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Belorussian Review
2
MUNICH
1956
The views expressed in the Review are those of their authors. They are not bound by any single political philosophy nor are they to be construed as representing the point of view of the INSTITUTE.
Material contained herein may be reproduced, provided reference is made to this publication
All comments and inquiries are most welcome and should be addressed to:
Institute for the Study of the USSR Editor, The Belorussian Review
Augustenstrasse 46
Munich, Germany
Verantwortlich fiir den Inhalt:
Publishing Board of the Institute and Dr. Stanislau. Stankievic
Herausgeber und Verlag: Institut zur Erforschung der UdSSR, e. V., Munchen 37, AugustenstraBe 46, Telefon 5 81 27. Printed in Germany by Buchdruckerei Dr. Peter Belej, Miinchen 13, SchleiBheimer Strabe 71
The Belorussian Review is a publication of the Institute for the Study of the USSR. Its purpose is to present the free world an analysis of contemporary events and detailed studies of Belorussian history and culture by persons who know the system intimately.
*
The Institute for the Study of the USSR was organized on July 8, 1950. It is a free corporation of scientists and men and women of letters who have left the Soviet Union and are now engaged in research on their homeland.
Any member of the Soviet emigration, irrespective of his national origin, political affiliations or place of residence, is eligible to take part in the work of the Institute provided he is not a Communist Party member or sympathizer.
*
All comments and inquiries are most welcome and should be addressed to:
Institute for the Study of the USSR
Editor, Belorussian Review
Augustenstrasse 46
Munich, Germany
CONTENTS
· L. Haroska, Soviet Policy Toward Religion After 1942
· M. Volacic, The Curzon Line and Territorial Changes in Eastern Europe
· L. Varonic, The History of Belorussia in the Works of Soviet Historiography
· S. Kabys, The 1955 Harvest in the USSR
· Archimovic, The Cultivation of Long Fiber Flax in Belorussia
REVIEWS
· H. Niamiha, Soviet Nationality Policy: The Case History of Belorussia by N. Vakar
· Karpovic, The Belorussian Theater and Drama by V. Seduro
Soviet Policy Toward Religion After 1942
L. HAROSKA
I.
1942—THE TURNING POINT
As soon as the Bolsheviks seized power over the whole territory of the Soviet Union, they began an uncompromising struggle with all religious faiths, proclaiming unequivocally that their real aim was the complete destruction of religion throughout the USSR. However, it was not until 1925 that a Union of Militant Atheists was formed as a separate organization. Its task was to support by propagandistic methods anti-religious administrative measures still being applied by Soviet state organs at that period.
In reality, the Union of Militant Atheists was a blatant expression of the intentions of the Soviet rulers with regard to religion, for its activities were financed entirely by the state. The cost of antireligious propaganda, including the publication of many books, pamphlets, and periodicals, was considerable.
The program of activities of the militant atheists was coordinated with Soviet economic plans. Simultaneously with Stalin's Five Year Plans, atheist Five Year Plans were proclaimed, the first in 1927, and the second in 1932. The former was conducted rather quietly, but the latter called for much propaganda, and the last point of its program provided that by 1939 the very name of God should be completely obliterated from the territory of the USSR. However, their Five Year Plan was a failure. The 1939 census of the Soviet population revealed such an unexpectedly large number of believers in God that its results were never published.
However, ill success did not deter atheist circles from their disruptive activities. They changed their tactics, drafted new plans, and mobilized cadres of active members. The Militant Atheists now strove to make up for their propaganda failures by using even violence against religious communities.
For a clearer understanding of the change which took place in Bolshevik tactics after 1942, it should be pointed out that in the USSR the entire property of all religious groups had been confiscated earlier. Church buildings might be used for services only on the basis of contracts arranged with the appropriate Soviet administrative organs, and then only after the payment
Примечание: In the footnotes the following abbreviations are used:
BSE = Bclshaya Sovietskaya Entsyklopedia (Great Soviet Encyclopedia), Second
Edition, Moscow, 1950. ZhMP = Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate).
of high taxes by the community. The tolling of bells was prohibited, all religious organizations were dissolved, educational establishments for the clergy were closed down, monasteries and convents liquidated, the religious education of children below eighteen years of age was prohibited, not only in schools but even at home. In order to organize a parish, an appropriate application had to be submitted on behalf of at least twenty faithful—and this little community was given charge of a church or other religious building on a contractual basis. But even these groups—the only religious organization tolerated by the Soviet authorities—had no legal status.
