A Tale of Four Countries
by Marc Ambler
Image Wikipedia.org
Joseph Stalin (1878–1953)
Published: 7 November 2008(GMT+10)
As a South African reading Simon Sebag Montefiore’s biography Young Stalin,1 I was struck with an alarming
sense of déjà vu. The prevailing personal and broad social
dynamics at play in the years leading up to the Russian Revolution seem to so parallel
those of our country.
Underlying every area of social intercourse—among and between the revolutionaries
themselves, the various revolutionary ideologies, business interests and even the
executive of the state—was conspiracy and mistrust, in a bitter struggle for
supremacy.
Betrayal, rumours and accusations, such as of being a ‘counter-revolutionary’,
were used to undermine and even destroy the lives of friend and foe alike, including
those on the same side of the ideological spectrum. History showed that these charges
were often groundless, while those actually guilty of such things often got away
with it.
Photo by Patty Ghillebert, Stock.xchng
The social phenomena then prevailing were like many we experience today in South
Africa. Corruption reigned among those in high office as well as those opposing
them. There were well orchestrated bank robberies and even cash in transit heists2 (in Stalin’s day, horse-drawn
cash carriages). These were ostensibly to fund the revolution, but were often a
means of personal enrichment under the guise of ‘the struggle’. Sexual
profligacy was rampant amongst the ruling elite as well as the revolutionary leaders,
and there was a general promiscuity and amorality amongst the population at large.
Stalin also made extensive use of gangsters in achieving political ends and was
said to prefer them to ideologues. All this was set in the context of obscene, flashy
wealth of a minority and tremendous poverty and hardship of the majority. What a
perfect setting for revolution—ushering in leaders who, once in power, showed
themselves to have the same corrupt natures as those they replaced. And who, under
totalitarian rule, were freed to indulge in lasciviousness and use cruelty and brutality
to a degree that the former regime, corrupt as it was, would not have dreamt of.
Men must be governed by God, or they will be ruled by tyrants.—William Penn.
Stalin, Lenin and other influential individuals openly espoused the use of whatever
barbarism and deceit it took to have their way in achieving their utopia. When an
acquaintance ironically suggested to Lenin that an early Marxist instrument of government
be named ‘the Commissariat of Social Annihilation’, Lenin responded,
‘Well said! That’s exactly how it’s going to be.’3 The book recounts how he said
to other acquaintances, ‘We’re engaged in annihilation’, ‘Break,
beat up everything, beat and destroy! Everything that’s being broken is rubbish
and has no right to life! What survives is good’. He and Stalin were also
lovers of the lie in achieving their goals. Stalin once told Molotov in a climax
of doublespeak, ‘Truth is protected by a battalion of lies’.4 He believed that a ‘lie always has a stronger
effect than the truth. The main thing is to achieve one’s objective.’
His ruthless pragmatism, or praktiki as he called it, eventually played
itself out in the destruction of tens of millions of lives in the Great Terror.
Stalin believed that his Marxist class struggle was ‘not only a theory of
socialism: it’s an entire worldview, a philosophical system’ which would
be marked by ‘many storms, many torrents of blood’.5
Education, politics, law and even many churches are increasingly ideologically married
to a philosophy that corrodes the very foundation upon which these institutions
rest.
What was the underlying philosophical authority of this movement? While it is simplistic
to draw straight cause-and-effect lines, it is impossible to deny the influence
of the most novel and potent philosophy of the day. Along with Hitler, Stalin had
a powerful authority for his actions, a logical if not strictly necessary application
of evolution known as social Darwinism.
Marx’s infatuation with Darwinism is well known, but there is a telling incident
from Stalin’s youth worth recounting. As a teenage trainee in a school for
priests, Stalin read Darwin, probably Origin of Species, and was enraptured
by it. A 13-year-old boy was able to openly draw the logical conclusions that Darwin
would not have got away with openly voicing in Victorian England. Stalin said to
a fellow pupil, ‘God’s not unjust, he doesn’t actually exist.
We’ve been deceived. If God existed he’d have made the world more just.’
When challenged by a friend for his remarks, he replied, ‘I’ll lend
you a book and you’ll see’ and presented him with a copy of Darwin.6
With God out of the way, pragmatism reigned. But what happens when we try to get
rid of God based on the problem of evil in the world? Suddenly, there is no objective
philosophical basis for the concept of evil or good. Stalin is known to
have believed that killing vast numbers of people in his political pursuits was
of no more consequence than mowing grass. Which of course makes cold-blooded sense
if, like grass and every other living thing, we are just a collection of molecules
in motion, with no ultimate meaning or purpose—we just happened to evolve
in an unguided process over billions of years.
