Word: stalinize
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...Soviet Union contains the biggest of these disputed churches, made up of millions of Catholic believers, mostly in the western Ukraine, who were forced into the Russian Orthodox Church under Stalin in 1946. Since then, many of these Ukrainians, who still consider the Pope their leader, have led an illegal underground existence. Despite Vatican overtures on their behalf, the Russian Orthodox Church resists having the Kremlin give legal recognition to the Catholics, arguing that they belong within Orthodoxy...
More significantly, on April 29 Gorbachev held a meeting with Patriarch Pimen and other members of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy. The encounter, which "deeply impressed" the Patriarch, was the first public reception of Orthodox leaders by a party Secretary since 1943, when Stalin revived the church to win popular support during the worst days of World War II. In another act of conciliation, the regime this month returned to the church a section of its holiest shrine: the 11th century Monastery of the Caves in Kiev, which had been seized in 1961. Now monks will again live there...
...should be skeptical of Gorbachev's claims that the horrors of the Stalin regime were an aberration from Soviet socialism. After all, Gorbachev and his colleagues still glorify Lenin, who effected one-party dictatorship, the subordination of justice to expediency, and the use of terror as an instrument of control...
...factual is Rybakov's Stalin? The author's flashback depiction of the son of a Georgian bootmaker who became a revolutionary after dropping out of a seminary should cause few objections. The outlines of Stalin's political career are familiar and generally accepted, as is Rybakov's assertion in the novel that the dictator had Sergei Kirov killed as an excuse for starting the purge...
...dramatic effect; scenes must be arranged, dialogue concocted and interior monologues imagined. Rybakov's technique is no different from that of other popular novelists who incorporate historical figures into their books. Like most, he succeeds best when his imagination runs freest. A case in point: a scene in which Stalin's dentist, a competent though nervous practitioner, finds himself in the unenviable position of handling the bite that feeds...