All these measures introduced by the Bolsheviks contributed to the situation which existed at the beginning of 1939, when, throughout the USSR, there were only four active Orthodox bishoprics (exclusive of the eleven bishoprics of the Reformed Orthodox Church), and the Roman Catholics had not even one. The organization of religious communities had completely disintegrated. Moslems, Jews, and other religious groups also faced ruin and possible liquidation.
When, in 1941, military operations engulfed the USSR and the front speedily approached Moscow, Bolshevik authority was shaken and the Soviet leaders were seized with panic. Under these circumstances their attitude toward religion suddenly changed beyond recognition. Side by side with news of military operations, the world press and radio announced the sensational news about the new Bolshevik religious policy.
In June, 1941, anti-religious periodicals and books stopped appearing in the USSR as a result "of the shortage of newsprint." The Union of Militant Atheists was dissolved in 1942. The printing establishments where atheist literature had previously been published were handed over to the Orthodox patriarchate, and from September, 1943, the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate), which had been suppressed in 1936, was again published there. Church calendars appeared. The number of bishops and clergymen of the Russian Orthodox Church showed a sudden increase. Orthodox churches which had been forcibly closed down were reopened. There was however hardly any news of improvements in the status of other religious faiths, and none at all about the Catholics.
New Policy Toward Eeligion
Instead of the former Cult Commission (Kult-Komissia), which since 1931 had formed a special branch of the NKVD, a Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church was established in 1942, within the Council of Ministers of the USSR, under the chairmanship of G. G. Karpov, and only two years later, under the same Council of Ministers, a Council lor Religious Affairs, headed by I. Polansky. Previous restrictions on religious activity were then allegedly removed. Bells reappeared in the church towers, the clergy began to deliver sermons, (albeit mostly of a patriotic content). On September 4, 1943, Stalin, received the holder of the patriarchal office, Sergei (Stagorodsky) in private audience together with the Metropolitan Alexei (Simansky) and Metropolitan Nicholas (Yarushevich) and, on September 8, 1943, a Synod was held in Moscow at which the Metropolitan Sergei was elected Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
The legality of this Synod is highly questionable, for the hierarchy of the Russian church has many members, including also a considerable number of bishops in exile, while the Synod was attended only by nineteen followers of the Metropolitan Sergei, at a time when more than ten bishops had been imprisoned or deported.1
At the end of the war the Bolsheviks continued to follow their new religious policy, and it is characteristic that they conducted with particular intensity a propaganda campaign about their allegedly favorable attitude toward religion. For instance, the first religious book along the new line, published in Moscow in 1942 and entitled Pravda o religii v Rossii (The truth about religion in Russia), was distributed only among large bookshops in the USSR, and the bulk of the issue was reserved for abroad.2 Special editions in French, English and Swedish appeared soon after.3
II.
THE LEGAL POSITION OF EELIGION IN THE USSR Former Soviet religious legislation
The real attitude of the Soviets toward religion is best illustrated by Soviet legislation. In this respect it will be noticed that after 1942, despite widespread propaganda about improvements in the general attitude toward religion, all previous, Soviet anti-religious laws remained operative. Only the Russian Orthodox Church approved a new constitution in 1942, which is allegedly respected by the Soviet government because it is in accordance with Soviet legislation.
Since 1918 a number of decrees, regulations, decisions and circulars have been issued on religious matters, or, rather, against religion. The most important of these were collected in a special book in 1926.4 In subsequent years additional laws have been introduced. It would have been superfluous to refer here to this enormous legal jigsaw puzzle, which aimed at paralyzing completely the activity of religious communities, were it not for the fact that they have never been declared null and void, and are, therefore, still in force.5
The basic provisions of the 1918 decree on the separation of church from state, as well as the decrees (reaffirmed in 1918, 1929, and 1931) to the effect that "religious associations are not legal and therefore have no right to hold property" are still operative in the USSR. The decree of 1929, which prohibits religious associations from carrying on welfare activities is also still valid.
Even the restrictions on strictly religious activities remain valid since permission must be obtained from the local authorities before a religious procession may take place. The Soviet penal code has not been amended either. According to Point 122 of Article 4, the teaching of religion to youth is punishable by one year of imprisonment.
