Fear of God and fear of special services

When is faith to God incompatible with confidence in special services?

• Some believers believe that you can cooperate with special services for the sake of people's life and security. For a Christian, any life is absolute value.
• The special services of the post -Soviet countries, including Russian ones, were practically not reformed after perestroika, their work methods remain the same.
• In the Soviet years, many became believers already in camps; Anti -Soviet beliefs and faith in God went hand in hand.
• The Soviet system broke everyone who did not fit into it, had a strong character and own beliefs.

Yakov Krotov: The theme of faith in God and trust in the special services periodically arises, the last time it arose in the spring of 2018, this time - in connection with the Ukrainian special services, with the case of Arkady Babchenko . This case caused a lot of disputes and large critical responses in the West. It was said that such imitations undermine trust, but a more global question arose - about the price of death, about the price of trust, about how far a person can go in cooperation with the special services.

This is a sore question, first of all, for believers, perhaps even more for the Orthodox, because it was the Orthodox that came in the twentieth century the main blow of the special services: they recruited actively and widely. And I must say that the confessors, martyrs who did not succumb, were far from the majority. The question arises again and again: when a person is threatened by death, does the position of a believer differ or not?

Our guests are two Orthodox - Elena Sannikova and Pavel Protsenko . In the 80s, they sat for faith.

Pavel Protsenko: First of all, we are talking about what a Christian does in Soviet reality. This is a certain plot, which began in 1917, which quickly brought life to an illusory and dead state. When a person begins to enter adulthood, he very quickly finds himself in half a dead state. This is the property of totalitarian communities: life is so narrowed, manifestations of the human personality are so truncated that a person very soon begins to experience a crisis as a person. I ran into this problem of deadliness, as Berdyaev said, and therefore the question arose: what can be done in a situation where you read the "Gulag Archipelago", do you know the "Chronicle of current events"?

At that time, I studied in absentia at the Literary Institute in Moscow, came, lived here for some time, and I had a friend-Tatyana Mikhailovna Velikanova, who considered it his duty to transport the “chronicles” to Kyiv, so my wife Irina was always the first readers of fresh numbers. And then she asked to disassemble the documents that came from the zone. It was a huge array of documents from the Ukrainian political prisoner Peter Ruban, who, by virtue of his character, got into this meat grinder, received one period, the second ... I compiled a rather extensive piece of description, and the question arose before me: what is it at all, how to relate to this? A man with a not very clear worldview, he invented such a thing - an inlaid box for President Carter. It was about 1976–77, and under this box he was given the next term. This man simply clashed with the bureaucracy - he had such a character. He did not like to work for the state, was a private trader, worked in some semi-legal workshop, did not want to bend before the authorities. In the camp, like many, he began to feel like a believer, an anti -Soviet. A man with some kind of character, the Soviet system simply broke.

I described his story, and so we began to cooperate with Tatyana Mikhailovna. We spoke with her about faith, religion, she was an agnostic, inclined to faith, a very free person. Then she was arrested. She was a model of man for me - in the soul of a Christian. I myself had three searches, and it was not so scary, but you have a certain shock, as if you were thrown into the water.

Elena Sannikova: Thank God that Arkady Babchenko is alive! And in order to live so that he does not have a murder that is really being prepared, you can enter into cooperation with the special services - in order to preserve human life. Arkady Babchenko is an unbeliever, he says very controversial things, and perhaps his sharp language is the reason that an attempt was being prepared for him, but thank God, he is alive. With a living person, you can discuss, discuss his views, and this is much better than if he had been killed.

Negative views give their black fruits when a person turns out to be a martyr for not very good ideas. Here is Boris Stomakhin - before his arrest, what he wrote brought people into shock, but now he is sitting, and his ideas are gradually spreading, enter the souls.

You can neither kill nor plant for views - for any!

You can neither kill nor plant for views - for any! And in order to free a person from prison, in order to be killed, possibly anything, even with the devil to sit down at the negotiating table. Now I am very worried about the fate of director Sentsov, who is determined and holds a deadly hunger strike. Very scary for his life! Other Ukrainian political prisoners joined the hunger strike, I am also worried about their fate. And if you need to sit down at the negotiating table with Russian or Ukrainian special services, I “for” - in order to save people's lives. But when the special services make their dark deeds and invite to cooperation - this is not, this is a strict taboo!

