Bolshevism

BOLSHEVISM. - A) Theory and practice of communism in the specific form that this assumed and put into effect in Russia following the Revolution of October 1917.

I. GENERAL NOTIONS

The term Bolshevism goes back to the Second Congress held in 1903 in London by the "Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party," during which the party split into two factions: one with a radical-revolutionary tendency, headed by Lenin, and a moderate one, which clung to the methods of German social democracy and had its leaders in Martov and Aksel'rod, to whom Plekhanov later also joined. As in the voting on the most important questions the first faction had the majority, its followers were called Bolsheviks (from the Russian bol'še = more) and their opponents Mensheviks (men'še = less).

The contrast between the two currents grew ever sharper in the following years until in 1912 the Bolsheviks separated from the Mensheviks to form an independent party. From Oct. 1917 they are the only party in Russia. The left Socialist Revolutionaries and the anarchists, regarded for a short time as fellow travelers, were also, after some years, entirely liquidated (for the history of Bolshevism, v.: COMUNISMO; RUSSIA; U.R.S.S.).

Bolshevism clarified its features as revolutionary Marxism in the struggle it waged against the Western social democracy of the Second International (v.) and against analogous Russian movements (economists, "legal Marxists," Mensheviks, etc.) accused of revisionism and opportunism. This struggle within the socialist movement reflects the contrast by which Marx's own thought was tormented, in whose writings evolutionism and revolution never come to be fully reconciled. No mere wonder, therefore, that the currents appeal against one another to the master, each proclaiming itself his only and true interpreter. While the evolutionist current, for which socialization should come as the spontaneous fruit of capitalist evolution, appeals by preference to the later works of Marx and Engels, Bolshevism, on the other hand, preaching the necessity of revolutionary action, attaches itself rather to the young Marx.

Communism as a revolutionary doctrine found in Russia the most favorable ground. Socialism had for many years already been the dream of the Russian intelligentsia (Herzen, Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Lavrov). The harshness of the tsarist police regime, stifling every freedom of movement both political and spiritual, had helped to bring the various currents of the opposition closer together. This had as a consequence the increase, between 1860 and '70, of subversive movements and permitted the formation of a revolutionary tradition (Nechayev, Tkachev), in whose footsteps move the thought and feeling of Lenin. Moreover, as the misery of the countryside made itself increasingly felt, consequent upon the extraordinary increase in population that occurred in the second half of the last century, and as the abolition of serfdom carried out in 1861 had been of scant benefit, the peasants became ripe for revolution. An equally favorable situation did Marxism find among factory workers. Low wages, bad working conditions, insufficient protection of labor on the part of the relevant legislation and the housing crisis made the situation of Russian workers, at the beginning of the 20th century, in many respects similar to that of English workers at the beginning of the 19th. Besides as a social doctrine, Marxism found in all this the way open also as atheistic materialism. Since in fact among the supporters of the existing social order ideal and religious considerations often had to be used in the service of interests far less ideal and spiritual, and, to put it with Berdyaev, the idealism of theory served as a cloak for the materialism of practice, these new men, these "idealists of the earth," who for their idea were often ready to face with admirable spirit of sacrifice exile and death, declared, in the name of their own theoretical materialism, a merciless war on the highest ideas of theoretical idealism, and, as a consequence of a tragic misunderstanding, on religion itself and on Christianity. On the other hand the Russian Church, which, as Vladimir Solovyov had occasion to say on the occasion of the assassination of the Tsar in 1881, as a consequence of the particularism and caesaropapism inherited from Byzantium, was internally weakened, was by no means in a position to oppose an obstacle to the march of the revolution with a social doctrine that would respond to the needs of the times. Finally, one must also bear in mind the messianic character of Marxism, which found a parallel in the Russian-Orthodox messianism alive for centuries in the consciousness of Russians (Moscow = the third Rome).

Bolshevism thus presents itself essentially as revolutionary Marxist communism, and within these limits it is clearly defined in theory and in practice.

II. THEORY

As far as theory is concerned, Bolshevism rests on the basis of dialectical-historical materialism (v.), and fights with extreme intransigence every attempt to revise Marxism or to place the economic-social doctrine on other philosophical foundations, as various Marxists have sought to do (neo-Kantianism, empiriocriticism).

