We have already said more than once that the thesis that Orthodoxy in Tsarist Russia was allegedly a stronghold of spirituality and morality in the country, which is being actively promoted now in our Russian society.
That only, they say, thanks to him, all those good and noble qualities with which Russians amazed the whole world arose in our people, and that, it turns out, it was this very thing that for many centuries was the “national idea” of Russia, which held the people of our country together into a single whole, In this connection, in autocratic Russia there were supposedly no irreconcilable conflicts and contradictions, it is nothing more than a myth that has nothing to do with real historical reality.
The facts clearly prove the correctness of the conclusions of the classics of Marxism that in a class society there is no non-class ideology and non-class institutions.
The Russian Empire was just such a society - a feudal, serf state, in which there were two main classes: serf landlords (feudal lords) and serfs. And Orthodoxy and its governing body - the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) always and in everything reflected the will of the ruling class in autocratic Russia - the landowners and aristocrats.
Moreover, the Russian people understood this well and treated Orthodoxy and its servants in an appropriate way - as their oppressors and exploiters, especially since they were such in fact, exploiting, oppressing and robbing the peasants no worse than the serfs.
The Russian state, to which the Russian ruling class of the bourgeoisie and its ideologists, the bourgeois propagandists, are singing hosannas today, with all its might supported the Russian Orthodox Church, which was actually its institution, subdivision, part of a ramified and quite completely structure of oppression. The ROC was fed at the expense of the Russian state, and was awarded them "for faithful service to the Tsar and the Fatherland" with huge land plots with thousands of peasants living on them, who now had to bend their backs not on the landowners or the "Autocrat of All Russia", but on the ministers of the church …
Any resistance to oppression, both ecclesiastical and landlord, was suppressed in tsarist Russia with terrible cruelty. Moreover, the hardest thing, as now, was spiritual oppression, which bound the working people hand and foot, entangling their consciousness.
Religion is an ideology beneficial to the oppressors, which the oppressed masses were supposed to profess, was implanted and consolidated in Russian society in all possible ways. Those who did not want to believe with good were forced to do so by force.
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The atheistic worldview in Ingushetia was considered a crime, which would inevitably be followed by severe punishment.
Even minor offenses relating to the Orthodox faith or the observance of its rituals were very severely punished under the laws of the Russian Empire. The same notorious "spirituality" was instilled in the Russian people with bayonets and prisons.
Moreover, all the lower classes of Russian society were punished, except for the ruling class, and not only the peasantry.
Here are some excerpts from the laws of the "blessed" Russian Empire, which "helped" the common people to constantly "improve" spiritually.
At that time (XIX - early XX century) this is a lot of money. For example, a gunner received 16 rubles a month, a servant about 3-5 rubles. Russian peasants until the early 1900s. they hardly saw money at all, for agriculture in Russia was for the most part natural, non-commodity, the peasant economy produced products for their own consumption, and not for sale, not for the market.
It is no coincidence that Leo Tolstoy recalled a case when peasants in an entire village could not collect even 1 ruble of money. So just imagine what it was like to get under such a huge fine for just not showing up for confession. By the way, hard-core violators faced hard labor for such crimes.
This is how morality and spirituality were strengthened in the Russian Empire.
Interestingly, not only the working people, but also the clergymen themselves kept the supreme power of autocratic Russia in tight-knit gloves. Knowing perfectly well that not all of them are round scoundrels and bastards, and purely humanly can feel sorry for the peasants or artisans, it severely punished those of them who did not inform the tsarist authorities about such crimes:
"Non-existent" - these are those who were not in confession, truants, so to speak. How do you like the punishment of priests with hard labor for taking pity on the indigent, knowing that he is simply unable to pay the fine prescribed by the laws of the Republic of Ingushetia for his truancy?
This is how "morality" was instilled in Russian society - to convey, that is, betray and sell your neighbor. And this obligation was introduced by none other than the "tsar-progressor" Peter 1, who had taken such abominations in European countries.
