Explaining the Russian Revolution to Religious Apologists

A Christian Apologist says...

"The French and Russian revolutions began as extremely egalitarian movements with nascent democratic institutions. Such proved unsustainable without Scripture, and dictators moved in to fill the power gaps."

A bizarre assertion and factually incorrect...

A common argument from religious apologists is that people should not be atheists because atheism is responsible for mass killings during the French and Russian Revolutions, where some of the protagonists were atheists. This argument ignores the millions of people killed by theistic regimes over thousands of years. So it's fairly obvious that it's not atheism or theism that kills people, but rather the whims of dictators who control power so that populations become subject to their whims. Here's is one such comment...

The French and Russian revolutions began as extremely egalitarian movements with nascent democratic institutions. Such proved unsustainable without Scripture, and dictators moved in to fill the power gaps.

The French Revolution has been covered here but now is a summary of the Russian Revolution...

To understand the cause of the Russian Revolution we have to go back to the 19th century and understand how the Russian Monarchy controlled and manipulated the population. Russia was led by Tsars ("emperors"). They were responsible for a series of economic disasters and refused the demands of the people for a constitution. The Tsars were anti-Semitic and forcibly conscripted Jewish boys into the Russian Army where every effort was made to convert them to Christianity.  

As public unrest grew, the Tsars cracked down harder. This came to a head with Tsar Nicholas II who accelerated what was already a brutal oppression of the Russian people. But the unrest increased. The Tsar was forced reluctantly to form Russia's first constitution and its first parliament, but the Tsar was still in control and would dissolve the government whenever it opposed him. 

But what of religion? Many of the Russian revolutionaries were atheists, as was Karl Marx, but religious tolerance was felt to be important by most of the revolutionaries. During the Russian Revolution, much like the French Revolution, the churches and clergy sided with the Tsars of Russia. This is because there was an established relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Tsars, much like there was a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French Crown prior to the French Revolution.  Because of this, the church was opposing the revolution and working against the peasants and oppressed masses in their struggle to better their own condition. Unsurprisingly, this led to a backlash against religious leaders during the revolution. 

The final straw for the Russian people was The Tsar's decision to involve Russia in the first World War. Russian casualties were greater than any suffered by any nation in any previous war. The Russian economy collapsed, and the groundswell of public opinion to remove the Tsar was now overwhelming.

Now… let's take a break from looking at history and examine the religious situation in Russia at this time, which for some reason, religious apologists fail to mention. The Russian Emperors - the Tsars - were Christian. Russia was a Christian nation. Tsars were crowned as part of a religious ceremony and blessed by the church, to confirm the "divine authority" of the Tsars who even declared Russia to be the "Third Rome" and the "true Christian state". It was a dictatorship - the Tsars were dictators and supported by the church. And this resulted in the suffering and death of millions of its citizens. 

So, should we blame theism, specifically in this case Christianity, for all of this suffering and death, or should we blame dictatorship? 

Back to the history...

The February Revolution in 1917 began in the Russian capital city of Petrograd when people who were desperate for food took to the streets. The city's workers came out on strike in support, and mobs destroyed police stations. The "Petrograd Council" was formed by factory workers committees. Troops were deployed to stamp out the uprising and many demonstrators were killed, but the protests continued and the army soon defected to support the demonstrators and join the Petrograd Council. Tsar Nicholas II dissolved the government but having heard of the army's revolt, he abdicated power to his brother Michael who refused the offer of the crown - effectively ending the reign of the Tsars. 

The first constitution of Russia appeared in 1918 and can be seen here.   This described the authoritarian regime that had taken power recognised the working class as the "ruling class" of Russia - perhaps the world's first example of a constitutionally socialist society.  Although the wording seeks to redress the injustices inflicted by the Tsars, supreme power rested Central Executive Committee - the "supreme organ of power". Any apparent hints of democracy in the constitution could never be implement with a dictatorship in charge. 

Power was shared between the temporary government put in place by the Tsars, and the Petrograd Council. Then following a coup d’état by the Bolshevik Party, a new government was formed by the Bolsheviks and their allies with Vladimir Lenin as leader. Lenin became the first dictator of the first Marxist state in history. He made peace with Germany, nationalised Russia's industry and distributed land. Immediately following the end of World War I Lenin then had to engage in a devastating civil war against an anti-Bolshevik/pro-Tsarist movement. This "White Army" was defeated in 1920 and in 1922 the /Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established.

Lenin's dictatorship was just as repressive as the one it replaced. The only difference was that Russia's new rulers were drawn from intellectuals and the working classes, rather than the aristocracy and the clergy.

And now let's take another break from history and again try and figure out why religious apologists would try to blame atheism for these events. Were the workers and soldiers who took control of Petrograd atheists? That seems unlikely in such a Christian country. Was Lenin an atheist? Yes. Was he anti-religion? Absolutely. Was he a dictator? Yes. Was Russia a democracy at this time? Absolutely not. 

And what of Stalin, one of the most monstrous dictators in human history?  Christian Apologists rightly point out that Stalin was an atheist, yet they ignore the religious nature of Stalin’s dictatorship.  He was raised as a Christian under the religious influence of his mother, he attended seminary school, and took it upon himself to study for the priesthood.  He was then able to step into a ready-made religious tyranny, constructed by the Russian Orthodox Church and paved with the teachings of St. Paul.

Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.      

Stalin was effectively a new Tsar - and such Biblical teachings inspired the Russian Orthodox Church to support this new Tsar, causing the more sensible fringe of the Church to flee to the United States.

Had Stalin inherited a secular foundation as per Lucretius, Jefferson, Paine, Einstein, etc. the Apologists might have a case. But Stalin merely had to make use of the Christian machine at his disposal. He created his own version of the inquisition, and he had Lysenko to provide miracles.  

"Stalin pedantically repeated the papal routine of making science conform to dogma, by insisting that the shaman and charlatan Lysenko had disclosed the key to genetics and promised extra harvests of specially inspired vegetables. (Millions of innocents died of gnawing internal pain as a consequence of this “revelation.”) This Caesar unto whom all things were dutifully rendered took care, as his regime became a more nationalist and statist one, to maintain at least a puppet church that could attach its traditional appeal to his."

So, should we blame atheism for all of the suffering and death that followed the suffering and death caused by the Tsars, or should we blame dictatorship? 

It is obvious that regardless of the anti-atheist spin that comes from religious apologists, the Russian (and indeed) revolutions teach us nothing about theism or atheism, and everything about dictatorships and how secular democracy is the only way forward.

Further information…

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Russian-Revolution-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0192853953