From the Bookshelf of Christian Missionary Biography- Classics and New…

The Persecutor

Sergei Kourdakov

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Jan 07, 2016 Jeff Shelnutt rated it liked it

Shelves: church-history, autobiography

The story of Sergei Kourdakov, as told by himself, was as compelling as it was bleak. Coming of age in 1960's Soviet Russia, Sergei, along with other children whose parents had been taken from them by the authorities, grew up in the atrocious environment of the communist children's home. He learned to pray to Lenin and worship the state.

Anytime I read a biography of this sort describing the life of someone who experienced all the horrors of a tyrannical, socialist system, I have to constantly re The story of Sergei Kourdakov, as told by himself, was as compelling as it was bleak. Coming of age in 1960's Soviet Russia, Sergei, along with other children whose parents had been taken from them by the authorities, grew up in the atrocious environment of the communist children's home. He learned to pray to Lenin and worship the state.

Anytime I read a biography of this sort describing the life of someone who experienced all the horrors of a tyrannical, socialist system, I have to constantly remind myself how relatively near to the present time these events occurred. We are only living several decades away from Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and Stalin's "Five Year Plan." The twentieth-century was simultaneously the era of technological wonder and the age of state-sponsored mass murder.

You wonder how a bright young man could be duped by the promises of communism when society around him was falling apart. Sergei bought into the lie that was sold to him: the masses are necessarily suffering now because they are in the process of building a utopic future. But as in the case of most who become disenfranchised with reality, he gradually realized only the ruthless and manipulative rise to the top. Only they receive the benefits of the "system."

Sergie was a faithful communist youth league leader and naval officer-in-training when he was hand chosen to lead a special police task force. He was told that he and his men would go after the worst of the worst. Run-of-the-mill murderers and thieves were nothing. They were no threat to the state. But these people, these religioznik, threatened to topple the entire system. They had to be stopped. But it had to be done quietly.

The more secret meetings of these enemies-of-the-state that Sergie raided, the more he questioned what he was doing. He usually only caught these believers praying, singing or reading the Bible. He'd beat and intimidate them, then haul their leaders down to the station. He confiscated literature, much of which was hand-written scripture verses on notebook paper. But he could not quell the growing doubts that these quiet, unassuming folks really posed a legitimate threat to the power-structure.

But of course, they did. A political system that operates in the darkness, one built on lies and deceit, cannot abide a group of people who insist upon the truth. All the authorities had at their disposal were threats and brute force. But the religioznik had faith in the living God and they insisted upon dragging all that was sordid and depraved about human nature out into the light. This was intolerable.

The faith and lives of these believers testified boldly against the evils of the communist system. Sergei began to notice. Because of course if he didn't, there wouldn't be much of a resolution to the story.
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