On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 18:23:30 -0800 (PST) Chris Doss
<lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> writes:
> Jim Farmelant:
>
> That sort of thing had been true for a long time in
> Russia. In the late 19th century, so many of
> the young Russian radical intellectuals were
> were former theology students or at the very
> least the sons of priests, that the term "seminarist'
> was often applied colloquially to label young
> intellectuals with revolutionary political views.
>
> ---
>
> This is a theme picked up by right-wingers who are
> also anti-Russian rather than simply anti-Communist.
> For example, Richard Pipes. They see "Communism" as
> following from Russian culture and Russian Orthodox
> Christianity. Orthodox Christianity is supposed to
> contain the seeds of evil collectivism.
>
> Not surprisingly, a lot of these people are Catholics
> and/or Poles. ;)
>
>
>
It should also be noted that a similar phenomenon existed among Jews in the Russian Empire as well. The Jewish Labor Bund was originally founded by former rabbinical students in Vilna in 1897 and was for a long time the major socialist party among Jewish workers and intellectuals in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. Also, the Marxist philosopher, Liubov Isaakovna Akselrod (Ortodoks), a protege of Plekhanov, and a major participant in Soviet philosophical debate in the 1920s, was the daughter of a rabbi.
Jim F.