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3d.
3d. PERTH, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1941.
NO. 2,997.
Maisky on Religious Freedom THE RIGHT TO "BELIEVE" BUT SNOT 1
TO PRACTISE
Cables in Australian dailies of August 5 informed us that "it is understood that M. Maisky, Soviet Ambassador in London, will make an important announcement soon regarding the extension of religious freedom in Russia" This statement was made as a result of a deputation of British religious bodies privately approaching the Soviet Embassy "seeking assurance on the Soviet's attitude towards religipn which would be needed before they were able wholeheartedly to support the Soviet alliance." M. Maisky was reported to have been sympathetic and to have consulted Moscow. Seven weeks pass, and M. Maisky's "important announcement" that was to be made "soon" is delivered in a speech at a luncheon of the American Chamber of Commerce in London. The mountain laboured and brought forth a mouse. WHAT did M. Maisky announce' Nothing but a piece of sheer claptrap, as dictated by the party line. No doubt this important announcement of M. Maisky's will be most acceptable grist to the mill of those who support closer relationship with the Soviet. There will no doubt be the hope of a more effective appeal, in that M. Maisky's title may seem more
authoritative" than that of the "Red Dean of Canterbury,' or his idealogical fellow- publicist, the Rev. Stanley Jones. M. Maisky is claimed to have "disposed of misconceptions regarding freedom of worship in Russia," and he is further reported as saying, "In spite of what is thought by many, religion in
that country is not persecuted. Every
citizen has a right to believe or not to believe according to his conscience." "Every citizen has a right to believe or not.. By what authority does any nation or person claim the power to bestow "the to believe or not?' This very qualite inherent in human nature. God Himself does not force the free will of man. And even if Maisky wished he could hardly stop men from thinking as they choose. Yet man's right to think freely is now acknowledged by the all-powerful Soviet. Surely it is a magnanimous concession! The Soviet citizen is still allowed the freedom to think! But in making his statement M. Maisky had no thoughts such as these in his mind-he was deliberately playing on words to create the misconception in shallow minds that "freedom to believe" is essentially the same as "freedom to practise." There is the world of difference except to those who are unable to appreciate this faculty of using words to obscure thought. Juggling With Words. True to form, M. Maisky glibly quoted Article 124 of the Stalin Constitution. This is constantly paraded, but
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have associated themselves for the joint 'atisfaction of their religious needs" and that such "religious communities of believers do not enjoy the rights of juridical bodies?" Did he also state that these "Communities may not function until after they have registered with the proper administrative department" of a Government pledged officially to combat religion? Did he say of the 8,000 churches that communities of believers "may receive 'by contract' from the local Government the free use of special houses of prayer?" If there are 8.000 churches (as we understand the term "church") why does the Soviet law speak of "houses of prayer?" Simply because the churches, where they still happen to remain, are being used for non-religious purposes. To speak of 8,000 churches as though they were in use as churches is as false as to say there were "60,000 priests and ministers of religion." M. Maisky has bad judgment, otherwise he would not have quoted any figures, for Soviet official records are against him. Before the Revolution there were 70,000 Christian churches and chapels in Russia. In 1935 the Comintern promised its followers that "at the end of the second Five-year Plan (1937) there will not be a single edifice in all Russia consecrated to religion." And in May, 1935, the newspaper "Bez'bojnik" proudly boasted, "We have closed all the opium shops " This Freedom! IVe know quite well that all churches are not closed in Russia. The open violence of persecution was abandoned to a degree in 1924, for there were too many martyrs; and so a switch -over was made to highly specialised anti religious propaganda, which received a backing in Clause 121 of the Criminal Code. We also know that there are still some priests in Russia, but to have now 8,000 churches in religious use
must have meant remarkably quick work in changing them from the anti God museums, Communist clubs and barracks, back to their original use as places of divine worship. Maisky would be more readily believ. ed if instead of expressing vague absurdities about "thousands" of priests and churches he would simply and truthfully inform the world as to the present whereabouts of the eleven Apostolic Administrators who were thrown into prison in 1926, and the two others who have "disappeared." Also he might explain why no Bishops are allowed in Russia and why in six of the former European Russian and two of the Asiatic Russian dioileses rio priests exist at all? But perhaps that
