Gurdjieff and Stalin
Gurdjieff and Stalin
In the past there were times when I wished that I could speak the Russian
language, and among them were the two state-sponsored trips that I
took there. Yet guides and interpreters were plentiful and knowledgeable,
so there was really no need to speak the language. Besides, many things
may be known without the use of words. For instance, it has been said
that each country in the world possesses two identities, its official
identity and its secret identity. England is “John Bull,” but it is also King
Arthur. France is “Marianne,” but it is also “the Spirit of Enlightenment
and of Civilized Values.” Russia’s official identity has much to do with
“the Russian Bear,”
Alexander Nevsky, the Last Tsar, and perhaps Lermontov’s “living
relic,” but its secret identity is, I believe, not a single personification or
one person but two cities. Simply put, scratch a Russian and you will find
someone who longs for the former glory of St. Petersburg and yearns for
Moscow to be recognized as “the Third Rome.” Russians still feel that the
capital of their country is the inheritor of a spiritual message to share
with the rest of the world, in the same way that French citizens still feel
that their country has a “civilizing” mission, the rayonnement of French
culture.
One does not have to speak or read the Russian language to appreciate
such yearnings. These concepts animate Russian theosophical texts and
its imaginative literature. Remember that Soloviev, Berdyaev, and
Blavatsky were Russians, and so was Ouspensky. Hence Moscow and St.
Petersburg may be remembered as the “pressure-cookers” of occult and
artistic thought at the turn of the 20th century, except that these capital
cities are better regarded as “autoclaves” rather than pressure-cookers,
so intense and concentrated have been the pressures that they have
brought to bear on their citizenry.
An artist who fits this pattern (even to the extent that he lived most of his
life abroad) was the artist and explorer Nicholas Roerich. Three museums
(in New York City, Kerala, and Moscow) are dedicated to displaying his
inspirational, semi-abstract paintings. On trips to New York, I visited that
Slav-style museum on a number of occasions, as well as the one in
Moscow following its inauguration by President Mikhail Gorbachev at the
time that he was awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize. For some reason
or other, those Russian scholars and writers whom I respect regard
Roerich as “a reactionary”; I find him and his work to be progressive and
prospective (when not a little portentous).
You might ask how Gurdjieff fits into all of this. Students of the
Caucasian Greek are familiar with his Russian connections, so well
described by Ouspensky and then by the two Jameses (Webb and Moore),
so I am not going to connect the dots, a task I will leave to cultural
historians who speak the language. Instead, I will add to the fund of
general knowledge by offering a lopsided review of an hour-long
documentary television program produced and telecast by the Russian
state network earlier this year. If I am short on details (the names of
producer and director, the date of the broadcast, etc.) it is because I am
on the receiving end of two artifacts: a DVD of “Gurdjieff,” the telecast of
the Russian-language program, with its credits in Cyrillic script; a dozen-
page transcript and translation of the statements that were made by
interviewees during the course of the forty-seven-minute documentary.
The script was prepared by students of the Work in Toronto, a number of
whom years ago had a hand in typesetting and publishing the Russian-
text version of Beelzebub’s Tales. Given these limitations, I will be
sympathetic should the reader of this review decide to read no further.
But if the reader persists, here is what emerges: a jot of rumour and a
tittle of speculation. As for facts, these are few and far between.
The style of the documentary is the “production house style” that will be
familiar to television watchers in Britain and North America. (If I read the
Cyrillic correctly, the production house is “RTR Planeta.”
The rest of the credits were scrolled too fast to be transcribed.)
Everything is slickly packaged, as if by a group of smart producers who
had streamlined their bits and pieces of research. Yet a happy feature of
their work is the fact that the interviewees are permitted to express their
views at some length, without being subjected to needless interruptions.
Striking images flash by: the cosmos appears, then the enneagram, then
behind it the full face of the Moon, then behind it the moon-face
photograph of Gurdjieff. At relevant points, there are still photographs
and sequences from “home movies” (some in faded colour, perhaps
colorized) of Gurdjieff, Madame de Saltzmann, disciples, workers at the
Priory, sequences of movements, whirling dervishes, etc. The stills and
clips show a heavy, well-dressed, moustachioed, elder sage, usually
smoking. Some of these clips are new to me, others not. There is also
news footage of wars and revolutions, as well as a number of dramatic
enactments of the casting of death-masks. The musical score sets the
mood of menace and occasionally echoes the piano music of the
movements. In terms of mainstream television, these effects are well
handled and fit the overall tone of the production: moody and
mysterious; at times, ominous, with a sense of close-to-cosmic
foreboding. The producers court the notion that the theory and practice
of the Work are the kith and kin of totalitarianism, rather than its
antithesis.
