But the need of man to believe, to turn to some power greater than himself, a force that was certainly not rationally explicable but that one could approach through exaltation and with the aid of dance, music, or song, was not dead in the least. People missed the cults and rituals as well as the saints; they lacked an absolute superhuman authority.
Enlightenment reason cast God’s power into doubt and, along with it, the earthly and religious rulers who were supposed to reflect that power. Emperor Josef II abolished monasteries and expelled monks as freeloaders; just a little while later the French king and his family were executed (rather, murdered), and not long after that, Russian Bolsheviks murdered the tsar and his entire family. Rulers and their ministers, people who only recently were looked up to with reverence, were dead or overthrown. But could their places remain empty? People wanted to look to something higher, an authority that determined what was good and what was evil, who deserved punishment and who deserved acclaim. New leaders exploited this need, but they derived their claims not from God’s will (even though Hitler enjoyed announcing he had been chosen by providence) but rather from the will of the people who flattered themselves as the very embodiment of a wise and reasonable power.
It is significant that both of the powerful ideologies of the twentieth century were atheistic and professed scientific or, rather, pseudoscientific theories; at the same time they adopted signs of religious faith. At first this fascinated millions of both the educated and the unlettered.
The ideology of German National Socialism combined elements of socialism with an obscure racialist theory. It declared that the German race, which according to the Nazis represented the highest level of human development, was destined to rule the world. This theory was not based on contemporary, scientifically provable facts and therefore could be accepted only on the basis of faith. This faith, however, was indeed quite gratifying. It elevated its adherents above all others; it offered them a vision of a marvelous future, the building of something suprapersonal — a thousand-year empire.
Communist ideology emphasized its rationality even more; it claimed to have arisen on the basis of the most modern, ingenious, and fundamentally insuperable scientific method of Marx and Engels. The conclusions reached by these two thinkers while studying societal forces and their development were supposed to have eternal validity, like the laws of Archimedes or Newton, for instance. It was precisely the scientific basis of their teachings that was supposed to guarantee they would lead to a perfect society, to heaven on earth. In reality, this utopian vision was unscientific; it could be believed only on the basis of blind faith.
Textbooks of Marxism or historical materialism resembled a catechism in which every question had a prepared answer that applied irrefutably.
Historical materialism is a pragmatic and harmonious scientific theory that explains the evolution of society, the transition from one societal system to another. At the same time it is the only correct scientific method of investigating all societal phenomena and the histories of individual states and nations.
Everything that did not conform to the dogma of the new Word was condemned as heresy and had to be suppressed and punished.
Holy writ, of course, enjoyed natural authority. The wisdom of entire generations was collected in the Old Testament. There was no need to continually belaud its authors (disregarding the fact that according to the Orthodox interpretation the writers of the texts were merely interpreters of God’s will). Marxist, fascistic, and Nazi ideology, however, brought a new faith, and their interpreters considered it necessary to convince the readers that the new prophets were the only genuinely elect and proselytized the only truth.
Fifty years after the death of Lenin, when it was obvious to everyone who had not lost his reason that the regime he created with unusual cruelty had plunged the citizenry of an enormous empire into poverty and subjugation and deprived several million people of their lives, Lenin’s official biography was published in the Soviet Union with this evaluation:
Lenin’s activity and his deep and noble thinking influenced and will continue to influence the course of world history and the fate of all humanity. . V. I. [
sic
] Lenin showed the nations of the world the path to genuine freedom and happiness.
Communist ideologues perhaps attributed the most oracular characteristics to Stalin. Through his ingenious perspicacity he glimpsed the contours of future prosperity. . and masterfully elaborated and sketched out a grandiose program of Socialist construction. . In his unrepeatable, ingenious analyses, he pointed out the abysmal difference between the world of capitalist decay and disintegration and the efflorescent and deeply humane world of socialism.
Furthermore, like a true prophet, Stalin was extremely simple, modest, far-sighted, uncompromising, ingeniously perspicacious; his logic was overwhelming, his thoughts crystal clear. Therefore, he became for us our teacher and father, the greatest luminary of the world, a coryphaeus of science, the great leader of the working class, an ingenious strategist who has written the indelible Word in the book of history.
The miserable poet and Hitler Youth leader Baldur Benedikt von Schirach composed Hitler’s panegyric:
That is the greatest thing about him,
That he is not only our leader and a great hero,
But himself, upright, firm and simple,
in him rest the roots of our world.
And his soul touches the stars.
Yet he remains a man like you and me.
The attempt by totalitarian ideologies to satisfy the traditional need to believe was remarkably consistent. Leaders renewed the significance of ritualistic gatherings, pilgrimages, and marches to the sound of monotonous music. They returned banners and images of their own saints to the hands of the people. They used religious-sounding words. They loved to talk about eternity and immortality. An often banal and vacuous statement was passed off as a prophetic revelation. Because of his unlimited, mystical fascination, remarked Goebbels on Hitler’s address at a party gathering, it was an almost religious rite.
Every year the Nazis organized eight days of ritual celebrations that were supposed to function like religious pilgrimages. The American diplomat and author Frederic Spotts, in Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics, notes:
The fifth day was the “Day of Political Leaders” and from 1936 this event culminated in the dramatic high point of the rallies. After sundown 110,000 men marched on to the review field while 100,000 spectators took their places on the stands. At a signal, once darkness fell, the space was suddenly encircled by a ring of light, with 30,000 flags and standards glistening in the illumination. Spotlights would focus on the main gate, as distant cheers announced the Führer’s approach. At the instant he entered, 150 powerful searchlights would shoot into the sky to produce a gigantic, shimmering “cathedral of light,” as it was called. . “Cathedral” was the apt term since the essence of the ceremony was one of sacramental dedication to Führer and party. Encased in a circle of light and dark, the participants were transported into a vast phantasmagoria.