CHRISTMAS IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21111, 19 February 1932, Page 6

CHRISTMAS IN RUSSIA.

&NTI-RELIGIOTJS CAMPAIGN.

ACTIVITIES OF ATHEISTS.

COERCION OF WORKERS.

Christmas in Russia to-day is chiefly Celebrated by active atheists. Of the traditional world-wide holiday spirit that finds expression in decorated Christmas sees, cards, displays of gifts in shop windows, etc., there is no visible trace in Moscow, says the Moscow correspondent of the Observer, London. He writes:—

" It is easy to suppress outward manifestations of Christmas in a country where the State, in one way or another, controls everything, from the printing of cards to the decoration of shop windows. Moreover, under the five-day or six-day week system, traditional holidays, like Sundays, disappear as general days of Vest. Finally, the majority of Russians who still observe religious rites adhere to the pre-revolutionary calendar in the matter of Church festivals and regard as Christmas not December 25, but January 7.

" But Christmas, if unhonoured, is not unnoticed in the Soviet Union. About the middle of December one sees in every book store an especially large display of anti-religious literature, including many , tracts which are specially directed against the celebration of Christmas. The pamphlets are reinforced by posters, which display such slogans as: "Let us build our' lives without god" (always written in small letters), and capitalists, With books, sport and work we shall get oil without god and devil," and show fat kulaks attending Christmas service as part of their diabolical scheme for enslaving the poor peasants." (Although the kulak,, or rich peasant, is actually as extinct as the dodo in present-day Russia, he is still made to function as a bogey and scapegoat). Anti-Christmas Campaign.

i' All over the country the Union of Militant Atheists mobilises its forces for the anti-Christmas campaign. On Christmas Day anti-religious meetings are held in schools and factories, the radio and the cinema are pressed into service for the same end, and the more athletic and irrepressible atheists rush about the countryside on skis, carrying anti-religious exhibits with them.

The special attention of the atheists this year has been focussed on the big new construction enterprises, where among the new workers there are masses of peasants •who still cling to religious holidays somewhat more tenaciously than do city folk. It is very inexpedient for a Soviet worker or "employee to be absent on Christmas Day. An excuse that might pass muster on an ordinary day is certain to be scrutinised very suspiciously at this time. "I was recently present at a conference in which some of the Moscow teachers were receiving instruction in the technique of carrying out anti-Christmas meetings. Such meetings, the teachers were told, should consist of three parts, beginning with the reading of an anti-religious short story or the performance of a, play, followed by games, and ending with an atheistic film. Parents often come to these meetings, and the teachers were urged to convert the parents to unbelief through the efforts of the children. Smuggled Christmas Trees.

" The speaker at'the conference referred to the psychological problem that sometimes comes up when parents retain religious ideas themselves. He suggested that in such cases the teachers should appeal to the parents' feelings for the* children, and urge them not to introduce an element of conflict and doubt into the child's life by opposing the anti-religious influence of the school, which was, of course, unchangeable. "There are still Russian homes where Christmas is privately celebrated, sometimes with the aid of a smuggled 'yolka, or tree,' a commodity which is not supposed to be sold. But with the unmistakable decline of religious faith in Russia and the spread of atheism among the youth, the time may come when the memory of religious holidays will be paradoxically kept alive by the strenuous campaigns which are launched against them." \