BOLSHEVIK BLASPHEMY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18347, 13 March 1923, Page 9

BOLSHEVIK BLASPHEMY

A' " RED " CHRISTMAS. THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH. SHOCKING MOCK PROCESSIONS. The Soviet newspapers contain accounts )f the great anti-religious carnival arranged by the Bolsheviks for the Christr.as season, celebrated in Russia early n January, The carnival was held under .ho auspices and for the glorification of he "Komsomol"the portmanteau word or Kommunißtitcheski Soiouz Molodedji, ;he Communist League of Youth—and was made the occasion for a vigorous and ilaborate anti-religious propaganda in all the Russian towns, a uniform programme [laving been drawn up. The most striking and novel part of the programme was the grand procession • n which the members of the various young people's clubs affiliated to the 'Komsomol" took part, dressed up to •ejnesent all kinds of gods and goddesses md clergy of the different religions, who jaraded the streets and executed coarse travesties of Church singing, prayers, and sermons. Th© Isvestia describes the profession of deities through the streets of Moscow in the following words: "There was a huge placard inscribed Mary has borne Jesus 1922 times, but n the year 1923 she bore the Komsomol!' And behind came Mary herself, with the infant in the uniform of the Red Army, md Joseph in horror. ... A motor-car followed containing the /gods,' all in strictly scientific order Osiris and Mariuk, Buddha, Jehovah, Allah. Maja. and Agni, Mary with Christ—the most variegated collection of idols. A workman at i street corner said, 'They must be meaning for the first time and it was true, for the Komsomol Christmas is tho first scientific anti-religious mass detnomstrabion the world has seen." t . Blasphemous Parodies. "Our Christmas" and "The Breakthrough of the Heaven Front" are among the headlines placed by the Soviet papers over their descriptions of the carnival. All Breeds which have worshippers on Russian soil were ridiculed; the mock processions included Jewish Rabbis, Lutheran pastors, Mahommedans, and Roman Catholic priests; but the main attack was directed against the Greek Orthodox Church. Whole choirs, elaborately costumed, of ? priests ' and nuns wandered through the streets chanting songs lampooning the clergy. Blasphemous parodies of the ceremonies of the Church were conducted in the streets, Marx and other Communist deities being the recipients of the proffered worship. Foreigners, one Moscow paper observes, may have been surprised to see ' many young people between the ages of fourteen and twenty praying before the; Chapel of the Iberian Virgin on the Red Square—so called because the miracleworking picture of the Virgin which it > contains is a copy of that in the Iberian Monastery on Mount Athos, and one of the most revered holy places in Russia. The journal, however, explains the anomaly; this scene of apparent devotion was only a "mock prayer of the "Komsomol!" ' Scowling Spectators. ' Although the papers write with satis- J faction of the large crowds which thronged * (he streets to witness the processions, tho ; Krasnaia Gazeta admits that there were '; also "muttering, scowling spectators, who stood back against the walls and clenched : their fists." It is unnecessary to say that these baboon-like orgies ' ar« i utterly nauseating to the vast majority, of Russians, in whom religious feeling is, if any- ' thing, more deeply implanted than be- : fore the Revolution. . ' ' ' According to reports from Moscow, a ■>■ Communist mob attempted to penetrate; into the Passion Convent on the occasion ' of the Bolshevik Christmas "celebra- ? tions" on January 7. It was met by a;; large crowd of the "bourgeois" popula- ,■■■.; tion and fighting ensued. The Communists were severely handled. The Isvestia sadly remarks that several .scores of young Communists hat! subsequently to be treated in hospital. Similar "celebrations" took place in Petrograd. •, It is significant that on Christmas Day the churches in Moscow and Petrograd were more than usually full, and there is no doubt that this was in some measure a protest against the conduct of the Communists. ■ >. "y, , ■■;';.: