The disloyalty
and dissolution of five national divisions during the war
period must be counted as a disturbing failure in the
Soviet minorities policy.
and dissolution of five national divisions during the war
period must be counted as a disturbing failure in the
Soviet minorities policy.
Soviet Union - 1952 - Soviet Civilization
The Consti-
tution includes special provisions concerning this matter.
Thus, Article 121 provides that instruction in schools
is to be "conducted in the native language"; and Article
40 that "laws passed by the Supreme Soviet of the U. S.
S. R. are published in the language of the Union Repub-
lics. " Article 110 is also revealing: "Judicial proceedings
are conducted in the language of the Union Republic,
Autonomous Republic or Autonomous Region, persons
not knowing this language being guaranteed every op-
portunity of fully acquainting themselves with the ma-
terial of the case through an interpreter and likewise the
right to use their own language in court. " With few
exceptions, Russian is the second language taught among
the minorities and is the common medium for com-
munication.
Since the Revolution of 1917 Soviet experts have
drawn up written alphabets, grammars and dictionaries
for sixty-seven of the smaller peoples who possessed only
oral languages. A number of additional groups have
substituted simplified alphabets for the complicated
Arabic or Mongolian scripts upon which they previously
relied. Soviet schools use at least seventy languages alto-
gether; books are printed in no less than 110. The
encouragement and teaching of the native vernacular
has been of enormous assistance in reducing the high rate
of illiteracy among formerly backward races and national-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
ities; and in advancing their general cultural level.
An outstanding feature of the cultural renaissance
among minorities has been the progress of women. In the
Tsarist Empire women led an even harder existence
among the subject nationalities, especially in Moham-
medan areas, than among the Russians themselves. Since
1917 women in typically Moslem districts, such as the
Caucasus and Central Asia, have gone far toward attain-
ing equality with men. The Soviet Government, so often
pictured abroad as bent on destroying the institution of
monogamy, has put into effect strict laws throughout the
U. S. S. R. against bigamy and polygamy. It has also for-
bidden by law other traditional practices spelling indig-
nity and suffering for the female sex, such as child mar-
riage, bride abduction and bride purchase. Bride pur-
chase, in which prospective wives were regarded as chat-
tels and literally sold to their future husbands, brought
many flagrant evils in its train and was probably the worst
of the old Mohammedan marriage customs.
In the long crusade for the emancipation of women
in the Soviet East the most intense and dramatic struggles
revolved around the wearing of the veil, visible and ever-
present symbol of the Moslem woman's inferior lot, as
well as a hateful, unhealthy instrument in her spiritual
and physical degradation. By 1924 "Away with the
Veil! " had become the fighting slogan of hundreds of
thousands of women in the Mohammedan areas. Natur-
ally the forces of religious reaction bitterly resisted the
campaign against the veil. Hundreds of women became
martyrs to the cause, as many as 500 being killed by their
enraged husbands or other men. But as time went on the
anti-veil cohorts, with the full backing of the Soviet
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? SOVIET ETHHIC DEMOCRACY
regime, won out, so that today relatively few women in
the U. S. S. R. adhere to the ancient practice of the veil.
Women's life, among the minorities has also greatly
improved because of the general cultural and economic
advances under the Soviets. Soviet stress on the aboli-
tion of illiteracy, the care of mother and child, the spread
of science and the betterment of material conditions have
wrought tremendous benefits for the female sex. In every
part of the old Empire the large majority of the inhabi-
tants were positively medieval in their treatment of
disease and their ignorance of the simplest laws of hy-
giene. All but universal was the reliance on spells, incan-
tations, witch doctors, faith healing, or the magic powers
of icons and holy water. The far-flung system of (public
health^ including insistence upon elementary cleanliness,
has resulted in the establishment of up-to-date medical
techniques among ethnic minorities formerly quite prim-
itive in their living habits.
As for material progress in the large, whereas the
Tsars consciously held back the economic development
of the subject nationalities, so that their labor and raw
materials could be better exploited, the Soviet Govern-
ment has furthered to the best of its ability the develop-
ment of well-rounded economies in each Union Republic.
The Five-Year Plans have reached out to the most distant
and undeveloped regions, investing huge amounts of
capital, stimulating increased production in industry
and agriculture, providing for education in scientific
methods and machine techniques. The Soviet planners
have paid particular attention to the poorer, more back-
ward sections of the country and thus allocated, in the
nation-wide federal budgets, especially large increases in
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
expenditures for the Union Republics of the Transcau-
casus and Central Asia.
The prodigious task in 1917 was to lead the minori-
ties from feudal, patriarchal and nomadic forms of life
to the advanced stage of a socialist system, without their
passing through a transitional period of industrial capi-
talism. Actually, in the thirty-five years since they as-
sumed power, the Soviets have accomplished this end
amongst all but a fraction of the peoples of the U. S. S. R.
3. Summary and Evaluation
We can summarize the basic principles behind the
Soviet minorities policy under five main headings:
First, cultural. The Soviets believe that the many
diverse national cultures of the U. S. S. R. have ample scope
for self-expression and development in functioning ac-
cording to the maxim of "national in form and socialist
in content. " The "national in form" lays stress on the
native languages and folk traditions, while the "socialist
in content" refers to the new economic, social and polit-
ical ideology and institutions characteristic of socialism.
In the very distant future this cultural pluralism may give
way to a qualitatively different sort of civilization in
which the various national cultures, after fulfilling their
greatest promise, merge into a single common culture
with a single common language. But this outcome will
take place, according to Communist theory, only after
mankind as a whole adopts socialism. The final result
in the world at large is to be the disappearance of national
languages through gradual desuetude and the coming
into being of a new international language. These vague
and far-off possibilities I look upon as purely speculative.
Second, economic. The Soviet theory is that the fun-
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? SOVIET ETHHIC DEMOCRACY
damental roots of national and racial prejudice and per-
secution are economic. When these roots have been eradi-
cated through the abolition of poverty, depression and
unemployment, so that different peoples do not fear one
another as economic competitors, then the traditional
hatreds and antagonisms tend to die out. Social psychol-
ogists, both Communist and non-Communist, have long
pointed out the extent to which group as well as indi-
vidual tensions result from economic insecurity. In an
economy of scarcity, one racial or national unit may have
real reason to dread the competition of another for the
limited supply of jobs and material goods available. And
a group with a sense of rancor or of inferiority arising
from constant want and exploitation is only too likely to
work out its frustrations in hostile attitudes and actions
toward other groups.
From the Soviet viewpoint, the planned socialist sys-
tem of the U. S. S. R. has eradicated the basic causes of
inter-racial and inter-national friction by ensuring eco-
nomic security for everyone from birth to death; by in-
stilling a new unity among the Soviet nationalities with
the great common aim of socialism; and by providing the
Soviet peoples as a whole, in the nation-wide campaigns
to put across the Five-Year Plans, with the sort of peace-
time dedication of energy and idealism that the Ameri-
can philosopher, William James, envisaged as "the moral
equivalent of war. "
Third, scientific. Biology, anthropology and related
sciences have shown that all the peoples of this planet
have a common origin; and that there are no inherently
superior races or nations. Modern science declares that
neither the shape of the head nor the texture of the hair,
the color of the skin nor the color of the eyes, the weight
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
of the brain nor the height of the body, make one ethnic
group generally superior or inferior to another. On the
basis of such scientific findings, Soviet thinkers assert that
the retarded socio-cultural level of any national group at
any period of history is not a reliable index of its native
abilities, but can be explained primarily in terms of the
total environmental situation and more particularly in
terms of economic causation.
