzerzhinsky, the first chekist, was not the old Believer, but was exiled in this village and had worked under the Nevogatikov factory, and once married with Margalita Nikolayeva, an Old Believer background scholar. P. Malikov, Kremlins guard, came also from this village. Rykov’s parents were believed to be the Old Believers. was brought about from the nearby town of Urzhum. However, his parents’ religion is thus far unidentified.17 An interesting point is that Kirov was an active supporter of the 1905 revolution, but was critical of the , along with the other Old Believer-related revolutionaries. Vyatka was, thus, the center of the Old Believers religious groups and was also pro-Soviet region in 1917. Prominent revolutionaries, however, were more or less from the moderate wing of Bolsheviks. Molotov himself revealed a secret of the Bolshevik policy of appointment of the top cadres. That was the tradition of the appointment of the Chair of the Peoples Commissariat, or Soviet Premier Minister was ethnically Russian from Lenin’s day. Surely, V. Lenin as Russian was followed by A. Rykov and V. Molotov, both Russian, until 1941. During the World War II period this tradition was interrupted, because J. Stalin, a Georgian by origin, took the office as the Chair of the Council of People’s . But in the Khrushchev period, Russian of the Old Believers origin, Sergei Bulganin was appointed as the Chair of the Soviet Cabinet, or the Council of Soviet Ministrov. He was from Nizhne-Novgorod, another center of the Old Believers. From this point of view, it may be noteworthy that among the first Soviet government, appointed on 26 October 1917 were several prominent figures, related with the Old Believers background; Aleksei Rykov, the first Commissar on Internal Affairs, Vladimir Milyutin, Commissar for Agriculture, A. Shlyapnikov, Commissar for Labor, and Nogin, Commissar for Trade and Industry. The Cabinet secretary was, Bonch-Bruevich, a top expert of the Old Believers and sects. Until 1920, when he was dismissed

41 Nobuo Shimotomai from the secretary because of the trouble with , Commissar on Military Affairs, he was the nexus of the Soviet power. Above all, he was busy on the transfer of the Capital from Petrograd to Moscow. From the point view of the Old Believers, this transfer signified the change of capital from Petrograd as anti-Christ to Moscow as the Third Rome. His brother Mikhail was a Soviet general who was also instrumental in bringing the Tsarist army into the Soviet Red Army in 1918. However, by 1920, Vladimir Bonch- Bruevich was dismissed from the core position of Soviet power. By then, the Soviet organization had been greatly transformed from the mass-oriented, spontaneous and Russian organization into the institutions, run by the Communist bureaucrats. Or in some rural areas like Tambov, North Caucasus, , or even Kronshtat, peasants and toiling masses began to request “Soviet power without Communist” by then. But this is another history, which should be written separately

Notes 1. This article is based on my paper “Soviet State and the Old Believers”, submitted to the JSSEES congress of 2013, October at the Tsuda College. This article is an outline and extended version of my work (Nobuo Shimotomai, ”Rosia to Soren –Reklishinikesareta monotati”, Kawadeshobo-sinnsya, 2013) 2. He was then harsh oppressor to religious minorities in particular (Ibid., p.171). 3. D. E. Raskov, Ekonomicheskie Instituty Staroobryadchestva, St.Peterburg, 2012 4. Voprosy Istorii, No.8, 2002, p.88. 5. Bekhi, 1909 [2000, Biblioteka "Vekhi], Japanese translation, p11 (1970) 6. A. Brown, Rise and Fall of , HarperCollins, 2009, Translated and edited by Nobuo Shimotomai and others, from Chuo Koron Shinsha, 2012 7. KPSS v rezoryutsiyakh, resheniyakh, s’ezdov, konferentsii i plenumov. M., t.1, 1970, p.72 8. U. Bonch-Bruevich, Smert’ i pokhorony Vladimir Ilicha, M., 1925 9. Rossiskaya Gosudarstvennaya Biblioteka, Otdel Rukopis, Fond 369 (Bonch Bruevich documents), ot.35, delo 4,1 (Hereafter F.369/35/4) 10. F.369/35/13 11. F.369/35/4/3 12. D. E. Raskov, Ekonomicheskie Instituty Staroobryadchestva, St.Peterburg, 2012, p.268 13. Taranets, t.1, p.194. At that time, there were 8000 Old Believers in this village. 14. F.369/38/73 15. Taranets, t.2, 2012, p.149 16. My interview with Prof. R. Sakwa at Sochi, 22nd Oct. 2014 17. My own interview with the leader of the Fedoseevtsy of this town, made on 19th September

42 Bolsheviks, Soviets and Old Believers

2011 at the Kirov Museum.

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