Godless Jubilee

A not entirely enthusiastic participant last week was Dictator Joseph Stalin at the celebration by massed Communist delegations from all over Russia of the tenth anniversary of the founding in Moscow of the Union of the Militant Godless. This unprecedented Jubilee of Godlessness could only be compared to that celebrated by Bolsheviks in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Legalization in Russia of Abortion.

When it comes to religion Joseph Stalin is somewhat wistful. Although never actually ordained a priest, he was a theological student in his youth. He is the only Dictator alive today with a thorough knowledge of the contents of the Bible. Instead of being cremated, as tradition decrees for Communists, the Dictator's beloved second wife lies buried by his order in the consecrated ground of a historic Moscow convent (TIME, Nov. 21, 1932). Although active profession of atheism is the badge of a Communist, Joseph

Stalin has uttered officially such lukewarm words as these: "The Party cannot be neutral toward Religion because Religion is something opposite to Science."

In the U. S. the affiliate of Soviet Russia's Greek Orthodox Church is headed by young Archbishop Nicholas John Kedroff, Dean of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Manhattan. Said the Archbishop last week: "In some ways the Church has more freedom in Russia now than it had under the Tsars. Then the Church was the means through which the Tsars ruled, indirectly at least. The preaching of the clergy was censored by edict of the Tsar and nonconforming prelates were imprisoned in dank and frigid Solovetsky Monastery on an island in the White Sea. The clergy in Russia today are not so poor as you might think. Not long ago I received a letter from a priest who wanted some new parts for his Buick."

The prosperity in Russia of even one priest able to require new parts for his Buick drives the League of the Militant Godless into tantrums. Their Jubilee last week was devoted to exhortations and alarms over what they consider a "New Menace": priests in various parts of Russia have now nimbly inserted Bolshevism into their creed and are preaching what seems to peasants a harmonious blend of Communism and Christianity. The Godless bitterly complained last week that priests have identified themselves so closely with Joseph Stalin's pet collective farms as to announce sternly from their pulpits that peasants who refuse to join the collective cannot receive the ministrations of Mother Church. There is also a great deal of climbing up and down painting the crosses on Soviet churches a brilliant Bolshevik red with the beaming acquiescence of the clergy. In the city of Izhevsk, according to the vexed Godless last week, young Soviet workers in the automobile plant now down their tools during working hours for brief but intensive periods of Bible reading. The Godless reported in several regions "mass baptisms of adults and even youths of Communist Youth age."

Aside from this "New Menace" however, Comrade Emilian Yaroslavsky, President and Founder of the Union of the Militant Godless, had satisfactory progress to report. Off English presses and from the pens of Lord & Lady Passfield of Passfield Corner (who write under their old names of Beatrice and Sidney Webb) has recently come Soviet Communism, teeming with encouraging news of the work of Godless Yaroslavsky. According to Lord & Lady Passfield, the 9,000 "cells" or local organizations of the Godless in 1929 have now grown to 70,000. Adult membership has passed 5,000,000 and more than 2,000,000 are members of the Junior Godless.

"The priests of the Greek Orthodox Church are to be seen in the cities walking the streets in their religious garb, and in the country working in their gardens," write the English Lord & Lady. "Icons may still be seen without concealment in many a peasant izba, even in the collective farms. . . . [However] by an alteration of the law made in 1929, any public propaganda of religion apart from services and sermons in church is made a penal offense." Finally they quote an authority on Russia as saying, "At least half the population is already unchurched"--i.e., 82,500,000 Soviet citizens are still "churched."

In stirring up the police to inflict upon unchurched preachers of religion the full penalty of Soviet law, the Godless are especially active. Last week they boasted at their Jubilee of fresh success in a Western Siberian village. They have at last got its "chief evangelist," P. M. Golofast, sentenced to ten years in jail along with two minor evangelists, jailed respectively for two and five years.

Roman Catholic missionaries in Russia today are under the direct and exceedingly discreet patronage of His Holiness Pope Pius XI. At the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Manhattan, a prelate declared last week: "No one except Rome knows just who is doing what and where in Russia. If it were known, the Soviets would chop their heads off. As for such churches as are open in Russia, they are only to make it appear to tourists that there is no persecution." Because Pius XI is considered by the Godless their personal and potent foe in the great battle for Russian souls, Godless poster-cartoons of the Supreme Pontiff are particularly ill-tempered, Jewish and Orthodox leaders being let off more easily (see cut, p. 19). The Baptists, no longer as active in Russia as they were for years after the Revolution, have been hit by Depression and their Orthodox rivals now smugly opine that the Russian people like "something warmer and more colorful" than Protestantism.

Russia's militant Godless campaign against all gods and all faiths. Excruciating is their stage skit Buddha-on-the-Telephone. Expensively established by Tsardom in St. Petersburg, and tolerated by Communism in Leningrad for visiting religionists, are a beauteous Moslem mosque and an elaborately carved Buddhist temple. Saintly-appearing priests of Buddha may be seen lost in scripture-reading or meditation and mechanically spinning their prayer wheels while tourists, Soviet ragamuffins and even stray dogs wander in & out unheeded.

Godless Chief Yaroslavsky was born at Chita in Siberia of humble parents who reared him as devoutly as Joseph Stalin was brought up by his Old Mother whose dearest wish was to see her son a priest. Work in a book bindery at the age of 9 led Yaroslavsky into journalism, radicalism, Communism and finally, after the Revolution, onto the editorial board of Pravda. Until the recent Soviet innovation of sending out bits of "human interest" material about Bolshevik leaders, Comrade Yaroslavsky was not known to have any other interests than stern Party duty, pouncing on priests and Godlessness. Now Moscow has no objection to revealing that Godless Yaroslavsky has a particular dislike for neckties, is distinguished by the mannerism of rapidly alternating his horn-rimmed glasses with his pince-nez, smokes a tobacco similar to Stalin's,* and "pursues as his hobbies gardening and his children."

At one time Yaroslavsky ran the circulation of his weekly Bezboznik ("The Godless") up to 180,000. It was 100,000 last year when he turned it into a monthly. Yaroslavsky aphorisms:

"We make no distinction between our struggle against Capitalism and our struggle against Religion! . . . Decent conduct has nothing to do with Hell or Heaven. . . . Religion is adopting-- the disguise of Communism! We even hear it said that Christ was the first Socialist, or the first Communist! . . .

"Suicide is not permissible! It is an act of bourgeois cowardice. . . . Marriage must be founded on the deep respect of husband and wife for each other. The family with us is based on unity of political striving and ideological interests of husband and wife!"

In Manhattan, quite unperturbed by Godless Yaroslavsky, Archbishop Kedroff observed that he is in frequent correspondence with Soviet Russia's Eastern Orthodox Primate, His Holiness the Metropolitan Vitaly of Moscow, who is in excellent health and spirits. A U. S. citizen, the Archbishop added that, although some of his congregation are Communist sympathizers, he usually votes the Republican ticket, considers Senator Borah "an extreme radical."

* Edgeworth pipe tobacco is the Dictator's brand and, with most Russians barred from importing tobacco at any price, this Stalin indulgence is a sort of informal State secret.

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