One result of this
widely spread equivocation is seen in the practical aban-
donment at the present time by millions of young persons
in Europe and America, not only of Christianity, but
also, along with it, of nearly all the commandments by
which their parents were guided, without acquiring any
substitute.
widely spread equivocation is seen in the practical aban-
donment at the present time by millions of young persons
in Europe and America, not only of Christianity, but
also, along with it, of nearly all the commandments by
which their parents were guided, without acquiring any
substitute.
Soviet Union - 1952 - Soviet Civilization
org/access_use#pd-google
? 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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? SOVIET RUSSIA AHD RELIGIOH
hold the body under strict control and not become con-
taminated with animal needs and desires. This viewpoint
leads to the unhealthy suppression of many wholesome
human impulses. For instance, it has caused the Chris-
tian Church from its earliest days to treat the natural
and normal manifestations of sex as something essentially
sinful and base; and this has resulted in the most dis-
tressing psychological problems and neuroses.
Marxism rejects the Christian stress on nay-saying and
teaches an affirmative way of life based on the view that
this-worldly existence is man's sole opportunity to achieve
happiness. In place of the dualistic conception of human
nature supported by Christianity, it upholds the monistic
psychology which considers man as an interfunctioning
unity of personality, including the mind, on the one
hand, and body or physical organism on the other. This
modern and scientific psychology recognizes the impor-
tance of giving a proper outlet and expression to man's
emotional urges. It realizes the effects of bodily condi-
tions on the personality, yet at the same time understands
the profound influence that mental states can have on
bodily conditions.
Except, however, for purposes of abstract analysis,
the Marxist believes that it is impossible to separate the
mind and personality from the body. In conscious action
at all its various levels, personality and body always func-
tion as an indissoluble unit. For the reason that they
are in every way so intimately and fundamentally associ-
ated, as exhibited by psychology, biology, physiology,
medicine and common sense itself, Marxism argues that
it is impossible for the personality to go on existing inde-
pendently after the death and dissolution of the body
and the brain; and that therefore intellectual integrity
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
demands the discarding of all notions of personal immor-
tality.
It is the general philosophic viewpoint known as
Dialectical Materialism, drawing on the facts and prin-
ciples of modern experimental science, that leads the
Communists in Soviet Russia and elsewhere to reject all
the supernatural vagaries paraded by religion. For the
Marxist a thorough science and a consistent philosophy
finds no sign of an omnipotent Providence in the uni-
verse. Since all things operate according to natural law,
there would be nothing for God to do even if he did
exist. The Dialectical Materialist holds, relying particu-
larly on astronomy and biology, that Nature (the uni-
verse as a whole) does not demonstrate favoritism towards
man or any other of its creatures; that this little world
of ours is only a tiny speck in Nature's infinite empire,
as vast in time as in space; and that there is no reason to
believe Nature cares more about our puny planet than
about any other spot in the cosmos.
In their over-all philosophy and attitude towards
religion the Communists assert that they are simply stat-
ing openly and putting into practice conclusions with
which many of the best minds of the Western World are
in fundamental agreement. In fact, the three most emi-
nent American philosophers of the twentieth century-
John Dewey, George Santayana and Morris R. Cohen-
give no place to God, immortality or any other super-
naturalist doctrine in their systems of philosophic Natur-
alism. Neither does Bertrand Russell, the leading British
philosopher of the present, nor many of the brilliant
scientific minds of our day. Numerous thinkers in the
West who call themselves either Naturalists or Human-
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AHD RELIGIOH
ists agree in the broad outlines of their cosmology or
metaphysics with the Dialectical Materialists and hold
with them that the chief ethical aim of man should be
to strive for the happiness, freedom and progress of all
humanity upon this earth.
Catholic and other anti-Soviet churchmen have re-
peatedly tried to line up the United States and other
capitalist democracies in a crusade of the "Christian
West" against the Soviet Union and its "degrading Ma-
terialism. " This issue is a palpably false and manufac-
tured one. For the Materialist, Naturalist and Humanist
schools of philosophy are all part of the great tradition
of Western civilization; all of them reject Christian
supernaturalism, rely upon scientific fact and method,
and support the goal of building a better and more abun-
dant life for mankind in this world.
