On April 3, 2012, the Supreme Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted an extraordinarily powerful appeal on such “antichurch forces.” It is worth analyzing in some detail, since the document enables us to understand more clearly what is going on not only in the Russian Orthodox Church but also in Russia as a whole.
According to this document by the “spiritual fathers,” “anti-church forces fear the strengthening of Orthodoxy in the country and are frightened by the renascence of national consciousness and mass popular initiative.” Bolshevism crawls out from every one of these words. From the appeal it follows that anyone who does not accept what is going on in the Moscow Patriarchate is taking an anti-Russian stance. Moreover, it seems that national consciousness did not exist in Russia before, and it is only now reviving. Just as in the times of Stalin and Brezhnev, what is emphasized is how few there are of “such people” (read—renegades). Further, there is a transparent hint about the influence of several among them and their willingness to “make use of their financial, informational, and administrative resources to discredit the hierarchy and the clerics in order to promote schisms and attract people away from the churches.” In other words, a conspiracy! “Those who propagate the false values of aggressive liberalism” are uniting with these vile conspirators.12
One might subject these phrases to endless analysis. But the result would be the same—a lie. Nor would it be a sin if the “church fathers” glanced at a dictionary to understand that by its very nature liberalism cannot be aggressive.
Why, then, is this the view of the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church? It turns out that the liberals do not embrace the Russian Orthodox Church because of its “inflexible position of opposition to such anti-Christian phenomena as recognizing same-sex unions, the freedom to express all one’s desires, unrestrained consumerism, and propaganda in favor of permissiveness and fornication.”13 This passage is even more interesting in that the “holy fathers”—who, in the preamble to the law on religious freedom, insisted on distinguishing Orthodoxy from Christianity—now dare to pose as the most zealous defenders of that very same Christianity they previously disavowed. Let us recall that it was then metropolitan Kirill who was involved in drafting the law that enshrined this norm in its preamble. Deciphering the “holiness” of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy is no simple matter.
The appeal asserts that the “confrontation between the Church and anti-Christian forces” became even more obvious and sharper “during the campaign and post-election period, which demonstrates their [evil forces] real political agenda, including their anti-Russia stance.”
Thus, the church authorities formulate the following postulate: The Russian Orthodox Church, the state, and Russia are one and the same. Moreover, any single element of the “three-tailed whip” may be omitted as being self-evident. In the context of this book, the falsity of such an assertion surely requires no explanation.
Let us return to the position of the Russian Orthodox Church, which claims that all its troubles, like those of its Patriarchate, are due to “planned and systematic efforts to discredit” it and not to its own internal problems. Moreover, “the clergy are drawn into provocations; the arch-priests and priesthood generally are the focus of unremitting attention on the part of malcontents looking for the smallest hook on which to distort everything via smear campaigns.” It is difficult not to agree that the public has become witness to the undignified behavior of the Moscow Patriarchate and that the persons defended in the appeal, with a vigor worthy of a better cause, are themselves responsible for the “smear campaigns.”
And, finally, as they say in diplomacy, let us go to the heart of the matter: “In this very context a libelous media attack on the Head of the Church is being mounted. All this converges into one campaign against Orthodoxy and the Russian Orthodox Church.” The conclusion is quite striking: “We must all preserve unanimity of opinion.”
The mask comes off. Patriarch Kirill was born in 1946 and thus is bound to understand the meaning of the words unanimity of opinion. He grew up and lived a large part of his life under the “unanimity of opinion” implanted by the communists.
This disproportionate response to the action of Pussy Riot and others can only evoke amazement. Somehow it was entirely forgotten that Russia is a secular country in which, according to the Constitution, the church should be separate from the state. Amnesty International recognized the participants in the group as prisoners of conscience and demanded their immediate release.
Then Sergei Gavrilov and Sergei Popov, deputies in the State Duma from the Communist Party and United Russia, respectively—with the approval of the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church and the leadership of the lower house of parliament—hastened to establish an inter-factional group to “defend Christian values.” In Gavrilov’s words, “Many deputies from various factions of the State Duma are united in recognizing the role and importance of the Russian Orthodox Church in the preservation of the spiritual, moral, cultural, and socio-political specificity of the Russian Federation as a unique Christian civilization.” This passage evokes perplexity on two counts. First, the idea that Russia’s originality equates with Orthodoxy is incorrect. The dominant religion undoubtedly did play an extremely important and far from one-sided role in its formation, but it was just one of many factors contributing to the national identity of the Russian people. Second, the thesis concerning the uniqueness of Christian civilization in Russia is surprising, as if other countries did not embrace Christianity. In addition, Gavrilov asserted that the deputies, along with the Russian Orthodox Church, intend to resist the “totalitarian and sectarian ideologies of aggressive liberalism and secularism and their unrestricted advocacy of hedonism, violence, consumption of narcotics and alcohol, and gambling.”
