Two Verticals, or the Paradox and Tragedy of Soviet Atheism

Suslov Alexey Viktorovich PhD in Philosophy Associate professor, Department of Philosophy, Russian State Social University; Associate professor, Department of Social Disciplines and Humanities, Moscow Witte University 123995, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Vil'gel'ma Pika, 4, str. 1, kab. 420 suslov.aleksei@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Gusev Dmitrii Alekseevich Doctor of Philosophy Professor, Department of Philosophy, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow Witte University; Institute of Law and National Security of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration 115432, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. 2-I kozhukhovskii proezd, 12, str.1, of. 317 gusev.d@bk.ru Other publications by this author

Currently, the phrase "the main question of philosophy" is used, as a rule, in quotation marks, because most of the representatives of the philosophical community share the position that there is no "basic question of philosophy", and if there is, then it is not "basic" in any way, or, more often, this question outdated ^[1-2], has sunk into oblivion, is now irrelevant, and it is unlikely that a serious representative of philosophical knowledge will currently work with the concepts of matter, spirit, substance, primacy ^{[3, p. 142]}, etc. – for the reason that all this is the property of the intellectual tradition of Modern Times, which today "overcome" by a completely different vision of philosophy, its problem field, main objects, goals, tasks and methods.

And what are the current problems, goals and objectives of philosophy? Is there any generally accepted and satisfactory answer to this question? Probably, it exists in every local philosophical community, but is any local philosophical community a "bearer of truth" and a "guardian of philosophy", surely knowing what it is and why it is needed, as well as protecting it from the encroachments of profane, amateurs and "laymen"?

If we still proceed from the fact that philosophy is not a science and not a referent of science, and not the logic and methodology of socio-humanitarian cognition, but the love of wisdom, the search for truth, knowing ignorance, surprise at the ordinary, overcoming habit, grief from the nonconformist mind, heuristic doubt, the search for answers to metaphysical (and not "physical") questions, a hopeless hope to reach the horizon of meanings, then, of course, one of the main questions of philosophy will be the question of what philosophy is, what it does and should do, and why it is needed. In the context of such an understanding of philosophy and its purpose, it becomes impossible to be complacent in our knowledge about what is outdated in the problematic field of philosophy and what is not, what is relevant in it and what is not, what concepts, questions, ideas and plots deserve to be the object of philosophical reflection, and which cannot have this status ^{[4, p. 60]}.

In the light of what has been said, let's look again at the "basic question of philosophy" and whether it is really irrelevant and "outdated" now. Is the discussion between theism and atheism, evolutionism and creationism, synergetism (emergentism) and teleologism outdated? Is the question of the nature of the ideal and the psychophysical problem outdated in philosophy?

All this does not become obsolete and is no less relevant today than a hundred or a thousand years ago ^[5]. Since here the authors may be accused of anti-historicism, one may wonder whether historicism is a completely corresponding concept to reality? Is there anything non-historical in the life of the world and man? For example, are the fundamental parameters and constants of the Universe, born together with it as a result of the Big Bang, which are referred to in the anthropic principle, amenable to interpretation in the semantic coordinates of historicism? With regard to man, especially, it is necessary to pay attention to the non–historical existentials of human existence - the fact of inevitable finiteness and knowledge about it, the problem of the meaning of life and the purpose of man ("A gift in vain, an accidental gift, life, why are you given to me?" A.S. Pushkin), the search for truth and metaphysical longing ("Not flesh, and the spirit has been corrupted in our days, and a person is desperately longing ..." F.I. Tyutchev). One can object – the forms of these existentials are still historically changeable – which, however, will be far from an indisputable thesis.: at least, human longing is just non–historical - in all epochs we are sorely lacking something, and everything we have is always not enough for us ("Life took under the wing, cherished and saved. I was really lucky. Only this is not enough" A. Tarkovsky).