The New Legal Status
Although Soviet legislation on matters of religion has not been officially amended since 1942, the legal status of the Russian Orthodox Church has changed considerably. Previously this church adhered to the constitution approved by the All-Russian Synod of 1917 in Moscow, but after 1927 the Moscow Patriarchs no longer respected it. On January 31, 1945, the Synod of Moscow approved a new constitution which is essentially different from the previous constitution and in complete agreement with Soviet legislation. Article 37 of the new constitution states that a new parish can be registered only with the consent of Soviet authorities. Now the Russian Church, in Article 39 of its constitution, legalizes the confiscation of all church property, and recognizes the need to conclude contracts with the local authorities "for the free use of church buildings and liturgical equipment."
With regard to the administrative apparatus of parishes and bishoprics, the new constitution is almost an exact replica of previous Soviet regulations. Particularly characteristic is Article 46, which stipulates that should any irregularity occur in the administration of a parish, it is the duty of the parish priest to inform his bishop immediately and the bishop should then inform the Soviet authorities through the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The new constitution legalizes the complete dependence of the Russian Church on Soviet authority, and makes the active bishops more dependent on the parish committees of the so-called "twenties," into which local Communists can easily infiltrate their own people.
It should be pointed out that even in the detailed analysis of the new constitution to be found in the works of Father Schweigl,6 the unfavorable legal position of the Church in the USSR is apparent. The picture is not complete because the new 1945 constitution does not entirely reveal the increasing dependence of the Russian Church and its hierarchy after 1927. By his decree of October 21, 1927, after the publication of his notorious pro-Soviet declaration, the Metropolitan Sergei instructed his subordinate clergy to pray for the Soviet authorities during services and prohibited the commemoration of exiled and imprisoned bishops. At that time he made his Synod chancery accessible to the GPU, and this state of affairs still exists.
In connection with various functions organized by the Russian Orthodox Church, the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii frequently mentioned the names of various officers of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the names of the Council's representatives in the different republics and regions. It is just these people who today really control the Church and the activities of the bishops, and who, at the same time, are watching every move of the clergy under their supervision. Such representatives are found wherever there are administrating bishops.
The word "dependence" has been employed here to define the legal relationship between the Russian Church and the Soviet authorities. It is to be regretted, however, that this word is inadequate to describe the real situation, for since 1927 that part of the Russian Church which was under the control of Patriarch Sergei has embarked upon cooperation with the Soviets. In 1931 an active Russian clergyman wrote:
Among the cities of North and South Russia with which I am acquainted, I do not know a single one where clergymen fail to cooperate with the GPU. They carry out their task quite openly. Even in the countryside a considerable number of clergyman have been unable to avoid this role.7
After introducing the system of cooperation, the Bolsheviks proceeded to improve it. It was not an accident that after World War II, 22 bishops and 253 clergymen of lower rank received Soviet decorations for their "patriotic activities." 8
Of course, the constitution does not indicate the means by which collaboration of the clergy with the Soviet government is achieved. At least up to 1927 and possibly for several years after, quite a number of clergy paid with their lives for being faithful to their religious duties.9 It is beyond doubt that the majority of clergy who agreed to cooperate did so under coercion. The Soviet technique of recruiting collaborators varies and is always kept strictly secret. But in 1940 several cases revealed the most frequently applied methods of recruiting. At that time the Bolsheviks tried to force even Roman Catholic clergy to cooperate, but their efforts failed.
III. THE PRIVILEGED POSITION OF THE MOSCOW PATEIAECHATE
Changes which took place in Bolshevik policy toward religion after 1942 do not concern religion as such, and apply first of all to the Russian Orthodox Church, or more precisely, to the Moscow Patriarchate. It is true that the Bolsheviks always distinguished between various religious faiths. In theory they proclaimed that their aim was to destroy all religions, but in practice they attacked mercilessly those denominations which most strongly opposed their plans, and were more lenient toward those which might prove useful. From this point of view the Moscow Patriarchate obviously had particular importance in the Bolshevik scheme, for it is favored, not only above other non-Orthodox denominations, but even above other Orthodox churches which existed in the USSR previously, but were destroyed by the Bolsheviks. From 2925—1927, the Bolsheviks liquidated the hierarchy and the rank-and-file clergy of the Belorussian Orthodox Church,10 and from 1927—1930 the hierarchy of the Ukrainian Church.11 This was the period, when those groups of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy were removed which were creating independent trends in the Russian Orthodox Church and categorically refusing to recognize the pro-Soviet Metropolitan Sergei as the head of the Moscow Patriarchate. These were the so-called losiphlans, whose eradication was completed in 1942, and the Gregorians, a small group liquidated in 1927. However, since before 1942, the activities of the clergy were closely circumscribed—only a few churches remained open—the privileges of the Moscow Patriarchate were not particularly evident.
