Between Revolutions: On the Compatibility of Socialism and Christianity, 1917

In mid-August 1917--two months before the Bolshevik Revolution, but in preparation of national elections--the first “All-Mennonite Congress” met in Ohrloff, Molotschna to organize and strategize Mennonite civil affairs (i.e., as separate from the church) with 198 representatives from various regions and interest groups.

Significant debate around Mennonite non-resistance and military service was on the agenda, but also questions around more equitable land distribution and the compatibility of Christianity and socialism.

The minutes (note 1) record that there was clearly a group of Mennonites at this meeting who were both convinced socialists and Christians, and that delegates had a longer, protracted debate on the compatibility of socialism and Christianity.

First they discussed what was most critical: more equitable land distribution (this topic was "in the air") and the right to private land ownership. There was broad agreement (even with the socialist leaning Mennonites) that landownership rights should continue, or else it would lead to a catastrophe. However a respected leader--and socialist--Peter Fröse wanted the word "provisionally" added, but that was rejected.

Second they discussed the compatibility of Christianity and socialism. H. B. Unruh (typo: B.H.) argued strongly that Christianity has no direct relation to either capitalism or socialism. A Christian "attitude" shaped by the Kingdom of God (converted heart) should certainly reveal itself in one's business dealings. However the agricultural problems of the day are scientific/economic in nature and best left to the experts. Peter Fröse followed and argued that Christianity was in essence closer or more compatible with socialism than capitalism, though not identical. The minutes capture what some have called the pinnacle of Mennonite intellectual and cultural life in Russia (Harry Loewen).

The Bolshevik Revolution however happened a few months later in October, and the long-delayed November election--in which Benjamin H. Unruh was a candidate for the “German Farmers of Tavrida Party”--was made void. Now all was up in the air; one Mennonite diarist in Rudnerweide wrote:

“January 15, 1918: The Franzthal [Molotschna] people are considering having everything in common or at least partly so, but most want to have everything together, only one farm with the cattle all in one place, but each is to live in his own place. In Gnadenfeld the [?] has gone over to deputies from the soviet of workers and soldiers. … Everything is restless and unsure.” (Note 2)

Where did this come from?

When the February 1917 Revolution happened and Russia pulled out of WW I, there were 4,700 Mennonite orderlies/medics from various parts of Russia still stationed in Moscow; they were “at the heart” of the revolution, “deeply affected by the course of developments,” and excited by the promises of peace and of liberty, equality, and fraternity, as Johann G. Rempel recalled (note 3).

Mennonites in the settlements were cautiously optimistic of the freedoms and reforms promised by the provisional government (note 4), and the younger generation of students in Benjamin Unruh's Halbstadt Commerce School were in full support of the February Revolution. “We all sang the Internationale [!] and joined the Red Flag parade started by workers from factories and mills in Halbstadt. … Large parades followed and many of us young Mennonites were sympathetic to the call for change and new order” (note 5).

In Moscow this younger generation had witnessed and shared in the revolutionary events, debates and local constituent assemblies of this “bloodless revolution.” The political climate “with a steady tendency towards ‘red’ heat, has not failed to have influence among a narrow section of our Sanitary workers,” according to Johann G. Rempel (note 6).

Many war-weary orderlies were “exposing themselves for the first time to outside Russian society and culture and becoming men of the world,” as Al Reimer has emphasized (note 7).

In Moscow they were attracted by early Bolshevik candidates and their “down with the war” slogans, but also with the Constitutional Democrats or Kadets who spoke well about complex land issues (note 8). The young Mennonite teachers in particular “believed that a time of new growth and joyous work had dawned” (note 9).

The newly unleashed forces for reform from within the ranks of the young Mennonite servicemen of varied religious outlooks, social class and educational backgrounds threatened a generational clash, just as older Mennonites leaders began to strategize for a new political future.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Ohrloff Zentralschule photograph, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/VI_34 glass slides/Russia - villages/q041.jpg.

Note 1: “Protokoll des Allgemeinen Mennonitischen Kongresses, August 14–18, 1917,” reprinted in Mennonitische Warte 4, no. 39 (March 1938) 68–73 (Part 2 of 4). https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk363.pdf.

Note 2: Jacob P. Janzen, “Diary 1916–1925,” translated by Edward Enns. From Mennonite Heritage Centre, Winnipeg, MB, Jacob P. Janzen fonds, 1911–1946, vol. 5136.

Note 3: Johann G. Rempel, in James Urry, ed., “A Mennonite Witness to Revolution: Johann G. Rempel’s Memoir of Moscow, March–June 1917,” translated with notes by David G. Rempel; edited with an introduction and conclusion by James Urry, Mennonite Quarterly Review 91, no. 3 (July 2017), 201–230; 229.

Note 4: Cf. columns by Peter Braun and Abraham Kröker in Volksfreund I (X), no. 1 (19) (December 21, 1917), 1–2, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/pdf/pletk07.pdf.