«In this philosophy of Marxism — says Lenin — which has the compactness of a single piece of steel, none of the fundamental premises, none of its essential parts can be detached, if one does not wish to sacrifice objective truth» (Opere, XIII, p. 267).

And Stalin: «Of the whole hereditary complex of our party, the most important and precious inheritance is the ideal inheritance, its essential line, its revolutionary perspective» (in Bol'lenik [1947, no. 14], p. 40). This ideal inheritance, whose «granite foundation» is constituted by dialectical materialism, is defended by the party «as its own eyeball» (M. Leonov, ibid., p. 40). When therefore in non-Russian communist circles it is declared that communism is not necessarily bound to dialectical materialism, this is, from the Soviet point of view, either a «deviation», a heresy, or a temporary concession made for tactical reasons.

Theory and practice must form an indissoluble unity. «Theory becomes devoid of object, if it is not linked with revolutionary practice, just as practice becomes blind if it does not light the way with revolutionary theory» (J. Stalin, Questioni del leninismo, Moscow 1946, p. 22; this ed. is printed in Moscow in Italian). Above all theory, especially philosophy, has for Bolshevik tactics the value of a means necessary for the scientific foresight of the development of society in the future, and this gives the workers' movement «assurance, capacity for orientation and understanding of the intimate connection of surrounding events» (id., loc. cit., p. 22). That Lenin, and in his footsteps Bolshevism, held firm to dialectical materialism (also against certain simplistic tendencies toward a vulgar form of mechanistic materialism: among the Russians in particular Minin, Stepanov, Bukharin), this is due not only to veneration toward the masters (Marx, Engels), but also to a certain intimate elective affinity, since Lenin saw precisely in the movement of dialectical antitheses the philosophical foundation of the necessity of revolution. (For the individual doctrines v.: COMUNISMO; MATERIALISMO DIALETTICO; MATERIALISMO STORICO).

III. ECONOMY

It is in the field of economics that Bolshevism has the ground of its own consistency. It is the field in which, in the proper sense of the Marxist materialist-historical conception, the most decisive battles of the struggle for a better future must be fought (v. MATERIALISMO STORICO). Fundamental and at the basis of all Marx's thought is the idea that man's first activity is not knowing and thinking, but "praxis," his ability to operate upon nature, adapting it to his own needs in order to draw from it the means for his own existence. In this regard he never fails to repeat that man is not alone, does not live isolated from others, but enters with them into relations of a social nature. The movement of society toward a better future is therefore not guided by religious, philosophical or other ideas. Even if in the struggle it wages to attain its end political and ideological factors have their importance — one of the characteristic traits of the voluntarism proper to Leninist doctrine is precisely to emphasize these factors — everything in the last instance depends on the economic base of society.

Entirely in the sense of this premise Soviet economic policy has moved, from the very first year of the Revolution, a policy to which the maximalism characteristic of the Russian soul, which, having seized upon an idea, wants immediately to realize it one hundred percent, has given a particular stamp. In the first period, that is, the period of so-called war communism, it was believed that one could immediately leap into the kingdom of communism and of the complete socialization of the economy, and with this also of society: abolition of private property and private industry, elimination of private commerce, substitution of a natural economy for a monetary one, the State as sole producer and sole distributor of goods. The consequences were: the cessation of individual initiative, an immeasurable growth of bureaucracy, the resistance of the peasants, the famine of 1921-22 (according to the data of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia the victims amounted to 5 million). This forced Lenin to introduce the "new economic policy" (NEP, 1922). It entailed: the return to a monetary regime, the protection of small agricultural property, freedom of small commerce internally and the state monopoly of foreign trade, and once again the admission of foreign private capital. The idea of integral socialization was not for this reason abandoned: it was only admitted that the implementation of the theory had to be conducted with greater adherence to reality. As soon as the country had, by means of the NEP, recovered from the wounds of external and internal war and of war communism, Stalin believed he could resume and continue the work of socialization through industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture. To attain the first of these two goals the "five-year plans" were to serve, which are something more than the effort to rationalize the economy. The solemn pathos with which they were announced by the government and exalted by propaganda, and the enthusiasm with which they were undoubtedly received by many, especially by the young, the mystique of technology by which they were pervaded, show that they had made the "religious" chords of the popular soul vibrate. It was believed that the utopian dream was being realized, that by means of this "praxis" (which already by Marx was conceived as a prolongation of philosophy into life) one would finally reach the "truth" (in the sense of the Russian word pravda = truth-justice), that with true reality one would grasp the realization of true life.

