Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

evik Party passed a resolution recognising the positive role of “sectarians” in the development of a new society, and seeking to channel their work toward the building of the Soviet state.'® In other cases, the communitarian ideals of religious radicals were perceived by outsiders as communist, causing diffi- culties to the groups. Such was the case in the agrarian commune “Palma” [The Palm], established in Brazil in 1923 by Latvians who had emigrated in the early 1920s during the wave of apocalyptic emigration led by Baptist pastor Janis Inkis. The commune experienced tension in its relationships with authorities, who viewed it as a group of communists.” Publishing House, 1980), pp. 1-2. '? Ernst Troeltsch, Protestantism and Progress: a Historical Study of the Relation of Protestant- ism to the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958), p. 143. ' Michael A.G. Haykin, “Eighteenth-Century Calvinistic Baptists and the Political Realm, with Particular Reference to the Thought of Andrew Fuller’, in Philip E. Thompson and Anthony R. Cross (eds), Recycling the Past or Researching History? Studies in Baptist Histo- riography and Myths (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2005), p. 265. 'S Nicholas Railton, No North Sea: the Anglo-German Evangelical Network in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2000), p. 171. '6 V.A. Popov, IS. Prokhanov: Stranitsy zhizni (St Petersburg: Bibliia dlia vsekh, 1996), pp. 137-138. '7 The commune “Palma” stated in its bylaws that, following the ideals of the early church, it wished “to embody mutual moral and material support in a communal society”. Vilberts Krasnais, Latviesu kolonijas (Melbourne: Karla Zarina fonds, 1980), p. 484. 105 We must also keep in mind that the ideas of some early socialists were often far from the later destructive developments in socialist ideology. Oscar Wilde's essay “The Soul of Man under Socialism” (1891) is an inter- esting example of the creativity that developed among early socialists. The essay may be rightly accused of being naive and utopian, but it certainly was against the vulgarised, authoritarian version of socialism developed by Lenin and his co-workers. Wilde placed Christianity within socialist discourse by interpreting the words and deeds of Christ in a manner that portrayed Him as a promoter of individualism, which - according to Wilde, but contrary to many other socialists - formed the basis of socialist beliefs. According to Wilde, “The message of Christ to man was simply ‘Be thyself? That is the secret of Christ.”"* The Origins of Socialist Ideas in Latvia and their Interaction with the Church In the territory of Latvia, Socialist perspectives came out of the “New Current” [Jaund strdava], a movement of democratically orientated Latvian intelligentsia which gathered around the Dienas Lapa [The Page of the Day] in the 1880s and 1890s.'° In 1899, partially inspired by the first congress of the Party of the Soci