So, the "basic question of philosophy" and the problems associated with it do not become obsolete, despite our possible positivist and postmodern desire to declare it obsolete. In addition, being an ontological question, it is no less an anthropological question, because the two main answers to it – materialism and idealism - are the centers of two worldview systems of human life navigation and the basis of the decisive choice (according to B. Pascal) of one of the two life stakes – eternal death or eternal life ^[6]. Materialism, of course, causes atheism, evolutionism, synergetism, physicalism (as a solution to a psychophysical problem), scientism, determinism, reductionism, anthropovolutarianism, revolutionary heroism and positivism – in the broad sense of the word – as a voluntary immersion in metaphysical sleep, or a swoon of the mind and soul. Similarly, idealism causes theism, creationism, teleologism, spiritualism (as a solution to a psychophysical problem), anti-scientism, indeterminism, providentialism, religious asceticism and antipositivism, as a desire to awaken from a metaphysical dream ^[7]. Here the question may arise as to why the authors proceed from the connection of philosophical idealism with theism, and not, for example, with pantheism? Because the question – whether consciousness, mind, spirit can be impersonal – will most likely have to be answered in the negative; and creationism, which is an obligatory ideological companion of theism, is "... this is the most consistent variant of objective idealism in the analyzed respect" ^[8]. The extra-creationist idealism we are talking about, assuming a philosophical tradition from Pythagoras and Plato to the early F. Schelling, presupposes pantheism.

Thus, the ideological poles of materialism and idealism are pronounced and have quite distinct boundaries, defining the main vectors of life navigation not only of an individual, but also of a certain community of people and society as a whole.

Russian society before and after the revolution of 1917-1921 represents these two camps-the shores between which lies an impassable ideological gulf, and at the same time..., at the same time, surprisingly enough, there is something that brings together the materialism and atheism of the Soviet era with the religious theistic paradigm of pre-revolutionary Russia, which is what it is the paradox referred to in the title of the article, and which is the main object of the research being undertaken.

Next, two observations should be made. Speaking further about Soviet materialism and atheism, we will keep in mind the late stage of the existence of the Soviet Union – the period of the so-called "mature" or "developed socialism" (? 60-80–ies of XX century.), because the previous years – the time of the formation of socialist reality - "the birth of order out of chaos"; and under the religious by worldview we will understand the dominant religion of pre–revolutionary Russia – Orthodox Christianity, because the very concept of religion (Latin: religio – connection, or, more precisely, re-ligare – restoration of the lost connection) presupposes the most important ideological topos of longing for the lost heavenly Homeland, deep repentance from the destructive spiritual "emigration", attempts to find a new home once abandoned or, the return of the prodigal son, which is fully represented precisely in the Christian understanding of the world and man.

Speaking about the cultural reality of the Soviet era, first of all, one should take into account the ideological and philosophical and ideological "background" of this era, namely, Marxism or Marxist-Leninist philosophy, an important feature of which is anthropocentric voluntarism, or anthropovolutarianism, on the one hand, resolutely opposing the providentialism of religious consciousness, and, on the other hand, paradoxically close to him – his main vertically oriented worldview ^[7]. What kind of vertically oriented worldview are we talking about here? Namely, about the one that is extremely expressed in the famous words of K. Marx that "philosophers have explained the world in various ways, and the point is to change it." Hence, such anthropocentric landmarks as: "everyone is the blacksmith of his happiness", "everything is in our hands", "man – it sounds proud", "knowledge is power", as well as – "we will drive the nag of history", "veins and muscles – prayers are more faithful" (V.V. Mayakovsky) , etc .

Despite the enormous discrediting of Marxist-Leninist philosophy and its extreme unpopularity in the current conditions and among representatives of modern philosophical knowledge, one important feature should be noted, which even its opponents will not be able to challenge – the formation and development of this worldview teaching took place within the framework of the classical paradigm of philosophical thinking, with its ideas about certainty and "transparency" of reality, objectivity of cognizable reality, a monistic approach to understanding not only the truth, but also moral norms and values of human existence.

Marxism inherits Hegelianism, which is one of the expressions of German classical philosophy, which itself grows out of the philosophy of Modern Times, which, in turn, has ideological and historical roots in the Renaissance and, further, antiquity, of course, largely absorbing the medieval philosophical tradition. Classical philosophy thus "stretches" ideologically and historically from Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Socrates and Aristotle to Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Engels, who in one of his famous works speaks of L. Feuerbach as the end of "German classical philosophy", although now it would be more correct to say that more than two thousand years of classical philosophy ends with Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx and Engels in general, and modern philosophy begins, or non-classical philosophy, represented, on the one hand, by positivism-scientism with its refusal to seek answers to metaphysical questions, on the other hand, by postmodernism with its relativism and the same fundamental anti-metaphysicality.