Especially bewildering is the defense of Russian Orthodox hierarchs by communists who, according to their own founder, are supposed to be atheists. Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, evidently either forgot this or did not know it. Condemning the “campaign of attacks” against the Russian Orthodox Church, he said, “The army and the Orthodox faith—these are the two pillars that after the liquidation of the accomplishments of Soviet power will be the first to be uprooted by those who hate the Russian people and Russia and whose main mission is the destruction of our spirituality and traditions. . . . Today we are observing a coordinated campaign of attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church by representatives of aggressive liberal forces.”14 In this connection, he did not fail to refer to “various kinds of Russophobic mud-slinging.” And making allowances for the coefficient of mental development, the particular situation, and the passage of time, his words reek of something painfully familiar and Soviet: “Sooner or later liberal crackpots will smash their own heads,” and “aggressive liberalism is cave-man Russophobia,[and] blaspheming our religious values is the most refined and most vile extremism.” But Zyuganov has evidently developed a split personality, the result of which is that, in some unfathomable fashion, his essence as Homo sovieticus has been united with his alternate, essentially anticommunist essence. It is too obvious even to point out the servility of his utterances.
As a result of its extremely dubious leadership, the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church has been transformed into a simulacrum of an enormous totalitarian sect. It is not only the leaders who are guilty. The majority of priests are ill educated and coarse and think only of money. Their congregations accept this, and they become even more boorish and brutalized. Their lack of spirituality is sometimes reflected in proverbs and sayings—for example, “as lacking in spirituality as a priest,” “greedy as a priest,” “coarse as a priest.”
Government officials and priests wax enthusiastically about the “rebirth of spirituality.” It would be more accurate to speak of obscurantism and religious superstition, which the classics of Russian literature long ago stigmatized.
Since the emergence of religious freedo
m in Russia was one of the chief accomplishments I was involved in during Gorbachev’s perestroika, I will take the liberty of departing from the chronological framework of this book to try and answer the following question: who among those, including myself, who secured religious freedom in the Soviet years bears responsibility for what happened in this sphere in contemporary Russia? Of course, in light of what happened, one cannot seriously argue that we were absolutely correct during Soviet times. Even giving us our due, we were unable to take into account all the hypothetical future dangers, especially such profound distortions of the very principle of freedom of conscience. We operated in a different historical context, when it was impossible to imagine that the Russian Orthodox would insult atheists and followers of different faiths. I think our chief mistake was in not anticipating the need for limits and responsibility in exercising the right of religious freedom.
What are the other elements of the National Idea? In other words, how, and with what means, does one hypnotize the people of Russia? The Kremlin provided a fairly distinct answer to this question for the first time after the hostage taking in a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, on September 1, 2004. What happened there was ascribed to the “weakness” of the state, and to avert such tragedies in the future, the Kremlin asserted the need to strengthen the authorities for its own sake, abolished the direct election of governors, and created a sham democratic supervisory institution called the Public Chamber. Further, as Putin said, we need to “support citizens’ initiatives in organizing volunteer structures in the area of maintaining public order. They are capable not only of providing real assistance in gathering information and giving signals from the people about the possible preparation of crimes, but can also become a real factor in the struggle against crime and terrorism.”15
Are we going back to the past? Was this a call for denunciations and anonymous informers? Of course. The president was openly appealing for the revival of a mass stool pigeon movement, which was the fundamental basis of Soviet totalitarianism.
Naturally, such utterances demanded an explanation. Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s chief ideologist, rushed to the ramparts. According to what, in Soviet terminology, might be called a “guided interview,” the most important thing that Putin said on September 4 and 13, 2004, was to call for the mobilization of the nation in the struggle against terrorism. “We must all recognize that the enemy is at the gates,” cried this confidant of the president. “The front passes through every city, every street, every house. We need vigilance, solidarity, mutual assistance, uniting the strength of citizens and the state.”16
Some sort of mysterious “interventionists,” he maintains, are waging a “secret war” against Russia. There is a “fifth column of persons” even in Russia itself who will never be our real partners. However, why are they unknown? After all, it is not in some empty space but on the Kremlin’s team in Russia that a spy mania has revived and flourished luxuriantly. Critics of those in power are called extremists and enemies of Russia.
Many persons approve of the clear impulse to equate the National Idea with the search for enemies. The hoary concept of an internal enemy has been revived in full force. Surkov includes liberals, along with terrorists, in the circle of enemies, but even his explanations appear insufficient. Authors such as Mikhail Yur’iev, who write either on Surkov’s orders or simply from a desire to curry favor, are also involved.17
The fundamental premise underlying attempts to create the National Idea is that “Russia is and must be a great power.” For some reason, however, authors writing in this vein often associate the idea of greatness with throngs of starving slaves who, inexplicably, willingly forfeit their rights and are ready to tighten their belts even more. Is this a direct allusion to the time of barracks socialism? This is hardly greatness but a parody of it.
The new ideologues truly believe that a universal fear of Russia is a necessary condition of Russia’s greatness. They ignore the well-known fact that such fear existed earlier and resulted in the economic collapse and breakup of the USSR.
