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Natasha Zakharova, a 23-year-old Russian woman, was leaving Red Square recently when she was asked by a reporter what she thought of Lenin. She said, “Lenin, was he a Communist?” Her reply reveals how much the world has changed since I was a boy!
Growing up during the Cold War meant that Russians were the enemy. The Soviet Union was the country you pulled against in the Olympics. They were the enemy because they were Communists; and Communists were, by definition, godless atheists. Vladimir Lenin was a leader of the Bolshevik Revolution and the First Premier of the Soviet Union. The goal of Lenin’s successors was world domination. The only thing that stood in their way was the good ol’ U.S.A. We believed in God and they did not, so we were the God guys and they were the bad guys.
Not only were they atheists, but they were mean. They imprisoned Soviet citizens who did not agree with the Communist Party line. Other citizens were tortured, sent to prison camps and even killed because of their political views. Lenin was the Father of the Soviet Union. It all started with him. Now, there are young adults in Russia who have only a vague notion of who he was.
The problem for Russians today is what to do with him. For 80 years, he has been lying in state on public display in the basement of his mausoleum. For many of those years, Lenin was the focal point, the deity, of the Soviet Union’s secular atheism. Even atheists need icons, memorials, and monuments. Lenin was just that for the Soviets. The old-timers still visit his tomb with reverence and respect.
Irony of ironies, Lenin’s body is preserved while his party is in ruins, his philosophy discredited, and his Soviet Union dissolved. The sad part is that many Russians still cling to his image. Clinging to sentimental notions, nostalgic memories of a time that is past, they hold on to something that is not just empty, but gone. Karl Marx, Lenin’s source and inspiration, called religion an opiate for the masses. Now Lenin has become just that for a few in Russia.
What do you do when your whole world is turned upside down? Where do you turn when that which you trusted and in which you invested your life proves to be untrustworthy? What are people supposed to do when it becomes evident that no man, no matter how revered or how great, is worth uncritical worship and unfailing adoration?
Some Russians are ready to move on and move Lenin’s body to a cemetery. They are ready to say that their country is moving in a new direction. Others cling to the past. They hold to the void, to emptiness, as if it can give purpose and meaning to their lives.
Human beings, in general, and not just Russians, are too quick to worship and praise those who are not worthy of it. Then when it becomes apparent just how unworthy, they are equally remiss in admitting their mistake and correcting it. The Soviet Union has collapsed, the Iron Curtain has been rent asunder, and still some pay homage to the founder of a kingdom that could not have lasted.
As Paul wrote to the Christians at Philippi, who were themselves an outpost of government led by a puffed-up, self-deifying Caesar:
Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:9-11
Joy and peace,
Ed
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