Recent events in Georgia prompted an email from my friend and colleague Malkhaz Songulashvili. He writes:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

 

I have just woken up in my little top flat on Cornmarket Street in Oxford. With my eyes still closed I searched for my notebook on the bedside table. I opened my email account and found a letter from my son, Alexander. I am always glad to hear from him. Today I was particularly exited by his letter. He came up with the news I had been waiting for so long, perhaps all my conscious life.

 

"Vladika, at long last", writes Alexander, "this night Stalin's statue in Gori was pulled down!"

 

Yes, indeed "at long last"! It had to go away long ago and it did not. I thought it would go two years ago when the Russians invaded Georgia and it did not. The government and politicians did not want to upset supporters of Stallin in his home region. The statue had been dominating the main square in the city of Gori right in front of the local authorities headquarters. It was so anachronistic. Beyond the statue you could see the five crossed Georgian flag which is a symbol of 2003 liberal-democratic revolution in Georgia.

 

The attitude to Stalin in his home region has always been rather ambiguous. Some people would agree that Stalin was a mass murderer, but he was a local boy. Some people have venerated him for crashing the fascism in Europe. Some have admired his way of running the country with an iron hand. 

 

No doubt he had some positive qualities but these qualities were overwhelmed by his evil inclinations. Perhaps I have to tell you that he wrote beautiful poetry in Georgian, singing to the beauty of the sky and birds and flowers...

 

Stalin was a leader of a largest country of the world and influenced world politics directly for three decades and indirectly he still influences some countries and some politicians. 

 

His mother's dream was that he would become a bishop of the Orthodox church but chose to be a revolutionary and politician. He achieved a lot. As some people used to say he assumed a feudal Russia and within thirty years he turned it into a nuclear power. But nothing can justify his cruelty, murders, killings, assassinations of political rivals and innocent people, uprooting of peoples and entire nations, persecution of all religions Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and others. It is ironic that some in Russia and in Georgia still consider him as a great Christian. In Russia his icons have been circulating in religious circles. In one of them he is vested in Orthodox episcopal vestment and holds a sword and the book of Gospel in his hands.

 

In 1924 on his death bed, they say, Lenin told Stalin that he was not good enough to be his successor.

"People will not follow you", the dying Lenin told him.

"If they will not follow me" said comrade Stalin, "then they will follow you!"

 

This joke was not quite a joke. It was the reality of the Soviet time under Stalin. During my life I have met a lot of people who admired Stalin exactly for this reason. He would not tolerate any opposition and any diversity in thinking. I am so sorry that a genius Georgian boy from Georgia did not dedicate his life to freedom, love and forgiveness. In this respect his life was tragic and he made the lives of millions of people tragic.

 

What lessons we learned from the life of this boy from Gori is that you can terrorise people, kill them, frighten, but you can never kill the longing for freedom, love and God.

 

As a Georgian I offer my apologies to all the peoples of the Soviet Union and certainly other countries for the evil which my compatriot has brought. My prayer is that Georgia and other former Soviet countries finally get rid of Stalinist legacy in political, spiritual, ecclesiastical and human spheres of life. Do join me in this prayer.

Malkhaz Songulashvili heads the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia, and is currently studying in Oxford, UK.

Picture: Stalin’s statue comes down in his home town of Gori, Georgia