The Soviet socialist system throughout rests upon a
profound belief in the general educability of human na-
ture; it consciously pursues this principle in regard to
nationalities as well as individuals and classes. It is a car-
dinal point in the minorities policy to deny the existence
of unalterable socio-cultural traits and to affirm the influ-
ence of education and environment. The progress of the
Soviet nationalities bears out the claim of the Soviet
leaders, in their earliest period of power, that the back-
ward minority peoples could, if given a proper opportun-
ity, catch up with the more advanced peoples of the
U. S. S. R.
Fourth, democratic. Soviet theory and practice up-
hold the right of all racial and national groups to
freedom and equality. The Soviet people are perfectly
clear that without full ethnic democracy no country
containing substantial minorities can be considered truly
democratic. To paraphrase the American Declaration of
Independence, the Soviets take the stand that not only
all individuals, but also all nations "are created equal,
that they are endowed . . . with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. "
Fifth, ethical and international. The professed ethical
aim is the freedom and welfare of all individuals and
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? SOVIET ETHNIC DEMOCRACY
ethnic groups within the U. S. S. R. , irrespective of nation
or race. This ethical attitude extends to mankind as a
whole and includes the hope that all the manifold peoples
of the earth, in whatever country or continent, may live
together in peace and equality. The ideal of eventual
international brotherhood is a part of Soviet philosophy,
although this feeling of good will does not apply to ex-
ploiting or war-making classes or groups. It does em-
brace, however, the masses of the people even in fascist
countries; and it is significant that during the height of
the Second World War the Soviet leaders never de-
nounced the German people, but always the Nazis, the
Hitlerites, the German invaders or the German imperi-
alists.
In a war-torn, hate-filled era during which the rise of
arrogant and aggressive nationalism has given undue
emphasis to the differences between races and nations,
it is of singular purport that the Soviet experience should
bring out the similarities between races and nations. In
this process the Soviets have underlined the great truth
that all peoples are part of the same human family and
possess common needs and aspirations.
Proceeding to an evaluation of the Soviet minorities
policy, we must be careful not to claim too much for it.
It would be an exaggeration to say and Utopian to expect
that all racial and national prejudice has disappeared
from Soviet Russia. Lingering traces of the old antipathies
and suspicions undoubtedly still exist, particularly among
the older generation; and we know that the Nazis were
able to rekindle some of the old racial antagonisms in
the occupied areas. When the Soviet authorities re-
gained control of these regions they undertook vigorous
and successful counter-measures against the Hitlerite
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
propaganda. Rumors in the anti-Soviet press of officially
condoned or encouraged anti-Semitism in the U. S. S. R.
in the post-war period are not, so far as I can discover,
founded on fact.
Typical of newspaper misrepresentations was an
article by Mr. Harry Schwartz in The New York Times
of April 20, 1949, charging that the Soviet satirical
weekly, Krokodil, had run a cartoon in its issue of March
20, 1949, of an anti-Semitic character. The Times story
stated: "One cartoon on the front page of Krokodil
juxtaposes the name of Lippmann, which is usually
Jewish in the Soviet Union, with the word Zhid, a de-
risive Russian term for Jews used by Russian-speaking
anti-Semites. " But it turned out that the cartoon was
one satirizing "bourgeois cosmopolitanism" and that in
doing so it specified certain foreign writers, among them
the American, Walter Lippmann, and the Frenchman,
Andre Gide, whose name in Russian is spelled Zhid.
The Times' error was the more inexcusable because
Gide's first name as well as last was clearly printed in the
cartoon.
In this same unscrupulous press war against Soviet
Russia Newsweek of May 2, 1949, published a layout of
five Soviet cartoons, including the one mentioned by the
Times, under the heading: "Poison in Pen and Ink: the
Soviet Anti-Semitic Campaign. " The text claimed that
these cartoons, all of them satirizing "homeless cosmo-
politans," were anti-Semitic because the main figures in
them were drawn with deliberately emphasized "hooked
noses. " However, anyone who is familiar with Soviet
cartoons and posters knows that one of the favorite
methods used by Soviet artists to ridicule a type or char-
acter is to make him resemble a bird with a beak or a
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? SOVIET ETHHIC DEMOCRACY
fantastic bird-animal combination. Soviet cartoonists
often depicted the Nazi Goebbels, for instance, as a long-
beaked, humpbacked crow or vulture. The cartoons
reproduced by Newsweek simply continued this tradi-
tion and gave long predatory beaks, not noses at all, to
the characters satirized.
It is significant also that in 1949, 1950 and 1951 a con-
siderably larger percentage of the annual Stalin awards
for noteworthy achievement in the arts and sciences
went to Soviet Jews than the proportion of Jews -- some
2 percent -- to the total population.
It cannot be denied, however, that the traditional
aspects of Jewish culture -- in religion, literature and
social custom -- have been declining. This apparently
is due to the fact that the Soviet Jews, finally living in
full equality, with racial discrimination and persecution
ended, and having become an integral part of a great
new social movement, in considerable numbers no longer
feel the urge to preserve their special identity as a people
and to maintain in their daily lives the historic character-
istics of Jewry.
In summarizing the minorities situation, we can ob-
jectively state that over its whole vast area the numerous
Soviet peoples, regardless of race or color, nationality or
physiognomy, mingle with one another at will, attend
the same educational institutions, sit next to one another
at theatres and other places of amusement, travel and
eat together, have rooms at the same hotels or clubs,
participate on equal terms in the same crafts or profes-
sions, join the same trade unions and cultural associations,
and possess the same rights of suffrage and of election or
appointment to public office. No persons in the Soviet
Union can be barred, on account of race or nationality,
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
from a hospital or hotel, from a vacation resort or bathing
beach, from a restaurant or inn, from some section of a
train or trolley, or from a special residential district in
town or city.
Soviet men and women of whatever nationality marry
if there is mutual love; and marital intermixture does
constantly take place. The opinion of foreign visitors to
Soviet Russia is almost unanimous in testifying that the
various peoples associate freely together in every visible
way. In large cities like Moscow and Kiev there are
always a considerable number of Soviet citizens from the
minority Republics of the Volga, the Transcaucasus or
Asia. And one of the best means of obtaining a sense of
the multi-national character and racial equality of the
Soviet commonwealth is to see, as I have seen, the polyglot
audiences at the theatre, opera, ballet and motion picture.
During the strain of the Nazi invasion several cracks
appeared in the structure of Soviet inter-ethnic harmony.
I have already told of the abolition of the German Volga
Republic in the first few months of Hitler's assault, be-
cause its population failed to maintain its loyalty to the
Soviet federation. * For the same reason the Soviet Gov-
ernment during the war years dissolved the Chechen-
Ingush, Crimean and Kalmyk Autonomous Republics,
and the Karachai Autonomous Region. The German
aggressors penetrated to all of these territories and re-
ceived extensive aid and comfort from fifth-columnists or
collaborationists among their peoples.