Immediately after the introduction of the five-year plans (the first began in 1928 and was closed a few months ahead of schedule on 31 Dec. 1932), Stalin turned to the socialization of agriculture, that is — against the opinion of Bukharin, who believed that after the socialization of industry the peasants would of themselves gradually move toward socialism — to the violent collectivization of the land. It immediately clashed with the stubborn resistance of the peasants, but this was broken by the government in brutal fashion with the "revolution from above" and with "organized famine."

With the industrialization of the country and the collectivization of agriculture Russia reached the first stage of communism, socialism. For the distribution of labor and goods the formula is used: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work," a formula sanctioned by art. 12 of the Stalinist constitution. The task of socialization is now to attain that abundance of goods which is the premise of the second and definitive stage of perfect communism, and for which the formula holds: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." After the economic regression brought about by the destructions of the Second World War, all efforts are today once again directed toward the accumulation of that wealth which is the necessary condition for arriving at communism.

IV. POLITICS

If Bolshevism, as Marxism, sees in the economy the decisive factor in the struggle for the transformation of society, it does not, however, await this transformation as a passive product of economic progress. In contrast with various other Marxist currents, it affirms with particular insistence the necessity of conscious struggle for the attainment of the goal. Hence the doctrine of revolution returns to its own center as a doctrine of society (historical materialism).

1. Proletariat and peasants

Bolshevism, however, wants to be something more than the simple repetition of the revolutionary Marxism of the last century. It arises and develops in another stage of the evolution of capitalism, that of monopoly capitalism, of imperialism and of the revolution of the proletariat. Therefore its first problem is that of the conquest of political power by the proletariat, and of its dictatorship. Bolshevism is "the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, and the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular" (Stalin, in Small Soviet Encyclopedia [in Russian], I, Moscow 1928, col. 793). The concrete realization of this aim in the special historical environment of Russia gave Bolshevism its particular stamp. Since the proletariat in Russia was still relatively small, it had to seek an ally in the struggle for the conquest of power. The choice of this ally was one of the points of contrast between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. While the latter sought union with the bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviks on the contrary believed that the proletariat, in order to have the hegemony of the revolution, had to unite with the peasants. The promise of the confiscation of the great landed estates and of the liquidation of the First World War, particularly hateful to the rural population, allowed the Bolsheviks to draw the peasants into the revolution.

The problem of the alliance with the peasants was a cause of conflict within the party itself even after the conquest of power. Trotsky (v.) thought that socialism could not be realized in a single country and even less in a country with a predominantly agricultural economy, nor did he believe in the possibility of winning the masses of the peasants to the idea of the socialization of agriculture, convinced that sooner or later a clash with them would come; consequently he held that work and thought should immediately be turned to world revolution.

For Stalin, on the contrary, before thinking of world revolution it was necessary to establish socialism in Russia, and to this end he held that together with the socialization of industry that of the land should be achieved. In the realization of this plan he came into conflict with Bukharin (v.) and his group, who were for the peaceful conversion of the peasants to socialism.

Against Trotsky's "left deviation" and Bukharin's "right" one, the party under Stalin's direction conducted during the first half of the decade 1930-40 a "war on two fronts."

2. State

The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat also dominates Soviet doctrine on the State. As Marxism in general, so too Bolshevism sees in the State not the necessary organization of society, but only an instrument created by the ruling class to keep the others subject. In the society of the future hoped for by communism there will be no distinctions of class and therefore no State either. The State is therefore condemned to die. But until that day it must be in the hands of the proletariat the means for the elimination of classes. Under communism the State is "the proletariat organized as the ruling class." The dictatorship of the proletariat, which has the aim of abolishing the State, led in practice, however, contrary to what Lenin had predicted in his work The State and Revolution (Works, XXI, p. 432), to an even more formidable strengthening of the powers of the State. "The highest evolution of state power, with the aim of preparing the conditions for the abolition of state power: this is the Marxist formula" (Stalin, Problems of Leninism, 9th Russian ed., Moscow 1933, p. 566). The means for the realization of the dictatorship of the proletariat is constituted by the councils (soviets) formed of members chosen in general (according to the Stalinist constitution of 1936 not even social origin is any obstacle to the exercise of the active and passive right to vote), egalitarian, direct and secret elections.