 What will be one of the fundamental differences between classical philosophy and non-classical philosophy? The classical philosophical paradigm can be called vertically oriented, in contrast to the main orientation of non-classical philosophy, which, on the contrary, is horizontally oriented. What does this mean, and how to understand it?

In this case, attention should be paid to the fact that representatives and supporters of both modern and historical socialist and anarchist traditions, as a rule, replace the term "liberal" in their socio-philosophical usage with the term "libertarian", which is completely not equivalent to it (Latin liberalis – free, generous, liber – free, free). Here, in front of us, as we see, there are words-paronyms – similar pronunciation and spelling, as well as the same origin, but fundamentally different meanings. Hardly anyone will dispute the statement according to which in the modern world the words "liberal", "liberalism", etc., in some sense have long discredited themselves, because increasingly they mean not - free, but, on the contrary, not free, otherwise capitalist, in power a golden calf and a servant of mammon, and, therefore, to vices and passions. In addition, in a broader context, liberal means – located in the semantic coordinates of positivism, understood as a rejection of the search for answers to metaphysical questions, and, therefore, also – secularism and apatheism, and, moreover, – materialism and atheism, evolutionism and scientism, – ideological attitudes, – to a certain disappointment of materialists and atheists who claim that the "basic question of philosophy" is hopelessly outdated.

It is possible to assert that liberalism, with its ideological companions such as positivism, relativism and postmodernism, is precisely a horizontally oriented worldview: each intellectual position, the choice of the way of actions and thoughts does not lie on a vertical scale oriented between points located above and below; each position is not worse or better than the other, moreover, – is not destructive or saving for a person, – but, just, – different, different, different from some other. The same horizontal line determines such important values in the modern world, but not causing universal agreement, as human rights, multiculturalism, tolerance, and many others, which owe their origin to the fundamental non-metaphysical and horizontal nature of liberal consciousness.

The semantic coordinates of the classical philosophical tradition, as well as the religious tradition, which is represented by the Christian worldview, are connected, on the contrary, with the ideological vertical, where each point lies exactly above or below the other, stands closer to the earth or to the Sky, which inevitably forces a person to ask questions again about his purpose in the world, the meaning of a brief stay in they are empty and meaningless questions, if we consider them from the point of view of the ideological horizontal, i.e.– relativistic, postmodern and liberal consciousness.

Surprisingly, in this case, we can talk about two verticals – the anthropocentric and materialistic-atheistic Soviet vertical, associated with Marxist doctrine, and the providential, idealistic-theistic religious vertical, represented by the Christian worldview. On the one hand, there is an abyss between these two verticals, and they categorically and irreconcilably oppose each other, and, on the other hand, there is something that, surprisingly enough, allows them to be compared – this is precisely the vertical ideological and semantic orientation – in both the first and second cases; as a result which is why both Marxist philosophy and Christian teaching are opposed to the horizontally oriented worldview of liberalism, positivism, apatheism, postmodernism and relativism.

Soviet materialism-atheism-anthropocentrism and the Christian religion are two verticals, on the one hand, similar in their verticality, and, on the other hand, fundamentally irreconcilable and eternally incompatible with each other, because one of them represents the presumptuous construction by people of the Tower of Babel of their own bright future, and the other is a grace ladder, according to which the Merciful God, who has become a Man, descends to the unfortunate, lost and dying people – for their salvation.

It should be noted here that representatives of different worldviews – materialists and idealists, atheists and believers, agnostics and skeptics, relativists and nihilists, etc., as well as philosophers and theologians, scientists and writers – will agree that it is impossible to confirm or refute either ideological position. It is impossible, in principle, neither to confirm nor to refute – in a generally accepted, rational, definitive and non–objectionable way – the existence of God, an immortal soul, eternal life - everyone will have to agree with this thesis, as with a certain axiom of "Euclidean geometry".