The disloyalty
and dissolution of five national divisions during the war
period must be counted as a disturbing failure in the
Soviet minorities policy.
Nonetheless, this Soviet policy as a whole has, in my
? See p. 100.
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? SOVIET ETHKIC DEMOCRACY
judgment, proven a marked success. Whatever criticisms
one may have of the Soviet socialist system, one has to
admit that the Soviet Union has made impressive pro-
gress in the sphere of inter-ethnic relationships. Even
its severest critics, writers such as William Henry Cham-
berlin and Louis Fischer, have had a good word to say
about its handling of the nationalities problem.
Manifestly the national federalism of the U. S. S. R.
constitutes one possible solution of the minorities ques-
tion that must be seriously considered henceforth in this
general field. In a world still infected by the results of
fascist and Nazi racist propaganda, the Soviet example
of more than 170 different ethnic groups cooperating in
harmony and friendship is of the utmost consequence.
It is clear that this attitude toward nationalities is in
accord with the general aims of the United Nations
Charter and that other countries with minorities prob-
lems have much to learn from the Soviet experience.
Already among the Babel of Balkan peoples, Yugo-
slavia has gone a long way in eliminating the ethnic strife
so long rampant within its borders by instituting a gov-
ernment patterned along Soviet lines, consisting of
six federated republics representing the chief national
groups: the Bosnia-Herzegovinians, Croats, Macedonians,
Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes. In a conference held
in New Delhi during June, 1952, on India's complex
ethnic problems no less an Eastern statesman than Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru praised the U. S. S. R. as the
"only country" that had adopted a "wise and successful
policy in winning over people in outlying areas. "7 He
gave particular credit to the Soviet practice of encourag-
ing the native languages of minority groups.
The Soviet minorities policy has far-reaching impli-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
cations in regard to the current international scene. For
general recognition on the part of colored and colonial
peoples that the Soviets stand for racial equality and
democracy is a factor of inestimable importance in in-
creasing Soviet influence throughout the Far East, Middle
East and Africa. These same peoples feel that Britain,
France and the United States, no matter how loudly they
boast of their democracy, still retain their traditional
attitude of white superiority.
Constant educational work by both private and public
authorities has not been able to overcome the habit of
American soldiers and newspapermen in calling Koreans
and other dark-skinned peoples of the East by the deroga-
tory term gook. Life magazine printed an article as
late as December, 1951, using this word in the text and
also in a picture caption. Worst of all has been the
example of the Union of South Africa, which, supposedly
part of the "free world," has adopted since World War II
policies towards its Negro population characteristic of
a Nazi state.
The advanced Soviet theory and practice of friendly
race relations is important for international ethics and
peace. For we have little chance of attaining enduring
amity among the peoples of the earth if national and
racial prejudices remain as virulent as during the first half
of this twentieth century. Toward the elimination of these
age-long animosities that have so afflicted the world, the
Soviet Union, in establishing full ethnic democracy
among its multitude of minorities, has taken genuine
leadership and made a profound contribution of global
significance.
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? CHAPTER IV SOVIET RUSSIA AND RELIGION
1. The Tsarist Background
In order to understand the status of religion in Soviet
Russia since the Communist Revolution of 1917, we must
have adequate knowledge of the religious situation under
the Tsars. It is essential to realize that the Eastern Ortho-
dox Church (more often known as the Greek or the
Russian Orthodox) was the official state church of old
Russia, with the Tsar himself as its head. Peter the Great
abolished the independent Patriarchate of the Orthodox
Church in 1721 and established in its place a Holy Synod
subject to appointment and control by the Crown.
Thenceforth the Orthodox Church became in reality a
department of the Government. The lay official directly
in charge of it, the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod,
whom Peter significantly described as "the Tsar's eye,"
was appointed by the Tsar and held the rank of a cabinet
minister.
The Church received huge subsidies from the Tsarist
State for the erection and maintenance of its cathedrals,
churches, monasteries, schools and seminaries. Its bishops
and higher clergy were paid their salaries by the Govern-
ment. Education in the Tsarist regime was under the
spiritual dominion of the Orthodox Church; and relig-
ious instruction, except in the relatively few institutions
maintained by non-Orthodox sects, inculcated the Ortho-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
dox interpretation of Christianity. In 1910 the Orthodox
Church itself operated approximately 40,000 elementary
schools, containing about 2,000,000 pupils or 50 percent
of the total enrollment in elementary schools at that time.
The Orthodox Church reserved unto itself a number
of privileges denied to other religious groups, whether
Christian like the Roman Catholics and Baptists or non-
Christian like the Jews and Mohammedans. The Church-
State tyranny, in fact, continually subjected these minor-
ity sects to discrimination and persecution. Especially
was this true in reference to the Jews. Time and again
Russian Orthodox priests and higher-ups joined Govern-
ment officials in instigating the bloodiest sort of pogroms
against the Jews. In the fall of 1905, for example, follow-
ing the abortive revolution against Tsar Nicholas II,
more than 100 pogroms occurred in different parts of
Russia, resulting in an estimated 4,000 Jews killed and
10,000 injured. These mass murders took place with
either the open or tacit approval of the Orthodox Church.
Church-State authorities mistakenly believed that the
Jews were the prime factor in the revolutionary move-
ment and roused popular feeling against them by play-
ing up the familiar charges of so-called ritual murder.
The Orthodox priests, furthermore, cooperated close-
ly with the secret service of the Tsars and turned over to
it the names of those carrying on revolutionary or liberal
propaganda in their parishes. A number of priests went
so far as to betray the confessional for purposes of espio-
nage. And the Church could boast that it had brought
about the imprisonment, exile or execution of thousands
upon thousands of progressive or radical intellectuals
and workers. That scholarly and objective observer of
the Russian scene, Sir Bernard Pares, tells us: "By the
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? SOVIET RUSSIA ANfD RELIGIOH
time of the Revolution the official Church had become
something very like an extra police ministry. Priests
were expected to report the words of their parishioners
to the police, some had to send in their sermons for cen-
sorship, and two of my own friends among them were
actually unfrocked. "1 The Russian Church worked hand
in hand generation after generation with the cruel Tsar-
ist autocracy and was a knowing accomplice in the most
constant and brutal injustices.
Upon its own adherents the Orthodox Church of
Russia exercised a most baneful influence. Professor
Julius Hecker, able student of religion under both Tsars
and Soviets, told me that the ascetic outlook on life of the
Russian Church was directed not only towards the morti-
fication of the flesh, but equally towards the mortification
of the mind. In imperial Russia there never took place,
as in Western Europe, a Protestant Reformation and
successful Bourgeois Revolution to push the Church
in the direction of modernity. The State-controlled Holy
Synod, the governing ecclesiastical body, promptly and
harshly suppressed all attempts to develop a liberal wing
within the Church. It frequently imprisoned non-con-
forming prelates in frigid Solovetsky Monastery on a far-
northern island in the White Sea. While individual
priests here and there showed sympathy for the down-
trodden workers and peasants, there existed no consider-
able element in the Russian Church, as in many Christian
countries, which supported social and economic reform.