3. Party

In fact the political direction is determined not by the Councils but by the party. The doctrine of the party forms one of the central and characteristic points of Bolshevik theory. It was outlined by Lenin during his struggle against the Mensheviks. Important in this regard is his book "What Is to Be Done?" of 1902, where he attaches himself in a fairly explicit way to the Russian conspiratorial and revolutionary tradition. According to Lenin the party is the vanguard of the proletariat and comprises the most conscious and active elements, who are kept under an iron discipline and from whom the most absolute obedience is demanded. Their number is deliberately limited, yet they are bound by a thousand threads to the life of the masses. They must participate in all the manifestations of the life of the workers and lead them: in the trade unions, in the cooperatives, in the soviets, in cultural institutions, etc. Control over the State is exercised by the party without resorting to violence, in such a way that the most important posts in the government and in the administration are filled by members of the party itself. In this way the dictatorship of the proletariat is exercised not by the proletariat but by the party and within it by a relatively small group of leaders, who form a kind of new "nobility." When therefore Bolshevism gives to its own form of regime the name of democracy, this is possible only insofar as Lenin has given the concept a new content. It would be absurd, he affirms, that the greatest revolution in the world should be accomplished within the framework of the old bourgeois democracy, "without a creation of new forms of democracy" (Works, XXIV, p. 12). And not only in form does Soviet democracy differ, according to Lenin, from bourgeois democracy, but also in content. "The proletariat needs the destruction of classes: this is the real content of proletarian democracy" (ibid., p. 398). It is clear from this that it has nothing in common with that which bears the name.

4. World revolution; national and colonial question. — Stalin's tactic of limiting at the outset the establishment and consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat to a single country does not, however, entail any renunciation of the final goal of world revolution. Bolshevism is already led to this of itself by the nature of the end toward which it tends, which is the establishment of a society without classes and without a State, possible only in a transformation of the entire world. For the concrete realization of this end the Comintern (v.) was created from the beginning and recently (after the Second World War) the Cominform (v.). Depending on the policy of world revolution, Bolshevism has been forced to consider with particular attention the national and colonial problem.

Bolshevism's position on the national question is analogous to that regarding the State: to aim at the maximum flourishing of national cultures in the present moment under the dictatorship of the proletariat, with an eye to the future fusion of national cultures into a common culture, with a single common language. The principal merit in the elaboration of a Bolshevik doctrine with regard to the national question belongs to Stalin.

The right of self-determination granted by Bolshevism to nationalities reaches such a point that the Stalinist constitution sanctions for each of the republics of the Union even "the right to secede from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." Provision is made in another way to ensure that this right cannot be translated into practice. Since in fact Russia, the hotbed of world revolution, cannot maintain itself without the means furnished by the border zones rich in raw materials, and on the other hand these zones, without the political and military support of Russia, would become the victims of imperialist aggressions, the interests of the working masses bring about as a consequence that the desire for secession may at given moments be considered an anti-revolutionary act and therefore fall automatically under the case contemplated by art. 133 of the Constitution, namely that of "a harm caused to the military power of the State," and thus be punished as high treason. The right to secede from the Soviet Union is in this way theoretically postponed to the world revolution, and practically to the Greek calends.