Contrary to the notions of those elaborating the National Idea, Russia is a multinational state in which the main criterion for belonging to the country is Russian citizenship and nothing more. The Russian nation and the Russian Orthodox faith are far from identical. Not only are many entirely respectable Russians not Orthodox, but there are also Old Believers, Catholics, and adherents of other faiths, as well as agnostics and atheists. If those aspiring to fashion the Russian National Idea consider themselves to be supporters of a strong Russian state, then they should realize that nothing would be more ruinous for Russia than to divide its people into Russians and non-Russians, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, or any other signs of distinction. In general, it is dangerous to divide. That path leads directly toward the breakup of the country.
Symbolically, the various types of supporters of a strong Russian state not only seek to be the authors of the National Idea—moreover in a very specific form—but also aspire to the role of Supreme Court. They blithely condemn as enemies almost everyone who disagrees with them. Those who are not considered enemies still are viewed at a minimum as second-class citizens. In their minds the National Idea is clearly a search for internal enemies. They are addicted to groping convulsively for the boundary between “enemies” and “near enemies.”
It is quite touching, almost naive, how Mikhail Yur’iev let the cat out of the bag in grounding the need for the National Idea. To avoid any misunderstanding, I quote: “One cannot introduce the concept of an internal enemy in the absence of an accepted national idea, because it is the national idea that defines what it is that must be considered an enemy.”18 In other words, the National Idea is needed exclusively to legitimize the concept of an internal enemy.
Democrats and, employing Yur’iev’s vocabulary, “people in general [obshchecheloveki] must be cauterized.” This is exactly what he wrote.
I think that Yur’iev played the same role for Putin and his ideologues as the notorious Nina Andreeva did for the reactionaries during Gorbachev’s perestroika.19 What happened on the ideological front in the later Yeltsin period and under Putin may largely be explained by the advent to power of people from the special services. They were taught not to make policy, to identify and formulate the national interests, and to defend them but something entirely different—that is, to maintain existing policies by specific and often quite unethical means. As a result in the minds of the ruling Cheka-KGB agents, the false idea that politics is a dirty business became firmly lodged. Once this happened, there could be no moral limitations whatsoever.
The saddest part is that so many people find such a way of thinking congenial. To a high degree, of course, this is due to such factors as suffering from an inferiority complex, striving to deflect onto others the responsibility for one’s own mistakes and crimes, and, of course, continuing the age-old Russian habit of dividing people into “us” and “them.”
Following the Leninist script, many efforts were undertaken in post-Soviet Russia to ensure that such ideas would become a material force possessed by the masses. Among these efforts were the removal of the opposition from the legal field, the de facto elimination of parliamentarianism, the creation of pro-Kremlin youth groups, and so forth. Nor was the Kremlin squeamish about employing “dirty tricks.” It commissioned and published articles in the press, including the foreign press, thereby placing in circulation various myths supposedly bolstering or formulating the National Idea.
Secrecy
Starting with Lenin, policies that from the outset were grounded in crimes and lies to Russia and the world required a reliable defense in order to conceal the truth about the crimes and ensure the lies would pass for truth. This goal was served by secrecy, which was and remains the most important and indispensable component of Russian political tradition. It is an inalienable attribute of the rough and ready power game directed against the “enemies of the people” under Lenin and Stalin and the “enemies of R
ussia” under Putin. Thus, secrecy functions as the most vital element of the ideological state that actively employs hypnosis on its own people as well as on foreign public opinion.
The Soviet practice of classifying information on a broad range of issues embodied the boldest bureaucratic dream: do whatever you like, and let no one know about it. The ministries, the departments, and the censors perfected this practice to the nth degree. But all this paled in comparison to what transpired in the editorial offices and publishing houses that were virtually the undisputed masters of the materials presented to them for publication. That editors bore equal responsibility with authors for what was published, coupled with the editors’ broad powers, led them to play it safe and act arbitrarily.
Almost everything was classified to one degree or another. One needed special passes to access the foreign periodicals and scholarly literature that were kept in special sections of the library. There, too, Russian “non-Marxist” philosophy languished. A striking situation arose after the Chernobyl tragedy. If one followed the letter and spirit of the law, merely announcing its occurrence was supposed to entail criminal responsibility since the locations of atomic power plants were classified. Such subjects as the USSR’s failure to observe international law, the poverty of its people, and many others were all shielded in secrecy.
During Gorbachev’s perestroika when, thanks to Shevardnadze and my immediate superiors, we liberated ourselves from the pernicious and unjustified classification of everything, I managed to launch an effort to review and mitigate the classification regime. I began with the secret office that compiled the index of issues constituting state secrets. What was there that was not enumerated in this extremely hefty brochure? The information that accompanied the memorandum to the minister turned out to be so sensitive that first a working group inside the Foreign Ministry was established and then an interdepartmental working group. Subsequently the notorious list was significantly shortened, time limits were established for how long information could be classified, and (along with work on other matters) the possibility of restricting the departure of persons possessing knowledge of secrets from the USSR had to be stipulated beforehand in work contracts. Other aspects of the classification system were also reviewed.
Russia's Dead End: An Insider's Testimony from Gorbachev to Putin Page 27