However, when after 1942, the Bolsheviks changed their policy toward religion, the privileged position of the Moscow Patriarchate, became obvious, Izvestia began to publish the "pastoral" letters of the Patriarch. A kind of separate ministry, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, already mentioned as being under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, was established in 1942 for the conduct of affairs of the Patriarchate. Restoration of the Patriarchate was permitted, and for this purpose a much-advertised Synod took place in Moscow at which representatives of certain Orthodox churches abroad participated and whose journey to the USSR was financed by the Soviet government. Permission was granted to open eight seminaries and two academies for the training of clergy. Georgian and Armenian churches were allowed to open one seminary each, one Muslim training college was established, and even one Roman Catholic seminary was tolerated in Kovno (Lithuania). Of course, the Orthodox Church has more members than any other church in the USSR—before 1917, 65% of the population belonged to this Church—but in this particular case other motives besides numbers contributed to the advantageous position of the Moscow Patriarchate. Here it should be mentioned only that during World War II did the Bolsheviks need a church which, without requiring a change of atheist policy, would become a useful show-window for their domestic and foreign policies, and would increase the prestige of the Soviet regime in the eyes of religious believers, The only church able to render such services was the Moscow Patriarchate, which in the past had been an obedient tool of the Russian tsarist rulers.
Liquidation of the Removators
When considering the present position of the Moscow Patriarchate, it should be remembered that in 1922 the Bolsheviks established the so-called Renovation Church, based on the extreme leftwing hierarchy and clergjr, For a certain period this church had more members than the Patriarch's church, but later an internal split, encouraged by the Bolsheviks, considerably reduced its numbers. Several clergymen of this church, including Metropolitan N. Platonov and the Rev. S. Kalinovsky, renounced the Christian faith altogether. Not a single bishop from this group was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks. This church, created and supported by the Bolsheviks, began, in the fall of 1943, to join the church of the Patriarch of Moscow, and submit to the repentence ceremonies required in such cases. The ranks of the hierarchy members were reduced to those they held before joining the Renovation Church; of eleven bishops, only three preserved the rank of bishop (Vitalii Vvedensky, Karnili Popov, and Mikhail Postnikov), while Sergei Larin was reconsecrated. These occurrences clearly bear testimony to the fact that the Renovation Church, like the Union of Militant Atheists, was considered by the Bolsheviks to be an unsuccessful experiment.
The Patriarch
In a church which is based on a hierarchy, the position of the Patriarch is very important and responsible, especially in the circumstances which exist in the Soviet Union. The rights of the Patriarch of Moscow are defined in general terms in the first eleven paragraphs of the new constitution approved on January 31, 1945, by the Synod in Moscow. The first paragraph states that the Russian Orthodox Church is headed by the Patriarch of Moscow, which rules it jointly with the Holy Synod. This means that in theory the rights of the Patriarch are restricted by the Holy Synod, but in practice they are of such wide scope that they are limited only by the Soviet authorities.
The present Patriarch, Alexei (Simonsky), belongs to an aristocratic Muscovite family. He graduated from the Law Faculty of Moscow University and the Moscow Theological Academy. He became a monk during his second year at the Academy and was consecrated bishop in 1913. He belongs to those few Orthodox bishops who have never been imprisoned by the Soviet regime, one of the reasons for which was his friendship with the notorious Cheka officer, A. E. Tuchkov, who at one time supervised church affairs in the USSR. When, in 1927, the Metropolitan Sergei of Moscow issued his famous declaration on the recognition of the Soviet regime and loyalty to it, Archbishop Alexei (Simonsky) immediately joined Sergei's Synod and became his most active collaborator in the struggle against those bishops who refused to submit to the new course of his Synod. In 1943, as a member of the delegation to Stalin, he took an active part in the restoration of the Patriarchate, and succeeded Patriarch Sergei after his death in 1945.