Pavel Protsenko: I agree with you, but I looked at it completely differently. I am probably the only one of the political prisoners who were freed into the wave of Gorbachev, in February 1987, and I was the only one who decided to hold those who fabricated my business. I wrote a letter in the name of a member of the Politburo Solomensev about a huge number of falsifications in my case, and I was accepted by the deputy head of the administrative department of the Central Committee. He then told me: "Well, if everything, as you described, we, of course, take measures." But then they called me to the regional party committee and said that nothing was confirmed. And it turned out a very sad picture: all people in my case, for various reasons, refused to give confirmation. They stole the regent of the temple, the godfather of my daughter, she remembered that the children were orphaned, and did not sign anything. There was still Olga Geyko, and when I asked her: "Why didn't you confirm?" - She replied: "Do not intervene me in your Moscow affairs! We have our own Ukrainian campaign here, we begin our movement, and I do not want us to interfere with us." For myself, I decided that all these years some kind of agent of influence actively worked with her.

For some reason, it was believed that I was Moscow, but I was at all! I was just a believer who helped, transmitted the information because I was simply disgusting this system of lies.

I continued to write, wrote in the "light", then Felix Svetov intervened. In the end, one of my investigators, Vladimir Ignatiev, an investigator for particularly important cases of the prosecutor's office of the city of Kyiv, who formally headed my business, suddenly, contrary to the system, conducted an examination of the burial then discovered, and found out that there were those who were executed by Stalin. Huge articles appeared in the Kyiv press, and the Kiev correspondent of the Literary Gazeta, now the deceased Sergey Kiselev, began to describe that there was such a wonderful democrat of the new wave Vladimir Ignatiev. I wrote a protest that was not placed by literature and other publications, it was published only by the magazine "Century of XX and Peace" of Pavlovsky.

After that, the analysis of my case was appointed, I led it for many years, but then it was still stalled. I was rehabilitated early, in 1990, if only I lagged behind them. When the current Ukrainian authorities came and the President Poroshenko’s decree on decommunization, on the opening of archives, wrote an appeal to the prosecutor’s office and to the SBU, so that I would be given my case of investigative development. Both Vyatrovich from the Ukrainian National Institute of Memory, and Kogut, the head of the SBU archive, replied that there was no case anywhere. Then they told me that when perestroika began, many cases were taken to Moscow. But I found out that some cases have been preserved, for example, the work of Gloman , the Stus case, but they or their relatives forbade the letters to these cases of journalists (that is, there are still things).

In addition, I found an interview with my friend, one of the leaders of the free journalism of Ukraine, the political prisoner, in which he reports that in 1990 a certain colonel of the KGB of Ukraine contacted him and said that he had affairs on political prisoners, and they are preparing to destroy, but he can sell them. And he bought these things.

This colonel told some details of the affairs of people who were supposed to enter into a large work that they wanted to incriminate to me, and there they were developing my friends. In general, in Ukraine they gave me a complete depression, and I wrote an article on this topic, which was published in the Kyiv newspaper Mirror of the Week - for a whole U -turn, with photographs, with scans of documents. No answer! Absolutely the same KGB cycling in Soviet times.

We are standing before reality: the Cheka, the KGB and the SBU left one overcoat, and all this is still not reformed. The current Ukrainian human rights activists are worried that the SBU is not reformed. The Commissars of the European Union, large Western human rights activists have repeatedly called on the current government to reform the SBU. At the beginning of this year, a number of Ukrainian deputies put forward a bill of reform, and in the Ukrainian leadership there is a struggle to create an anti -corruption committee so that changes occur in the SBU. Four years have passed, but there are no results, and this causes people more anxiety. And there was an article in Ukrainian Pravda, where the Ukrainian human rights activist wrote: we hope that the reform of the SBU will finally begin.