In the colonial question Bolshevism starts from the principle that the imperialist expansion of the capitalist powers represents the last stage in the evolution of capitalism. "Imperialism (the highest form of capitalism) cannot subsist without the political and economic enslavement of the nations not yet in possession of all rights and of the colonies" (Stalin, Il marxismo e la questione nazionale e coloniale [in Russian], 1938, p. 84). On the other hand "the nations not yet in possession of all rights and the colonies cannot be liberated without the overthrow of the power of capital" (id., loc. cit.). Consequently Bolshevism, in pursuing the goal of world revolution, has devoted to the colonial problem and to that concerning the support to be given to all movements of national independence a particular, not to say its principal, attention. In this regard the decision taken by the Second Congress of the Comintern runs: "The annihilation of colonial domination and the proletarian revolution in the metropolises will overthrow the capitalist system in Europe... In order to ensure the final success of the world revolution it is necessary that these two forces operate together" (Grande Enciclopedia Sovietica [in Russian], XXXIII, Moscow 1938, col. 426). The present events in Asia (China and Indochina), in which the fruits are ripening of a stubborn and conscious labor lasting many years, can be considered as the best illustration of the efficacy of this tactic.

V. CULTURE

The principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat finds application not only in political doctrine but also in cultural life, in the field of the "ideological superstructures," and it finds an original expression in the demand for the "party spirit" imposed on every form of spiritual creation, which constitutes the characteristic note of Soviet culture. What Lenin demanded of the philosopher — namely that "in the evaluation of every event" he place himself "directly and openly from the point of view of a determined social group" (Works, I, 2nd ed., p. 276), and precisely that of the proletariat — is today demanded in Russia of every form of cultural work. This "party spirit" is nothing other than the extreme conclusion that the Russians, with the consistency peculiar to them, have drawn from historical materialism. Just as the latter considers the "ideological superstructures" (law, morality, art, science, philosophy, religion) to be essentially dependent on the economic-social "base," so that their development necessarily follows upon the development of the economy and of society, so Bolshevism after Lenin has drawn from it the consequence that the exercise of a sound philosophical, scientific and, in general, cultural activity is possible only if the philosopher, the scientist, and one may add also the writer, the musician, the painter, the actor, the director, etc., keep to the ground of the proletariat and of the party that is its vanguard.

Every cultural creation is therefore essentially bound to politics. The party's "Central Committee" "presents itself not only as the political-organizational center of the revolutionary movement but also as its theoretical center" (Mitin, Dialectical Materialism [in Russian], Moscow 1933, p. 247). With particular zeal the Central Committee exercises this function of "theoretical center" of the revolutionary movement especially after the Second World War. As a theoretician of Marxist culture and a defender of Soviet spiritual life, Zhdanov distinguished himself more than anyone. In these years there has been a whole series of decisive interventions by Zhdanov and the Central Committee in the field of culture: in 1946 there is the criticism of Soviet literature; in 1947 the condemnation of Aleksandrov's History of Philosophy in Western Europe, with a solemn admonition to philosophers; in 1948 the famous intervention of the Central Committee in the controversy among biologists, with the condemnation of the classical genetics of Mendel and Morgan in favor of the new genetic theories of the two Soviet scientists Michurin and Lysenko; in the same year the work of the musician Muradeli, The Great Friendship, and all contemporary Soviet music along with it, was subjected to the harshest criticism. In all these cases the accusation made was always the same: lack of the party spirit, which manifests itself in ignoring the fundamental principles of Marx and Lenin, in the absence of a true Bolshevik criticism and self-criticism, in a servile admiration of the decadent Western bourgeois culture, etc. In all this there has increasingly come to light, especially after the victory over Germany, a vivid sentiment of Soviet patriotism and indeed of Russian nationalism, which declares a decisive struggle against every "cosmopolitanism." Just as "national" and "chauvinistic" are not the same thing, so "internationalism" is not equivalent to "cosmopolitanism."

VI. RELIGION

Professing in theory an intransigent materialism; proclaiming the economy as the true reality and the decisive factor in the whole historical process; seeking, in the political field, by means of the dictatorship of the proletariat to eliminate all bearers of different ideologies, both within the country and — by means of world revolution — abroad; subjecting even in the cultural field, with the demand for the "party spirit," every free spiritual activity creative of man to the same dictatorship of the party, it is evident that Bolshevism had from the outset to place itself in irreconcilable opposition to religion.

"Marxism — writes Lenin — is a materialism. As such, it is an enemy no less implacable of religion than was the materialism of the Encyclopedists of the 18th century, or the materialism of Feuerbach... We must combat religion. This is the abc of every materialism, and therefore also of Marxism" (Works, XIV, p. 70).