Nonetheless, Western teachers and thinkers are often
reluctant to make publicly known their full views on
religion and religious philosophies; whereas the Marxists
of Soviet Russia always take a perfectly frank and tho-
rough-going stand on these questions. In their note-
worthy book Soviet Communism the late Sidney and
Beatrice Webb develop some of the implications of this
situation. The Communist position, they write, "has,
it is claimed, the merit of a public and persistent repudi-
ation of the equivocal hypocrisy in which the govern-
ments and churches of other countries, together with
hosts of merely conventional Christians, are today impli-
cated. That is, for the remaking of man, no small matter.
It is not with impunity that nations or individuals, out-
growing any faith in a personal deity who hears their
prayers and governs alike the ocean and the earthquake,
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
the harvest and the hearts of men, can continue to prac-
tise rites and accept religious institutions as if they were
still believers.
"No code of conduct professedly based on the com-
mands of an all-powerful ruler will outlast the discovery
that it has, in fact, no such foundation.
One result of this
widely spread equivocation is seen in the practical aban-
donment at the present time by millions of young persons
in Europe and America, not only of Christianity, but
also, along with it, of nearly all the commandments by
which their parents were guided, without acquiring any
substitute. "5 Lip-service in the nominally Christian coun-
tries of the West to a traditional religion and a code of
morals associated with it prevents the development, which
has been going on in the Soviet Union, of an up-to-date
philosophy and ethics appropriate to a modern civiliza-
tion based on science and the machine.
I should add, however, that some of the most im-
portant aims and achievements of Soviet civilization are
in harmony with the highest Christian ethics. Soviet
stress on international peace, race equality, the elimina-
tion of brute selfishness, a life of abundance for all and
the eventual brotherhood of man certainly conforms
with the ideals of Jesus as set forth in the New Testa-
ment, although Christians and Communists usually dis-
agree as to the methods of attaining such ends. Of course,
there are other teachings of Jesus recommending meek-
ness or turning the other cheek, which run entirely coun-
ter to Soviet theory and practice.
The Communists, too, have a much more optimistic
conception of human nature than orthodox Christianity
with its insistent stress on original sin and man's procliv-
ity for evil. Some critics think that Marxist optimism
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AND RELIGIOH
about man is as much an over-emphasis as Christian pes-
simism. As Professor John C. Bennett of Union Theolog-
ical Seminary expresses it, the Marxist doctrine "finds the
only obstacle to the good life in economic institutions
that can be changed by a political and social revolution.
. . . To concentrate on the capitalist form of property as
the one root of all social evil is to neglect other roots that
are universally human and that will outlast capitalism
and all other social systems. "6 I believe Dr. Bennett's
analysis is sound.
But however implacably the Soviets oppose Christian
theology and other doctrines of Christianity, they are
striving to put into effect some of the chief precepts of
Christian ethics. So it is that Sir Bernard Pares writes in
the quarterly Foreign Affairs: "The Marxist objective
was the happiness of all -- the poor, the maimed, the
oppressed, the weak, the very old, the very young, the
weaker sex -- in other words, what we should describe as
the Kingdom of God on earth, and the really great things
that have been achieved in these directions are the finest
part of the Soviet record. "7 It is for the same reason that
many Christian clergymen, such as the Dean of Canter-
bury in England and Dr. Harry F. Ward in America, see
much to praise in Soviet society.
True to its economic interpretation of history and
culture, Soviet Marxism goes beyond the logical objec-
tions to religion and analyzes the reasons why it is so
readily accepted by so many people. In Lenin's words:
"In modern capitalist countries the basis of religion is
primarily social. The roots of modern religion are deeply
embedded in the social oppression of the working masses,
and in their apparently complete helplessness before the
blind forces of capitalism. . . . Fear of the blind forces of
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
capital -- blind because its action cannot be foreseen by
the masses -- a force which at every step in life threatens
the worker and the small businessman with 'sudden,'
'unexpected,' 'accidental' destruction and ruin, bringing
in their train beggary, pauperism, prostitution and deaths
from starvation -- this is the tap-root of modern reli-
gion. . . . No amount of reading matter, however enlight-
ening, will eradicate religion from those masses who are
crushed by the grinding toil of capitalism and subjected
to the blind, destructive forces of capitalism, until these
masses, themselves, learn to fight against the social facts
from which religion arises in a united, disciplined, plan-
ned and conscious manner -- until they learn to fight
against the rule of the capitalist in all its forms. "8
The Communists maintain that organized religion's
customary opposition to social change has been due pri-
marily to the Church's stake in the economic status quo.
Marx forcefully brings out this point when he asserts
that "the Anglican Church will more readily pardon
attacks upon thirty-eight of its thirty-nine articles than
upon one thirty-ninth of its income. "9 In recent times,
although there has been a minority in practically every
religious denomination which backs liberal or radical
causes, the Christian Church as a whole has been a firm
supporter of the capitalist system. And its most conserva-
tive section, the Catholic Church, has thrown its weight
behind fascist governments in Italy, Spain and Argentina;
in Germany it made some gestures of disapproval against
Hitler, but dropped even this mild form of opposition
after the outbreak of World War II. Today the Vatican
and its closely knit churches in every land are in the
forefront of the crusade against socialism and the Soviet
Union.
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AHD RELIGIOTi
The Soviet Communists, on their part, have never
hesitated to lash out vigorously against the Catholic
Church and particularly against its hierarchy. They point
out that the encyclical "Rerum Noverum" issued by Pope
Leo XIII in 1891 and concentrating on the relations be-
tween capital and labor still remains the chief guide to
Catholic policy on economic affairs. Leo declared that
the primary purpose of the state is "the safeguarding, by
legal enactment and policy, of private property. Most
of all it is essential in these times of covetous greed to
keep the multitude within line of duty. " In 1931 Pius XI
promulgated an encyclical on labor which stated frankly:
"The differences in social conditions in the human
family, which were wisely decreed by the Creator, must
not and cannot ever by abolished. . . . All opposition be-
tween the classes must cease and harmonious collabora-
tion must be established between the various classes. "
Such statements are naturally anathema to the Marxists
of Soviet Russia. -
The economic foundations and connections of the
Russian Orthodox Church are important to note. Up
till 1917 it was the wealthiest single organization in all
of Russia, exploiting scores of thousands of peasants on
its immense estates and owning large blocks of the most
profitable stocks and bonds. At the time of the Revolu-
tion the bank account of the Church amounted to about
8,000,000,000 rubles (equal to $4,000,000,000 in 1917)
and its annual income to about 500,000,000 rubles. In
addition, there was the enormous capital value of its
20,000,000 acres of land, its cathedrals, its churches, its
monasteries and the gorgeous gold and silver decorations
of these religious edifices. And all of these assets were
being continually augmented by very substantial financial
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
grants from the Government. In short, the Church itself
was a great feudalist-capitalist institution in the old
Russia, with its fundamental economic interests every-
where intertwined with and dependent upon the Tsarist
system of political oppression and economic exploitation.
The Orthodox Church within the U. S. S. R. and the
Catholic Church outside it have been the two religious
institutions which the Soviets have most feared and op-
posed. But on principle they are against all religions, in-
cluding Protestantism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, Bud-
dhism, Confucianism, Taoism or any other. A reformed
and liberal Church does not seem, either, an acceptable
solution to the Communist. His position is that since
religion is necessarily tied up with a belief in the super-
natural, it cannot be reformed so as to become a good
influence in the world without ceasing to be religion.
In this respect it is unlike education, for example, which
can clearly be bent to the purposes of a socialist regime.
The Marxist also considers most confusing and harm-
ful the widespread habit of redefining religious terms,
like God, immortality and religion itself, so broadly and
vaguely that they lose all distinctive meaning. He is
likely to think that this is a theological trick to retain
for religion the support of the more educated and sophist-
icated groups. In 1913 Maxim Gorky, for instance, re-
defined God, as "a complex of those ideas, worked out by
tribes, by nations, by humanity at large, which arouse
and organize the social emotions, and which serve to
unite the individual with society and to curb zoological
individualism. "10 Under such a definition God ceases to
be an independent supernatural being or Creator and
becomes synonymous with the higher ethical and social
ideals of men. This meaning of God enables even out-
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AN[D RELIGIOH
right atheists to believe in him. Though Gorky was sym-
pathetic to the Left, Lenin criticized him severely for
his "God-building" and accused him of playing into the
hands of the clerics.