A few weeks after the appearance of this article, Vyshinsky was arrested, the editor of RIA Novosti Ukraine (he was not touched for four years, but suddenly arrested), and then Babchenko’s case. This is the handwriting of special services!

I know several types of journalism: journalism of fact, journalism of analysts, household journalism ... Babchenko represents the journalism of the scream, as I call it for myself. The fact that in Russian opposition topics is "mainstream", he takes a scream, screams about this.

The tsarist guard conducted very few special operations

Yakov Krotov: But this is a style, not a genre.

Pavel Protsenko: Yes. But absolutely without facts! Plus, still swearing.

Sergei Loiko, a wonderful Ukrainian writer, Patriot of Ukraine, wrote: "Thank God that Babchenko was not killed." He studied Babchenko’s military reports - after all, he visited the ATO zone, an operation that is carried out in the Donbass, from the Ukrainian side. He conducted an analysis of the interview, and there is not a single fact, one scream.

After all, we have a common platform for the post-Soviet Russian-Belarusian-Ukrainian space. How always did the KGB work? Some hoaxes, juggling with words, facts ... And now the person was killed-and the person was risen. I completely agree with European human rights activists and politicians who say that everything could be done differently. And so far they have not been presented to us at all. They presented a certain German, as if the organizer, not even the customer of this murder, who, it turns out, on the hook of the SBU, is conducting several cases against him, and he declares that he is simultaneously an employee of some intelligence, units of the SBU. These are the worst traditions of the guard and the KGB!

Elena Sannikova: But I will say once again: thank God that Babchenko is alive!

Pavel Protsenko: undoubtedly! But you can not participate in performances.

Elena Sannikova: For a Christian, any life is absolute value! And we cannot judge now, it is possible or could not be different.

Yakov Krotov: The only exception is his own life.

Elena Sannikova: That's right.

Yakov Krotov: By the way, the tsarist guard conducted very few special operations. There was only one such operation that caused great harm when they ordered one Russian emigrant in Paris, and he composed the “Protocols of the Zion sages”, remaking the journalistic book of one Frenchman. She was given to Nicholas II, and he was terribly liked, but he refused to support the fake. This was organized by Rachkovsky from the police department.

The next special operation is the father of George Gapon, who is still called "Pop Gapon" in the Russian tradition. Three scientific studies have accurately showed that Father George did not secretly receive money from the guard, was not a secret agent, a provocateur. The Governor-General of St. Petersburg, the police chief, all of the legal unionist movement, openly came to the meeting of his society. For the Bolsheviks and Socialist -Revolutionaries, this was unacceptable, but he was not eager for the Bolsheviks, was not an underground, did not provoke anyone. He walked with a demonstration to the king, which means he was not a provocateur. And only in the late 1920s, Gapon began to be called a provocateur in the Soviet textbooks. Lenin considered Gapon a hero. And if Father George Gapon secretly took money, would it change something?

Elena Sannikova: This may not have changed anything, but it is unacceptable for the priest!

Yakov Krotov: Yes, and for a layman too. It doesn’t matter if Judas was a priest or layman.

Pavel Protsenko: He must make some clarity: he was not an employee who signed specific agreements with Mephistopheles, but still collaborated, there were some agreements between them.

For example, in August 1903, even before the known events at the funds of the Secret Fund of the Police Department, Gapon removed the tea on the Vyborg side, which became the center of the “Meetings of the Russian Factory Workers of St. Petersburg”.

Yakov Krotov: He took off, after all, obviously ... This is Zubatov’s policy.

Pavel Protsenko: And he received the money secretly. This is a denti. Zubatov was an ideologist - one of the first to work at the intersection of police and political activities. Of course, he was a patriot and for this matter he knocked out his powers.

Yakov Krotov: When you were published in the journal "Century XX and Peace" by Pavlovsky, you understood that the KGB was behind it, and it did not stop you. You knew what Pavlovsky is and what his relationship with the KGB knew that this was a broken person?

Elena Sannikova: It is not a fact that the KGB is behind this magazine.

Pavel Protsenko: Assistance in this case was offered to me by Valery Abramkin , about which there can be no doubt. I believed that in the conditions of this muddy perestroika policy, one can act differently (And here the boundaries are permissible). Just like with the "new world." I offered the "New World" materials that they decided to publish only after August 1991.

