“First they will remove Stalin, then after him there will be rulers, one worse than the other. Russia will be taken apart … troubles and strife will begin … But this will be for a short time."
“Freemasonry does not belong to any country; it is neither French, nor Scottish, nor American. It can be neither Swedish in Stockholm, nor Prussian in Berlin, nor Turkish in Constantinople, just because it exists there. It is one and worldwide. It has many centers of its activity, but at the same time it has one center of unity,”wrote one of the influential members of the Masonic lodge.
Consequently, there is no Russian Freemasonry, despite the fact that Masons in Russia were, are and, I think, will be. Therefore, it will be useful to trace, at least superficially, how exactly Freemasonry penetrated into Russia, and what features it was characterized by here.
According to official sources, the first Masonic lodges in Russia arose under Peter I.
“In one manuscript of the Public Library,” says the historian Vernadsky in his book Freemasonry in the Reign of Catherine II, “it is said that Peter was accepted into the Scottish degree of St. Andrew. His written proof existed in the last century in the lodge where he was received, and many have read it. " And among the manuscripts of the Freemason Lensky there is a piece of gray paper, which reads the following: "Emperor Peter I and Lefort were admitted to the Templars in Holland." “Peter I,” writes another researcher, V. Ivanov, “became a victim and an instrument of terrible destructive power, because he did not know the true essence of the brotherhood of free stones.
He met Freemasonry when it was just beginning to manifest itself in the social movement and did not reveal its true face. “The light of Freemasonry,” reports T. Sokolovskaya, “penetrated, according to legend, under Peter the Great, while the documentary data date back to 1731”.
No matter how positively one views the activities and reforms of Peter I in the modern intellectual (and purely folk) environment, it must be admitted that many of his undertakings turned out to be deplorable for Russia. The war with Sweden, with a huge superiority of forces, went on for twenty-one years. The troops put under command of foreign officers and trained in a new way were utterly defeated near Narva. The first victory over the Swedes was won by the noble cavalry with the fifty-year-old Moscow governor Sheremetev at the head. All subsequent victories are associated with his name.
During the years of Peter's reign, millions of people died from overwork. According to M. Klochkov's data, the country's population has decreased by one third. One foreigner from Peter's entourage wrote that the upkeep of the Russian worker "almost did not exceed the cost of the upkeep of a prisoner." V. Klyuchevsky reports that Peter I "understood the national economy in his own way: the more sheep are beaten, the more wool they produce." To collect taxes, this royal reformer sent military regiments, but this did not help either, and Peter was informed that "it is impossible to collect those per capita salaries, namely because of the endless peasant poverty and the sheer emptiness." P. Milyukov believed that of the factories and plants created by terrible violence, only a few survived the tsar. "Until Ekaterina," he writes, "only two dozen survived."
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Catherine II, on the one hand, had a sharply negative attitude towards Freemasonry, but on the other hand, she did not fight it in any way. Perhaps Freemasonry seemed harmless to her. At the same time, however, the Empress herself, although unwittingly, did a lot for the future of Freemasonry in Russia, instilling in high society the anti-Christian spirit of “Voltaireanism”. With her light hand, it became fashionable among the Russian nobility. V. Klyuchevsky wrote about this: "Philosophical laughter freed our Voltairian from divine and human laws." Despite the fact that the moral foundations of previous generations in Russian society were still strong, the destructive work of ideas imported from the West had already begun, therefore it is no coincidence that the Russian enlightener N. I. Novikov writes at this time in his diary that he already stands “at the crossroads between Voltaire and religion. "The direction of Russian minds was no longer the assimilation of European civilization," sums up V. Klyuchevsky, "but a morbid disorder of national meaning."
In the first decade of Catherine's reign, the Masons in Russia were more carried away by the ritual side, almost without making any decisive attempts to expand their influence on public life, and only by the end of Catherine's reign two Masonic systems finally emerged here: the so-called Elagin and Zinnendorf (Swedish-Berlin). The first one is named after IP Elagin, who, according to him, met somewhere along the way with an English traveler, and he revealed to him "that Freemasonry is a science." The second system was founded by a German from Verlin, who was sent to Petersburg by the then famous Zinnendorf. In 1776, both systems merged, but at that time only foreigners who lived in Russia prevailed in the Masonic lodges, while for the Russians themselves, Freemasonry remained a kind of game of "incomprehensible foreigners".
