The ongoing ideological struggle over the RMM concept of the Soviet/British/etc lunar empire may quietly have been won. Specifically, while reading Greg's long-form write-up of the Rufelza cult on the Issaries website, I began to wonder if those cunning Moonies had managed to bring him to full Red Moon Illumination.
What else is Rufelza, after all, than the Marxism to the Empire's Soviet Union?
Consider, Rufelza - the Red Moon - is on the one hand the official centrepoint of the empire, but at the same time her cult and her views are often dismissed as irrelevant, populist or simplistic by the imperial elite. She preaches equality and inclusion - 'we are all us' - even while 'her' empire is ruled by cliques who as often as not pay little more than lip-service to Rufelzan egalitarianism. Just think of the Party elite, with their special shops and hospitals and even their own lanes in major roads in Moscow, so they never had to suffer the same traffic jams as the workers they were meant to be serving! Born of rebellion against tyranny and misrule, Rufelza is also as often used to justify a tyrannical and arbitrary government.
Rufelza's goal is a collectivised world, egalitarian, without boundaries and repression. Her worshippers go to an idyllic afterlife without work or strife. OK, so Marx never believed that true Communism would have no work, but certainly nations, states, repression and even money would be a thing of the past, as everyone worked happily for the common good. Of course, in the SU - and the LE - nationalism, repression and materialism were all alive and well, however much the state religion/ideology claimed to be doing away with them.
Her worshippers are expected on holy days to contribute food and drink for the common feast. They are also expected to give up a day's labour every week, month or whatever to show their dedication - just as Soviet Party members had their 'voluntary' Subbotnik ('Little Saturday'). And anyone who ever lived in the Soviet Union knows just how vital that Embrace Contradictions skill was.
Of course, you may have to squint a little through your crimson-coloured spectacles to see this Mythic Resonance in all its glory…
In comradeship and illumination,
Mark
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