Note 5: Gerhard Wiens, in Irmgard Epp, ed., Constantinoplers—Escape from Bolshevism (Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2006) 45.

Note 6: Johann G. Rempel, in Urry, “Mennonite Witness to the Revolution in Moscow,” 221.

Note 7: Al Reimer, “Sanitätsdienst and Selbstschutz: Russian-Mennonite Nonresistance in World War I and its Aftermath,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 11 (1993), 135–148; 140. https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/360.

Note 8: Johann G. Rempel, in Urry, “Mennonite Witness to the Revolution in Moscow,” 222f.

Note 9: Peter J. Braun, “Education among the Mennonites in Russia,” GAMEO, https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Education_Among_the_Mennonites_in_Russia.

Comments

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons!

Turning Weapons into Waffle Irons: Heart-Shaped Waffles and a smooth talking General In 1874 with Mennonite immigration to North America in full swing, the Tsar sent General Eduard von Totleben to the colonies to talk the remaining Mennonites out of leaving ( note 1 ). He came with the now legendary offer of alternative service. Totleben made presentations in Mennonite churches and had many conversations in Mennonite homes. Decades later the women still recalled how fond Totleben was of Mennonite heart-shaped waffles. He complemented the women saying, “How beautiful are the hearts of Mennonites!,” and he joked about how “much Mennonites love waffles ( Waffeln ), but not weapons ( Waffen )” ( note 2 )! His visit resulted in an extensive reversal of opinion and the offer was welcomed officially by the Molotschna and Chortitza Colony ministerials. And upon leaving, the general was gifted with a poem by Bernhard Harder ( note 3 ) and a waffle iron ( note 4 ). Harder was an inf...

Sesquicentennial: Proclamation of Universal Military Service Manifesto, January 1, 1874

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago Tsar Alexander II proclaimed a new universal military service requirement into law, which—despite the promises of his predecesors—included Russia’s Mennonites. This act fundamentally changed the course of the Russian Mennonite story, and resulted in the emigration of some 17,000 Mennonites. The Russian government’s intentions in this regard were first reported in newspapers in November 1870 ( note 1 ) and later confirmed by Senator Evgenii von Hahn, former President of the Guardianship Committee ( note 2 ). Some Russian Mennonite leaders were soon corresponding with American counterparts on the possibility of mass migration ( note 3 ). Despite painful internal differences in the Mennonite community, between 1871 and Fall 1873 they put up a united front with five joint delegations to St. Petersburg and Yalta to petition for a Mennonite exemption. While the delegations were well received and some options could be discussed with ministers of the Crown, ...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 4 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accurate and carefully considered. ~ANF Preparing for your next AGM: Mennonite Congregations and Deportations Many U.S. Mennonite pastors voted for Donald Trump, whose signature promise was an immediate start to “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Confirmed this week, President Trump will declare a national emergency and deploy military assets to carry this out. The timing is ideal; in January many Mennonite congregations have their Annual General Meeting (AGM) with opportunity to review and update the bylaws of their constitution. Need help? We have related examples from our tradition, which I offer as a template, together with a few red flags. First, your congregational by-laws. It is unlikely you have undocumented immigrants in your congregation, but you should flag this. Model: Gustav Reimer, a deacon and notary public from the ...

Fraktur (or Gothic) font and Kurrent- (or Sütterlin) handwriting: Nazi ban, 1941

In the middle of the war on January 1, 1942, the Winnipeg-based Mennonitische Rundschau published a new issue without the familiar Fraktur script masthead ( note 1 ). One might speculate on the reasons, but a year earlier Hitler banned the use of the font in the Reich . The Rundschau did not exactly follow all orders from Berlin—the rest of the paper was in Fraktur (sometimes referred to as "Gothic"); when the war ended in 1945, the Rundschau reintroduced the Fraktur font for its masthead. It wasn’t until the 1960s that an issue might have a page or title here or there with the “normal” or Latin font, even though post-war Germany was no longer using Fraktur . By 1973 only the Rundschau masthead is left in Fraktur , and that is only removed in December 1992. Attached is a copy of Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann's official letter dated January 3, 1941, which prohibited the use of Fraktur fonts "by order of the Führer. " Why? It was a Jewish invention, apparent...

Village Reports Commando Dr. Stumpp, 1942: List and Links

Each of the "Commando Dr. Stumpp" village reports written during German occupation of Ukraine 1942 contains a mountain of demographic data, names, dates, occupations, numbers of untimely deaths (revolution, famines, abductions), narratives of life in the 1930s, of repression and liberation, maps, and much more. The reports are critical for telling the story of Mennonites in the Soviet Union before 1942, albeit written with the dynamics of Nazi German rule at play. Reports for some 56 (predominantly) Mennonite villages from the historic Mennonite settlement areas of Chortitza, Sagradovka, Baratow, Schlachtin, Milorodovka, and Borosenko have survived. Unfortunately no village reports from the Molotschna area (known under occupation as “Halbstadt”) have been found. Dr. Karl Stumpp, a prolific chronicler of “Germans abroad,” became well-known to German Mennonites (Prof. Benjamin Unruh/ Dr. Walter Quiring) before the war as the director of the Research Center for Russian Germans...

