MODERN RUSSIA

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1934, Page 6

MODERN RUSSIA

ABSENCE OF FREEDOM SOVIET AND RELIGION. PLIGHT OF REFUGEES. The horrors of the Russian Revolution and of the years of famine and oppression which followed it are vivid memories of Miss Natalie Grushenkova, formerly a lecturer at Leningrad University under the Soviet regime, and- now • a member of the Russian Missionary Society, who arrived at Auckland by the Wanganella on Wednesday. She is to make a tour of the Dominion, giving lectures at various centres. Miss Grushenkova does not readily speak of her experiences at the time of the revolution. Still a young woman she was only a girl when the Tsarist regime was undermined and later when the Bolsheviks assumed power. Personal experiences she said were too harrowing to parade in public. She occasionally spoke of them to people who were specially interested, but, agonising as they were, they belonged to the past She speaks more freely of the fearful famine of 1921, when thousands died of starvation, and when food was more precious than gold. “It was before by student days,” Miss Grushenkova said, “but I remember with gratitude the help we received from the American Relief Association. That assistance was maintained when the worst of the famine was over, and when I was at college parcels of food and clothing used to arrive for students, especially Christian students.” Miss Grushenkova studied at Leningrad University and graduated there, later accepting a post as lecturer in philology. Subsequently she was advised to go to England and take a post-gradu-ate course at London University. There she came into close touch for the first time with Western ideas and also with the Christian religion, of which the revolution had robbed her during her girlhood. “I love Russia,” she said, “but I have come to realise that Russia can mean nothing without an acknowledgment of God.” Even when referring to her student days, Miss Grushenkova invariably gives Leningrad its old title of St. Petersburg. “Lenin did nothing that the city should take his name,” she said. “It is the city of Peter the Great.”

In England, after her departure from Russia six years ago, Miss Grushenlcova decided to enter a missionary college, even though this meant virtual exile from her native land. Yesterday morning, when the Wanganella berthed, she had a happy reunion with a New Zealander, Miss Smeeton, who had been at the missionary college with her in London and from whom she had heard of New Zealand and its people. ' WORK AMONG REFUGEES. After completing her missionary training, Miss Grushenkova worked for some time among the Russian refugees in France and Germany, and later she spent two years in the various Baltic States which once formed part of the Russian Empire. These countries, she said, afforded temporary havens for thousands of Russians who managed to escape from political or religious persecution. Most of them fled from the Soviet without money or goods, and the mission workers did all they could to help them. Many of the refugees gave terrifying descriptions of the conditions from which they had escaped. “Our work actually in Russia is very limited,” Miss Grushenkova said. “At one time the society had about 60 missionaries there, but we lost many of them as a result of more intense religious persecution by the Bolsheviks. There are now only about seven missionaries in Russia belonging to our society. They have a hard task, as the Bolsheviks prohibit the entry of Bibles or religious literature into Russia. From time to time we send them food parcels, and also bales of second-hand clothing for people in need, but we cannot always be sure thgt they reach them. “My parents are still in Russia. I have not heard from them for six years. I can write to them, of course, but it would be dangerous for them to write to me. They would be accused of having capitalist sympathies and that is an almost hideous crime in Bolshevik eyes.” The revolution had been for the cause of freedom, Miss Grushenkova continued, but to-day there was not much freedom in Russia. There was certainly no freedom of speech or of thought, and the masses were oppressed just as much as they had been in the days of the Csars. It was merely a change from one form of oppression to another. The Bolsheviks said it was necessary for Russia to go through such a transitional period in order to win her way to freedom and enlightenment. They were gaining the support of the younger people, who had only known Red Russia, but there was still the wide gap which had always existed between the people and the ruling classes.

“It is a minority rule,” Miss Grushenkova said. “There are only a few million Communists among 163,000,000 Russians, and many of those Communists are like apostate Jews who have thrown away any beliefs they might formerly have possessed. Their persecution of religion cannot be said to represent the feeling of Russia. It has been officially stated that one of the aims of the second Five-Year Plan is an endeavour to get rid of all the churches and Christians in Russia during that period. It is obvious that the Bolsheviks are afraid of another revolution. ( “Can religion be removed by a decree? My personal knowledge of my own people persuades me that religious belief is so deeply rooted in the hearts of all Russians that it cannot be wiped out. The peasants form the bulk of the people.. They might not be religious, as the term is’ understood in Western conimunities, but they have a strong and loyal attachment to their Church. CHURCH AND STATE. “It is possible, of course, that the practices of the old Greek Orthodox Church in Russia might have been responsible in part for the revolt against religion. There was said to be corruption in some quarters, and that may or may not be so. However, it is a fact that the Church was very closely linked with the Imperial Government. The Tsar was the head of both Church and State, and the Church to a large extent used to be used as a tool for furthering the ends of the Tsarist regime. That, perhaps, is- why it is so hated by the Bolsheviks. But, as in other things, they have gone from one extreme to the other. Instead of trying to reform the Church tney nave tried to stamp it out.” Miss Grushenkova has already made a lecture tour of parts of Australia, and will visit other centres there after her stay in New Zealand. She hopes to visit South Africa on her way back to England. Prior to her present tour she carried out deputation work in Holland. She is an accomplished linguist, and, in addition to her native Russian, she speaks English, with hardly a trace of accent, French, German and Dutch. She also has a knowledge of Italian, Spanish, and other European tongues, and is still a student of several ancient languages. While in Auckland she will be the guest of Mr. and Mrs. R. A. Laidlaw, Herne Bay.