Real Freemasons appeared in Russia only at the end of the reign of Catherine. One of them was I. G. Schwartz, a native of Transylvania. He came to Russia in 1780 as a tutor, but soon became a professor at Moscow University, where over time he formed a small Masonic circle of eight teachers and students around him. Rituals and rituals were not practiced there, and it is generally not clear what the members of the circle did at their meetings, but the circle was secret, and other Masons were not allowed into it. Schwartz, according to his assurances, "brought with him the degree of the only supreme representative of the theoretical degree of the Solomon sciences in Russia."
That is, in other words, he was an initiate, specially sent to Russia to represent and implant here "the great idea of Freemasonry." And, apparently, not unsuccessfully, since at the Wilhelmsbaden Congress of Masons in 1782 Russia was recognized as the "eighth province of the Masonic world."
After the congress, Schwartz energetically set about spreading the teachings of the Rosicrucians among Russian Masons. For almost a year he spent "secret classes" with them, giving lectures in the spirit of Jacob Boehme and encouraging the fascination of his listeners with magic, alchemy and Kabbalah "as sciences of divine origin, accessible to few and allowing union with the deity." For, as Schwartz convinced his disciples, "open religion is available only to magicians and Kabbalists." But he did not manage to finish his "useful" activity, for he died in 1784. However, the seeds he sown sprouted. His friend and associate NI Novikov founded the "Printing Company", which published a large number of Masonic publications. In his articles, he wrote that "faith is not taught in the right way," and recommended how to teach. The empress was informed about his activities, especially mentioningthat Novikov "with his friends participates in the capture of a famous person" (the heir to Pavel Petrovich). In a decree of 1792, Catherine determined “to lock him up for 15 years in the Shlisselburg fortress”, seeing in this “clever but dangerous man” an enemy of Russia. Novikov spent four years in captivity: in 1796, Catherine died, and Paul I, who ascended the throne, freed the enlightener on the same day.
Despite Novikov's "educational" activities, after the death of Schwartz, there were really no initiates among the Masons. During interrogation, Novikov himself admitted that "he does not know much." Therefore, at this stage, the Masons, although they denied the church hierarchy and the ritual side of religion, did not encroach on the Church itself, preferring alchemy and the search for a "life elixir". It is possible that the arrival of Count Cagliostro to Russia during these years was far from accidental and the Count himself set himself much more far-reaching goals, but his stay did not have any noticeable influence on the development of Freemasonry in Russia.
During the reign of Paul I, the penetration of Freemasonry into Russia was accomplished through the Order of the Johannites, which formally retained the status of Catholic, but structurally and ideologically was arranged according to the Masonic model. The Order of the Johannites, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, was created during the era of the Crusades, but after the expulsion of the crusaders from Palestine, it moved to Cyprus, and in 1056, after the conquest of the island of Rhodes by the knights-monks, settled there. In 1521, after the brilliant defense of the island from the Turkish hordes, Emperor Charles V granted the Johannites "an eternal inheritance" of the island of Malta, from where the knights who settled there made campaigns against the Muslims and, under Master de Valletta, reached true heyday, becoming a thunderstorm for the whole East. When, in 1798, the young general Napoleon Bonaparte, on his way to Egypt, practically without a fight, captured the island,a significant number of knights went to Russia, where they found shelter. And for good reason.
The fact is that one of the leaders of the order - Count Litta - was married to the niece of G. Potemkin, who had previously been married to Count Skavronsky and after his death inherited a huge fortune. The estates of her new husband in Italy were confiscated by the French, so all his financial interests were concentrated in Russia. Count Litta managed to impress Paul and since then enjoyed his constant patronage. At their meeting in St. Petersburg, the members of the order dismissed the former master and in his place they elected Paul I, who enthusiastically accepted this appointment. The President of the Russian Academy of Sciences was even ordered to designate Malta in the calendar published by the Academy as "the province of the Russian Empire."