By virtue of the above, the "basic question of philosophy", which comes from Marxist philosophy and is formulated by F. Engels ^{[9, p. 340]}, to the disappointment of those who claim that it is hopelessly outdated, not only does not become obsolete, but also, perhaps, really is the main question of philosophy – without quotes, because it is not only and not even so much a question about the nature of substance, or about the origin of existence, as – a particular variant, so to speak, of the main question of everything – the fundamental question of the existence or non–existence of a Personal God as the Beginning and Purpose of everything that exists, including any human life; the question of the immortality or mortality of the soul; the question of whether our life is an "empty and stupid joke" (M.Y. Lermontov) or is it not her; is it possible to hope for our own future non–existence, i.e., that after earthly life nothing will happen anymore, and therefore we can live as we want – "by our own stupid will" (F.M. Dostoevsky), or – we cannot avoid that there will be an existence again, only – infinitely good or infinitely painful, compared to which (infinitely painful) non-existence would be infinitely better.

 Positive and negative answers to these questions cause two opposing worldviews that determine the way of thoughts, feelings and actions of each of us, our values, hopes and expectations, i.e., without exaggeration, they are two different systems of life navigation of any person – even one who claims that he refrains from ideological choice, since it stands on the positions of agnosticism, relativism, skepticism, positivism; it is impossible to refrain from choosing, in this case, and the one who supposedly refrains, even if imperceptibly for himself, but also makes a choice.

So, the gap between the two verticals mentioned above is probably one of the main paradoxes and tragedies of Soviet philosophy and culture. The paradox was mentioned above, and why this can be called a tragedy has yet to be addressed. A paradox and a tragedy that may provide the key to understanding and understanding the cultural heritage of the Soviet era. In the light of such arguments, the words of the famous Russian thinker and writer Andrei Kuraev become clear that "The experience of Russia of the XX century has shown that people living outside the conscious Christian faith and even in formal opposition to it can continue to create essentially Christian culture (Soviet cinema in its best tapes gives an example of this)" ^{[10, p. 232]}.

Let's give a few examples from comedic cinematic works – if even in them you can find the vertical of the Soviet man's worldview involuntarily expressed by their creators, then what can you say about non-comedic or serious films? In L. Gaidai's famous comedy "Operation "S" and other adventures of Shurik" (1965), in the series "Partner" Fedya (the hero of the actor A. Smirnov), Shurik's partner (A. Demyanenko), says to him (not without irony) these words: "You think they gave me 15 days no, they gave us 15 days, but why, so that you would conduct explanatory work among me, and I would grow on myself." Apparently, the authors of the film, ironically at the Soviet ideology, deliberately created an episode with a distinctly dissident tinge, but at the same time, perhaps unconsciously revealed one of the main components of the worldview that is the subject of hidden mockery: a Soviet person, or a new type of person should grow above himself – he is characterized by a desire for self-improvement (perhaps this is the reason that this episode was missed by the censors).

The hero of the liberal world, he is also the anti–hero of the Soviet era, also considers self-development as one of the vital values, which, however, has nothing to do with the self-improvement of a Soviet person. The first involves changing, or "improving" a person based on his desire to become more successful, successful, effective, rated, "top", or, in the words of Captain Larsen, the hero of J. London ("Sea Wolf") – "the biggest piece of sourdough". Self-improvement, unlike self-development, in this case, assumes that a person becomes softer, more honest, kinder, cleaner, brighter, more tolerant, more merciful, more generous. It is about this change that the Christian understanding of the world and man is talking about: "Build a pure heart in me, O God, and renew the spirit of righteousness in my womb" (Psalm 50).

Another example is the famous lyrical comedy by M. Kazakov "Pokrovsky Gate" (1982), in which Savva Ignatievich (V. Bortsov) is the new husband of Margarita Pavlovna (I. Ulyanov) to the question of her former husband, who is not adapted to everyday life Lev Evgenievich (A. Ravikovich), why does he, Savva, need him to he lived with them, what a joy to him from this, Savva Ignatievich answers with famous words: "You speak all languages, but you don't understand Russian - they live not for joy, but for conscience!". To live for conscience is a direct reception of the Christian consciousness!

