Source: Russian Orthodox Church

Interviewer: Patriarch Kirill’s recent remarks about the victory in the Great Patriotic War have provoked rather harsh criticism coming also from those close to the authorities. The Patriarch was criticized for seeing the victory as a miracle, while the war hardships as retribution for apostasy. The Patriarch was also criticized for underestimating the role of Stalin and the Bolsheviks. To which extent are you ready to oppose this criticism?

Met Hilarion: I am ready to oppose it and so much as to provoke a wave of criticism against myself by stating my own view of Stalin. I believe that Stalin was a monster, a spiritual cripple who created a horrible anti-humane system of governance built on lies, violence and terror. He unleashed genocide against his own people and is personally responsible for the death of millions of innocent people. In this respect Stalin is quite like Hitler. Both brought so much grief into this world that no military or political successes can redeem their guilt before humanity. There is no essential difference between the Butovo firing ground and Buchenwald, between GULAG and Hitler’s system of death camps. And the number of victims of Stalin’s repression is quite comparable with our losses in the Great Patriotic War.

The victory in the Great Patriotic War was really a miracle because Stalin did before the war all that was possible to destroy the country. He eliminated the whole army top leadership and by his mass repression put once a powerful country on the brink of survival. When a census was carried out in 1937, it was found the country was a dozen of millions of people short. Where did these millions vanish? They were eliminated by Stalin. The country entered the war almost bleeding white. But despite all the flagrant repression, the people showed unprecedented heroism. It cannot be called other than miracle. The victory in that war is a victory of the people who showed the greatest will of resistance. The miracle of victory in the war is a great manifestation of our people’s fortitude which could be crushed by neither Stalin nor Hitler.

The conclusion we may reach is that meeting the saint humbles the atheist, perhaps making him doubtful, but certainly does not make him a saint. This was true for the entire existence of Communism. Saintly people helped many subhuman atheists to become human, especially in prisons. Brutal guards were softened by saintly people.

The uproar was caused by the “Communists of St. Petersburg”. They printed and distributed about three thousand “icons” depicting “the Kremlin tyrant alone and with a halo above his head”.

Millions of people were executed under Stalin, and many died from abuse or disease in the gulag system of prison camps. According to historians, he is responsible for between 20 million and 40 million unnecessary deaths — with victims ranging from monarchists and priests to the upper ranks of the military and the Bolshevik old guard.

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union?t=8.#8.

A new period of persecution began in the late 1950s under Nikita Khrushchev [97] . The church had advanced its position considerably since 1941, and the government considered it to be necessary to take measures in response.

New instructions were issued in 1958 attacked the position of monasteries, by placing them under high taxation, cutting their land and working to shut them down in order to weaken the church.

From 1959-1964, the persecution operated on several key levels. I) There was a massive closure of churches [53] (reducing the number from 22,000 to 7,000 by 1965 [99] . )

Boniface, I thought about that as well. All icons of the Last Supper for instance have Judas in it but it has never resulted in his being lionized in any way, that’s probably because the story of the Last Supper was much more well known than any of its iconography. (Good question, when was the first icon of the Last Supper written? I don’t know.)

Anyway, getting back to depictions, true, Stalin wears no halo. But he looks very determined, one could say regal. I could easily imagine a minor cultus arising around his personage because of the not necessarily negative way in which he’s depicted. Plus the story behind this fanciful meeting lends itself to much interpretation.