would not be quite such soothing and helpful publicity as the statement he did make. The Anti-God Campaign. Religion never dies in man, for it is inherent in his nature, and NI. Maisky knows only too well that the Soviet has not succeeded in its drive against God. Failure has been frankly admitted and deplored. As an instance, in December last, "Bezbojnik" had the following: "The attendance at clubs has dropped during hours of divine service. .. Despite the fact that many do not observe the ritual (for want of clergy and instruction) they are nevertheless believers in God." At the end of last year all the Soviet papers were complaining bitterly over the failure of the Government to take more vigorous steps to stamp out religion, and furnished as an excuse not the fact that religion was an "opium." but that it was returning in the form of a debased superstition. And the "30,000 independent religious communities" of whom Maisky speaks so confidently were denounced in "Komsomolskaya Pravda," which had the following to say: "Priests are driven underground, and religious services, observances, and rites are being practised in strict secrecy. Thus 'illegal' communities and sects are growing lice mushrooms, nullifying the Soviet au-
thority and evading registration." The Soviet will never succeed in suppressing religion and its practices. despite the League of the Godless and all their "freedom of anti -religious propaganda." And this fact of religious. survival is not a proof of the Soviet's toleration; it is a living confutation of the Communists' fundamental theory that man is only a material being. Treatment of the Poles. One final remark about M. Maisky's statement that "in the new Polish'
army now being created on the tern-. tore of Russia, Roman Catholic chap-, lains were admitted to minister to the' forces." Again a concession, not the: acknowledging of a right, and obviously a concession made purely in the interests of -.rations. If the Soviet is doing justice to the Poles, it may compensate a little for that fearful persecution extolled to the skies by the "Lwowskaja Pravda,". when it said (in February of this year) that "churches and synagogues in former Polish territory must be closed quickly. Three hundred churches and sixty-two synagogues have been closed in Lwow, 300 ministers deported, 1,000' parochial schools closed, and 19 newspapers and magazines confiscated. But people still believe." The assurances that M. Maisky is giving are utterly worthless. Honeyed words cannot smooth over the plain facts, though, no doubt, his claims will suit the credulous dupes of Communism, that doctrine which in the words of Mr. Churchill "rots the soul of a nation; makes it abject and hungry in peace, and proves it base and abominable in war."
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the force of Article 124 is best judged in the light of the Decree of April, 1929. When that Decree is repealed, Article 124 may take on some semblance of theoretical genuineness. We are not going to analyse again this pretentious act of hypocrisy called Article 124. But we may point out that we certainly do agree with M. Maisky that Article 124 makes an interesting document, especially in its juggling with the terms "freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti -religious propaganda." For both freedoms have to be interpreted not according to the literal connotation attached to the English word "freedom" but according to the interpretation laid down by Soviet jurisprudenceThe official interpretation of liberty of conscience ac cording to the Commissariat of Justice was given as follows: "The law secures freedom of belief in the subjective but not in the objective sense." In other words the Soviet Government does not hinder any individual from believing whatever he likes, or from not believing in anything at all, so long as his external actions are in conformity with the existing law of the land. And the meaning of that law is made clear in the reference to Religion in the infamous decree of 1929. It means plainly that there is no objection to one's believing a thing so long as one does not try to carry the belief into practice. Some "Statistics." Having delivered himself of his first statement, Maisky then went on to speak of religious statistics in the Soviet Union for 1940. There were "over 30,000 independent religious communities of every kind," he declared. But did he tell his audience that the 1929 Decree limits a community of believers to a "local association of believing citizens who have reached the age of eighteen years, of one and the same religion, direction or sect, to the number
of not less than twenty persons who
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