3. Soviet Practice in regard to Religion
There are three main documentary sources for the
understanding of the Soviet policy toward religion. The
first of these is the Government decree of February 5,
1918, entitled "Separation of the Church from the State
and the School from the Church. " Its thirteen sections
are as follows:
1. The Church is separated from the State.
2. Within the territory of the Republic the passing
of any local laws or regulations limiting or interfering
with freedom of conscience or granting special rights or
privileges to citizens because they belong to a certain
faith is forbidden.
3. Every citizen has a right to adopt any religion or
not to adopt any at all. Every legal restriction connected
with the profession of certain faiths or with the non-
profession of any faith is now abolished. Official acts
shall make no mention of a citizen's faith.
4. State or semi-official public functions are not to be
accompanied by religious ceremonies or rituals.
5. Religious performances may be carried on freely
insofar as they do not disturb the public order or en-
croach upon the rights of citizens of the Soviet Republic.
Local authorities have the right to take the necessary
measures to preserve order and safeguard the rights
of citizens.
6. No one can decline to carry out his civic duties on
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
the ground of his religious views. Exception to this rul-
ing may be made by special decision of the people's court
provided one civic duty is substituted for another.
7. Religious oaths are abolished. In case of necessity
a solemn promise will suffice.
8. All civil acts are performed exclusively by the
civic authorities in charge of the department for the regis-
tration of marriages and births.
9. The school is separated from the Church. The
teaching of religion in state and public schools, as well as
in private schools where general subjects are taught, is
forbidden. Citizens may study or teach religious subjects
privately.
10. Church and religious societies are subject to the
same laws and regulations as private societies and unions.
They do not enjoy any special privileges or subsidies
from the State or from local institutions.
11. The levying of obligatory collections or imposi-
tions for the benefit of church or religious societies is
forbidden. These organizations are forbidden also to
coerce or punish their members.
12. Church and religious societies have no right to
own property. They do not have the rights of a legal
person.
13. All property in Russia now owned by churches
and religious organizations is henceforth the property of
the people. Buildings and objects that are needed for
religious services revert to the free use of religious organ-
izations by special decree of the local or central govern-
ment authorities.
The second source is the Article in the Soviet Consti-
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AHD RELIGIOH
tution which I cited earlier:* "In order to ensure to
citizens freedom of conscience, the Church in the U. S.
S. R. is separated from the State, and the school from the
Church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of
anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens. "
The third source, which I shall quote later, is the state-
ments of policy issued by the recently created Council
on Affairs of the Orthodox Church.
The two documents which I have quoted above make
clear that while there is complete freedom of conscience
and worship in the Soviet Union, the Church no longer
receives any financial backing from the Government.
Equally important is the fact that it must confine itself
to strictly religious activities. It is not permitted to organ-
ize charitable associations, hospitals, orphan asylums,
playgrounds or, of course, parochial schools. One of the
first steps the Soviets took in 1917-18 was to secularize
the 40,000 elementary schools run by the Orthodox
Church. As in the United States, religious instruction
is not allowed in the State schools of the U. S. S. R. , al-
though such instruction is legal in special religious semi-
naries for older students; and parents can teach what they
choose about religion to their children at home or send
them to the homes of priests and ministers for religious
education. Religious rites are allowed for births, mar-
riages and funerals at the home, the church or elsewhere,
according to the desires of the family concerned.
What these various regulations mean is that the relig-
ious function in Soviet Russia has been separated from
other functions and is required to stand on its own feet.
As I saw again and again at first-hand on my trips to the
? See p. 80.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
Soviet Union, the Russian churches are open, and full,
for worship, prayer and meditation; the colorfully clad
priests are chanting and swinging incense; the Orthodox
choruses, famed the world over, are singing as of old.
To what extent pure religion, unconnected with other
community activities and relying upon its own moral
and spiritual qualities, can maintain popular support,
remains to be seen.
