The Meaning and Origin of Russian Communism
Russian communism is both an international phenomenon with global influence and a uniquely Russian, national formation shaped by Russian history. Russian history has always been a battleground for Eastern and Western elements, resulting in the contradictions within the Russian soul. The Russian national psyche is a product of the Orthodox Church, with its defining characteristic being a pure religiosity. Its features include asceticism, dogmatism, and a willingness to endure sacrifice and suffering in the name of faith.
Following the fall of the Byzantine Empire (1453), the Russian people lived with the belief that their empire would become the world's only Orthodox empire, and they alone were the custodians of the true faith. The doctrine of the Third Rome provided the ideological foundation for the establishment of the Muscovite Empire, while the symbolism of the messianic idea ensured the unity of the empire.
The question posed by the 17th-century schism was whether the Russian people were capable of fulfilling their messianic mission. The empire, which called itself the Third Rome, lost its original legitimacy and betrayed the true faith, as both state power and the ecclesiastical hierarchy's upper levels came under the rule of the Antichrist. The people's Orthodox faith separated from the church hierarchy and went underground. Since the visible world's empire was ruled by injustice, the Russian people began to seek a realm founded on truth.
Peter the Great's reforms violated the soul and religious world of the people, stripping the country of its missionary role. The Enlightenment of the 18th century, imported from the West, remained entirely alien to the Russian people, and the struggle for the Russian soul between East and West continued.
In the 19th century, the idea reemerged—following the historical philosopher Chaadayev—that the Russian people possessed latent potential, yet it had not yet been realized. This offered great hope for the future, as the Russian people were believed to have a higher mission to fulfill, one that could resolve societal questions that the West had failed to address. In the Slavophile-Westernizer debate, both sides believed in a Russian national idea. The Westernizers (such as Herzen) believed in the possibility of a distinct, uniquely Russian path of development. Russia's mission was to achieve social justice on a level higher than that of the West.
The revolutionary intelligentsia (Belinsky) claimed that the Russian people were atheistic. This atheism stemmed from compassion, sympathy for people living in misery and deprivation, and the awareness of the unbearable nature of suffering. The people were atheists because they could not accept a Creator who had made a bad, imperfect world filled with suffering. Russian atheism is, therefore, a religious formation, rooted in a love of justice.
The populist narodnik movement (Bakunin) argued that Russia was destined to follow a unique developmental path, bypassing Western capitalism. The anarchists articulated the idea of revolutionary messianism. They sought to destroy the old world so that a new one could rise from its ruins. A mood of apocalyptic foreboding took hold, and many feared the coming of the Antichrist.
Marxism shattered the concept of the people as an organic unity, replacing it with the existence of conflicting class interests. The term "Russian people" now came to refer to the proletariat, and the idea of Russian messianism was replaced by the proletariat's messianic mission. Russian communism was far more deeply tied to tradition than is often assumed. It is essentially a transformation—and deformation—of the old Russian messianic idea. Communism, too, was characterized by the search for the kingdom of God and absolute truth. It strives for totality and demands religious reverence.
The only force capable of opposing this is a renewed Christianity turned toward the kingdom of God.
Nyikolaj Bergyajev "Az orosz kommunizmus értelme és eredete", Századvég kiadó, Budapest, 1989