William Penn, one of the founding fathers of the greatest (not perfect) democracies
this world has ever experienced, said, ‘Men must be governed by God, or they
will be ruled by tyrants.’ Russia and those countries swept by its influence
went on to demonstrate this statement with all the attendant misery to which history
bears wretched witness.
Image Wikimedia.org
George Whitfield (left) and John Wesley (right). The preaching of these men, based
on a conviction that the Bible was absolute truth, led to a revolutionary transformation
of British and western culture, whose benevolent fruits we still enjoy today.
Is this the path that South Africa is on? Certainly many of those in leadership
positions in South African politics have these same godless beliefs and lifestyles,
many having been educated in communist Russia and Marxist-influenced institutions
in the West. The problem is that the very institutions that should provide stability
and resistance to these invidious influences are themselves increasingly founded
upon the same atheistic philosophies. Education, politics, law and even many churches
are increasingly ideologically married to a philosophy that corrodes the very foundation
upon which these institutions rest. What can stand against this encroachment?
Historians tell us that many of the same social circumstances evident in early 20th
century Russia prevailed in both Great Britain and France in the 18th
century. Why did France end up with bloody revolution, anarchy, the Reign of Terror
and eventually the tyranny of Napoleon, while in contrast, just 30 miles across
the Channel, their perennial enemies underwent a quite different revolution? This
‘revolution’ involved strengthening of democratic institutions; the
abolition of the slave trade in Great Britain and its empire, and eventually the
whole world; hospital and orphanage reform; and the abolition of child labour. In
short, a general, profound improvement in the lot of the common man, and a true
commitment to the rights of man as made in the image of God, developed in Britain.
Even animals came to be treated in a more humane manner.
These same historians conclude that it was the Christian revival under men such
as Wesley and Whitfield that made the difference between the murderous revolution
in France and the benevolent transformation in Britain. Not that Christianity was
perfect or all-pervasive in Britain, nor ever has been anywhere in the world; but
the influence of the Bible and the ‘Christian consensus’7 was substantial enough to lead to a supernatural,
‘gentle’ overthrow of the status quo, while France experienced a humanist,
brutal, anarchic upheaval. France eventually reverted to a jealous mimicry of her
rival in form though not totally in substance.
It was the Christian revival under men such as Wesley and Whitfield that made the
difference between the murderous revolution in France and the benevolent transformation
in Britain.
In the long term, there are no alternatives to being ‘governed by God, …
or ruled by tyrants’. There is a movement around the Western world today which
our government and media blindly follow—the intellectual (at this stage it
is not violent) marginalization of Christianity and Christians. This was a marked
characteristic of the French and Russian Revolutions. Stalin’s henchman Trotsky
called for ‘an end once and for all to the Papist-Quaker babble about the
sanctity of human life,’ in the Communist campaign of terror in order to impose
Marxism on the Russian people.
From a purely natural and open-eyed view of the South African situation today, there
is much cause for pessimism. Nevertheless, I have much hope. This hope is not in
the manipulative, self serving conspiracies of politicians (whether in power or
aspiring), but in the influence of God’s Holy Spirit in the personal lives
of many South Africans as they go about their personal, political and professional
lives.
Composite of images from NASA, Wikipedia, and stock.xchng
It is not that other faiths or even atheists are incapable of moral and noble convictions
and actions—regrettably, they are sometimes more so than some Christians—but
they lack the philosophical basis upon which to defend or justify why such things
are more worthwhile than the converse. And this inconsistency eventually overtakes
a whole society.
Unless a holy and transcendent God has truly spoken, we are all awash in a sea of
opinion, ‘ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.’
(2 Timothy 3:7)
May God grant that more and more people in my beloved country are brought to understand
that the Bible is ‘truly true’,8
including especially in that crucial, foundational area of the origin of all things,
the prime target of the surging humanist revolution of our times.
Further reading
Related resources
References
- Montefiore, S.S., Young Stalin, Orion Books Ltd.
London, 2008. Return to text.
- The prologue to the book details a daring heist organized
and participated in by Stalin. Robberies of armored cash vans, orchestrated with
military precision, are prominent in South Africa. Return to text.
- Montefiore, ref. 1, p. 369. Return to text.
- Montefiore, ref. 1, p. 349 Return to text.
- Montefiore, ref. 1, p. 66 Return to text.
- Montefiore, ref. 1, p. 47 Return to text.
- A term coined I believe by Francis Schaeffer.
Return to text.
- Another Schaeffer term. Return to text.
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