Concerning this situation the Reverend William
Howard Melish, Jr. , who has been fighting a courageous
battle for religious liberty as Associate Director of the
Church of the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, has made an
enlightening comment in his pamphlet, Religion Today
in the U. S. S. R. "On first acquaintance," writes Dr.
Melish, "it seems to many Americans that religion has
been robbed of its rightful sphere of operations.
? 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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? SOVIET RUSSIA AHD RELIGIOH
hold the body under strict control and not become con-
taminated with animal needs and desires. This viewpoint
leads to the unhealthy suppression of many wholesome
human impulses. For instance, it has caused the Chris-
tian Church from its earliest days to treat the natural
and normal manifestations of sex as something essentially
sinful and base; and this has resulted in the most dis-
tressing psychological problems and neuroses.
Marxism rejects the Christian stress on nay-saying and
teaches an affirmative way of life based on the view that
this-worldly existence is man's sole opportunity to achieve
happiness. In place of the dualistic conception of human
nature supported by Christianity, it upholds the monistic
psychology which considers man as an interfunctioning
unity of personality, including the mind, on the one
hand, and body or physical organism on the other. This
modern and scientific psychology recognizes the impor-
tance of giving a proper outlet and expression to man's
emotional urges. It realizes the effects of bodily condi-
tions on the personality, yet at the same time understands
the profound influence that mental states can have on
bodily conditions.
Except, however, for purposes of abstract analysis,
the Marxist believes that it is impossible to separate the
mind and personality from the body. In conscious action
at all its various levels, personality and body always func-
tion as an indissoluble unit. For the reason that they
are in every way so intimately and fundamentally associ-
ated, as exhibited by psychology, biology, physiology,
medicine and common sense itself, Marxism argues that
it is impossible for the personality to go on existing inde-
pendently after the death and dissolution of the body
and the brain; and that therefore intellectual integrity
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
demands the discarding of all notions of personal immor-
tality.
It is the general philosophic viewpoint known as
Dialectical Materialism, drawing on the facts and prin-
ciples of modern experimental science, that leads the
Communists in Soviet Russia and elsewhere to reject all
the supernatural vagaries paraded by religion. For the
Marxist a thorough science and a consistent philosophy
finds no sign of an omnipotent Providence in the uni-
verse. Since all things operate according to natural law,
there would be nothing for God to do even if he did
exist. The Dialectical Materialist holds, relying particu-
larly on astronomy and biology, that Nature (the uni-
verse as a whole) does not demonstrate favoritism towards
man or any other of its creatures; that this little world
of ours is only a tiny speck in Nature's infinite empire,
as vast in time as in space; and that there is no reason to
believe Nature cares more about our puny planet than
about any other spot in the cosmos.
In their over-all philosophy and attitude towards
religion the Communists assert that they are simply stat-
ing openly and putting into practice conclusions with
which many of the best minds of the Western World are
in fundamental agreement. In fact, the three most emi-
nent American philosophers of the twentieth century-
John Dewey, George Santayana and Morris R. Cohen-
give no place to God, immortality or any other super-
naturalist doctrine in their systems of philosophic Natur-
alism. Neither does Bertrand Russell, the leading British
philosopher of the present, nor many of the brilliant
scientific minds of our day. Numerous thinkers in the
West who call themselves either Naturalists or Human-
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AHD RELIGIOH
ists agree in the broad outlines of their cosmology or
metaphysics with the Dialectical Materialists and hold
with them that the chief ethical aim of man should be
to strive for the happiness, freedom and progress of all
humanity upon this earth.
Catholic and other anti-Soviet churchmen have re-
peatedly tried to line up the United States and other
capitalist democracies in a crusade of the "Christian
West" against the Soviet Union and its "degrading Ma-
terialism. " This issue is a palpably false and manufac-
tured one. For the Materialist, Naturalist and Humanist
schools of philosophy are all part of the great tradition
of Western civilization; all of them reject Christian
supernaturalism, rely upon scientific fact and method,
and support the goal of building a better and more abun-
dant life for mankind in this world.