The clergy of the Orthodox Church were on the whole
ignorant, superstitious and highly reactionary in their
views on public affairs.
Morally the Russian Church sank to the lowest level
of any ecclesiastical organization in the history of Chris-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION.
tendom. It is generally admited that in 1917 it had
become as corrupt and decadent as the Tsarist Govern-
ment itself. The crowning scandal occurred with the
rise to power of the notorious monk Rasputin at the
court of Tsar Nicholas. This licentious, drunken, half-
literate peasant attained a tremendous hold over the
credulous Tsarina through his forceful personality and
his supposed assistance in improving the health of her
ailing son, heir to the Russian throne. As the spiritual
adviser of the Empress, Rasputin was able to secure
virtually any favor for which he or his friends asked.
And he finally came to prescribe the principal appoint-
ments in the Church, of which for a time he became in
effect the dictator. The shame of it became at last so
widely and deeply felt that certain members of the nobil-
ity and of the Imperial family itself took the drastic step
of assassinating Rasputin. But the reputation of the
Church had suffered a crushing blow.
It is evident that the Russian Orthodox Church had
plenty of reasons for strongly supporting the Tsarist
regime. And it is no wonder that both before and after
the Revolution it should have fought the Communists
and other radical groups with all the means at its dis-
posal. Consequent to the Communist seizure of power
in the autumn of 1917, the Church became a rallying
center for the foes of the new order. In the bitter Civil
War which ensued it backed with its full strength the
White forces of counter-revolution and gave aid to the
invading anti-Soviet armies. Priests helped to organize
special Jesus and Virgin Mary regiments among the
Whites.
In January, 1918, the head of the Orthodox Church,
the Patriarch Tikhon, declared the Soviets anathema and
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AHD RELIGIOH
called on all Orthodox believers "not to enter into any
kind of association with these monsters of the human
race. "2 Another high Church official, the Metropolitan
Antoninii, laid a curse on the Communists by promising
to bless every weapon raised against the "Red, satanic
power" and to remit the sins of everyone who gave his life
in the cause of Russia and Christ.
Such incitements on the part of well-known prelates
had a considerable influence. And the general attitude
of the Church and its officials during the terrible years
of the Civil War shows clearly enough why priests and
other religious individuals were frequently imprisoned,
and sometimes shot, for counter-revolutionary activity
against the Soviet Republic. In such cases, however, they
received the same treatment as others committing the
same offence. The point is that the Soviet Government's
policy from the beginning was to punish religious per-
sons, as well as all others, for crimes against the State, but
not for the practice of their religion. This is not to imply
that in the early days of the Revolution local excesses
of one kind or another were not committed against the
hated Church authorities. But such occurrences were
probably inevitable in the first stages of such a far-reach-
ing overturn and ceased as soon as the Government was
able to set up stable control throughout the land.
2. Soviet Theory in regard to Religion
With their own survival as the all-important issue,
the Soviets concluded that they must at any cost break
the economic, educational and temporal power of organ-
ized religion in Russia; and that the role played by the
Orthodox Church, and to a lesser extent by the other
denominations, during the Revolution and Civil War
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
constituted yet one more proof of the Marxist theory that
religion, while occasionally rendering service to the forces
of progress, had on the whole been on the side of reaction
or conservatism. According to the Communists, Chris-
tian theology, with its emphasis on a supernatural God
- behind the visible universe and a realm of immortality
beyond the visible world, is bound to make for a this-
earthly status quo.
The Marxist believes that traditional religion, by
teaching people to rely on prayer and on God's inter-
vention to help them in times of trouble, deters men
from taking collective action against the government and
the social-economic system which are responsible for
their difficulties; and encourages them to take refuge in
the loving arms of an alleged all-seeing Heavenly Father.
Supplying striking documentation for the Marxist
thesis was the 1932 encyclical of Pope Pius XI issued at
the height of the great world depression of the early
thirties. Admonished the Pope: "Let the poor and all
those who at this time are facing the hard trial of want
of work and scarcity of food, let them in a like spirit of
penance suffer with greater resignation the privations
imposed upon them by these hard times and the state
of society, which Divine Providence in an ever-loving
but inscrutable plan has assigned them. Let them accept
with a humble and trustful heart from the hand of God
the effects of poverty, rendered harder by the distress in
which mankind now is struggling. . . . Let them take com-
fort in the certainty that their sacrifices and troubles
borne in a Christian spirit will concur efficaciously to
hasten the hour of mercy and peace. "
Old-time theology also discourages the faithful from
utilizing the problem-solving techniques of science. The
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? SOVIET RUSSIA ANJD RELIGIOH
tearful mother with her sick child, the poverty-stricken
laborer with his miserable family, the tragic peasant
facing drought and the failure of his crop -- all will
appeal to the Almighty to remedy their plight instead of
initiating scientific procedures. A beautiful example
of this tendency was the way peasants in Tsarist Russia
relied upon religious superstition in practical affairs. It
was part of the old agricultural technique to have a pro-
cession march through the fields after the sowing, with
an Orthodox priest in the lead sprinkling holy water
over the earth and chanting the following:
"Worms and grasshoppers!
Mice and rats!
Ants, moles and reptiles!
Flies and horseflies and hornets!
And all flying things that wreak
Destruction
"I forbid you in the name of the Saviour come on
earth to suffer for men; I forbid you in the name of the
all-seeing cherubim and seraphim who fly around the
heavenly throne; I forbid you in the name of the angels
and the millions of heavenly spirits standing in the glory
of God. I forbid you to touch any tree, fruitful or un-
fruitful, or leaf or plant or flower. I forbid you to bring
any woe on the fields of these people. "
Furthermore, according to Soviet theory, Christian-
ity's promise of a life eternal beyond death in which the
wretched and oppressed receive marvelous rewards in
heaven while their oppressors go to hell, results in the
exploited classes remaining resigned and humble instead
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
of insisting upon their right to a full and happy existence
during their one and only life upon this earth. Karl
Marx aptly expressed his views on the consequences of
belief in immortality when he declared: "The mortgage
held by the peasants on the heavenly estates guarantees
the mortgage held by the bourgeoisie on the peasant
estates. "3 Marx was thinking especially of the super-
natural doctrines of religion, such as the ideas of God
and immortality, when he penned his famous statement
that "religion is the opium of the people. "4
From its theological supernaturalism the Christian
Church has derived an ethical code of human behavior
that makes whole-hearted and rational enjoyment of this-
earthly life all but impossible. In the first place, the
Marxist points out, Christians are supposed to carry out
with absolute obedience the commands of God as laid
down in the Ten Commandments delivered to Moses
about 2,000 B. C. and as interpreted by the Church
authorities. These moral precepts ordained by the Al-
mighty and designed for the regulation of a primitive
Hebrew society are looked upon by the traditional
Church as eternal and universal principles to be neither
altered nor questioned no matter what the differences or
changes in the condition of the human race. Orthodox
Christian ethics leaves little room for the operation of
intelligence working upon the specific and unique prob-
lems that are ever arising in men's lives.
