A New Falsity
The Rejection of the Doctrine of Creation in the Soviet Cultural Revolution
In Brief
The following post examines one of the underlying theological motivations of the Soviet Cultural Revolution, which began in October of 1917, according to the Julian reckoning, and ended with the fall of the USSR in 1991. We will make use of select primary sources which circulated among the Bolshevik and Soviet Communists, and will consult several analyses of these events from scholars in relevant fields of inquiry. The theological motivation in question will be shown to be a rejection and suppression of the doctrine of Creation, as it is given in the Genesis account, whereby the Communist authorities provided an ideological basis for totalitarian Marxist cruelty.
Introduction
Mankind is given, in the account of God’s loving fashioning and upholding of His creation, a window into the origin and nature of humanity and the kindness of God his Maker. In the book of Genesis one reads: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27 ESV). A proper understanding of and adherence to this doctrine of Creation is crucial for one’s ability to situate himself, both in his historical setting and in relation to his neighbors and loved ones. Therefore, this post will discuss the causes which precede and the effects which attend to the rejection of the doctrine of Creation as the earliest days of the Soviet Union were unfolding.
This brief consideration will consist of Marxist-Leninist theoretical citations, historical implementations of Marxist-Leninst theory, and the Biblical Creation account as the contrary theological grounding for love. We will also, as mentioned in its abstract, consult scholarly analyses for the purpose of further vivifying the reader’s insight into the period of history into which we inquire; it is meant to be cursory and brief. The subject of Soviet theology, as it were, is far too historically and socially wide-reaching—both from its inception and down to the modern day—for us to suitably address the questions, objections, or simple curiosities which may arise from it.
Marxism
To begin, a definition of the overarching worldview known as Marxism-Leninism should be given. According to Britannica, Leninism simply denotes “ principles expounded by Vladimir I. Lenin, who was the preeminent figure in the Russian Revolution of 1917” (Leninism | Marxist-Leninist Theory & Ideology, n.d.). In his work State and Revolution Vladimir Lenin writes that the purpose of the book is to “re-establish what Marx really taught on the subject of the state” (Lenin, 2009, 2). As such, an overview of the Soviet revolution must begin with a look at its logical precursor.
In Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels state: “In this [‘modern bourgeois’] sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property” (Marx & Engels, 1848; 1969, 22). According to the Marxist worldview, private property is the result of the capitalist exploitation of workers, and is therefore theft. Marx continues: “Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor” (Ibid. 22-23). Therefore, private property is not only the outcome of “exploitation” and “antagonism,” but the very possession of private property is an identifying characteristic of the oppressor, in the Marxist system.
By way of dramatic contrast, Scripture declares that God created the earth to be filled by and subdued under man, and declared it to be good. Creation is meant to be the object of man’s stewardship and utilization; his study and understanding. In his post You are Not Your Own: A Critique of Liberal Social Ethics, Timothy Hsiao of Grantham University writes: “Property ownership in general is instrumentally good: nobody owns property for the sake of owning property” (Hsiao, 2018, 6). Whereas Marxist theory conceives of private property as a target of social dismantlement, rather than its owner’s stewardship, the Biblical account makes it clear that stewardship is the way in which man fulfills his purpose as it relates to creation. For this reason, the working of the ground is mentioned in the creation account before and after God fashioned the first man, Adam.
“...and there was no man to work the ground…” (Genesis 2:5)
“...then the LORD God formed the man of the dust of the ground…” (v. 6)
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (v. 15).
Hsiao writes further: “The reason we own property is so that we can use it to enhance our well-being. Indeed this is the purpose of private ownership” (Hsiao, 2018, 6). Contrary to Marx’s speculation, private ownership is both a creation mandate and a means of loving one’s neighbor by enhancing his well-being through generosity. As Scripture says, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Ephesians 4:28). Thus private ownership, and its stewardship by generous love, is a direct apostolic command.
Marxist misportrayal of private ownership led to a tremendous level of horrific violence in Russia. In Scorched Earth: Stalin’s Reign of Terror Jӧrg Baberowski writes: “Never before in Russia had there been such a large number of people bearing arms and exercising violence, who were not wearing the uniform or carrying the banner of the state” (Baberowski, 2016, 36). These events, of course, cannot be justifiably reduced to having been caused only by the advent of Western Marxist thought in Russia. However, as will be shown, Marxism provided the occasion necessary for man to carry out a nearly unprecedented level of cruelty and violence against his neighbor.
Baberowski continues: “The revolution allowed the lower classes to loot estates and expel landlords…to advance from their ghettoes into the city centers, conquer the public spaces, and force their rules upon what was left of society” (Ibid). The forced imposition of Marxism in Russia splintered its society wide open. Baberowski writes elsewhere:
As a peasant from the Yekaterinburg province wrote to his son in the summer of 1920, “Life really is in complete disarray, the people are being tormented by the damned Communists.” Almost all the peasants here tried to escape hunger by fleeing to the city of Kazan, only to be “mugged” by the Communists on the streets. The brigades spread fear and dread wherever they went. Peasants were whipped, and their children and wives were taken hostage, in an effort to squeeze every last reserve out of the villages (Baberowski, 2016, 56).
