It´s a question that seems to have haunted Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle, as he pondered the fate of his own soul towards the end of his life – despite his public protestations to the contrary.
He may have made little money from the wildly successful weapon of choice for the world’s revolutionaries, drug cartels, terrorists, kidnappers, pirates and soldiers, saying once he would have been better off making a lawn mower. But he was feted by the Russian Motherland for whom it was developed towards the end of World War II and perfected in 1947, the year for which the Avtomat Kalashnikova is named. His awards from the Soviet authorities included the Order of Lenin and the Hero of Socialist Labour.
Now, however, it has emerged that Mr Kalashnikov was suffering “spiritual pain” at the thought of the slaughter his invention had wrought, and the “devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression” his assault rifle fed.