Zoya Leshcheva
“But Zoya Leshcheva managed to outdo her whole family. And here is how. Her father, her mother, her grandfather, her grandmother, and her elder adolescent brothers had all been scattered to distant camps because of their faith in GOD.”- (page 276–277)
We learn in the Gulag Archipelago about the manner that socialism did not help the elderly, adults, nor the children. We learn about individuals from all ages who discovered how socialism spoke lies and actually led to envy and coveting. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spoke about elder individuals who resisted the lies and deceit of socialism including Anatoly Fastenko and Dusya Chmil. We learned about adults who denied the temptations and persisted amidst the persecution of socialism seen in Kozyrev and Irena Nagel. We find interesting and amazing examples of children and adolescents who also decided to deny socialism and keep their faith in GOD Almighty.
Zoya was a ten year old child who was able to resist and fight off the attempts of socialism to be indoctrinated into the practice of envy, hate, and sin. We learned that Soviet Bolshevik socialism attempted to break up families so that the children did not live with their parents. This was intentional so that the children would grow up resenting their parents eventhough it was the Soviet Bolsheviks who caused this difficulty. Soviet socialism also attempted to cause adultery to be practiced so that families were not stable and the commandments of Moses were not obeyed. The Soviet Bolsheviks also attempted to prevent families from raising up their children in the Christian faith because then the children would grow in virtues, mature, and develop qualities that would help them persevere. The intention was to produce negative emotions in the children and a lack of stability so that they would decide to practice sin and idol worship instead. Socialism hates stable families raised after the Christian model seen in Genesis and throughout Scripture.
The Soviet Bolsheviks tried to send whole families to gulag but would break up the families so that the family members were not together. Even in cases of marriages without children, the Soviet Bolsheviks attempted to separate spouses so that they were not together in gulag and attempted to cause adultery. Amidst all of that, Zoya was taken to gulag along with her whole family including grandparents, parents, and elder siblings. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described that Zoya was separated from her family being only a ten year old and was sent to an orphanage. Zoya would decide to persevere being righteous and faithful to GOD Almighty and not believe the lies of socialism seeing the cowardice and envy that socialism causes.
“Even here she refused to steal or speak bad words. ‘A mother as sacred as mine must never have a daughter who is a criminal. I would rather be a political, like my whole family.’”- (page 277)
Zoya would persevere without renouncing her faith in GOD Almighty. She refused to be molded to the indoctrination that socialism attempted to have on children in the orphanage. Zoya had a necklace that other children attempted to steal from her, yet she would not allow the other children to steal her necklace. Eventually, they sent Zoya to an orphanage for children with mental developmental delays because she refused to be indoctrinated to socialism. There too she kept her necklace and refused to be corrupted by socialism and circumstances. Zoya preferred to be a “political”, an individual that was persecuted and not treated with equality by the Soviet Bolsheviks, because of her faith in GOD Almighty. Zoya knew that the difficulties, adversities, and negative circumstances were all because of socialism and the envy of socialists. Zoya refused to accept socialism and lived her life denying the indoctrination of Soviet socialism. Zoya remained a Christian and did not care about the difficulties.
“For her directness and her language [speaking truth] she got a second camp sentence and, it seems, a third one also.”- (page 278)