Mikushevich: “We are saying Gurdjieff, but we have Stalin in mind – or
vice-versa.” “Gurdjieff was able to influence politicians because he was
outside politics.” Gurdjieff and Stalin and even Hitler have features in
common. “Stalin began his career as a poet, and Hitler as a painter. They
took from Gurdjieff a method that appeared to be irresistible and
flawless: the way to build a New Man.” The name “Sarmoung” comes from
ancient Iranian and refers to “the king of the birds worshiped in ancient
Iran as a superior being.” The original word was “simurg” and it means
either “one bird” or “thirty birds” associated with the mountain of Kaf,
“where he acquired secret knowledge in one of the dervish retreats – a
monastery hidden in the mountains.” Telepathy, hypnosis, and
clairvoyance are some of the “mighty powers of this world.” Mikushevich
refers to the early life of Stalin who studied at the same seminary as
Gurdjieff. “He was expelled for participation in some kind of esoteric
secret, maybe a kind of sect of Yezidis. The idea was the same as
Gurdjieff’s. Stalin came to his main aim in life under the influence of
Gurdjieff. The main idea was that in the world everything is
predetermined and evil is overcome by evil.” Mikushevich equates the
Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man with “the features of
the Sarmoung brotherhood” and refers to Gurdjieff in terms of “the
staretz tradition” in Orthodox Christianity. At the Priory, Gurdjieff
recreated the traditions he knew: “Gurdjieff forces people to spy on other
people and to tell on each other. Essentially he creates the birth-place,
the model, of the totalitarian state which flourished in the Twentieth
Century.” He added, “The main doctrine of Stalin emerged either under
the influence of or in interaction with Gurdjieff. This is the famous idea of
‘multiple personalities’ and ‘man is a machine.’”
Mikushevich says, with respect to Gurdjieff’s views on the role of the
Moon in human affairs, “There are rumours that Hitler was acquainted
with this doctrine of Gurdjieff. Essentially this idea of a man as a machine
is the foundation of any totalitarian regime. Gurdjieff is the inspiration of
totalitarianism. He is a guru of totalitarianism, despite the fact that he
himself was not interested in politics.”
Mikushevich talks about Karl Haushofer and his geopolitical views
because “he was acquainted with the experiences of Gurdjieff in Tibet.
They tried to discover the ‘true Aryan race’ in Tibet, and in the
faces of Tibetans to find features of Nordic people.” Mikushevich refers to
Haushofer, who was a member of the Thule Society, as “a student of
Gurdjieff.”
Sarkisyan: The young Gurdjieff had experiences that led him “to believe
that there are somewhere guardians of secret forbidden knowledge that
can give unbelievable power over a man and humanity.”
He relates the story that in “the ancient Armenian capital, Ani, Gurdjieff
found an ancient manuscript in which there was mention of a mysterious
brotherhood of Sarmoung residing far to the East.”
Sarkisyan tells a peculiar story about “a train with money … it entered a
tunnel but did not come out – it is said that Gurdjieff caused to appear
some kind of mirage.” He then refers to Gurdjieff’s cousin, the
sculptor Sergei Merkurov, whose specialty was the preparation of death-
masks. Sarkisyan says that what Gurdjieff offered was “harmonic
philosophical thinking” and “the understanding of life.” “Why are we here.
Who are we? This is a cosmic understanding of the world.” Sarkisyan goes
on to discuss the relationship between Gurdjieff and Stalin. “In Tbilisi,
they studied in the same seminary, and lived in the same house that
belonged to an uncle of Gurdjieff. Later on, Stalin quit the seminary and
skipped out without paying the rent. The relationship between them is a
fact.”
Gurdjieff kicks Stulpnagel, who is emerging from the SS building with his
phalanx of bodyguards, and yells, “Remember! Remember!”
They hug and kiss. “Teacher! How wonderful! I am delighted! We will talk,
day and night!”
