For your "power of religion" file...

Remember this happened in the Communist USSR, where the Evil Atheists BANNED all religion. (Insert sarcasm smiley...)

Late in 1930, at a wayside shrine to the Virgin Mary in the western Ukraine, there occurred a miracle: the cast-iron statue was seen to be shedding tears of blood.

Thousands of pilgrims streamed from the neighbouring villages in the autumn cold. Some died by the roadside. Eventually the local Communist authorities put a fence around the shrine and posted guards, but the fence was pushed aside and the militiamen chased off.

Next, a committee of scientists was sent to study the statue so that the miracle could be exposed as mere superstition and the multitude camped out in the surrounding fields might disperse.

The experts discovered that the head was so corroded that rust-filled rainwater seeped through the face, creating the illusion of bloody tears. They arrived together at the site, armed with bottles of green, blue and yellow water. From the top of a ladder they poured the liquids into the head, and the Madonna began to weep tears of many colours.

The crowd was at first silent in the face of this new miracle, but when one of the scientists tried to explain that this was science, not God, the peasant pilgrms assaulted them and beat two to death.

A few days later troops arrived to protect a second scientific delegation. The crowd attacked at once and in the fight the statue was knocked over and shattered.

A local simpleton was killed in the crush, and his funeral became the occasion for a vast procession headed by priests and monks carrying censers and sacred banners.

This tested Communist patience too much; the militia cleared the procession at bayonet point, so ran the reports, and hundreds were killed.

From my current reading project, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia by Richard Overy. He is a professor of history at King's College, London, and teaches a course called "Comparing Dictatorships."

Overy tries to answer that question we see all the time: "How did Hitler and Stalin get away with running their countries so badly for so long?"

It's a complex question and the book is a detailed analysis of exactly how they did get away with it. As atheists, most of us will be interested in the long chapter on religion in the two dictatorships.

The chapter on art is fascinating. I kept thinking about Thomas Kinkade while reading it. :evilgrin:

e.g., the Russian Igor Stravinsky was completely ignored in Russia, where the authorities called him a "cosmopolitan formalist." But his work was frequently performed in Nazi Germany and he was something of a favorite there.

The Communists preferred to write their own rousing music, and some of the titles are given--e.g., "The Transport Section and the Army--The Dearest Of Brothers."

Jebus H. Stalin, THAT must have been a real toe-tapper.

Anyway, good and interesting read. The large-size paperback runs to over 700 pages, so it will keep you occupied for a while.