A Christian satire?

The Master and Margarita.

Frankly, I don't see it.

Wrong Jesus, wrong Pilate for a Christian satire of a determinedly atheist society.

And the focus on the devil is tongue-in-cheek and wrong, as well. 

But then, what?

Very odd.

Whatever sort of believer he may have been, he was far from orthodoxy - and Orthodoxy - and perhaps closer to atheism.

He would not be the only atheist more sympathetic to inoffensive believers than to unbelievers out to crush religion with violent repression.

Per the bio published in the Vintage edition, Bulgakov was a monarchist who fought with the Whites.

Like the later Spanish Civil War, it seems that in the Russian Civil War there was no center, but only extremes of left and right.

Bulgakov volunteered to serve with the Whites.

That says something.

In his literary career he defended Whites.

There are notes on each chapter.

They do not tell us what a "False Dmitri" is (chapter 10).

They should.