In the second place, the Marxist claims that Christian
supernaturalism has led in theory to the artificial splitting
up of human beings into two distinct and separate parts,
the body and the soul or personality. Since the important
thing is for a man to keep his soul pure and undefiled
for its rendezvous with God beyond the grave, he must
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?
tution includes special provisions concerning this matter.
Thus, Article 121 provides that instruction in schools
is to be "conducted in the native language"; and Article
40 that "laws passed by the Supreme Soviet of the U. S.
S. R. are published in the language of the Union Repub-
lics. " Article 110 is also revealing: "Judicial proceedings
are conducted in the language of the Union Republic,
Autonomous Republic or Autonomous Region, persons
not knowing this language being guaranteed every op-
portunity of fully acquainting themselves with the ma-
terial of the case through an interpreter and likewise the
right to use their own language in court. " With few
exceptions, Russian is the second language taught among
the minorities and is the common medium for com-
munication.
Since the Revolution of 1917 Soviet experts have
drawn up written alphabets, grammars and dictionaries
for sixty-seven of the smaller peoples who possessed only
oral languages. A number of additional groups have
substituted simplified alphabets for the complicated
Arabic or Mongolian scripts upon which they previously
relied. Soviet schools use at least seventy languages alto-
gether; books are printed in no less than 110. The
encouragement and teaching of the native vernacular
has been of enormous assistance in reducing the high rate
of illiteracy among formerly backward races and national-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
ities; and in advancing their general cultural level.
An outstanding feature of the cultural renaissance
among minorities has been the progress of women. In the
Tsarist Empire women led an even harder existence
among the subject nationalities, especially in Moham-
medan areas, than among the Russians themselves. Since
1917 women in typically Moslem districts, such as the
Caucasus and Central Asia, have gone far toward attain-
ing equality with men. The Soviet Government, so often
pictured abroad as bent on destroying the institution of
monogamy, has put into effect strict laws throughout the
U. S. S. R. against bigamy and polygamy. It has also for-
bidden by law other traditional practices spelling indig-
nity and suffering for the female sex, such as child mar-
riage, bride abduction and bride purchase. Bride pur-
chase, in which prospective wives were regarded as chat-
tels and literally sold to their future husbands, brought
many flagrant evils in its train and was probably the worst
of the old Mohammedan marriage customs.
In the long crusade for the emancipation of women
in the Soviet East the most intense and dramatic struggles
revolved around the wearing of the veil, visible and ever-
present symbol of the Moslem woman's inferior lot, as
well as a hateful, unhealthy instrument in her spiritual
and physical degradation. By 1924 "Away with the
Veil! " had become the fighting slogan of hundreds of
thousands of women in the Mohammedan areas. Natur-
ally the forces of religious reaction bitterly resisted the
campaign against the veil. Hundreds of women became
martyrs to the cause, as many as 500 being killed by their
enraged husbands or other men. But as time went on the
anti-veil cohorts, with the full backing of the Soviet
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? SOVIET ETHHIC DEMOCRACY
regime, won out, so that today relatively few women in
the U. S. S. R. adhere to the ancient practice of the veil.
Women's life, among the minorities has also greatly
improved because of the general cultural and economic
advances under the Soviets. Soviet stress on the aboli-
tion of illiteracy, the care of mother and child, the spread
of science and the betterment of material conditions have
wrought tremendous benefits for the female sex. In every
part of the old Empire the large majority of the inhabi-
tants were positively medieval in their treatment of
disease and their ignorance of the simplest laws of hy-
giene. All but universal was the reliance on spells, incan-
tations, witch doctors, faith healing, or the magic powers
of icons and holy water. The far-flung system of (public
health^ including insistence upon elementary cleanliness,
has resulted in the establishment of up-to-date medical
techniques among ethnic minorities formerly quite prim-
itive in their living habits.
As for material progress in the large, whereas the
Tsars consciously held back the economic development
of the subject nationalities, so that their labor and raw
materials could be better exploited, the Soviet Govern-
ment has furthered to the best of its ability the develop-
ment of well-rounded economies in each Union Republic.
The Five-Year Plans have reached out to the most distant
and undeveloped regions, investing huge amounts of
capital, stimulating increased production in industry
and agriculture, providing for education in scientific
methods and machine techniques. The Soviet planners
have paid particular attention to the poorer, more back-
ward sections of the country and thus allocated, in the
nation-wide federal budgets, especially large increases in
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
expenditures for the Union Republics of the Transcau-
casus and Central Asia.
The prodigious task in 1917 was to lead the minori-
ties from feudal, patriarchal and nomadic forms of life
to the advanced stage of a socialist system, without their
passing through a transitional period of industrial capi-
talism. Actually, in the thirty-five years since they as-
sumed power, the Soviets have accomplished this end
amongst all but a fraction of the peoples of the U. S. S. R.
3. Summary and Evaluation
We can summarize the basic principles behind the
Soviet minorities policy under five main headings:
First, cultural. The Soviets believe that the many
diverse national cultures of the U. S. S. R. have ample scope
for self-expression and development in functioning ac-
cording to the maxim of "national in form and socialist
in content. " The "national in form" lays stress on the
native languages and folk traditions, while the "socialist
in content" refers to the new economic, social and polit-
ical ideology and institutions characteristic of socialism.
In the very distant future this cultural pluralism may give
way to a qualitatively different sort of civilization in
which the various national cultures, after fulfilling their
greatest promise, merge into a single common culture
with a single common language. But this outcome will
take place, according to Communist theory, only after
mankind as a whole adopts socialism. The final result
in the world at large is to be the disappearance of national
languages through gradual desuetude and the coming
into being of a new international language. These vague
and far-off possibilities I look upon as purely speculative.
Second, economic. The Soviet theory is that the fun-
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? SOVIET ETHHIC DEMOCRACY
damental roots of national and racial prejudice and per-
secution are economic. When these roots have been eradi-
cated through the abolition of poverty, depression and
unemployment, so that different peoples do not fear one
another as economic competitors, then the traditional
hatreds and antagonisms tend to die out. Social psychol-
ogists, both Communist and non-Communist, have long
pointed out the extent to which group as well as indi-
vidual tensions result from economic insecurity. In an
economy of scarcity, one racial or national unit may have
real reason to dread the competition of another for the
limited supply of jobs and material goods available. And
a group with a sense of rancor or of inferiority arising
from constant want and exploitation is only too likely to
work out its frustrations in hostile attitudes and actions
toward other groups.
From the Soviet viewpoint, the planned socialist sys-
tem of the U. S. S. R. has eradicated the basic causes of
inter-racial and inter-national friction by ensuring eco-
nomic security for everyone from birth to death; by in-
stilling a new unity among the Soviet nationalities with
the great common aim of socialism; and by providing the
Soviet peoples as a whole, in the nation-wide campaigns
to put across the Five-Year Plans, with the sort of peace-
time dedication of energy and idealism that the Ameri-
can philosopher, William James, envisaged as "the moral
equivalent of war. "
Third, scientific. Biology, anthropology and related
sciences have shown that all the peoples of this planet
have a common origin; and that there are no inherently
superior races or nations. Modern science declares that
neither the shape of the head nor the texture of the hair,
the color of the skin nor the color of the eyes, the weight
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
of the brain nor the height of the body, make one ethnic
group generally superior or inferior to another. On the
basis of such scientific findings, Soviet thinkers assert that
the retarded socio-cultural level of any national group at
any period of history is not a reliable index of its native
abilities, but can be explained primarily in terms of the
total environmental situation and more particularly in
terms of economic causation.