Nonetheless, Western teachers and thinkers are often
reluctant to make publicly known their full views on
religion and religious philosophies; whereas the Marxists
of Soviet Russia always take a perfectly frank and tho-
rough-going stand on these questions. In their note-
worthy book Soviet Communism the late Sidney and
Beatrice Webb develop some of the implications of this
situation. The Communist position, they write, "has,
it is claimed, the merit of a public and persistent repudi-
ation of the equivocal hypocrisy in which the govern-
ments and churches of other countries, together with
hosts of merely conventional Christians, are today impli-
cated. That is, for the remaking of man, no small matter.
It is not with impunity that nations or individuals, out-
growing any faith in a personal deity who hears their
prayers and governs alike the ocean and the earthquake,
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
the harvest and the hearts of men, can continue to prac-
tise rites and accept religious institutions as if they were
still believers.
"No code of conduct professedly based on the com-
mands of an all-powerful ruler will outlast the discovery
that it has, in fact, no such foundation.
One result of this
widely spread equivocation is seen in the practical aban-
donment at the present time by millions of young persons
in Europe and America, not only of Christianity, but
also, along with it, of nearly all the commandments by
which their parents were guided, without acquiring any
substitute. "5 Lip-service in the nominally Christian coun-
tries of the West to a traditional religion and a code of
morals associated with it prevents the development, which
has been going on in the Soviet Union, of an up-to-date
philosophy and ethics appropriate to a modern civiliza-
tion based on science and the machine.
I should add, however, that some of the most im-
portant aims and achievements of Soviet civilization are
in harmony with the highest Christian ethics. Soviet
stress on international peace, race equality, the elimina-
tion of brute selfishness, a life of abundance for all and
the eventual brotherhood of man certainly conforms
with the ideals of Jesus as set forth in the New Testa-
ment, although Christians and Communists usually dis-
agree as to the methods of attaining such ends. Of course,
there are other teachings of Jesus recommending meek-
ness or turning the other cheek, which run entirely coun-
ter to Soviet theory and practice.
The Communists, too, have a much more optimistic
conception of human nature than orthodox Christianity
with its insistent stress on original sin and man's procliv-
ity for evil. Some critics think that Marxist optimism
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AND RELIGIOH
about man is as much an over-emphasis as Christian pes-
simism. As Professor John C. Bennett of Union Theolog-
ical Seminary expresses it, the Marxist doctrine "finds the
only obstacle to the good life in economic institutions
that can be changed by a political and social revolution.
. . . To concentrate on the capitalist form of property as
the one root of all social evil is to neglect other roots that
are universally human and that will outlast capitalism
and all other social systems. "6 I believe Dr. Bennett's
analysis is sound.
But however implacably the Soviets oppose Christian
theology and other doctrines of Christianity, they are
striving to put into effect some of the chief precepts of
Christian ethics. So it is that Sir Bernard Pares writes in
the quarterly Foreign Affairs: "The Marxist objective
was the happiness of all -- the poor, the maimed, the
oppressed, the weak, the very old, the very young, the
weaker sex -- in other words, what we should describe as
the Kingdom of God on earth, and the really great things
that have been achieved in these directions are the finest
part of the Soviet record. "7 It is for the same reason that
many Christian clergymen, such as the Dean of Canter-
bury in England and Dr. Harry F. Ward in America, see
much to praise in Soviet society.
True to its economic interpretation of history and
culture, Soviet Marxism goes beyond the logical objec-
tions to religion and analyzes the reasons why it is so
readily accepted by so many people. In Lenin's words:
"In modern capitalist countries the basis of religion is
primarily social. The roots of modern religion are deeply
embedded in the social oppression of the working masses,
and in their apparently complete helplessness before the
blind forces of capitalism. . . . Fear of the blind forces of
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capital -- blind because its action cannot be foreseen by
the masses -- a force which at every step in life threatens
the worker and the small businessman with 'sudden,'
'unexpected,' 'accidental' destruction and ruin, bringing
in their train beggary, pauperism, prostitution and deaths
from starvation -- this is the tap-root of modern reli-
gion. . . . No amount of reading matter, however enlight-
ening, will eradicate religion from those masses who are
crushed by the grinding toil of capitalism and subjected
to the blind, destructive forces of capitalism, until these
masses, themselves, learn to fight against the social facts
from which religion arises in a united, disciplined, plan-
ned and conscious manner -- until they learn to fight
against the rule of the capitalist in all its forms. "8
The Communists maintain that organized religion's
customary opposition to social change has been due pri-
marily to the Church's stake in the economic status quo.