In this struggle demanded against religion, Lenin and Bolshevism give great importance to the right tactics. Like all ideologies (science, art, philosophy, morality...) religion too for Marxism is nothing but a reflection of economic and social relations in the social consciousness; as regards religion, it is considered as a "fantastic reflection," conditioned by the perverse social relations of a society divided into classes. Therefore, according to Lenin, the struggle against religion must be conducted in the first place not with the means of ideological propaganda (in the manner of the bourgeois materialists and the Enlightenment philosophers), although such propaganda also has its usefulness and necessity; nor with police measures (in the manner of Bismarck's Kulturkampf), which would lead only to the strengthening of religious sentiment; the principal parts in this struggle against religion belong to the transformation of social relations, after which religion will wither away of itself: "Marxism — Lenin continues — is not a materialism that stops at the abc. It goes further. It says: one must know how to conduct the struggle against religion, and for this it is necessary to explain in the materialist manner the source of faith and religion in the masses. One must not limit the struggle against religion to an abstract and ideological preaching; rather, one must introduce this struggle into the whole of the concrete action of the class movement, which aims to cut the social roots of religion" (Works, XIV, p. 70).

If therefore Engels on some occasion speaks of religion as a private affair, Lenin insists that this holds only from the point of view of the State, not of the party: "For the party of the socialist proletariat religion is not a private affair" (Works, VIII, p. 421). The new religious policy, recently adopted in the Soviet Union (v. below: Attitude toward the Church), in this light appears as nothing other than a new edition of this Engels-Leninist principle.

VII. CONCLUSION

In order to be able to give a judgment on Bolshevism and to specify what practical attitude Catholics must assume toward it, one must start from the consideration that the economic-social doctrines of Bolshevism are declared inseparable from the philosophy that serves as their premise. A reconciliation between Bolshevism and Catholicism is therefore in principle to be excluded. If dialectical materialism does not arrive at the complete negation of the activity of the spirit in man and of the formal difference by which it is distinguished from the phenomena of organic and inorganic matter, this activity is nonetheless always considered as a property of matter. A spirit which subsists independently of matter is thus excluded. With this there also falls the existence of God and that of the human soul as a substantial spiritual principle, and in this way the entire Christian doctrine. But on a more general plane man too is sacrificed as a person and individual, and this is all the more serious in that these doctrines, considered in their historical origin, are linked to the humanistic idea of the necessity of liberating man from every form of enslavement to earthly and heavenly powers, an idea that was the starting point of Marx's speculation. Once man is reduced to pure economic activity, conceived as primary reality and with an essentially social character, and his spiritual personality is denied, one has arrived at a new enslavement of man, whose most manifest form is found precisely in Soviet society with its dictatorship of the proletariat, transformed into a dictatorship of the party, and with its demand for the "spirit of the party" in cultural activity.

Still clearer appears the irreconcilability of Bolshevism with Catholicism when we consider it in its historical and spiritual complex, where it reveals itself to us as the common product of the crisis of Christianity, both Western and Eastern.

As Marxist atheism it bears within itself the dynamism of a centuries-old apostasy of the Western spirit from God. The Protestant Reformation broke with the Church, the Enlightenment abandoned Christ and the supernatural order of the positive revealed religion, which is founded on his person, until finally the atheistic materialism of the end of the 18th century and of the 19th century, grafted by Marx onto the movement he aroused, arrived at the complete rupture with God himself.

As a Russian revolutionary movement, Bolshevism is intimately linked to the failure of the Russian Church, separated from the universal one, in the face of the tasks assigned to it by history, which has had as a consequence that certain negative traits of Russian Christianity, due to its separation from the unity of the Church, and among these the anti-Catholic pseudo-messianism, have passed over to Bolshevism itself. Seen within these terms, the religious significance of Bolshevism reveals itself to be at the antipodes of the true Church of Christ.

It thus becomes understandable that Bolshevism presents itself in the guise of a pseudo-religion. Dostoevsky had already found the precise word: "our people do not merely become atheists, but they believe in atheism as in a religion." It has often been observed that Bolshevism presents itself as Christianity, indeed as Catholicism turned upside down. In reality there is between the two conceptions a whole series of points of contact, but with the sign reversed.