Accepting the title of Grand Master, Paul was guided by more romantic feelings than political calculation. Of course, the Russian fleet would not have damaged its port in the Mediterranean, but it was impossible to keep it: England and France would never have allowed this. The Italian campaign of A. V. Suvorov brought the Russian army new victories and the glory of Russian weapons, but he gave nothing to Russia itself. FF Ushakov enriched the art of war with the capture of the impregnable fortress of Corfu in the Ionian Islands, but after that he barely escaped the sad need to fight in the Mediterranean (by order of the emperor) with the English fleet for the interests of an order alien to him. This attempt also cost the emperor dearly: he was killed as a result of a conspiracy. His heir, Alexander I,rejected the honor of accepting the title of Grand Master of the Order and canceled the image of the eight-pointed Maltese cross on the Russian state emblem, placed there by order of Paul. In Russia, only the crown of the master, the "dagger of faith" and the portrait of Paul in the attire of the master by VL Borovikovsky, remained from the knights of the Johannite.
Alexander I (as mentioned above) was also a member of the Masonic lodge. Under him in 1809 he went to Russia to teach the Hebrew language. A native of Hungary, I. L. Fessler, arrived at the Theological Academy, who founded the Northern Star lodge in St. Petersburg (some Masons considered this lodge to be Illuminati), which included M. M. Speransky, who was fascinated by his ideas, who left a noticeable mark on the history of Russia with his reforms … But in St. Petersburg, Fessler did not stay for long, for he was soon accused of spreading the Socinian teaching among the students of the Academy. To avoid unwanted complications, Fessler moved to Saratov, but he did not find students in the provincial wilderness. In 1822, Freemasonry in Russia was officially banned, and although it certainly continued to secretly exist,but no obvious signs of his activity (or even presence) were observed until the end of the 19th century.
It was at this time that French Freemasonry (or Rosicrucianism) began to gradually penetrate into Russia in the person of Dr. Papus and his Martinist Order, but since this process was described in detail by us in the section on the Rosicrucians, we will go straight to the next stage.
The next stage in the formation of Freemasonry in Russia is associated with the name of the famous religious philosopher, poet and publicist Vladimir Solovyov, the founder of the doctrine of St. Sophia, who preached the "modernization" of Orthodoxy with the subsequent unification of all churches. True, Vladimir Soloviev himself was not a Freemason as such - in any case, there are no sources or evidence confirming the fact of his belonging to Freemasonry. Nevertheless, he was indirectly involved in it, since his most faithful followers, immediately after the death of the philosopher, created the “Brotherhood of the Argonauts”, whose meetings were attended by V. Ivanov, K. Balmont, N. Berdyaev and S. Bulgakov. A. Blok also joined them. “We have witnessed when the most prominent representatives of our intelligentsia, the notorious brain of the country, staged mysteries with music, songs, dances,communed with the blood … and dedicated enthusiastic verses to the devil,”wrote the emigrant historian Vasily Ivanov about these gatherings. Later, the Brotherhood of the Argonauts was transformed into a religious and philosophical society (1907), and after the revolution, in 1919, the members of the society founded the Free Philosophical Organization, whose main activity was the struggle against Orthodoxy. However, they did not find mutual understanding with the Bolsheviks and in 1921 they were exiled abroad. However, they did not find mutual understanding with the Bolsheviks and in 1921 they were exiled abroad. However, they did not find mutual understanding with the Bolsheviks and in 1921 they were exiled abroad.
After the tsar's abdication, the Provisional Government came to power in Russia, many of whose members were members of the Masonic lodges, and the ranks of their opponents, the Bolsheviks, were also, in all fairness, filled with Masons, and to such an extent that in 1922 the II Comintern even adopted a resolution about the inadmissibility of the simultaneous stay in the Communist Party and the Masonic Lodge! Time divorced the "brothers". The "militant organ of the proletarian dictatorship", the Cheka, set out to sort out those who could pose a threat to the new government and use those whose occult achievements could be used for the benefit of the revolution.
This approach is understandable. It is known today that many "old" Bolsheviks were members of mystical circles. Thus, the writer Nina Berberova reports in her memoirs that Lev Trotsky was a Freemason. In the archives of the KGB of the USSR there was evidence that the People's Commissar of Education A. V. Lunacharsky also belonged to the French lodge "Great East". At one time there were also rumors that V. I. Lenin and G. E. Zinoviev were members of the French Masonic lodge "Union of Belleville" until 1914, although, a friend of the version, she was called "Aretravay". True, these versions have not received documentary confirmation.