One of the central concepts of Christianity and the most important value of a Christian is repentance, or repentance of a person in his actions, thoughts, feelings, intentions and desires. However, for sincere repentance, a person needs to see all the outrages that he commits. And how can I see them if, on the contrary, I think I haven't done anything so bad and am quite happy with myself? This state of complacency and arrogance is nothing more than petrified insensitivity, as well as cowardice, oblivion and ignorance, which block a person's "spiritual oxygen", forcing him to suffocate. "Lord, deliver me from all ignorance and forgetfulness, and cowardice, and petrified insensitivity," the Christian addresses God in a prayer petition together with St. John Chrysostom. However, the fulfillment of such a request is possible only with a sincere desire of a person to get rid of these vices. If I ask the Lord God to deliver me from any passion, and I secretly love her or, at least, treat her with condescension - I do not see and do not understand that she is strangling me – my prayer petition will be declarative and hypocritical.

This is where the voice of conscience is required, which forces a person to "keep his finger on the pulse of his soul", pushes him to constantly check and recheck his own spiritual state. From the standpoint of the religious worldview (although this is quite understandable in the coordinates of secular consciousness), the best thing for a person is to see the filth of his soul and the filth of his heart and shudder at what he saw. This shudder is the awakening of a person from the sleep of sinful death, the threshold of his transformation and salvation.Thus, the fundamental question about the meaning of human life can be answered quite definitely that the meaning of human life is not to live for ephemeral joy (physical and mental well-being), but for conscience (metaphysical, or spiritual well-being), which is an undoubted good and real joy for a person.

Let us turn to another masterpiece of Soviet cinema – E. Ryazanov's lyrical comedy "Office Romance" (1977), interesting in the context of the current conversation with the famous musical composition "Nature has no bad Weather" (E. Ryazanov, A. Petrov), which is, without exaggeration, a philosophical work, like the famous poem by A. Tarkovsky "So the summer has passed", which formed the basis of V. Matetsky's smash hit performed by S. Rotaru, which caused bewilderment and resentment among many believers: "... I still can't forgive Sofia Rotaru," says A. Kuraev, "that she turned Arseny Tarkovsky's great poem "Only this is not Enough" into a smash hit ^{[10, p. 114]}. However, the question remains open – was it by chance that a serious poetic work with deep philosophical content was taken for a popular pop song?

So, the composition "Nature has no bad weather", being a Soviet song of a Soviet movie, has a completely religious content. The main idea of the work is a quiet and bright, humble and wise man's thanksgiving to God for all His gifts, only – as a tribute to Soviet atheism – the concept of God is replaced by the concept of nature. The fact that we are talking about the thanksgiving of God is also indicated by the vocabulary of the composition, which is completely unusual for secular and secular consciousness: "grace", "bless", "without mourning". In addition, the topos of thanksgiving itself presupposes a personally understood dimension of the connection (Latin: religio – connection) of the giver and the Thanked: only a person can give thanks, and gratitude can only be addressed to a Person. You can, for example, thank your parents, teachers, mentors, assistants, benefactors, saviors; but how can you thank something impersonal, for example, the law of conservation of energy or the particle–wave dualism of the microcosm, or the chaos of elementary particles that appeared in the fiery heat of the Big Bang? Apparently, this, one way or another, was realized, and therefore nature in the philosophy of the Soviet period was thought of, in fact, pantheistically. The matter of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, which is capable of evolution, self–organization, creative self-development, is the root cause of everything that exists, the only substance, the foundation of being, or, in Greek, hypostasis, cannot in any way be, according to the logic of its understanding, something purely physical, but can and should be a living beginning, animate and intelligent, or even better – derived from an immaterial living and intelligent principle. However, in this case, atheism is completely lost, and theism appears in its place; and since this could not be allowed in any way, the only thing left was pantheism disguised as atheism ^[11].

Let's turn to another example, which is the equally famous musical work "Beautiful Far Away" (Yu. Entin, E. Krylatov) from P. Arsenov's children's television science fiction feature film "A Guest from the Future" (1985), based on K. Bulychev's novel "A Hundred Years Ahead" (1977).