Bolshevism has, like Christianity, four canonical texts: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin; it establishes a magisterium that it holds to be infallible, namely the Central Committee, to whose decisions all must submit. These points of contact are found on a purely formal plane and vanish as soon as one passes from form to content. It is necessary to note, however, that in Catholicism every form of totalitarianism must be excluded, since in a world conceived as the creature of a personal God, all the various orders of reality preserve their relative autonomy. In this way precisely these points of contact between Catholicism and Bolshevism constitute the best proof of their irreconcilability.

The definition of the religious significance of Bolshevism that has been given here must also be the starting point for the delineation of a program of action against it. In this, for Catholics there can be no question of returning to that economic form which Pius XI accused as a preparer of communism, that is, to the liberal economy. The first task of the Catholic will rather be that of engaging all his forces to give value to Catholic social doctrine, and this both in the field of public life and in that of private life.

But since the intimate essence of Bolshevism has revealed itself to us as the fruit of the crisis of Christianity, both Western and Eastern, the thought is suggested to us of seeking its deepest root in the religious division between East and West. On this point one can certainly stand by Solovyov's judgment regarding the Russian Church, which explains its weakness in history by the isolation that it inherited from Byzantium. But not only for the East; for all Christendom this ill-omened dissension between East and West entailed a weakening, a notable loss of efficacy of irradiation of Christian thought and life upon the moral foundations of society. Therefore the union of the two would have as a consequence a considerable increase of the Church's influence in history, not only in the sense of an external and purely quantitative strengthening of the front of defense against atheism, but also in the sense of an increase of internal vitality, such as would result from the mutual fecundation of the Eastern and Western spirit. It is this that Pius XII has before his eyes when in his encyclical Orientales omnes he wishes for most copious fruits from the re-establishment of full communion between East and West in the one Mystical Body of Christ. The unionist problem, in this way, receives, in relation to the struggle for overcoming the Bolshevik world crisis, a particular importance, since the Bolshevik problem in its deepest essence presents itself as a religious problem.

Gustavo A. Wetter
B) ATTITUDE OF BOLSHEVISM TOWARD THE CHURCH - 1. The period of persecution (1917-38). - Bolshevism is in principle opposed to every religion, considered a remnant of the capitalist era. The Bolshevik party therefore, as soon as it came to power, took measures against the Church, depriving it of its material basis of existence, destroying its entire organization, limiting its activity to the pure and simple practice of worship.

On 23 Jan. 1918 the decree of the separation of Church and State was issued, and from 2 Feb. 1918 the State ceased all its contributions to the Church. In Jan. 1919 the entire ecclesiastical real property was confiscated; even buildings of worship were declared property of the State; they could, however, be left for ecclesiastical use upon the request of at least 20 of the faithful. A ministerial circular of 18 Feb. 1920 declared illegitimate every activity of the episcopal Curias. The State recognized no central organ of ecclesiastical government, but only the isolated communities of the faithful of the parishes. But not even these were granted juridical personality, and therefore not even the right to own property. These communities and the parish priests must be registered (decree of 10 Aug. 1922) and are therefore in the hands of the government. The Church may indeed practice worship, but it is forbidden to carry on propaganda. Above all, religious instruction is prohibited for persons under 18 years of age (art. 121 of the Penal Code of 1922). Such instruction for persons over 18 years of age, according to art. 18 of the decree "on religious associations" of 8 Apr. 1929, may be admitted exclusively in special courses of theology, that is, in seminaries (until recently) nonexistent. The said decree of 8 Apr. 1929 in art. 17 forbids the Church every social, charitable or educational activity and every propaganda.

Article 12 of the Stalinist constitution of 1936 does indeed recognize freedom to practice religious worship but forbids every religious propaganda.

These are some essential points of the anti-religious legislation of the Soviets. Their practical attitude was open persecution against the Church, though not always with the same intensity. Three periods of persecution of special violence can be distinguished: from 1922 to 1923, then 1929-30, and finally 1937-38. Numerous bishops and priests were shot or deported or imprisoned, and this because of their purely religious activity. It is true that in some cases it was also a matter of anti-revolutionary activity. But it is absolutely wrong to want to explain the Bolsheviks' measures against ecclesiastics solely as the suppression of counter-revolution. Patriarch Tikhon (elected in 1917) remained absolutely neutral in political questions and condemned the anti-Soviet political activity of the émigré prelates. He was imprisoned in May 1922 and in prison signed a declaration in which he promised to restrict ecclesiastical activity to the strictly religious field.