It was from his decrees that the shameful practice of obligatory denunciation by Orthodox priests of information received in confession began in autocratic Russia. True, the Russian state paid well for this shame.
According to the same laws, it is clear that for the nobles and other privileged estates of the Republic of Ingushetia, nothing of the kind was envisaged, and the same confession was not at all obligatory. Which once again proves a long-known and proven fact: religion is an instrument of control and management of the oppressed masses.
Now let's talk about another form that allowed the Russian people to “maintain faith in Jesus Christ” - about criminal articles that were improperly applied to believers.
There is one curious document - the Code of Criminal and Correctional Penalties from 1845, which incorporated the norms from the time of Peter I and was in effect until 1905 inclusive.
After 1905, a significant part of its articles was canceled, but some remained relevant even under the Provisional Government, which also considered the church an important political tool and was not going to part with it, realizing its usefulness to the new ruling class of the bourgeoisie.
And only the Soviet power, which separated the church from the state, finally finally delivered the Russian people from all the articles of this Code.
See the section "On Crimes Against Faith".
They knew how to protect the feelings of believers then! Where is Pussy Riot! Rejoice, citizens of modern Russia, that you don't have to "crunch a French bun" yet. But keep in mind that at this rate we will come to exactly this. So shake it off before it's too late …
I wonder what threatened those who did this "not in public"?
Here's what:
Not weak, too, frankly. Moreover, "non-public blasphemy" can, as you yourself understand, be regarded as your heart desires. For example, whispering in a closet could be such a crime. What? Fits fully: both non-public and blasphemy.
And here is what threatened those who risked criticizing Christianity:
By and large, the promotion of scientific knowledge in itself is a criticism of religion, including dogma, which means that for the dissemination of scientific knowledge they could well have been exiled to Siberia.
The issue of freedom of religion is also interesting. It is clear that disbelief was forbidden. But maybe you could choose yourself who to believe in?
No matter how it is! This is what threatened a person who suddenly decided to switch from Orthodoxy to another faith:
So much for "tolerance" and "respect for other people's views"! For everything - one Siberia. And if you run into a lot, then they will put a brand on your forehead.
But maybe they were at least more or less tolerant of the varieties of Christianity - Catholicism and Lutheranism?
Not too much, as it turns out. True, foreigners were allowed to send their cult, but its propaganda in Russia was prohibited.
Notice where psychiatric hospitals are first used as punishment. Not at all in the USSR, as bourgeois propagandists claim, but just in tsarist Russia - "confinement in a restraining house." But in Soviet laws, there was nothing of the kind, and could not be.
No less "fun" was the situation in tsarist Russia with the upbringing of children. The ROC was strictly vigilant to ensure that every person born in Russia gets to her:
Only a little doubted the truth of the version of Orthodoxy that the priest hangs up in the local church - go to hard labor.
No less strict with respect to shrines - their insult was equated in severity with sectarianism:
But there was also another wording, with an unlikely lighter punishment:
Understandably, only the priests of the Russian Orthodox Church themselves could figure out where the "insult" and where the "disrespect" was (depending on how much they "gilded the handle").
By the way, was there any punishment for the rudeness or disrespect of the flock towards the priests themselves?
But how!
Well, yes, not weak. Apparently, the distributors of spiritual opium in the Russian Empire were worth their weight in gold, since they were so protected.
What do we see from all of the above?
That the working people were treated like cattle in the Russian Empire. Actually, the upper class - all these landowners, and aristocrats, perceived the Russian people in this way - as a draft animal that only exists in order to work, ensuring their comfortable existence.
The working masses of tsarist Russia had no rights and no opportunity to change their lives - to get an education or to raise their cultural or material level.
Their lot is to be born a slave and remain so for life. And in the forefront of their spiritual oppressors were the priests of the Russian Orthodox Church, faithful guardians of the throne and the privileges of the ruling class of landowners and aristocrats.
