Taking A Firm Stand Against Faith

By Richard N. Ostling

While en route to India last November, Mikhail Gorbachev made his first visit as Communist Party leader to Soviet Central Asia. At Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, Gorbachev gave a speech to local party officials on such familiar problems as economic inefficiency and official corruption. But at one point his address took a distinctly unfamiliar turn. According to the Uzbek daily Pravda Vostoka, Gorbachev called for a "firm and uncompromising struggle against religious phenomena." Then he said, "We must be strict above all with Communists and senior officials, particularly those who say they defend our morality and ideals but in fact help promote backward views and themselves take part in religious ceremonies."

To Kremlin watchers, several things were noteworthy about those remarks. They were Gorbachev's first pronouncements on religion since he took office 22 months ago. Indeed, it is rare for a Soviet General Secretary to attack religion so directly; that is usually left to underlings. Beyond that, the critique suggested the Kremlin is concerned that the state's struggle against religion has not been going well. Finally, the fact that Gorbachev chose Tashkent as the place to attack religion indicated that the Soviet leadership is specifically fearful about the currents of fundamentalist zealotry sweeping the Islamic world, which might eventually infect the fast-growing Muslim nationalities of Soviet Central Asia.

Since 1918 the Soviet Union has formally professed constitutional commitment to freedom of belief. In practice, the regime has placed rigid limits upon churches, synagogues and mosques and waged a campaign of oppression against believers. The training of religious leaders is tightly restricted, and religious education of children under the age of 18 is illegal. At the same time, all schoolchildren are indoctrinated in atheism.

For Soviet Christians, conditions today are relatively stable. There was a wave of church closings between 1958 and 1964. But believers are allowed to worship in the buildings that remain open so long as they register their congregations with the government and do not challenge Communist bans on parish education, evangelism and distribution of Christian literature. Several high-ranking Russian Orthodox ecclesiastics have recently been seen on TV newscasts, usually appearing as supporters of the Kremlin's disarmament policies. Severe persecution is aimed primarily at groups such as those Pentecostalists and Baptists who refuse to accept Soviet controls.

The status of the reported 1.8 million Soviet Jews is more difficult. Jewish emigration has been cut to fewer than 50 a month (vs. a peak of 51,300 in 1979), but the continuing demand for emigration shows how difficult it is for Soviet Jews to maintain an identity. Last September, for example, one of the Soviet Union's few remaining mikvahs (ritual baths) was reportedly leveled by authorities.

Islam has become a special problem, and a special concern. Soviet Muslims are concentrated in the U.S.S.R.'s strategic southern border regions and maintain ties with Islamic peoples in neighboring countries. Official worries have intensified since the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan; many Soviet Muslims sympathize with Afghan co-religionists battling Soviet troops, as do many of the Central Asian conscripts in Soviet uniform.

There are no reliable statistics on how many Soviet Muslims still practice their faith. But a political report adopted last year by the 16th Congress of the Kazakhstan Communist Party noted that Islam is "still strong and growing." A Kazakh newspaper told of mullahs holding unauthorized prayer meetings, while another daily in neighboring Uzbekistan attacked local party leaders who permit people to gather at traditional holy sites. Such informal gatherings suggest that the number of believers far exceeds the capacity of the country's 300 to 500 legally registered mosques (there were 24,000 before the Communist takeover).

Other recent newspaper articles that contain evidence of Muslim activity complain about elaborate funerals and workers fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. According to one article, some who follow the "old reactionary rituals" try to make the practices more acceptable to the Soviets by using coded terminology. Thus fasting is called dieting, and the five daily prayers of prostration are termed calisthenics.

Ethnicity as well as religion lay behind mid-December rioting in Alma Ata, capital of Kazakhstan, after the Kremlin replaced veteran Party Leader Dinmukhammed Kunayev, a Kazakh, with a Russian. The ousted Kunayev was no ^ believer, but he did little to suppress his people's religious practices. His removal served as a focus for Kazakh and Muslim resentment of postwar Russian newcomers who have made the Kazakhs a minority in their own republic.

During the year ahead, Gorbachev's policy toward religion should become clearer. Communist officials are privately debating how to celebrate in 1988 the 1,000th anniversary of Prince Vladimir of Kiev's choice of Christianity as the faith of his people. In a sense next year marks the millennium not just of Russian Orthodoxy but of the Russian nation. Pope John Paul II is even exploring the possibility of a visit, though the Kremlin is unlikely to comply with his request to go to Lithuania and the Ukraine. The Soviet regime has already permitted the Russian Orthodox Church to renovate a historic Moscow monastery and open a press office. Such gestures, however, are a far cry from recognizing Christianity's role in national life, either 1,000 years ago or today.

With reporting by James O. Jackson and Nancy Traver/Moscow