MILITANT ATHEISM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21911, 21 September 1934, Page 15

MILITANT ATHEISM

RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN FIGHT ON "ANTI-GOD FRONT" SOVIET'S FIVE-YEAR PLAN Br RIGHT REV. JAMES M. LISTON, D.D. The Izvostia of August 24, 1929, under the title, "Let us Intensify the Religious Struggle," wrote: —"Nearly (30 per cent of the parents living in Moscow have religious rites performed on their new-born children. In certain schools of this same city of Moscow the proportion of children influenced by religion attains to 90 per cent. Therefore, in spite of the immense progress realised in the organisation of socialism, we have not yet broken the clerical front. This failure shows that certain of our organisations do not appreciate the fact that religious idea is one of the principal obstacles to the socialistic transformation of the country, and that religion and socialism are things incompatible . . . This passive atheism is particularly intolerable among the members of the Communist Party and the Komsomols [Communist youth], among the workers (men and women), and in the

ranks of the Red army. . . An end must be put to the dispersion of our forces on the anti-God front. Toleration of religious obscurantism must not be allowed to continue. . . . Every Bezbojnik should pass from a passive attitude to active warfare —action, action all along the anti-God front. Militant atheism, not merely in words, but in acts, this is what is wanted and expected from all organisations." On October 27, 1929, the Rabotchaya Moskva (an important organ of the party) published an article of seven columns calling all workers to the "far-flung anti-God front." "It is time to have finished with religion. The Soviet plan to reconstruct the whole country in five years is impeded by only one obstacle, religion. The clergy and their followers are, in fact, working against the revolution. All their oentres of organisation must, therefore, be closed."

This article was written on the opening day at Moscow of the special congress of militant Bezbojniks, called to complete the destruction of all churches—Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Mohammedan—within five years. Extermination of Religion

We are thep in the midst of what the authorities in Russia hope is the closing phase of the legalised extermination of religion. The plan is in working order and suitable legislation is to hand. Here are some samples of the attack:—

1. Membership in the Communist Party, with all its privileges, is reserved for atheists. Soviet reports on membership give from the beginning the number of those expelled for religious "superstition." The Regional Committee of the party in Samara "cleaned" the Middle Volga section by expelling 453 persons for "fulfilling religious rites." (Bezboznik, August 20, 1930.) Bezboznik goes in for full-page illustrations to the same effect —the Five-year Plan crushing three grotesque figures, Jehovah, God, Allah, with the explanation: "The Five-Year Plan—this is a practical plan for annihilation in the fight against religion. Long live the Five-Year Plan!" (November 22, 1929.) Or it is a workman, flanked by two enormous new factories, who is sweeping God into the ash heap. Or it is another workman, against a background of chimneys and new constructions, who is dumping Christ from a wheelbarrow into the refuse pile. Or again it is a Communist boy, about five years of age, who holds a banner inscribed, "I am going over to the continuous working week," and kicks over a church in his way. I apologise to readers for setting down these blasphemous outbursts (there are others, obscene to a degree), but as we now have in our midst frank admirers of the Soviet regime, it is well to know what it stands for. Works of Mercy Forbidden 2. The Constitution of July, 1918 (article 13), and the law of May, 1925 (article 4), gave some vague semblance of religious toleration. That was swept away as were other ordinances by the decree of April 8, 1929. There is now no mention of liberty of conscience, of worship, of religious propaganda. Atheist propaganda is protected, subsidised, and developed by the Government, but believers have no rights. It is true their existence is accepted as a fact, but they are simply persons to be singled out, segregated for social discrimination, punished for violations of the laws against feligion. From the beginning of the Revolution priests and nuns (of the Orthodox Church and the Catholic) were deprived of all civic rights: they could not be either electors or candidates; the decree of 1929 extends that penalty to all layfolk who identify themselves with the exercise of religion—charwomen, vergers, sacristans, etc. "Religious societies and groups of believers do not enjoy the rights of juridical bodies." In othrr words, they have no legal existence and no protection from the law, though they are subject to all the penalties of the law, as set forth in 68 paragraphs. Children's Meetings Forbidden

Religious societies are forbidden "to assist their fellow-members by giving them material support," or to hold "special meetings for children, youths, and women for prayer purposes and generally Biblical, literary, needlework, and other meetings for the teaching of religion, etc." This, of course, means that religious groups pre forbidden to have works of mercy and charity! By article 18 of the original Constitution it was forbidden not only to clergymen but to any believer to teach religion to children (under 18 years of age), in any place whatever. Henceforth even parents can he punished as guilty of religious propaganda, if they induce their children to frequent the church or to recite their prayers even in. the privacy of the family. In punishment of these "crimes," parents can be deprived—not of authority over their children, for they no longer possess such a right—but even of the presence of their children. Parents who dare to give any religious instruction to their children may be fined, or sent to prison or compelled to hand them to a State institution, where they will be taught (at the parent's expense) to be militant atheists. The law forbidding religious instruction to anyone under 18 years of age, in public or in private, is no dead letter. In the case of a church that is still functioning it is a simple matter to send a zealous Communist of 16 or 17 vears in among the congregation. He furnishes evidence of religious instruction (reading the Gospel of Jesus Christ is sufficient), and next day the offending priest is off to Siberia or is lost among the vile cells of the G.P.TT.; there is even provision to have him shot. . It is claimed, of course, m Russia itself and elsewhere, that no one is exiled, imprisoned, starved to death or executed for religious beliefs, but only for "counter-revolutionary activity. This may be legally correct, but, of course, it is the most cynical hypocrisy. God has been publicly proclaimed the enemy of the State, and therefore whoever assists His cause is! guilty of treason.