Milla said:
You've hit upon an inadvertent truth: a religion. Russian Orthodoxy. Others were barely tolerated at the best of times and were generally actively supressed
If Catholicism was supressed, then it was probably legitimate to have a revolution under the tsar as well; but one towards an acceptance or even upheld of Catholicism by the government;
And not a socialist one, since socialism is inherently contrary to Christianity, in all of its forms (from the most radical to the blander).
I'm curious: what part of Russian culture was destroyed?
I'm curious to know about one single higher culture production by any socialist country.
The best any socialist nation has come up are some films by socialist directors in times when there was still some optimism about it all, and even these are nothing more than interesting.
Again with the "good gravy." The Orthodox church became a puppet of the Soviet state within a few years. Yes, there were some bold clergymen, but it rapidly became a tool for the Soviet government as it had been for the Tsars; just recently there was a great scandal as yet more KGB agents were uncovered among the priests...ordined, serving priests, working as KGB agents, had been for decades...
Indeed, the so-called Orthodox churches have always been puppets of the ruling State.
But in this case many of its clergymen did not accept such a rule, and were dealt with brutally.
So it's okay to lead a revolution against Stalin, but not a leader who is killing the country through incompetence instead of cruelty?
A revolution is only legitimate if one or many of the population's fundamental natural rights are being violated.
An incompetent king does not violate any natural right of its people. However, if it is true that Roman Catholicism was outlawed, a revolution mgiht have been valid; but only towards something better.
Socialism is never acceptable; and thus any socialist revolution is never acceptable despite any circumstance.
Being a socialist is a sin? So the early Christian communes, they were inherently sinful organizations?
Which Christian "communes"? If you had the early Jerusalem community (of which we read in the book of Acts) in mind, be prepared to be disapointed.
Many Popes have spoken against socialism; in fact, the Catholic Church has been historically the greatest enemy of socialism.
The words of Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, sum it all up:
Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.
A fine statement, with no facts to back it up. Which time period of the USSR are we looking at, here? There is a world of difference between the USSR of Krushchyov and that of Stalin, for example...this is the inherent problem with the system of the Russian Empire/USSR, and the reason I say they were the same at heart; one man rules, and all tone and action is set by him; there is no rule of law. If he is a good man, perhaps life may be acceptable, but if he is a bad man...there is no end to the suffering. It is nigh impossible to make blanket statements about the USSR, just as it is to make them about the Empire; one of the few constant truths of life in these territories was that peasants starved to death a lot.
Even under "benign" leaders as Kruschev it was still unnacceptable. State-imposed atheism and socialism are glaringly against the natural law.
I'm curious what on God's green Earth this has to do with Catholicism; anti-Catholicism has nothing to do with the Russian Revolutions, for the simple reason that Catholicism played little to no role in Russian Empire life, other than for very small minority groups like the Volga Germans and a subset of the population of Samara...Catholicism was supressed under Russian Empire rule, Soviet rule and is being suppressed now under Russian Federation rule. Uniformly miserable throughout. So how are you bringing anti-Catholicism into this?
In this case, what in the rest of socialist upheavels was anti-Catholicism, was translated into anti-Orthodoxy; though, as you point out, not all of the Orthodox estabilishment was against it.
It is very important for socialists to destroy the religious estabilishment, especially of that religion which can never make any kind of commitment with them: Catholicism.
From the beginning, in the French Revolution, the tortures and executions of Catholic clergymen and religious people are many and shocking.
Socialism, like many other atheistic philosophies, is but an expression of atheist hatred against the true Church of God, and of their twisted notion of justice, based around the "sacrossant" concept of equality.
Yes, there were not many Catholics in Russia and thus there wasn't much Catholic persecution there; so to call it anti-Catholic is a stretch; what is anti-Catholic is the ideology it is based on: socialism (or communism, however one prefers to call it).
(some of the sources for these accounts: "Betrayal" by Ericksen and Heschel; "The Third Reich and the Christian Churches" by Matheson; and "For the Soul of the People" by Barnett).