The Soviet socialist system throughout rests upon a
profound belief in the general educability of human na-
ture; it consciously pursues this principle in regard to
nationalities as well as individuals and classes. It is a car-
dinal point in the minorities policy to deny the existence
of unalterable socio-cultural traits and to affirm the influ-
ence of education and environment. The progress of the
Soviet nationalities bears out the claim of the Soviet
leaders, in their earliest period of power, that the back-
ward minority peoples could, if given a proper opportun-
ity, catch up with the more advanced peoples of the
U. S. S. R.
Fourth, democratic. Soviet theory and practice up-
hold the right of all racial and national groups to
freedom and equality. The Soviet people are perfectly
clear that without full ethnic democracy no country
containing substantial minorities can be considered truly
democratic. To paraphrase the American Declaration of
Independence, the Soviets take the stand that not only
all individuals, but also all nations "are created equal,
that they are endowed . . . with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. "
Fifth, ethical and international. The professed ethical
aim is the freedom and welfare of all individuals and
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? SOVIET ETHNIC DEMOCRACY
ethnic groups within the U. S. S. R. , irrespective of nation
or race. This ethical attitude extends to mankind as a
whole and includes the hope that all the manifold peoples
of the earth, in whatever country or continent, may live
together in peace and equality. The ideal of eventual
international brotherhood is a part of Soviet philosophy,
although this feeling of good will does not apply to ex-
ploiting or war-making classes or groups. It does em-
brace, however, the masses of the people even in fascist
countries; and it is significant that during the height of
the Second World War the Soviet leaders never de-
nounced the German people, but always the Nazis, the
Hitlerites, the German invaders or the German imperi-
alists.
In a war-torn, hate-filled era during which the rise of
arrogant and aggressive nationalism has given undue
emphasis to the differences between races and nations,
it is of singular purport that the Soviet experience should
bring out the similarities between races and nations. In
this process the Soviets have underlined the great truth
that all peoples are part of the same human family and
possess common needs and aspirations.
Proceeding to an evaluation of the Soviet minorities
policy, we must be careful not to claim too much for it.
It would be an exaggeration to say and Utopian to expect
that all racial and national prejudice has disappeared
from Soviet Russia. Lingering traces of the old antipathies
and suspicions undoubtedly still exist, particularly among
the older generation; and we know that the Nazis were
able to rekindle some of the old racial antagonisms in
the occupied areas. When the Soviet authorities re-
gained control of these regions they undertook vigorous
and successful counter-measures against the Hitlerite
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
propaganda. Rumors in the anti-Soviet press of officially
condoned or encouraged anti-Semitism in the U. S. S. R.
in the post-war period are not, so far as I can discover,
founded on fact.
Typical of newspaper misrepresentations was an
article by Mr. Harry Schwartz in The New York Times
of April 20, 1949, charging that the Soviet satirical
weekly, Krokodil, had run a cartoon in its issue of March
20, 1949, of an anti-Semitic character. The Times story
stated: "One cartoon on the front page of Krokodil
juxtaposes the name of Lippmann, which is usually
Jewish in the Soviet Union, with the word Zhid, a de-
risive Russian term for Jews used by Russian-speaking
anti-Semites. " But it turned out that the cartoon was
one satirizing "bourgeois cosmopolitanism" and that in
doing so it specified certain foreign writers, among them
the American, Walter Lippmann, and the Frenchman,
Andre Gide, whose name in Russian is spelled Zhid.
The Times' error was the more inexcusable because
Gide's first name as well as last was clearly printed in the
cartoon.
In this same unscrupulous press war against Soviet
Russia Newsweek of May 2, 1949, published a layout of
five Soviet cartoons, including the one mentioned by the
Times, under the heading: "Poison in Pen and Ink: the
Soviet Anti-Semitic Campaign. " The text claimed that
these cartoons, all of them satirizing "homeless cosmo-
politans," were anti-Semitic because the main figures in
them were drawn with deliberately emphasized "hooked
noses. " However, anyone who is familiar with Soviet
cartoons and posters knows that one of the favorite
methods used by Soviet artists to ridicule a type or char-
acter is to make him resemble a bird with a beak or a
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? SOVIET ETHHIC DEMOCRACY
fantastic bird-animal combination. Soviet cartoonists
often depicted the Nazi Goebbels, for instance, as a long-
beaked, humpbacked crow or vulture. The cartoons
reproduced by Newsweek simply continued this tradi-
tion and gave long predatory beaks, not noses at all, to
the characters satirized.
It is significant also that in 1949, 1950 and 1951 a con-
siderably larger percentage of the annual Stalin awards
for noteworthy achievement in the arts and sciences
went to Soviet Jews than the proportion of Jews -- some
2 percent -- to the total population.
It cannot be denied, however, that the traditional
aspects of Jewish culture -- in religion, literature and
social custom -- have been declining. This apparently
is due to the fact that the Soviet Jews, finally living in
full equality, with racial discrimination and persecution
ended, and having become an integral part of a great
new social movement, in considerable numbers no longer
feel the urge to preserve their special identity as a people
and to maintain in their daily lives the historic character-
istics of Jewry.
In summarizing the minorities situation, we can ob-
jectively state that over its whole vast area the numerous
Soviet peoples, regardless of race or color, nationality or
physiognomy, mingle with one another at will, attend
the same educational institutions, sit next to one another
at theatres and other places of amusement, travel and
eat together, have rooms at the same hotels or clubs,
participate on equal terms in the same crafts or profes-
sions, join the same trade unions and cultural associations,
and possess the same rights of suffrage and of election or
appointment to public office. No persons in the Soviet
Union can be barred, on account of race or nationality,
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
from a hospital or hotel, from a vacation resort or bathing
beach, from a restaurant or inn, from some section of a
train or trolley, or from a special residential district in
town or city.
Soviet men and women of whatever nationality marry
if there is mutual love; and marital intermixture does
constantly take place. The opinion of foreign visitors to
Soviet Russia is almost unanimous in testifying that the
various peoples associate freely together in every visible
way. In large cities like Moscow and Kiev there are
always a considerable number of Soviet citizens from the
minority Republics of the Volga, the Transcaucasus or
Asia. And one of the best means of obtaining a sense of
the multi-national character and racial equality of the
Soviet commonwealth is to see, as I have seen, the polyglot
audiences at the theatre, opera, ballet and motion picture.
During the strain of the Nazi invasion several cracks
appeared in the structure of Soviet inter-ethnic harmony.
I have already told of the abolition of the German Volga
Republic in the first few months of Hitler's assault, be-
cause its population failed to maintain its loyalty to the
Soviet federation. * For the same reason the Soviet Gov-
ernment during the war years dissolved the Chechen-
Ingush, Crimean and Kalmyk Autonomous Republics,
and the Karachai Autonomous Region. The German
aggressors penetrated to all of these territories and re-
ceived extensive aid and comfort from fifth-columnists or
collaborationists among their peoples.
