DBWI- what if Metropolitan Djugashvili had embraced Marxism?

[Alexius]

We all know that Metropolitan Iosif Djugashvili was born in a small Georgian village, got a scholarship to a seminary in Tbilisi, and later became perhaps the most famous Orthodox prelate ever, uniting the Orthodox churches and spearheading a return to Constantinople. However, it is less well known that there was a cell of Marxist revolutionaries at the seminary. What if Djugashvili had joined it?

OOC note: This is in the pre-1900 forum because Stalin joined the Marxists at a point around 1900 (Born 1879, so would have gone to the seminary in 1897).

[HueyLong]

The Orthodox Church might avoid the Purges of the 20s, and there wouldn't have been the disastrous Eastern Crusade.

Iosef dies in obscurity, a revolutionary with his rosaries, dead by the baortive revolution.

OOC: Would it even matter? The Marxist revolutionaries would have won without Stalin.... so they wouldn't be unknown

[Count Dearborn]

The Constitutional Revolution of 1919 would probably have not happened. The more radical revolutionaries, like Trotsky and Lenin would have ended up in power, instead of Kerensky. Russia would have probably ended up as some Marixist totalitarian state, instead of being the ally of the US for the last 70 or so years.

[Justin Pickard]

Originally Posted by Count Deerborn

The Constitutional Revolution of 1919 would probably have not happened. The more radical revolutionaries, like Trotsky and Lenin would have ended up in power, instead of Kerensky. Russia would have probably ended up as some Marixist totalitarian state, instead of being the ally of the US for the last 70 or so years.

I think calling them 'allies' in the 1930s might be pushing it a bit. Even the most fervant revisionist would be forced to concede that they didn't start off as allies, but in fact quite the opposite...

It's a well known fact that President Denikin loathed the Yanks. If he had had it his way, the Washington-Petrograd Accord would have perished with Charles Curtis in the 1932 Washington bombings.

[Alexius]

Originally Posted by HueyLong

The Orthodox Church might avoid the Purges of the 20s, and there wouldn't have been the disastrous Eastern Crusade.

Iosef dies in obscurity, a revolutionary with his rosaries, dead by the baortive revolution.

OOC: Would it even matter? The Marxist revolutionaries would have won without Stalin.... so they wouldn't be unknown

IC response to your OOC: Yes, but Djugashvili was popular with the working classes, and transferred that popularity to the Tsar- especially after he got Rasputin excommunicated.

And Orthodox Christians don't use rosaries.

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Well, consider that the 1953 Religious Exclusion Act, passed by the Duma would have never passed. As such, the internment camps of Jewish "refuseniks" in Birobidzhan, Yeksektsiya, Nikolaiyevka, et al. created in 1955 would have never been approved. Plus the expulsion of Roman Catholic bishops as "foreign agents" in 1949 would have never taken place...

[SteveW]

Yes, his "Orthodoxy in One Country" ideology was a bit vicious.