The vicar of the patriarchate, Metropolitan Sergius, who after the death of Patriarch Tikhon (1925) practically governed the Church, in his proclamation of 29 July 1927 even preached a veritable Soviet patriotism, identifying the interests of the Church with those of the atheist State. Not even this extreme submissiveness could assure peace to the Church nor even obtain an effective recognition of the central ecclesiastical government. In 1929 a new violent persecution broke out. It was the time of the systematic socialization of all Russian public life. In such a system religion seemed an anachronism. This epoch also marked the apogee of the activity of the "Association of Militant Atheists" founded in 1925, which sought to combat religion by organizing atheist museums, reading rooms, anti-religious conferences, etc.

That in the Soviet Union it was a matter of a true religious struggle is deduced with evidence from the fact that the persecution raged also, indeed especially, against the Catholic Church, certainly not suspected of sympathy toward the former tsarist regime. The Catholic bishop Msgr. Cieplak in March 1923 was arrested together with all the Catholic priests of Petersburg. The principal charge was the religious instruction imparted by the accused to children contrary to Soviet laws. Msgr. Cieplak and his vicar general Msgr. Budkiewicz were condemned to death, others to long years of prison or forced labor. Msgr. Budkiewicz was in fact shot.

2. The new religious policy of the Soviet government from 1939 onward.

The threatening forecasts of war advised the Soviet government to abandon the unpopular religious persecution. At the beginning of 1939 an order was given from above to cease every attempt to suppress religion by force. The Orthodox Church, at the outbreak of the Russo-German war, immediately ranged itself with absolute loyalism alongside the Soviet government. The government began to understand the importance of the Church's influence for re-tempering national unity in the war. Also regard for the democratic allies advised a more conciliatory attitude toward religion. The government then began to return a certain number of churches, permitted the reopening of some monasteries and of theological schools for the formation of the clergy. The offensive anti-religious propaganda ceased, the association of militant atheists was dissolved. The "Bezbožnik" (= the Atheist) suspended its publications.

The Soviet government finally permitted the election of a new patriarch. Metropolitan Sergius, until then locumtenens, was elected patriarch on 8 Sept. 1943. A regular central ecclesiastical government, recognized by the State, could be established, the dioceses were reorganized, numerous new bishops appointed. The All-Russian Council of Jan.-Feb. 1945, which elected as patriarch, after the death of Sergius, Alexius, until then metropolitan of Leningrad, gave a new constitution to the Church, adapting the norms of canon law to the Soviet legislation on religious associations. The government, which until then had stripped the Church of its goods, began to help it materially, placing, for example, at the disposal of the prelates gathered at the council all the necessary means of transport and sustenance.

But all this does not mean that the attitude of the Soviet government toward religion has fundamentally changed. Of true religious freedom, as we understand it, even now in Russia one cannot speak. The Church remains as before restricted to the pure and simple exercise of worship. The restrictive legislation remains in force. The Stalinist constitution with its article 124, which forbids every religious propaganda, remains an unshakable fundamental law, as declared the head of the Soviet for the affairs of the "Orthodox" Church in a speech of his at the Council of 1945. The prohibition of religious instruction for children remains, the restrictive norms of the decree of 8 Apr. 1929 remain in force. That little bit more of freedom that was granted, the "Orthodox" Church had to pay for with its enslavement to an atheist State that exploits it as a docile instrument for its internal and external policy. The dependence of the Church on the State was stably fixed by the Statute accepted at the Council of 1945. The Church openly supports the social system of communism. In foreign policy it aids the expansionist plans of the Soviet government, seeking to unite under its hegemony all the "Orthodox" churches.

In recent times (1947-48) a recrudescence of atheist propaganda can be noted. On the official side there is renewed insistence on the necessity for a communist to be an atheist. The new religious policy is a policy and nothing else, and could be abandoned, if it so seemed good to the Soviets, as already Lenin's NEP (v. COMUNISMO).

Guglielmo de Vries