Yakov Krotov: This is a matter of goal and means. It is bad when the special services are against us, and it’s good when they are for us.

Elena Sannikova: In no case should you pose a question like that! The thing is what is the purpose of a particular action. For many years, we called for direct negotiations by Putin - Maskhadov. It was a call to the world. And among those who called for this, there were people who believed that the Kremlin’s behavior did not allow any contacts with him. But this call to negotiations sounded in order to stop bloodshed. Although, it would seem, is it possible to talk with a person or a group of people who are tarnished? The Kremlin’s words “no negotiations with terrorists” sounded ... a consequence of this position - blood, the death of people. Is it possible to talk with people who can take hostages of children, and do not even let them drink on a hot day?

Yakov Krotov: The answer is obvious - you need!

Elena Sannikova: The fact of the matter is that this attitude-"no negotiations with terrorists"-led to the death of children.

Yakov Krotov: Yes, but what is the connection with the SBU and the KGB?

Elena Sannikova: When the bastards keep children in hostages, you can and should be talked. And the phrase - "no business with special services" is similar.

Yakov Krotov: Do you equalize the SBU with terrorists?

The thing is what is the purpose of a particular action

Elena Sannikova: I do not equalize, but I say that they need to be judged by business. When it comes to saving the life of the one who is in hostages, you must talk.

I want to recall another case. Before my eyes in Tomsk there was a "memorial", and KGB officers asked there. The reaction was: "Yes, in any case!" But there were people who said: "And let's accept them." And what, in the end, turned out that they were accepted? Archives opened. Long before 1991, we became aware of how the philosopher Shpet died in Tomsk, how the poet Nikolai Klyuyev died: they were shot in 1937, and relatives gave fakes that they died somewhere in the camps ("ten years without the right to correspondence"). The archives opened, and a huge amount of information appeared. Here you have "no contacts with special services"! No, for the sake of the goal that is worthy, you need to do it!

Pavel Protsenko: If there is a clear, understandable set goal, then, of course, we must act. In 1917, as a result of a revolutionary collapse, society in a sense became a hostage to power. And when I was released - and I was simply thrown out of the gates of the Ukrainian prison, in Kyiv, late in the evening, with a bag, they didn’t even search - I was, of course, somewhat dumbfounded.

It was clear that there was some kind of change, as they say, a thaw, and the "hostage" framework expanded: they do not kill for the fact that you breathe and made it possible to breathe. И границы свободы, которую тебе дали как инакомыслящему, зависят от тебя, о того, как ты действуешь. Поэтому я подал бумаги в ЦК, в прокуратуру, действовал гласно. Государство захвачено, все институты захвачены, но нам дали возможность действовать, и мы попробовали границы свободы.

Яков Кротов: 22 августа 1991 года – вы были за ликвидацию конторы, или пусть она переходит в руки новой свободолюбивой демократической власти?

Елена Санникова: Я думаю, тогда большая ошибка была в том, что не провели люстрацию.

Яков Кротов: Но можно провести люстрацию и набрать в контору новых людей.

Елена Санникова: Очень хотелось бы обойтись без спецслужб и вообще без государства, но не получается. Мир лежит во зле. И в Евангелии я не вижу призыва ликвидировать государство.

Павел Проценко: А я бы в тот момент, конечно, распустил КГБ, с тем чтобы потом его глобально переформатировать, создать новые спецслужбы.

Я не противник государственности. Ничего плохого в этом нет, но плохо то направление, которое это приняло в 1917 году. Гапон, конечно, один из ярких персонажей, тех типов личности, которые до него описал еще Достоевский в "Записках из подполья". Это просто никто, человек, у которого все распалось. И вдруг в царствование Николая II они вышли, появилась целая плеяда таких людей с желанием энергично действовать и стертым внутренним миром. И отсюда пошло желание спецслужб использовать таких людей в своей игре.

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  Yakov Krotov

  Historian and priest, leading Radio Freedom Radio "Between Vera and Belief"

  ykrotov@yahoo.com