Among the occultists who found themselves in the service of the new government, it is especially worth noting A. V. Barchenko, who was already mentioned by us in connection with the Martinists, who received a good medical education and at the same time deeply believed that in the depths of Asia there was the country of Agarta (Shambala), in laboratories which improve the experience of ancient civilizations.
A. Barchenko's fascination with mysticism led to the fact that he seriously engaged in human paranormal abilities. Since 1911, he began to publish the results of his research, conducts a number of unique experiments related to instrumental registration of telepathic waves, or M-rays. In 1920, fate brought him together with Academician V. M. Bekhterev, head of the Institute of the Brain, who tried to provide a scientific explanation of the phenomena of telepathy, telekinesis and hypnosis. At the request of Bekhterev, Barchenko was sent to Lapland to investigate the mysterious phenomena that often occur in the Lovozero area.
So, from time to time, manifestations of mass psychosis are observed among the Lapps and newcomers inhabiting these places. People begin to repeat certain movements one after another, carry out any commands and even predict the future. If a person is stabbed in this state, the knife does not cause him any damage and does not even penetrate the body.
The expedition arrived at Lovozero in 1920 and did encounter many "miracles".
Among them there is a paved road one and a half kilometers long, and the image on the wall of a huge human figure, and specific geomagnetic phenomena, and giant, fearsome columns.
The expedition members also managed to find a "stone lotus flower", later lost, a pyramid on top of one mountain and a crevice that goes deep into the earth. A. Barchenko came to the conclusion that all these are the remains of the mysterious Hyperborea, the legends about which are present in the myths of all the peoples of Europe.
In 1923 A. Barchenko settled in the Petrograd Buddhist datsan. Here the Dalai Lama's ambassador to the USSR, Dorzhiev, told him the coordinates of Shambhala - at the junction of the borders of India, Xinjiang and Northwestern Nepal. It is curious that by this time Barchenko already knew these coordinates, albeit from another source. He received them in Kostroma from a local who pretended to be a holy fool. That one had tablets lined with unknown letters.
Barchenko, according to him, read these tablets and discovered that they were about Dunkhor - Buddhist esoteric teachings, allegedly originating from Shambhala, in the secrets of which Barchenko hoped to dedicate the leaders of the communist government of Russia. At the suggestion of the German ambassador in Moscow Wilhelm Mirbach and the Cheka employee Yakov Blumkin, the OGPU collegium became interested in Barchenko's works, instructing Gleb Bokiy to get acquainted with them. So in the bowels of the OGPU a secret laboratory of neuroenergetics arose, which existed under the special department for twelve years.
The head of the special department at the OGPU Gleb Ivanovich Bokiy came from an ancient noble family.
Gleb's father was a chemistry teacher, his brother and sister continued the family tradition, becoming famous scientists, and young Gleb chose the path of a professional revolutionary. Simultaneously with the theory and practice of the revolution, he was fond of the secret Eastern teachings and the history of the occult. His mentor in this matter was a well-known physician and hypnotist, a member of the Martinist Order P. V. Mokievsky, also mentioned by us. At one time he also recommended A. Barchenko to the box. Gleb Bokiy did not make any significant career with the Martinists - and remained at the level of a student.
But where he was a true master, and by nature, it was in ciphering. Truly, it was a cipher genius. The best ransomware in Russia tried to find the key to his ciphers, but to no avail. In 1921, Bokiy was appointed head of the Soviet cryptographic service, the name of which changed often, but it was always attached to the Cheka, that is, it was autonomous.
On a personal meeting, Barchenko made a strong impression on Bokii. In the conversation that followed, Barchenko uttered a phrase that changed the lives of both interlocutors: "Contact with Shambhala is able to lead humanity out of the bloody deadlock of madness, that fierce struggle in which it is hopelessly drowning!" Therefore, it is not surprising that Bokiy and people spiritually close to him soon created the Secret Society "United Labor Brotherhood", which rejected such postulates of Bolshevism as the dictatorship of the proletariat and the class struggle, and accepted people free from the dogmas of materialism into its ranks. In 1925, the entire special department was worried about one problem - an expedition to Tibet. F. E. Dzerzhinsky himself was among the ardent supporters of the forthcoming expedition. The People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs GV Chicherin opposed it.