Patriarch Alexei addressed a number of messages of loyalty to his atheistic state rulers. He called Stalin "a wise leader selected and appointed by God's providence to lead the Motherland along the road to prosperity and glory." 12 In a similar spirit the Patriarch Alexei issued appeals and messages on the occasion of various Soviet anniversaries, and sent a number of telegrams of greeting.13 Such a course had already been introduced by Patriarch Sergei, and Patriarch Alexei, as he himself admitted, was "following faithfully the trail blazed clearly by his predecessor." 14 In reality, however, he goes much farther than the Patriarch Sergei. About Stalin he said, "Our holy Church has in him a faithful protector." 15
For their part, the Soviet authorities actively demonstrated their benevolent attitude toward the Patriarch on various occasions. It is known that before World War II, the chancery of the Patriarch was accommodated in a modest house in the suburbs of Moscow. In 1943 the Patriarch received the enormous buildings of the former German Embassy. On October 11, 1945, he received a medal "for the defense of Leningrad," and on August 16, 1946, "the Order of the Red Banner," which is usually awarded for services rendered to Communism. On August 31, 1946, he received a medal "for Distinguished Work during the Patriotic War of 1941—1945."
Through the intermediary of the Patriarch, the Soviets are active among the Fifth Colums abroad. A great number of appeals, resolutions and declarations on the subject of "organizing peace," "peace congresses," "nuclear weapons," the "democratization of Japan," condemnation of "America's aggressive policy," and so on, have left the chancery with the signature of Patriarch Alexei.
Composition of the Hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate
Much less is known about other Soviet bishops. About some of them no information is available at all, except for name and diocese, even though they were quite recently consecrated. For example, Archbishop Filaret of Riga and Vilna was consecrated in 1948, and although the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriar-kthii, while reporting the consecration normally gives important biographical data on the new bishop, for some reason omitted to do so in this case.
The interest of the free world in the bishops of the Russian Church is quite understandable, because the hierarchy is a vital matter for the Church. This interest is heightened by the fact that after several imprisonments and deportations, toward the end of 1938, only four active bishops remained on the territory of the USSR, while several dozen bishops were inactive, and approximately twenty others were in prison or in exile. This was the position of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1942; in that year, because the Soviet government wished it, the number of active bishops began to increase rapidly. At the beginning of 1945 there were 54; in 1948, 78; at the beginning of 1955, 65. From 1942 to 1955, 111 active bishops were mentioned as being at their posts in the USSR.
Twenty-two bishops were coopted from prisons, deportation camps, and inactivity, and one may suppose that not all those who were deported were released, but only those who, broken by prolonged suffering, agreed to collaborate. Three bishops were accepted from the Renovation Church, and two others were reconsecrated, but the majority of those newly consecrated, 72 altogether, were selected from among older widower priests and monks. Finally, 10 bishops were repatriated or voluntarily returned from abroad. Between 1946 and 1949, 22 of these bishops received Soviet orders and medals.
The education of the 72 bishops consecrated after 1942, differed greatly, as shown by the following table:
Higher theological education before 1917.....22
Higher lay education but no theological education……5
Secondary theological education.......24
Secondary lay education but no theological education ……3
Monks without any special education......14
Education not known..........4
Among the bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, a considerable number have suffered for their faith. The present Metropolitan of Leningrad, Gregorii, was formerly known as the Rev. Nicholai Chukov. At the trial of the group under the Metropolitan Veniamin of Petrograd, on July 5, 1922, he and several others were condemned to death, but his sentence was afterwards commuted to long-term imprisonment. Of the 22 bishops coopted after 1942, at least 10 had been imprisoned and deported, including Alexei Ponomarev, Anton Romanovsky, Georgii Sadkovsky, loanniki Speransky, Job Kresovich, Emanuil Lemeshevsky, Nicholai Marilevsky, Palladii Sherstennikov, Phillip Stavitsky, and Focius Topiro.
Communist Party members, the so-called representatives for the affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, keep in close contact with the bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, and throughout the Soviet Union, are the real supervisors of Soviet bishops.
Soviet bishops who travel abroad warrant particular attention. Some of them have nothing in common with religion, to say the least. For instance, Alexei Dekhtiarev was a police officer in the town of Perm before 1917. After the Revolution he went into exile, but soon after began to cooperate with the Soviet intelligence service, and on its instructions, he became "a monk." From 1946—1948 he worked for the Cominform in Egypt as the superior of the Russian Orthodox mission, as a result of which he was detained and spent a year and a half in prison. Through the intervention of the Soviet Embassy he was released and returned for a short period to the USSR, whence he was sent to Czechoslovakia, where on February 12, 1950, he was consecrated bishop of Prague. There are quite a number of such "bishops" in the USSR and abroad whose real personality is hidden behind a veil of silence. The Archbishop of Lvov (Lemberg), Makarii Oksiuk, who became notorious through his liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in cooperation with the MVD, was appointed head of the Orthodox Church in Poland.
