At the O.C. – Folha de S. Paulo, September 19, 1971 – Regarding religion, the Kremlin’s strategies and tactics

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Regarding religion, the challenges faced by the leaders of the victorious Russian Revolution are similar to those faced by communists in all countries with a substantial religious majority. This makes studying the Kremlin’s strategies and tactics particularly interesting to the Brazilian audience.

I will discuss the status questionis as the godless saw it in Russia in 1917, the year the imperial regime fell. Then I will outline the methods the communists used in their policy of persecution. It is up to the reader to decide what differences and similarities exist between the Russian issues and our own, as well as whether Soviet methods are already being used here and to what extent.

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I will begin immediately with the status questionis.

In principle, the ideal solution for the Russian communists of 1917 would have been to swiftly eliminate the various religions that existed in the former czarist empire. In theory, this could have been achieved through widespread atheistic propaganda combined with the mass execution of those who refused to renounce God officially.

In practice, this simple plan initially proved completely unfeasible. Besides Catholic, Protestant, and pagan minorities, Russia had a significant Greek Orthodox majority. The so-called “Orthodox” Church, to which this majority belonged, had deep roots in the country. Due to its close, centuries-old ties with the monarchy and all the nation’s public and private institutions, as well as its important historical role and strong influence on the culture, mentality, and customs of the people, the “Orthodox Church” could not be erased overnight from the deeply religious soul of the Russian populace.

Actually, even a hundred years of atheist propaganda wouldn’t have been enough to produce this result. As for the policy of killing, it would have only served to unite the people behind the “White Russians” (anticommunists), then fighting with weapons in hand.

Under these conditions, the Soviets needed to change their approach by targeting the deeply religious majority of the Russian people. They aimed to infiltrate, weaken, divide, degrade, and destabilize them, eventually seeking to annihilate them. In other words, the situation called for a large-scale brainwashing effort.

With the people’s religiosity thus decreased, it becomes easier to lead them toward religious indifference, gradually and ultimately toward atheism.

In fact, this brainwashing laid the groundwork for an even more ambitious goal: to turn the remaining churches in Russia into tools for the Kremlin’s domestic and foreign policies. This is what the relentless Marxist doctrine demands, which states that everything that communists cannot eliminate must be used to their advantage.

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Let’s now examine how this goal was achieved. It primarily involved the simultaneous use of two strategies: 1) a policy of pressure and relief, designed to evoke alternating feelings of panic and sympathy among the religious masses, especially within the church hierarchy; 2) inserting communist agents into various positions within the church hierarchy to exploit moments of pressure and fear as well as periods of relief and sympathy, to bring entire sections of religious institutions to capitulation.

Such capitulation was not just about plunging people into discouragement and religious indifference. It aimed to “manufacture” this monstrous entity: a church inspired by atheists, governed by atheists, and serving atheism propaganda—something as absurd and grotesque as the school of modern Western theologians who preach the “death of God.”

To make it easier to understand, I will now only explain how the events happened. I will focus solely on the Greek Schismatic Church, known as “Orthodox,” not just because it plays a major role in Russian life, but also because the process I just described was carried out entirely within it, with remarkable success. This is very helpful for understanding the methods of religious persecution used by the communists.

For brevity, I will refer to the “Orthodox Church” simply by its initials, O.C.

First phase: Decompression. Kerensky, a precursor and puppet of the communists, supports the O.C.: a) He allows a council to be convened; b) He restores the unity of the O.C., reestablishing the Moscow patriarchate, which had been suppressed by the monarchy two hundred years earlier. Encouraged by these favors, the new patriarch, Tikhon, inspires the council to issue an excommunication against the communists, who in the meantime had risen to power.

Second phase: Compression. The situation favors Lenin, who can persecute the O.C. not as an attacker but as a defender. Thus, the Soviet government retaliates against excommunication by separating Church and State and banning all religious teaching. Once again, Tikhon displays courage. He orders prayers, fasts, and processions. Clashes between the godless and the population occur everywhere. The threat of severe religious persecution looms like a dark cloud over the vast country. In all religious circles, heroism is intensified, and the desire for struggle and martyrdom spreads. The heroic phase of the O.C.’s struggle reaches its peak.

At this moment, and very Machiavellianly, Lenin thwarts all these admirable impulses by adopting a tempting policy of decompression.

The strategy, executed flawlessly, pays off. The history of the O.C., apart from the dwindling influence of the “Church of Silence,” will now be a shame.

God willing, this is what we will see in the following article.