| Faith and belief have always had more profound meaning in Russia and the Soviet Union than in the West. Spirituality is expressed in ways that Westerners mistake for sentimentality or atavism. We overlook the Asian philosophical fatalism that pervades Russian and Soviet life, and that this society has never, to this day, experienced a Reformation or a Renaissance. The choice is conformity or exile, or worse. That people in such circumstances would be the crucible for a utopian philosophy is not so surprising. The faithful believed in the tsar or Lenin with the same fervency that the Orthodox Christian or Muslim believes in the deity. In addition, religion itself became a statement of identity, a means of protest, and even, as the pogroms showed, a deadly weapon.
Dostoevsky wrote, "If God does not exist, then everything is permitted." |
