The Russian Orthodox Church: On a Tight Wire Between Putin and the Demonstrators

Lenin and Stalin did not tolerate alternative sources of power. Immediately after the October Revolution, Lenin declared war on opposition parties and the church. Stalin took the repression of the church to new levels, killing clergy and destroying churches and monasteries. At one point in his regime, there was only one practicing monastery left.  Perhaps no other group suffered as much repression, death, and imprisonment as the Russian clergy. 

Putin shut down political opposition, free press, and uncooperative oligarchs, but he elevated the Russian Orthodox Church to a core societal institution. Instead of attack, Putin (who professes to be a Christian) co-opted the Church with privileges, preferences, and special treatment. His government cracked down on other Christian denominations, poured state money into rebuilding cathedrals, and allowed church properties to be turned into secure sources of money-making for the church. In return, the Church was to keep its mouth shut.   Putin and the Church scratched each other’s backs, but this cozy relationship may be ending.

A hostile Russian Orthodox Church poses a huge danger for Putin and his KGB state. Seventy five percent of Russians declare themselves as Russian Orthodox. Eighty two percent are religious believers, despite a half century of anti-religious propaganda by the Soviet state. The Russian people, despite some reservations, accept the Church as a rare voice of morality in an otherwise corrupt world. Increasingly, young people and the middle class worship alongside the old Babushkas, who kept their faith through the Soviet period.

December’s fraudulent parliamentary election has placed the Church leadership in a bind. They would like to preserve their privileged existence under Putin. But they cannot support a regime, which the majority of believers conclude is corrupt and evil, especially when their own parish priests are speaking against the corruption and injustice of the Putin regime.  Many priests witnessed the vote rigging and fraud of the December elections, which they see as punishable violations of the Ten Commandments.  Grassroots clergy use church websites and Facebook to preach that falsification of the choice of the people is a grievous sin.

The Russian Orthodox Church has no easy dismount from its tight wire. The Communists are the only real organized opposition. An unrigged election could perversely restore the atheist communists to power. Church leaders must fear the power that Putin could bring to bear against them if they cross him openly. Yet, if they ignore election fraud and corruption, they stand to lose their credibility among their clergy and followers.

The Church leadership is trying hard to position itself as a fair mediator between the Putin regime and the protesters. Church leaders have begun to warn Putin to take the legitimate protesters seriously, rather than dismissing them with vulgar language and accusations of foreign espionage. The Church’s reproach has become increasingly blunt, warning that the Putin regime would be “slowly eaten alive” if it ignores the protests. The editor of an influential church journal wrote that “we understand very well that elections have been falsified before, but now public consciousness has matured to the point of expressing its opinion or speaking out against it.” The editor of an influential Church website stated that: “A Christian has to protest against lies, especially lies to millions of people.”

These strong warnings by high Church officials raised hopes that the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, would pressure Putin for real change in his Christmas Day address. Instead, he offered meaningless pabulum:  Both the government and protesters “should, through dialogue and by listening to society, correct the course and then everything will be fine.”  

Patriarch Kirill also warned protesters to avoid being used for political purposes:  “We destroyed the country [in October of 1917], and why did this happen? Because in general the just protests of the people were cleverly used by political forces [the Bolsheviks] fighting for power.” Protests should lead to political change but not shake the foundations of the state.

In other words, the top leader of the Russian Orthodox Church is not prepared to place real  pressure on Putin. We can only imagine what compromising material Putin has against him. He somehow wants negotiations between Putin who wants no democracy and protesters who do. Patriarch Kirill’s remark must have gone down well with Putin, who intends to survive by vague promises of reform and ignoring the demands of the protesters.

The fact that the Russian Orthodox Church is turning against the Putin regime despite its privileges is yet another chink in Putin’s armor. If the leadership of the Church gets out of step with its grassroots and believers, it stands to lose as much or more than Putin himself.

Putin regrets that he gave the ungrateful Church so much in resources and authority. Stalin would not have made this mistake.

Historians Versus Stalin and His Gulag: A Report From the International Conference on the Gulag, Moscow, October 28-29.

Russian and international scholars gathered at the end of October in Moscow to discuss Stalin’s Gulag.  The Russian State Archive on Social and Political History, in which the Katyn execution order and Stalin’s July 3, 1937 “mass operations” telegram reside, provided an appropriately somber setting. 

Russian scholars largely from the provinces, presented their findings from their research in local and regional archives.  This cadre of dedicated and relatively young scholars represents Russia’s best hope of eventually coming to terms with its tragic past. They have provided invaluable case studies of camps, special settlements, and sharashki in which millions of innocent Russian citizens were imprisoned and in which many perished.

Stalin continues to hold his own despite this amassing scholarly evidence on his crimes against the Soviet people. Illustrious keynote speakers reported with regret that some half of the Russian people continue to view Stalin in a positive light. Without his iron fist, the backward USSR could not have carried out its “overtaking development,” they believe. Too many Russians believe in a presumed defective genetic code that requires authoritarian rulers for Russia. Too many look at remote Norilsk or  the Moscow University Skyscraper and conclude: “We would not have these things without the Gulag.”

Few Russians think about the immense economic and social costs of  Stalin’s crimes. Few know that Russia had the fastest growing industry in Europe on the eve of 1917. Too few ask how other backward countries, such as Japan, “caught up” without the slaughter of  their people, or how can any mass extermination of innocent people serve any positive function?

According to figures presented at the conference, more than a quarter of the adult Soviet population had been a victim of Stalin’s repression the day Stalin’s death was announced to a hysteric and grieving Russian people. Less than a quarter of these would be considered “criminal” in other societies. In the United States, lower rates of incarceration among black youths have basically destroyed the black community.

The corrosive effect of  the repression of one in four adults, most innocent of any real crime, can in no way be compensated for by the so-called economic achievements of the Stalin rule.

Chavez’s Cancer: Why Dictators Do not Name Successors

Hugo Chavez’s announcement that he has cancer will terminate his ascent towards dictatorship even if he survives. Dictators cannot appear to be mortal. They cannot name successors, unless the successor is a personal extension, such as a son.

Preparing the groundwork for a successor-son takes time and absolute power as the Kim dynasty in North Korea can attest. The more common approach is to name no successor and let the fight begin after your death.

Stalin wrote the game book on modern dictatorship. He removed immediately, and usually permanently, anyone even rumored as his successor. Stalin understood that dictator remains in power only as long as his subordinates do not coalesce into a coalition strong enough to unseat him.

The naming of a successor facilitates the formation of a coalition around the successor and that is the end of the dictator.

There is one other factor: Dictators do not have dynamic and forceful deputies around them. Instead, they prefer Yes Men. Nonentities are less likely to attract coalition followers. In Stalin’s case, the result was a USSR run by party hacks for almost fifty years.

In the Soviet and Chinese communist cases, the party dictatorship survived the deaths of their “Great Leaders” (Lenin, Stalin, Mao) because of its dominant position. But in each case, a power struggle ensued within the party. Power struggles fought without rules are the consequence of the dying leader not specifying a successor. Only Lenin wrote a political testament, but it concluded that only he was suited to run the country.

Chavez’s run towards a personal dictatorship is over. He has not built a strong party. He is surrounded by non-entities, who have already begun jockeying to replace him. Worst of all: Unlike Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, he has not had time to eliminate other parties and elections. The coming election will either pit an ailing Chavez or a Chavez non-entity against a real opponent in the midst of a collapsing economy.

There is again reason to be bullish on Venezuela.