Marx forcefully brings out this point when he asserts
that "the Anglican Church will more readily pardon
attacks upon thirty-eight of its thirty-nine articles than
upon one thirty-ninth of its income. "9 In recent times,
although there has been a minority in practically every
religious denomination which backs liberal or radical
causes, the Christian Church as a whole has been a firm
supporter of the capitalist system. And its most conserva-
tive section, the Catholic Church, has thrown its weight
behind fascist governments in Italy, Spain and Argentina;
in Germany it made some gestures of disapproval against
Hitler, but dropped even this mild form of opposition
after the outbreak of World War II. Today the Vatican
and its closely knit churches in every land are in the
forefront of the crusade against socialism and the Soviet
Union.
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AHD RELIGIOTi
The Soviet Communists, on their part, have never
hesitated to lash out vigorously against the Catholic
Church and particularly against its hierarchy. They point
out that the encyclical "Rerum Noverum" issued by Pope
Leo XIII in 1891 and concentrating on the relations be-
tween capital and labor still remains the chief guide to
Catholic policy on economic affairs. Leo declared that
the primary purpose of the state is "the safeguarding, by
legal enactment and policy, of private property. Most
of all it is essential in these times of covetous greed to
keep the multitude within line of duty. " In 1931 Pius XI
promulgated an encyclical on labor which stated frankly:
"The differences in social conditions in the human
family, which were wisely decreed by the Creator, must
not and cannot ever by abolished. . . . All opposition be-
tween the classes must cease and harmonious collabora-
tion must be established between the various classes. "
Such statements are naturally anathema to the Marxists
of Soviet Russia. -
The economic foundations and connections of the
Russian Orthodox Church are important to note. Up
till 1917 it was the wealthiest single organization in all
of Russia, exploiting scores of thousands of peasants on
its immense estates and owning large blocks of the most
profitable stocks and bonds. At the time of the Revolu-
tion the bank account of the Church amounted to about
8,000,000,000 rubles (equal to $4,000,000,000 in 1917)
and its annual income to about 500,000,000 rubles. In
addition, there was the enormous capital value of its
20,000,000 acres of land, its cathedrals, its churches, its
monasteries and the gorgeous gold and silver decorations
of these religious edifices. And all of these assets were
being continually augmented by very substantial financial
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
grants from the Government. In short, the Church itself
was a great feudalist-capitalist institution in the old
Russia, with its fundamental economic interests every-
where intertwined with and dependent upon the Tsarist
system of political oppression and economic exploitation.
The Orthodox Church within the U. S. S. R. and the
Catholic Church outside it have been the two religious
institutions which the Soviets have most feared and op-
posed. But on principle they are against all religions, in-
cluding Protestantism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, Bud-
dhism, Confucianism, Taoism or any other. A reformed
and liberal Church does not seem, either, an acceptable
solution to the Communist. His position is that since
religion is necessarily tied up with a belief in the super-
natural, it cannot be reformed so as to become a good
influence in the world without ceasing to be religion.
In this respect it is unlike education, for example, which
can clearly be bent to the purposes of a socialist regime.
The Marxist also considers most confusing and harm-
ful the widespread habit of redefining religious terms,
like God, immortality and religion itself, so broadly and
vaguely that they lose all distinctive meaning. He is
likely to think that this is a theological trick to retain
for religion the support of the more educated and sophist-
icated groups. In 1913 Maxim Gorky, for instance, re-
defined God, as "a complex of those ideas, worked out by
tribes, by nations, by humanity at large, which arouse
and organize the social emotions, and which serve to
unite the individual with society and to curb zoological
individualism. "10 Under such a definition God ceases to
be an independent supernatural being or Creator and
becomes synonymous with the higher ethical and social
ideals of men. This meaning of God enables even out-
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AN[D RELIGIOH
right atheists to believe in him. Though Gorky was sym-
pathetic to the Left, Lenin criticized him severely for
his "God-building" and accused him of playing into the
hands of the clerics.