Bastenaire: Dervish schools are mentioned. “These are people who have
always lived isolated from the historical process. This is how they
preserved methods that have ancient historical roots, by my estimation
five or six thousand years old. They are peaceful people, people who
dance, people who perform heroic deeds. A heroic deed is something that
can be accomplished by a person who goes ‘beyond himself.’”
Bastenaire concludes, “The Gurdjieff teaching can be useful in the
contemporary world because Gurdjieff could be a mediator between
Islamic and Christian worlds, which at present cannot understand each
other. Gurdjieff is a bridge.”
So much for the “talking heads.” The voice of the faceless narrator
supplies the continuity and adds a few inflections of his own. Here,
accumulatively, is what the narrator has to say, presumably courtesy of
the unidentified scriptwriter:
“People have maintained that Gurdjieff held a secret power over the
leaders of political dictatorships. Some have said that he helped Hitler in
selecting the swastika as a symbol for the Nazi Party. Gurdjieff left behind
a trial of unexpected tales connected to Stalin and Beria.” [This is
statement, conjecture, and speculation for which there exists no evidence
that would satisfy a jury.] “Georgi Ivanovich Gurdjieff was not an ordinary
person.” One instance of this is the fact, as stated, that his cousin Sergei
Merkurov was led to create Gurdjieff’s death-mask despite the fact
that “Merkurov had no idea that at this time Gurdjieff had been in an
accident that nearly cost him his life.” The narrator describes the
subject’s ancestry but states that “Gurdjieff did not mention that his
family’s roots dated back to the Byzantine Emperor Palaeologus
(Manuel II Palaeologus).” He refers to formative influences with a
“garnak,” as an “evil spirit” is known in Azerbaijan. He went on his search
for knowledge and when he returned “he wanted to become head of some
movement which he regarded as originating in Afghanistan …. In this
period of his life, Gurdjieff hinted that he was a student of dervishes,
Muslim mystics who have developed tremendous will and power of body
and spirit.” Gurdjieff was a remarkable teacher, but a few points are made
that sound silly: “Impressions of meeting Gurdjieff were so powerful that
many students, even just after a few lessons, considered themselves to
be in continuous telepathic contact with the teacher. This was a hypnosis
of tremendous force and tremendous personal power.” [Perhaps the root
of this generalization is Ouspensky’s experience recorded in In
Search.] An attempt is made to focus on a passage in Laventi Beria’s
history of the Bolsheviks in the Trans-Caucasus concerning Stalin’s
false passport made out in the name of “Prince Gaioz Nizharadze,” a
name mentioned in Meetings with Remarkable Men. “Gurdjieff and Stalin
began together in the Tiflis seminary. Both would-be priests were
enamoured with one aim: revolution.” According to the narrator,
“Gurdjieff in dervish clothes escorted Stalin in crossing through Armenian
villages from Azerbaijan into Georgia. There was an operation under way
that required the participation of Stalin and Gurdjieff. The dervish and the
future leader tried to thwart these plans. Among the people ensuring the
success of the mission was an agent of counter-intelligence … Lavrenti
Beria.” Much is made of the Azerbaijan party Musavat, subsequently
deemed counter-revolutionary, and Gurdjieff’s damaging knowledge
of Beria’s involvement with it. The narrator states that Gurdjieff
formed the United World Friendship Party in the Caucasus and then left
for Constantinople and ultimately for France. “His followers included not
just Russian emigrés but numerous Englishmen who sought in his
occult teaching their own spiritual way in a world shattered by the war
and social upheavals.”
It is true that the mystery, enigma, or puzzle will long remain one that
will continue to haunt those men and women who are concerned with
“the psychology of man’s possible evolution.” The documentary does,
uniquely, suggest that members of the Society of Seekers of Truth may
be known and identified, for they are historical figures. It suggests that a
number of them distinguished themselves as Monarchists, Fascists,
Communists, and Traditionalists.
The thesis of the documentary – to the extent that it has a consistent
one – is that Gurdjieff was something of an agent-provocateur whose
life and work, if understandable at all, may be viewed in light of the
political philosophies, the psychological theories, and the intrigues of his
day in the context of Eastern Europe.
John Robert Colombo is known as the Master Gatherer in Canada for his
innumerable anthologies of lore and literature. He has published three
book-length studies of the life and work of the metaphysical writer Denis
Saurat. Earlier this year, he hosted a six-part, thirty-minute, television
series titled Unexplained Canada which is currently in reruns on the
Space Channel.
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