The disloyalty
and dissolution of five national divisions during the war
period must be counted as a disturbing failure in the
Soviet minorities policy.
Nonetheless, this Soviet policy as a whole has, in my
? See p. 100.
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? SOVIET ETHKIC DEMOCRACY
judgment, proven a marked success. Whatever criticisms
one may have of the Soviet socialist system, one has to
admit that the Soviet Union has made impressive pro-
gress in the sphere of inter-ethnic relationships. Even
its severest critics, writers such as William Henry Cham-
berlin and Louis Fischer, have had a good word to say
about its handling of the nationalities problem.
Manifestly the national federalism of the U. S. S. R.
constitutes one possible solution of the minorities ques-
tion that must be seriously considered henceforth in this
general field. In a world still infected by the results of
fascist and Nazi racist propaganda, the Soviet example
of more than 170 different ethnic groups cooperating in
harmony and friendship is of the utmost consequence.
It is clear that this attitude toward nationalities is in
accord with the general aims of the United Nations
Charter and that other countries with minorities prob-
lems have much to learn from the Soviet experience.
Already among the Babel of Balkan peoples, Yugo-
slavia has gone a long way in eliminating the ethnic strife
so long rampant within its borders by instituting a gov-
ernment patterned along Soviet lines, consisting of
six federated republics representing the chief national
groups: the Bosnia-Herzegovinians, Croats, Macedonians,
Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes. In a conference held
in New Delhi during June, 1952, on India's complex
ethnic problems no less an Eastern statesman than Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru praised the U. S. S. R. as the
"only country" that had adopted a "wise and successful
policy in winning over people in outlying areas. "7 He
gave particular credit to the Soviet practice of encourag-
ing the native languages of minority groups.
The Soviet minorities policy has far-reaching impli-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
cations in regard to the current international scene. For
general recognition on the part of colored and colonial
peoples that the Soviets stand for racial equality and
democracy is a factor of inestimable importance in in-
creasing Soviet influence throughout the Far East, Middle
East and Africa. These same peoples feel that Britain,
France and the United States, no matter how loudly they
boast of their democracy, still retain their traditional
attitude of white superiority.
Constant educational work by both private and public
authorities has not been able to overcome the habit of
American soldiers and newspapermen in calling Koreans
and other dark-skinned peoples of the East by the deroga-
tory term gook. Life magazine printed an article as
late as December, 1951, using this word in the text and
also in a picture caption. Worst of all has been the
example of the Union of South Africa, which, supposedly
part of the "free world," has adopted since World War II
policies towards its Negro population characteristic of
a Nazi state.
The advanced Soviet theory and practice of friendly
race relations is important for international ethics and
peace. For we have little chance of attaining enduring
amity among the peoples of the earth if national and
racial prejudices remain as virulent as during the first half
of this twentieth century. Toward the elimination of these
age-long animosities that have so afflicted the world, the
Soviet Union, in establishing full ethnic democracy
among its multitude of minorities, has taken genuine
leadership and made a profound contribution of global
significance.
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? CHAPTER IV SOVIET RUSSIA AND RELIGION
1. The Tsarist Background
In order to understand the status of religion in Soviet
Russia since the Communist Revolution of 1917, we must
have adequate knowledge of the religious situation under
the Tsars. It is essential to realize that the Eastern Ortho-
dox Church (more often known as the Greek or the
Russian Orthodox) was the official state church of old
Russia, with the Tsar himself as its head. Peter the Great
abolished the independent Patriarchate of the Orthodox
Church in 1721 and established in its place a Holy Synod
subject to appointment and control by the Crown.
Thenceforth the Orthodox Church became in reality a
department of the Government. The lay official directly
in charge of it, the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod,
whom Peter significantly described as "the Tsar's eye,"
was appointed by the Tsar and held the rank of a cabinet
minister.
The Church received huge subsidies from the Tsarist
State for the erection and maintenance of its cathedrals,
churches, monasteries, schools and seminaries. Its bishops
and higher clergy were paid their salaries by the Govern-
ment. Education in the Tsarist regime was under the
spiritual dominion of the Orthodox Church; and relig-
ious instruction, except in the relatively few institutions
maintained by non-Orthodox sects, inculcated the Ortho-
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dox interpretation of Christianity. In 1910 the Orthodox
Church itself operated approximately 40,000 elementary
schools, containing about 2,000,000 pupils or 50 percent
of the total enrollment in elementary schools at that time.
The Orthodox Church reserved unto itself a number
of privileges denied to other religious groups, whether
Christian like the Roman Catholics and Baptists or non-
Christian like the Jews and Mohammedans. The Church-
State tyranny, in fact, continually subjected these minor-
ity sects to discrimination and persecution. Especially
was this true in reference to the Jews. Time and again
Russian Orthodox priests and higher-ups joined Govern-
ment officials in instigating the bloodiest sort of pogroms
against the Jews. In the fall of 1905, for example, follow-
ing the abortive revolution against Tsar Nicholas II,
more than 100 pogroms occurred in different parts of
Russia, resulting in an estimated 4,000 Jews killed and
10,000 injured. These mass murders took place with
either the open or tacit approval of the Orthodox Church.
Church-State authorities mistakenly believed that the
Jews were the prime factor in the revolutionary move-
ment and roused popular feeling against them by play-
ing up the familiar charges of so-called ritual murder.
The Orthodox priests, furthermore, cooperated close-
ly with the secret service of the Tsars and turned over to
it the names of those carrying on revolutionary or liberal
propaganda in their parishes. A number of priests went
so far as to betray the confessional for purposes of espio-
nage. And the Church could boast that it had brought
about the imprisonment, exile or execution of thousands
upon thousands of progressive or radical intellectuals
and workers. That scholarly and objective observer of
the Russian scene, Sir Bernard Pares, tells us: "By the
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time of the Revolution the official Church had become
something very like an extra police ministry. Priests
were expected to report the words of their parishioners
to the police, some had to send in their sermons for cen-
sorship, and two of my own friends among them were
actually unfrocked. "1 The Russian Church worked hand
in hand generation after generation with the cruel Tsar-
ist autocracy and was a knowing accomplice in the most
constant and brutal injustices.
Upon its own adherents the Orthodox Church of
Russia exercised a most baneful influence. Professor
Julius Hecker, able student of religion under both Tsars
and Soviets, told me that the ascetic outlook on life of the
Russian Church was directed not only towards the morti-
fication of the flesh, but equally towards the mortification
of the mind. In imperial Russia there never took place,
as in Western Europe, a Protestant Reformation and
successful Bourgeois Revolution to push the Church
in the direction of modernity. The State-controlled Holy
Synod, the governing ecclesiastical body, promptly and
harshly suppressed all attempts to develop a liberal wing
within the Church. It frequently imprisoned non-con-
forming prelates in frigid Solovetsky Monastery on a far-
northern island in the White Sea. While individual
priests here and there showed sympathy for the down-
trodden workers and peasants, there existed no consider-
able element in the Russian Church, as in many Christian
countries, which supported social and economic reform.
The clergy of the Orthodox Church were on the whole
ignorant, superstitious and highly reactionary in their
views on public affairs.