3. Soviet Practice in regard to Religion
There are three main documentary sources for the
understanding of the Soviet policy toward religion. The
first of these is the Government decree of February 5,
1918, entitled "Separation of the Church from the State
and the School from the Church. " Its thirteen sections
are as follows:
1. The Church is separated from the State.
2. Within the territory of the Republic the passing
of any local laws or regulations limiting or interfering
with freedom of conscience or granting special rights or
privileges to citizens because they belong to a certain
faith is forbidden.
3. Every citizen has a right to adopt any religion or
not to adopt any at all. Every legal restriction connected
with the profession of certain faiths or with the non-
profession of any faith is now abolished. Official acts
shall make no mention of a citizen's faith.
4. State or semi-official public functions are not to be
accompanied by religious ceremonies or rituals.
5. Religious performances may be carried on freely
insofar as they do not disturb the public order or en-
croach upon the rights of citizens of the Soviet Republic.
Local authorities have the right to take the necessary
measures to preserve order and safeguard the rights
of citizens.
6. No one can decline to carry out his civic duties on
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
the ground of his religious views. Exception to this rul-
ing may be made by special decision of the people's court
provided one civic duty is substituted for another.
7. Religious oaths are abolished. In case of necessity
a solemn promise will suffice.
8. All civil acts are performed exclusively by the
civic authorities in charge of the department for the regis-
tration of marriages and births.
9. The school is separated from the Church. The
teaching of religion in state and public schools, as well as
in private schools where general subjects are taught, is
forbidden. Citizens may study or teach religious subjects
privately.
10. Church and religious societies are subject to the
same laws and regulations as private societies and unions.
They do not enjoy any special privileges or subsidies
from the State or from local institutions.
11. The levying of obligatory collections or imposi-
tions for the benefit of church or religious societies is
forbidden. These organizations are forbidden also to
coerce or punish their members.
12. Church and religious societies have no right to
own property. They do not have the rights of a legal
person.
13. All property in Russia now owned by churches
and religious organizations is henceforth the property of
the people. Buildings and objects that are needed for
religious services revert to the free use of religious organ-
izations by special decree of the local or central govern-
ment authorities.
The second source is the Article in the Soviet Consti-
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? SOVIET RUSSIA AHD RELIGIOH
tution which I cited earlier:* "In order to ensure to
citizens freedom of conscience, the Church in the U. S.
S. R. is separated from the State, and the school from the
Church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of
anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens. "
The third source, which I shall quote later, is the state-
ments of policy issued by the recently created Council
on Affairs of the Orthodox Church.
The two documents which I have quoted above make
clear that while there is complete freedom of conscience
and worship in the Soviet Union, the Church no longer
receives any financial backing from the Government.
Equally important is the fact that it must confine itself
to strictly religious activities. It is not permitted to organ-
ize charitable associations, hospitals, orphan asylums,
playgrounds or, of course, parochial schools. One of the
first steps the Soviets took in 1917-18 was to secularize
the 40,000 elementary schools run by the Orthodox
Church. As in the United States, religious instruction
is not allowed in the State schools of the U. S. S. R. , al-
though such instruction is legal in special religious semi-
naries for older students; and parents can teach what they
choose about religion to their children at home or send
them to the homes of priests and ministers for religious
education. Religious rites are allowed for births, mar-
riages and funerals at the home, the church or elsewhere,
according to the desires of the family concerned.
What these various regulations mean is that the relig-
ious function in Soviet Russia has been separated from
other functions and is required to stand on its own feet.
As I saw again and again at first-hand on my trips to the
? See p. 80.
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
Soviet Union, the Russian churches are open, and full,
for worship, prayer and meditation; the colorfully clad
priests are chanting and swinging incense; the Orthodox
choruses, famed the world over, are singing as of old.
To what extent pure religion, unconnected with other
community activities and relying upon its own moral
and spiritual qualities, can maintain popular support,
remains to be seen.
Concerning this situation the Reverend William
Howard Melish, Jr. , who has been fighting a courageous
battle for religious liberty as Associate Director of the
Church of the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, has made an
enlightening comment in his pamphlet, Religion Today
in the U. S. S. R. "On first acquaintance," writes Dr.
Melish, "it seems to many Americans that religion has
been robbed of its rightful sphere of operations.
