As part of the world affairs readings given in the early 1930s, Cayce made this statement about Russia.
(Q) What should be the attitude of so-called capitalist nations toward Russia? (A) On Russia's religious development will come the greater hope of the world. [See 3976-10, Par. R4, R6.] Then that one, or group, that is the closer in its relationships, may fare the better in the gradual changes and final settlement of conditions as to the rule of the world. (3976-10_8)
I have recently become aware that some individuals interpret this reading to mean that we should support Russian foreign policy and use it to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The thinking is that since Russia is the 'greater hope of the world', other nations should afford some latitude to Russia when it conducts its domestic and foreign policies. After all, who are we to interfere in the grand scheme of things when God obviously has a plan for Russia?
Anyone who really believes that Putin's Russia is in any way the greater hope of the world needs to take a deeper dive into the readings and compare the Russian national agenda with basic spiritual principles. Putin and Archbishop Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has granted forgiveness of all sins and admission to heaven for any soldier who dies fighting in Ukraine, are ex-KGB agents and are both working together to revive the "glory" of the Soviet Union. They now state this publically and are backing up their words with the dedication of dozens and dozens of new statues of Stalin across Russia, remaking him into a man of vision whose strong rule was necessary to ensure peace and stability instead of the murderous monster who by conservative estimates killed six to nine million people. His 1937 Great Purge alone claimed the lives of at least 700,000 Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians and Estonians. Recently Stalin's portrait appeared in a mural in the Cathedral of Russian Armed Forces in Patriot Park outside Moscow despite the fact that Stalin oversaw the destruction of churches as part of his campaign for the eradication of religion (The Guardian, 2020). The Russian Orthodox Church is being used to serve the political aims of an increasingly authoritarian regime.
President Putin, Archbishop Kirill and their many cohorts and lackeys are sick people consumed with the love of power and wealth. They are not caring Christians. They twist and reinvent history for their own selfish purposes and use their political and religious power and policies to destroy anyone who would dare speak out against the evil they promote. The indoctrination of Russian citizens to further their goals includes the wholesale revision of high school text books to ensure that the next generation will submissively follow the party line (The Washington Post, 2023). Reading 3976-10_8 is correct in that the greater hope of the world was and is that Russia undergoes true sincere religious (spiritual) development where the love of God and love of neighbor permeates the land, but don't take that to mean that Russia is currently Cayce's land of hope.
Until the national attitude of the people that govern and populate Russia changes, Russia will continue to seek empire and power and dominance over their neighbors and will continue to be a threat to the rest of the world. Don't misinterpret the reading and conclude that Russia was a light unto the world in the 1930s or is a light unto the world today. It wasn't, it isn't and it is still far from it. The Russian population and the rest of the world will continue to suffer until true spiritual enlightenment based on love of God and neighbor comes to Russia as a nation. The greater hope of the world is that Russia undergoes a massive spiritual revival that changes the hearts of the people, not that it becomes a great power. Russia was not a land of hope in Stalin's time when the reading was given and is still not today a land of hope in any sense of the word. It had a great opportunity to take a different political path in 1993 when the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia declared itself a democracy, but within a few years Russians sold their souls to an ex-KGB agent, electing him as president and losing the nascent democracy and the chance to begin fulfilling reading 3976-10_8.
(Q) The Russian situation. (A) As we have indicated, here a new understanding has and will come to a troubled people. Here, because of the yoke of oppression, because of the self-indulgences, has arisen another extreme. Only when there is freedom of speech, the right to worship according to the dictates of the conscience, - until these come about, still turmoils will be within. (3976-19_31)
In an interview given by Prime Minister Kaja Kallas of Estonia, she succinctly described the difference between the post-WWII experience of the United Kingdom and other western European democracies and the experience of eastern European countries in a warning about the danger of letting Russia succeed in its invasion of Ukraine. After WWII, western countries rebuilt their economies and strengthened their democracies as their populations worked to emerge from the devastation. Meanwhile, eastern European countries continued to suffer atrocities as the Soviet Union under Stalin deported large numbers of their population to the gulags of eastern Soviet Union and conducted mass-murder campaigns to cleanse the countries of "undesirable" elements. The post-WWII peace that western countries enjoyed was vastly difference from the peace that eastern countries endured. Putin wants to revive the Soviet Empire and judging from the brutality of the Russian army in Ukraine, it will embrace all of the evil that the old Soviet Union under Stalin inflicted on eastern Europeans after WWII.
There were other readings in the World Affairs series that referred to Russia. Reading 3976-12_11 stated that from Russia there might come the basis of a more world-wide religious thought, but also indicated it was a step by step process and not a certainty. The key to such a change in Russia and other totalitarian nations are the same, that "those who are in power must know that they are their brother's keeper" and that they must manifest the commandments of Jesus (3976-19_9). Other readings show that Russia is a work in progress and no one knows when or if Russia will fulfill its destiny. Until then, its population and its neighbors will continue to suffer because of its imperialistic bent and corrupt politicians.
What then of nations? In Russia there comes the hope of the world, not as that sometimes termed of the Communistic, of the Bolshevistic; no. But freedom, freedom! that each man will live for his fellow man! The principle has been born. It will take years for it to be crystallized, but out of Russia comes again the hope of the world. Guided by what? That friendship with the nation that hath even set on its present monetary unit "In God We Trust." (3976-29_12)
The example and friendship of America has the potential to guide Russia, but America also has its own problems that could hinder or destroy its ability to help Russia or any other nation. The World Affairs readings gave a warning to America that its people must also make the commandments of Jesus the fundamental guiding principles of their everyday life if they wished America to remain a spiritual beacon of hope. The failure of Americans to uphold the moral and spiritual values espoused by Jesus will cause America to lose its current status as a great nation, just as it will cause Russia to fail to achieve its higher purpose to become a nation of freedom and love. The readings stress an attitude of acceptance of others as demonstrated in the phrase or reading 3976-19_31, "the right to worship according to the dictates of the conscience". It is not that all Americans or all Russians must embrace Christianity, but that all of the diverse people that make up America or Russia must put love of God and neighbor ahead of any particular religious dogma or belief and show respect toward all other people irrespective of their religious affiliation. The persistence of racism among Christians in America (Jones, 2020), the rise of Christian nationalism as a political force, and the fascist overtones of that movement does not bode well for the future of American democracy and freedom or its own precarious status as a beacon of hope.
Are individuals fulfilling those channels to which they have been brought through their own application of the knowledge within themselves to fulfill their position? ... If there is not the acceptance in America of the closer brotherhood of man, the love of the neighbor as self, civilization must wend its way westward - and again must Mongolia, must a hated people, be raised. (3976-15_14)
Jones, R.P., 2020, White Too Long: Simon and Shuster, New York, New York.
The Guardian, 2020, Giant new Russian cathedral glorifies Putin and Stalin in mosaics: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/giant-new-russian-cathedral-glorifies-putin-stalin-mosaics
The Washington Post, 2023, Putin conquers Russia's history textbooks: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/18/russia-history-school-textbooks-revised/