The lyrical hero of the work promises to become "cleaner and kinder", but not – more capable, smarter, more efficient, more flexible, more mobile, more creative, more productive, etc. It is – cleaner and kinder. Why? Because he "hears a voice from a beautiful distance," which calls him "to wonderful lands." What kind of voice is that? Who is calling him? Is it a communist voice from the time of the complete socio-economic organization of the world, or is it a transhumanist voice from the era of the transformation of man and humanity based on high achievements of science and technology, or is it a liberal voice from the future of the universal triumph of "democracy and human rights"? Neither one nor the other, nor the third, is the angelic voice of the Heavenly homeland of man, eternal existence, the Kingdom of Heaven, into which, however, not everyone can enter, according to the word of the Lord, but the humble, weeping for their sins, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart.

Here the authors may be reproached for "fantasizing" and too free interpretation. Therefore, we offer the reader to create his own coherent interpretation of this text: "I hear a voice from a beautiful distance, he calls me to wonderful lands, I hear a voice, a voice asks strictly – and today what have I done for tomorrow." For what tomorrow? Obviously – not only and not so much for tomorrow's happy humanity, but, for sure, for their own tomorrow, only – not physical, but metaphysical. But what can my metaphysical tomorrow be if, from a materialistic and atheistic point of view, we all die, humanity disappears sometime, then the planet Earth, then the Solar System and even the Universe, collapsing in a gravitational collapse? So, we are talking about "tomorrow" in the coordinates – exactly – not atheistic consciousness. If this is so, then we mean not a physicalist solution to the psychophysical problem, where the soul is a function of the body, but a spiritualist one, where the body is an instrument of the soul given to it for creativity, which is the whole earthly life of a person (the body does not have a soul, but the soul has a body).

The lyrical hero begins his journey into the "beautiful far away" from the "pure source", which probably means the original purity and light of the soul given by God to man. The secret of human life lies in our free will – to preserve and multiply this purity and light, or, on the contrary, to lose them and ruin the soul, soiling it and plunging it into darkness.  "Do not leave my damned soul to be killed by a robber on the way, holy angel, who was given to be immaculate from God; but guide me on the path of repentance," the man asks his guardian angel.

The earthly or bodily life of a person is the creativity of the soul to form itself and prepare what will happen to it after earthly life: a soul that has not lost its purity, unites with light, joy, peace, goodness, inherits eternal life, the Kingdom of God; and a soul that has spoiled itself with passions and dirty tricks, unites with darkness and evil, he inherits not bliss, but torment – not eternal life, but eternal death, which, however, is not non-existence, but is such a terrible existence that it is impossible to wish for anyone.

In continuation of the topic, let us recall the Soviet musical composition by A. Ostrovsky to the words of L. Oshanin "May there always be the sun" (1962). Surprisingly, the words "May there always be the sun, may there always be the sky, may there always be mom, may there always be me" are precisely a religious text, because from the position of the irreligious, the opposite should be stated – nothing will ever happen, we will all disappear into oblivion and there is nothing to hope for!

The fundamental intuition of a person is his eternal being: at the level of superficially–formally-rational, or de jure, I know that my life has a beginning and an end, but at the level of profoundly-informally-irrational, or de facto, for some reason I am sure that this is not the case - if what is happening with me now, there is being, then how can it turn into non–being, because there is being, there is no non-being; and this applies not only to external being, but to my own being - no less. To the question: "Have you always been?" – I can confidently answer that according to my birth certificate and passport – not always, but in reality, as long as I can remember, I have always been, and therefore I will always be. What is this but the basic religious intention of any human soul?In addition, as the work correctly says, mom will always be there too, and everyone will always be, because there is no death – she is defeated, overcome and destroyed by God – "for the sake of us people and for our salvation." It is not a person who dies and disappears, but only his body, and the person himself – the personality, the soul, the human "I" completely remains, only without a material or bodily "carrier" of his own: Everyone is alive with God! And only in this case – when everyone will always be there, there is a sense in everything that happens; and vice versa, if nothing and no one will ever be, then everything is emptied and reset to zero – before non-existence, the life of every person and of all mankind is completely meaningless.

