The God of the Gulag 1: martyrs in an age of revolution
The God of the Gulag 2: martyrs in an age of secularism
JONATHAN LUXMOORE
How much simpler it would be if we could think of the Soviet Union as a monolithic state, crushing everything and everyone opposed to it: if we could arraign Communism as implacably merciless, and Stalin as an omnipotent tyrant, preceded and followed by dictators different in degree but not kind.
However, a closer look at Soviet rule reveals frequent ambivalence and weakness. Official atheism, for example, was in little doubt, but, ultimately, the state’s war on religion was lost. Many priests, both Orthodox and Catholic, were defrocked, exiled, imprisoned or murdered. Yet the eradication of organised religion proved elusive. Even the Soviets could not simply murder everyone. Although many citizens did what they were told, many others wanted more – or less – than what Communism promised. Christianity survived.
In his monumental and absorbing two-volume The God of the Gulag, Jonathan Luxmoore explores Christian martyrdom under Communism in the eight decades from the Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
