Does anyone remember the story about the bread inkwell from which Lenin wrote secret letters with milk? When the guards came, he would swallow the inkwell.
Or about the green lamp that was brought to Shushenskoe for him?
What about the boy who was tortured by the bourgeois when a traitor gave him away for a “barrel of jam and a basket of cookies?”
Or Pavlik Morozov, who was killed by his relatives after exposing his kulak (wealthy peasant – ed.) father?
The Bolshevik propaganda diligently built the image of sufferers out of its associates and like-minded people. “For a long time we were kept in chains, for a long time we were starving…”
The Nazi propaganda did the same. Horst Wessel alone is worth a look. "Kamʼraden, die Rotfront Und Reaktion erschossen, Marschier'n im Geist In unser'n Reihen mit" - how could we do without them?
In fact, the “suffering of the German people,” from which they were allegedly liberated by the Nazis, became an ideological justification for all of the Fuhrer's tyrannical measures.
“If we look at it quite formally, both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis were persecuted, imprisoned, and subjected to violence by the state and their opponents. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were convicted and served criminal sentences for their political activities. But wasn't what they did before seizing power, their views and ideas, a reason for public resistance? And what they did after seizing power is beyond comprehension…”
If we look at it quite formally, both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis were persecuted, imprisoned, and subjected to violence by the state and their opponents. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were convicted and served criminal sentences for their political activities.
But wasn't what they did before seizing power, their views and ideas, a reason for public resistance? And what they did after seizing power is beyond comprehension…
When the 'Russian world' is looking for sufferers in its ranks and sees oppression and persecution in resistance, there is nothing to be surprised about.
But to continue following the ‘Russian world’ and defending its ideas – after Bucha and Mariupol, after all that the 'Russian world' has brought and is still bringing – I don't know where one should lose either one's mind or one's conscience.
Although it is clear that it is much easier for the adherents of the 'Russian world' to identify themselves with innocent sufferers than with the butchers of Bucha and the destroyers of Mariupol, with Putin and his henchmen. And to tell each other and send each other modern versions of the boy tormented by the damned bourgeois…
About the author. Yevstratii Zoria, Bishop of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Archbishop of Chernihiv and Nizhyn, spokesman for the Holy Synod, Deputy Head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the authors of the blogs.