Even a letter of recommendation from an employee of the International Relations Department of the Comintern, Zabrezhnev, who was also a member of the Great East French lodge, did not help. Bureaucratic squabbles and delays began, and the expedition was canceled at the last moment.
Paradoxically, the United Labor Brotherhood organization existed, despite its anti-Soviet sentiments, until 1937, when it was defeated. Even earlier, Yakov Blumkin was shot for his closeness to Leon Trotsky. They demanded from Bokiy the so-called "Black Book", containing incriminating materials on prominent Bolsheviks and party leaders, which Bokiy had been collecting since 1921 on Lenin's personal instructions. Bokiy refused to provide it and was immediately arrested. Following him, other members of the Brotherhood were arrested.
The 1930s in Russia (then already the USSR) became the time of the "crusade" against Freemasonry. According to the documents, the last Masonic lodge was destroyed in 1936. True, Nina Berberova argued that there have always been Masons in government structures. In any case, the relationship between the young Soviet government and the Freemasons was very ambiguous. Eight Masonic orders, which operated in the country after the revolution, calmly survived the "Red Terror" of the 1920s and even grew in number. And all would be fine, but here the head of the Russian Martinist Order Boris Astromov (Kirichenko) played his fatal role. In May 1925, he suddenly appeared at the reception of the Main Political Directorate in Moscow, offering his services. Astromov prepared a special report for the Chekists,in which he emphasized in every possible way the commonality of the tasks of the Gepeushniks and Martinists and pointed out the coincidence of their symbolism, noting only the difference in approaches, which, from his point of view, was insignificant. "Freemasons are Bolsheviks rather than Christians," Astromov said. The essence of the main idea of his report was to use Masonic channels to bring the USSR closer to Western countries. As it turned out later, this idea was thrown to him by A. Barchenko.
However, as a leader, Astromov did not enjoy special influence with the Masons. Moreover, in the future it turned out that this is a deceitful and morally unscrupulous subject, prone to pedophilia and persuading his students to cohabit. The "brothers" soon became aware of the contacts of their leader with the OGPU, and they immediately disbanded the brotherhood.
The OGPU found nothing better than to arrest Astromov. He immediately wrote a letter to Stalin, in which he proposed to remake the Comintern according to the model of Freemasonry, and himself - as a consultant. But the car had already started working: Astromov was given three years in the camps, and then exiled to the Caucasus. Other arrested Freemasons were also sent to different places - the punishment for those times was surprisingly mild.
The connection between Bolshevism and Freemasonry can be traced from many sources. So, Vasily Ivanov, who used French sources on the history of Freemasonry, writes the following in his book of memoirs:
“In 1918 a five-pointed star rises over Russia - the emblem of world Freemasonry. Power passed to the most vicious and destructive Freemasonry (Red), led by Masons of high dedication - Lenin, Trotsky and their minions and Masons of lower dedication - Rosenfeld, Zinoviev, Parvus, Radsk, Litvin.
The program of the struggle of the "builders" is reduced to the destruction of the Orthodox faith, the eradication of nationalism, mainly Great Russian chauvinism, the destruction of everyday life, the Russian Orthodox family and the great spiritual heritage of our ancestors."
According to the author, in the early 1930s, Russia turned into "the purest and most consistent Masonic state, which implements the Masonic principles in their entirety and consistency." The remark, in our opinion, is too categorical. Not all communists were Masons, and the party was constantly fighting between cosmopolitans, who were drawn to the "citizens of the world", as the Masons called themselves, and the nationally oriented majority. And when Stalin (perhaps, purely unconsciously) became the leader of this majority, the issue of Freemasonry in the USSR was predetermined: for the practice of building socialism in a single country, Freemasons were not needed and even harmful!
And in conclusion, one cannot but recall the blessed Eldress Matryona Nikonova, who predicted in 1943: “First, Stalin will be removed, then there will be rulers after him, one worse than the other. Russia will be taken apart … troubles and strife will begin … But this will be for a short time."
How I would like to believe that this time is running out!..