The Image of God
In her paper entitled The Cultural Revolution in the USSR and the Study of Religion Marianna Shakhnovich of Saint-Petersburg State University writes: “The goal of the Soviet cultural revolution was the creation of ‘the new man’ that fully ‘sheds off religious chains'” (Shakhnovich, n.d., 127).1 In attempting to sever man from his created origins Marxist-Leninst ideology robbed him of the knowledge of his own dignity. As the Church Father Tertullian wrote: “The privilege has been granted to the flesh to be nobler than its origin, and to have happiness aggrandized by the change wrought in it” (Roberts & Donaldson, 1995, 550). This “privilege granted to the flesh” was the target of Lenin’s propagandistic efforts in the years following the revolution.
Victor Sebestyen, in his work Lenin: the Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror, writes: “Lenin had always intended to campaign against religion and, if he could, destroy the church, but he bided his time. For the first three years he was careful and relied on propaganda” (Sebestyen, 2017, 472). In his efforts to vanquish the Christian faith, Lenin had to contend with the doctrine of Creation due to its nature as a bulwark against Marxist dehumanization. To do so, Lenin made ample rhetorical use of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, comparing its effect on biological science with Marx’s impact on social theory. He wrote: “Just as Darwin put an end to the view that the species of animals and plants are…’created by God’...so Marx put an end to the view that society is a mechanical aggregation of individuals” (Lenin, 1947, 84). In this way Lenin asserts, not only that life is un-created, but also that society itself is not a collection of individuals; rather, “society” is its own entity existing independently from the individuals of whom it is constituted.
Lenin continues, claiming that Marx was “the first to put sociology on a scientific basis by establishing…that the development of these [economic] formations is a process of natural history” (Ibid). Whereas Marxism-Leninism sought, as Shakhnovich notes, the “creation of the new man,” the Christian doctrine of creation notes that man is already dignified with the honor of being made in God’s image. This is perhaps the key opposition between Marxist theory and the Biblical worldview. The former views the human person merely as an undifferentiated and natural aspect of “society.” To the contrary, Oleg Dushin of Saint-Petersburg State University writes in his paper The Concept of Humanity: Christianity versus Marxism: “In fact, it was precisely Christianity which honored man to the degree of God’s image and likeness, everything in the world being created for him, and there existing within him a great potential for spiritual life” (Dushin, n.d., 2).2 This is the foundation of God’s law on the shedding of man’s blood. As it is written, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9:6). If man is not made in God’s image, then there is no objective reason to consider his life more valuable than any other “process of natural history.” He would be qualitatively equal to a rock in a field or a dying star.
Long after the tenets of the cultural revolution had already crystalized into virtually every sphere of life, American author and foreign correspondent Edward Hunter described Communist propaganda to the House of Representatives, detailing the beliefs (or lack thereof) which the Soviets were working to spread to the citizens of their geo-political enemies. He said:
We now confuse moral standards with the sophistication of dialectical materialism, with a Communist crackpot theology which teaches that everything changes, and that what is right or wrong, good or bad, changes as well. So nothing they say is really good or bad. There is no such thing as truth or a lie; and any belief we actually held was simply our being unsophisticated (Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 1958, 1).
Notice Hunter’s explicit use of “theology”—Marxism is a theology which presents an entirely anti-Biblical notion not only of creation, but of all the major doctrines of God’s person and truth, and establishes itself as an enemy of Christ and the human person whom He loves, who is made in His image.
Prior to concluding, I will offer an anecdote on the implementation of Marxist theory which I received from an elderly immigrant-couple from the Soviet Union. Ivan and Elena were both professors in Soviet universities prior to fleeing their homeland, both from Nazis and Communists. In the summer of 2021 I visited Ivan and Elena in Chicago and enjoyed a brief lunch in their apartment. Over the course of our exchange, I asked them: “What do you make of Americans who think that Communism is a good idea?” Ivan pointed his finger at me and simply said, “You tell them that everything was taken from us.” He and his wife both went on to explain their grief and bewilderment at this trend among Americans—young Americans, specifically—and how they were confused to see the ideology they escaped now taking shape around them on the other side of the world.
Conclusion
The early Bolsheviks and Communists, by utilizing a Darwinist-Marxist ideology, were able to establish a society characterized by dehumanization and cruelty towards one’s neighbor. Despite claims to the contrary, Lenin brought Marxist social theory to its logical implementation by seeking to erase the Biblical doctrine of Creation, with its concern for the inherent value of the individual, from what he referred to as “society.”
Lenin once wrote forthrightly: “The philosophy of Marxism is materialism…the only philosophy that is consistent, true to all the teachings of natural science and hostile to superstition, cant and so forth” (Lenin, 1968, 65). In seeking to create a new kind of man, the Soviet project and ideology committed itself to tireless rebellion against the created order; against mankind and the image of God inscribed within him; and against the Lord Jesus who is the second Adam and creator of all. But in doing so, the Soviets, like Communists today, are unable to change the fact that Christ is slowly but continually placing His enemies beneath His feet.
“Целью советской культурной революции было создание «нового человека», полностью «сбросившего религиозные цепи.»”
“Действительно, именно христианство возвеличило человека до уровня образа и подобия Божьего, все в мире создано для него, в нем присутствует великий потенциал духовной жизни.”
This is VERY similar to what we are seeing in modern America, but we have to keep the Faith.