Vladimir Bogoraz on religion and Bolshevism

Abstract

In 2017, Yury Slezkine’s new book, “The Government House. Saga of the Russian Revolution” was published. The American professor seeks to prove, using the material of several family histories of the Soviet party and state figures in the 1920s–1930s, that Marxism and its Russian form of Bolshevism represented a religious soteriological doctrine that was characterized by actual eschatology and the expectation of immediate salvation. He believes that Marxism as an ideology and Bolshevism as its practical implementation have the features characteristic to a new religious movement of chiliastic type: the presence of a charismatic leader and rallying around him, membership based on personal treatment, hatred of the world around full of vices, the cult of sacrifice. The author of the presented article believes that this point of view is by no means new and existed at the beginning of the 20th century. The article shows that even the revolutionary democrats brought together the evangelical and revolutionary doctrine. However, they were not interested in chiliastic aspirations in the New Testament, but they were interested in denouncing those in power, exposing injustice and lawlessness, protecting the poor and oppressed, and sacrificing themselves in order to overcome the suffering of others. The article briefly examines the positions of various figures of the Russian Social-Democracy regarding the conjugation of Christianity and socialism. The article shows that the well-known ethnographer and historian of religion Vladimir Bogoraz (Tan), who actively participated in the Russian revolutionary movement, not only used the reinterpreted New Testament images and ideas in his literary work but also considered the problem of the correlation of Bolshevism and religion in political and historical aspects. The author shows that one may see a certain similarity in some evaluations of Bolshevism as a religious doctrine in V. Bogoraz and N. Berdyaev. In conclusion, the text of the article by Bogoraz (Tan) “Bolshevism as a Religion” with comments is given.