Just as science talks about the fundamental natural laws of conservation – mass, energy, momentum, matter, electric charge, on which the physical world is built, so religion talks about the fundamental super-natural law of personality conservation, on which a person and his whole life is based. Therefore, a possible definition of religion is the theory and practice of immortality. From a religious point of view, the main content of human existence is that there will be no death, because "Christ has risen from the dead, death has been corrected, and He has given life to those who are in the grave." Let us pay attention to the fact that the original title of B. Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago" is "There will be no Death"; and the name under which he saw the light directly indicates the beginning of John Chrysostom's prayer before Holy Communion at the Divine Liturgy: "I believe, Lord, and confess that You are truly Christ, The Son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, from whom I am the first az." It was not by chance that the writer chose the Old Slavonic form of the adjective "alive" – this is how the theme of resurrection – overcoming death and affirming life - runs through the work like a red thread.

It is clear that the idea of religious immortality can exist only in a philosophical discourse that is consistent with the vertical scale of understanding of the world and man; in the case of a horizontal scale, we have nothing left but to come to terms with the non–existence awaiting everyone and the complete meaninglessness of human life, which, in this case, is a stupid joke.

Let us recall the famous lines of V. Vysotsky: "We are cutting steps. Not a step back! And the knees are trembling from tension, and the heart is ready to run out of the chest to the top (italics – auth.)". Is it only about mountaineering and the physical peak that we are talking about here? Given the outstanding personality of the poet, as well as not only the socio–philosophical, but also, in many ways, the existential context of his work, it is possible to assert that the peak to which the heart is ready to run is also metaphysical - this is the very vertical that, in fact, the whole Soviet art culture speaks about, and which is alien to the consciousness and culture of the liberal world.

Now let us turn to the important words of prayer that the priest utters during the Anaphora, or the Holy Ascension, or the Eucharistic Canon – the central part of the Divine Liturgy: "Woe to our hearts" – our hearts are directed from the world below to the world above, from the visible to the invisible, from the physical to the metaphysical, from the temporal to the eternal, from the earthly to the heavenly, which is our real Home, our Homeland; and only through this aspiration is it possible for us to find joy, light, purity, silence, goodness, truth and eternal life. In this case, it is impossible not to notice that the provision from the perfectly secular text: "the heart is ready to run out of the chest to the top" and the prayer words of the Church service:  The "woe 'have hearts" are extraordinarily similar, although they come from different and even opposite worlds, which is caused by two verticals – paradoxically close and infinitely far from each other at the same time.

An important component of Soviet art culture are works of military themes, especially indicative in the context of the current conversation, because, according to people who know firsthand about the war, it is impossible to profess atheism, materialism, evolutionism and scientism in the trenches and under bullets. The Great Patriotic War, without exaggeration, left a huge and indelible imprint on the consciousness of the people – "she pressed such a trace, and laid so many on the ground that for twenty years and thirty years the living cannot believe that they are alive" (K. Simonov). The very title of K. Simonov's epic novel "The Living and the Dead" (1959-1971) is an undoubted reception of the Christian consciousness: "And you will judge the living and the dead with glory, Whose Kingdom will have no end" (Symbol of Faith); "I believe that you will come to judge the living and the dead, and all in your rank will become, old and young, lords and princes, virgins and priestesses; where I find myself" (the Canon of repentance to our Lord Jesus Christ). In the main Church service, the Divine Liturgy, there is a mysterious union in the Lord of all those who believe in Him and trust in Him – the living and the dead, or rather, the deceased; in the hope of God's mercy, the living pray to the Lord for the deceased, and the deceased for the living, and all of us – the living and the dead – are eternally alive, – and only in this case, as already mentioned, there is a sense in everything that is happening – both with man and with humanity.

