- 17 Jul 2014 11:55
#14439023
Maybe drunk or in despair and grasping at straws during a particularly dark moment? Stalin seemed in shock and uncommunicative during the first days of the war. Maybe psychological strain made him revert to his past momentarily.
Actual policy (under more favorable circumstances) suggests otherwise. He sure made short work of some holy joe edifice in Moscow.
At bolstering morale among ordinary religious types. They were desperate to rally the Russians during the German invasion. IIRC they even had church bells on the radio. It was just a tactical move of course.
Potemkin wrote:And one of his bodyguards claimed to have witnessed him, during the Great Patriotic War, kneeling before an ikon of the Holy Mother, and crossing himself.
Maybe drunk or in despair and grasping at straws during a particularly dark moment? Stalin seemed in shock and uncommunicative during the first days of the war. Maybe psychological strain made him revert to his past momentarily.
He was convinced that Stalin was a believer.
Actual policy (under more favorable circumstances) suggests otherwise. He sure made short work of some holy joe edifice in Moscow.
Furthermore, Stalin gave orders during the Siege of Leningrad to have a miracle-working ikon of the Holy Mother and Child carried in procession around the perimeter of the city, to call upon the protection of the Lord of Hosts against the forces of evil. It seemed to work, too....
At bolstering morale among ordinary religious types. They were desperate to rally the Russians during the German invasion. IIRC they even had church bells on the radio. It was just a tactical move of course.