Morally the Russian Church sank to the lowest level
of any ecclesiastical organization in the history of Chris-
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tendom. It is generally admited that in 1917 it had
become as corrupt and decadent as the Tsarist Govern-
ment itself. The crowning scandal occurred with the
rise to power of the notorious monk Rasputin at the
court of Tsar Nicholas. This licentious, drunken, half-
literate peasant attained a tremendous hold over the
credulous Tsarina through his forceful personality and
his supposed assistance in improving the health of her
ailing son, heir to the Russian throne. As the spiritual
adviser of the Empress, Rasputin was able to secure
virtually any favor for which he or his friends asked.
And he finally came to prescribe the principal appoint-
ments in the Church, of which for a time he became in
effect the dictator. The shame of it became at last so
widely and deeply felt that certain members of the nobil-
ity and of the Imperial family itself took the drastic step
of assassinating Rasputin. But the reputation of the
Church had suffered a crushing blow.
It is evident that the Russian Orthodox Church had
plenty of reasons for strongly supporting the Tsarist
regime. And it is no wonder that both before and after
the Revolution it should have fought the Communists
and other radical groups with all the means at its dis-
posal. Consequent to the Communist seizure of power
in the autumn of 1917, the Church became a rallying
center for the foes of the new order. In the bitter Civil
War which ensued it backed with its full strength the
White forces of counter-revolution and gave aid to the
invading anti-Soviet armies. Priests helped to organize
special Jesus and Virgin Mary regiments among the
Whites.
In January, 1918, the head of the Orthodox Church,
the Patriarch Tikhon, declared the Soviets anathema and
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called on all Orthodox believers "not to enter into any
kind of association with these monsters of the human
race. "2 Another high Church official, the Metropolitan
Antoninii, laid a curse on the Communists by promising
to bless every weapon raised against the "Red, satanic
power" and to remit the sins of everyone who gave his life
in the cause of Russia and Christ.
Such incitements on the part of well-known prelates
had a considerable influence. And the general attitude
of the Church and its officials during the terrible years
of the Civil War shows clearly enough why priests and
other religious individuals were frequently imprisoned,
and sometimes shot, for counter-revolutionary activity
against the Soviet Republic. In such cases, however, they
received the same treatment as others committing the
same offence. The point is that the Soviet Government's
policy from the beginning was to punish religious per-
sons, as well as all others, for crimes against the State, but
not for the practice of their religion. This is not to imply
that in the early days of the Revolution local excesses
of one kind or another were not committed against the
hated Church authorities. But such occurrences were
probably inevitable in the first stages of such a far-reach-
ing overturn and ceased as soon as the Government was
able to set up stable control throughout the land.
2. Soviet Theory in regard to Religion
With their own survival as the all-important issue,
the Soviets concluded that they must at any cost break
the economic, educational and temporal power of organ-
ized religion in Russia; and that the role played by the
Orthodox Church, and to a lesser extent by the other
denominations, during the Revolution and Civil War
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
constituted yet one more proof of the Marxist theory that
religion, while occasionally rendering service to the forces
of progress, had on the whole been on the side of reaction
or conservatism. According to the Communists, Chris-
tian theology, with its emphasis on a supernatural God
- behind the visible universe and a realm of immortality
beyond the visible world, is bound to make for a this-
earthly status quo.
The Marxist believes that traditional religion, by
teaching people to rely on prayer and on God's inter-
vention to help them in times of trouble, deters men
from taking collective action against the government and
the social-economic system which are responsible for
their difficulties; and encourages them to take refuge in
the loving arms of an alleged all-seeing Heavenly Father.
Supplying striking documentation for the Marxist
thesis was the 1932 encyclical of Pope Pius XI issued at
the height of the great world depression of the early
thirties. Admonished the Pope: "Let the poor and all
those who at this time are facing the hard trial of want
of work and scarcity of food, let them in a like spirit of
penance suffer with greater resignation the privations
imposed upon them by these hard times and the state
of society, which Divine Providence in an ever-loving
but inscrutable plan has assigned them. Let them accept
with a humble and trustful heart from the hand of God
the effects of poverty, rendered harder by the distress in
which mankind now is struggling. . . . Let them take com-
fort in the certainty that their sacrifices and troubles
borne in a Christian spirit will concur efficaciously to
hasten the hour of mercy and peace. "
Old-time theology also discourages the faithful from
utilizing the problem-solving techniques of science. The
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? SOVIET RUSSIA ANJD RELIGIOH
tearful mother with her sick child, the poverty-stricken
laborer with his miserable family, the tragic peasant
facing drought and the failure of his crop -- all will
appeal to the Almighty to remedy their plight instead of
initiating scientific procedures. A beautiful example
of this tendency was the way peasants in Tsarist Russia
relied upon religious superstition in practical affairs. It
was part of the old agricultural technique to have a pro-
cession march through the fields after the sowing, with
an Orthodox priest in the lead sprinkling holy water
over the earth and chanting the following:
"Worms and grasshoppers!
Mice and rats!
Ants, moles and reptiles!
Flies and horseflies and hornets!
And all flying things that wreak
Destruction
"I forbid you in the name of the Saviour come on
earth to suffer for men; I forbid you in the name of the
all-seeing cherubim and seraphim who fly around the
heavenly throne; I forbid you in the name of the angels
and the millions of heavenly spirits standing in the glory
of God. I forbid you to touch any tree, fruitful or un-
fruitful, or leaf or plant or flower. I forbid you to bring
any woe on the fields of these people. "
Furthermore, according to Soviet theory, Christian-
ity's promise of a life eternal beyond death in which the
wretched and oppressed receive marvelous rewards in
heaven while their oppressors go to hell, results in the
exploited classes remaining resigned and humble instead
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
of insisting upon their right to a full and happy existence
during their one and only life upon this earth. Karl
Marx aptly expressed his views on the consequences of
belief in immortality when he declared: "The mortgage
held by the peasants on the heavenly estates guarantees
the mortgage held by the bourgeoisie on the peasant
estates. "3 Marx was thinking especially of the super-
natural doctrines of religion, such as the ideas of God
and immortality, when he penned his famous statement
that "religion is the opium of the people. "4
From its theological supernaturalism the Christian
Church has derived an ethical code of human behavior
that makes whole-hearted and rational enjoyment of this-
earthly life all but impossible. In the first place, the
Marxist points out, Christians are supposed to carry out
with absolute obedience the commands of God as laid
down in the Ten Commandments delivered to Moses
about 2,000 B. C. and as interpreted by the Church
authorities. These moral precepts ordained by the Al-
mighty and designed for the regulation of a primitive
Hebrew society are looked upon by the traditional
Church as eternal and universal principles to be neither
altered nor questioned no matter what the differences or
changes in the condition of the human race. Orthodox
Christian ethics leaves little room for the operation of
intelligence working upon the specific and unique prob-
lems that are ever arising in men's lives.
In the second place, the Marxist claims that Christian
supernaturalism has led in theory to the artificial splitting
up of human beings into two distinct and separate parts,
the body and the soul or personality. Since the important
thing is for a man to keep his soul pure and undefiled
for its rendezvous with God beyond the grave, he must
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