"A Small Town near Auschwitz” – Chortitza Mennonite Refugee/ Resettlement Camps

Simple proximity to a place of horrors does not equal knowledge or complicity. Many Gnadenfeld-area Mennonite refugees were, for example, temporarily housed 20 km. away from the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp where 15-year-old Anne Frank died ultimately of typhus ( note 1 ). The day after liberation by British troops on April 15, 1945, camp survivors began to flow through neighbouring villages. “What a sight they were! They had been tortured and starved, and were swollen from lack of food. … We could hardly believe that the glorious country of Germany could commit such crimes against people,” Susanna Toews wrote ( note 2 ). My mother was only seven, but she remembers overhearing shocking descriptions given by their host family’s teenaged girls forced by the British to clean some of the camp buses. What about the much larger death camp at Auschwitz? There is a book entitled: A Small Town near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust. It is about an administrator living near the ...

1921: Formation of the “Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine”

Famine was imminent; unprecedented drought; taxes and requisitions exceeded what was harvested; some villages had no horses; extortion and arrests were widespread; many men were disenfranchised and barred from village affairs (see note 1 ). Lenin responded with the 1921 “New Economic Policy” (NEP), which allowed for a degree of market flexibility within the context of socialism to ward off complete economic collapse. A fixed-tax was imposed, grain quotas were eased, farmers were allowed a small amount of land and could sell excess produce at free-market prices after taxes had been paid. Much was in the air. In secret talks, Soviet Trade Commissar Leonid Krasin told the head of the Eastern Section in the German Foreign Office, Gustav Behrendt, that the USSR was “prepared—just like Catherine the Great of old—to call hundreds of thousands of German colonists into the land and transfer them to large, closed complexes for settlement,” especially in Turkestan and the North Caucasus, be...

Mennonites and the Crimean War (1853-56)

Martin Klaassen was traveling through the Molotschna Mennonite Colony when the Crimean War broke out in 1853 ( note 1 ). His diary notes that the following hymn was sung before the sermon: December 1853 . With regards to the war which broke out between Russia and Turkey, the song, No: 723 “O Lord, the clouds of war are threatening now, above our heads we see them roll” was sung before the sermon” ( note 2 ). As the war effort grew, thousands of troops came through Molotschna: January 14, 1854 . Today our colony has received billets: in Halbstadt about 1,000 soldiers. It is said that Joh. Neufelds have offered liquor ( Branntwein ), naturally without charge. The soldiers are supposed to have marched in with jubilant singing and much hilarity. They had been very happy for the wonderful reception they got, and promised to accomplish great things. In March, England and France also declared war on Russia. March 26, 1854 . At noon today there was suddenly a military transport at ...

1920s: Those who left and those who stayed behind

The picture below is my grandmother's family in 1928. Some could leave but most stayed behind. In 1928 a small group of some 511 Soviet Mennonites were unexpectedly approved for emigration ( note 1 ). None of the circa 21,000 Mennonites who emigrated from Russia in the 1920s “simply” left. And for everyone who left, at least three more hoped to leave but couldn’t. It is a complex story. Canada only wanted a certain type—young healthy farmers—and not all were transparent about their skills and intentions The Soviet Union wanted to rid itself of a specifically-defined “excess,” and Mennonite leadership knew how to leverage that Estate owners, and Selbstschutz /White Army militia were the first to be helped to leave, because they were deemed as most threatened community members; What role did money play? Thousands paid cash for their tickets; Who made the final decision on group lists, and for which regions? This was not transparent. Exit visa applications were also regularly reje...

Molotschna Elder Heinrich Dirks and tensions with Mennonite Brethren

Russian Mennonites were not always kind to each other—and nowhere is this seen better than in the tensions between “old” Mennonites and the “separatist” Mennonite Brethren, who had their beginnings in Gnadenfeld, Molotschna in 1860. Heinrich Dirks (1842-1915) was the first Russian Mennonite overseas missionary and later long-time Gnadenfeld, Molotschna ( note 1 ). Everything about Dirks’ life suggests that he would have joined the Brethren in 1860. He too was influenced by the "powerful and gripping” conversionist ministry of Eduard Wüst in his youth. Dirks was a young adult in the Gnadenfeld congregation in South Russia where the Mennonite Brethren /separatist movement began. Shortly thereafter, he was trained in the German pietist Barmen Mission School (1863-67), and famously travelled to Sumatra (Indonesia) where he started a mission outpost and school. The Mennonite Brethren too would later connect the global mission imperative with the impending return of Christ as did Dirk...

History of the Russian Mennonites

Search This Blog