Let us recall the lines from K. Simonov's poem "Wait for me" (1941): "Wait for me, and I will return, to spite all deaths. Who was not waiting for me, let him say: – Lucky. "They could not understand how you saved me in the midst of the fire with your expectation." Tell me, dear reader, if you are suddenly atheistic and materialistic, or at least skeptical, how can someone who is waiting for a hero from the war save him by waiting? It is clear that natural laws are powerless here, there can be no question of any physical principles of short-range or long-range action, in this case. What is it? Nothing but an implicit, silent, hidden prayer for help and mercy to him who is now among the fire – for his preservation and salvation. Can the expectant save the expected by her own efforts? It can't! But she can ask the Lord God, Who can do everything. So the Soviet poet and writer, a representative of the materialistic, atheistic and communist worldview, perhaps imperceptibly and unexpectedly for himself, expressed an idea fundamentally opposed to materialism and atheism.

With the famous lines from the poem by K. Simonov, the words from the military song by N. Bogoslovsky and V. Agatov "Dark Night" (1943), unusual in their emotional power, do not just echo, but are, in fact, their complete parallel: "You are waiting for me and you are not sleeping at the crib, and therefore (italics – I know: nothing will happen to me!" And here the expectation of a woman – a wife and mother – keeps and saves the hero, but the expectation is not in itself, but not manifested, but still full of hope and hope, her prayer for the mercy and intercession of the Merciful Lord, the Most Holy Theotokos, Angel-the guardian and all the saints of God; after all, if matter is primary, the universe is the result of evolution, there is no personally understood supernatural world and an immortal soul, then no one needs a person, and he has nothing to hope for – no one and nothing will help him or save him, because in this case, – a possible hope – other people, their associations, societies, parties, governments, states and all mankind as a whole – all themselves need mercy and salvation, being weak and mortal.

How is it that the works of the Soviet non-religious era and culture are filled with ideas, although expressed in non-religious forms, but having precisely a religious character and origin? The answer to this question should be sought in the well–known statement of Tertullian, according to which the human soul is by nature a Christian. Therefore, no matter how it is rolled into the asphalt of atheism, no matter how it is poured with concrete of godlessness, its true nature manifests and breaks through – everywhere and always, because such a nature is stronger than anything in the world. As asphalt collapses, concrete cracks and crumbles, through which living grass makes its way from the living earth to sunlight, so does the living human soul, destroying the seemingly indestructible, but in fact, oddly enough, a rather brittle atheistic coating, makes its way to a Living Personal God, to Whom the Only person can say: "For you are my Creator and Provident and Giver of every good, and all my hope is in You, and I send you glory, now and ever and for ever and ever."

So, Soviet atheism and Christian theism, being opposite ideological poles separated by a worldview abyss, are paradoxically close to each other in their vertical orientation and aspiration, opposing the "democratic", "tolerant", "multicultural", positivist, postmodern and post-secular horizontal of meaninglessness, declared an important value of the liberal world.

The closeness of the ideological vertical of Soviet atheism in relation to theistic religiosity is an undoubted paradox of the former, and what is its tragedy, which is mentioned in the title of the article? The tragedy of the Soviet atheistic vertical lies in the fact that it is a truly grandiose tower of Babel, but... built on sand, which is the hopeless and irrevocable finiteness of man, before which his being is reset – neither cultural achievements, nor social achievements, nor the memory of grateful descendants, nor a bright distant future and universal prosperity, – nothing can compensate one iota for the complete disappearance of the personality, which the irreligious consciousness insists on.

From the point of view of materialism, atheism, evolutionism, synergism and physicalism, personality is a virtual reality, an emergent effect, the result of the functioning of the central nervous system and the manifestation of higher nervous activity, but in this case is it possible to talk about personality at all? From the point of view of idealism, theism, creationism, teleologism and spiritualism, personality, by definition, is something that cannot disappear at all. However, the first understanding of personality is characteristic of a horizontally oriented philosophical consciousness, the second is vertically oriented. As a result, it turns out that Soviet atheism tries to paradoxically combine both orientations, which makes it an internally contradictory ideological phenomenon. Intuitions of this contradiction lead him to constantly repeated attempts of self-denial, implicit and unconscious breaking of the blockade of godlessness and a breakthrough to Heaven, which is declared non-existent, the assertion of the immortality of the soul, which is declared mortal, which is a paradox and a tragedy that finds its manifestation in the most diverse episodes of the mental space of the Soviet period of national history.