Priests
There are only approximate figures available on the quantity and quality of Orthodox priests in the USSR. In 1949 the Metropolitan Nikolai Krutinsky said in Paris that there were 20,000 parishes in the USSR with 30,000 priests. In 1954, the Archbishop Herman (Kozhin), in New York, gave the same figure for the number of parishes but did not give the number of priests.16 In 1947 the prelate Andrei Sergeienko, who had visited the USSR reported that there were 25,500 churches, 3,500 chapels and 33,000 priests.17 It is impossible to verify this data, but from their contradictory character it is clear that they are approximations meant primarily for propaganda purposes.
Even in the absence of this data, it is certain that most priests in the USSR, as well as the hierarchy, are advanced in age and received their education before the revolution. There are quite a number of younger priests, but presumably the majority are children of clergy, which means that they come from families where the old order still reigns.
Following the example of their hierarchy, the priests demonstrate Soviet patriotism in their activities. Even the contemporary Soviet anti-religious press admits that the clergy of today is loyal to the Soviet regime.18 From 1946—1948, they received 253 Soviet decorations.
Academies and Seminaries
During the period of the struggle against religion, the Bolsheviks noticed to their discomfort that those who dared to become priests under conditions of persecution are inaccessible to atheist propaganda and have great influence on the people around them. The reasons for-the utter failure of their atheist propaganda were sought by the Bolsheviks in all sorts of nonsensical suppositions. However, part of the responsibility was laid at the doorstep of overt and covert "servants of the cult." For this reason, after the change of attitude toward religion, the Bolsheviks introduced a system of educating priests of a new type, who were to replace those openly or secretly, willingly or unwillingly, interfering with the plans of Soviet atheist propaganda. After World War II, theological courses were authorized in individual bishoprics, and later eight permanent theological educational establishments were opened: In Moscow on June 14, 1945; in Leningrad in November, 1945; in Lutsk in 1945; in Odessa in 1945; in Stavropol in 1946; in Kiev in 1947; in Zhirovichy in 1947; and in Saratov in 1947. In place of the, existing institutes organized in 1944, theological academies were opened in Moscow and Leningrad. Only students over 18 years old and Komsomol members who are recommended by three Communist Party members are admitted to these establishments.19 This means that candidates for the Soviet priesthood are subjected to more rigorous screnning than candidates for Party membership, where the recommendation of two Communists is required. It is difficult to establish the number of seminary students in the USSR, since recent reports published in the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii for some reason do not include these statistics. It is known only that there were 340 students in the Seminary and Academy of Moscow in 1953, and 396 in the Seminary and Academy of Leningrad in 1952—1953.
Tuition in seminaries and academies is free of charge. Moreover, the students of seminaries each receive 200 roubles monthly for their living expenses, and the students of academies 260 roubles. The educational program of the seminaries does not include philosophy. Instead, the constitution of the USSR must be studied.
On Soviet anniversaries students have to attend meetings where lectures on the subject of these anniversaries are given. Every evening at supper they listen to the reading of daily papers.20 It is reported that this educational system is operative in the theological seminary of Kiev, and it may be presumed that it is being similarly applied in all other seminaries.
Eight seminaries and two academies are, of course, a far from adequate number for the preparation of all the priests necessary to fill the posts which become annually vacant in 20,000 parishes. In order to fill the gap, bishops continue to apply the old established method of consecrating to the priesthood, men who have had no theological education, like sacristans, or even ordinary choir members who have served for several years as deacons. The Bolsheviks tolerate this system of training for the priesthood which bypasses the Soviet seminaries, not only to avoid increasing their number, but also because this method gives them an easy opportunity to infiltrate their agents into the ranks of priests.
Monasteries
Before World War II, not a single one of the 550 monasteries and 475 convents of the pre-revolutionary period was left on Soviet territory. They were reestablished by old monks and nuns who survived the years of intense persecution after the closing of the cloisters. According to the statement of Metropolitan Nikolai Krutitsky in Paris, there were 97 monasteries and convents in the USSR in 1945.21 Prelate Sergeienko said that in 1947 there were "about 90, and 3 abbeys." 22 This is probably the number of cloisters planned and permitted by the Soviet authorities, rather than the number actually existing, for in the spring of 1954 Archbishop Herman (Kozhin) stated in New York that there were only 70 monasteries and convents in the USSR.23 However, even this figure seems exaggerated, since only 38 convents and monasteries have so far been mentioned in the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii and other Soviet periodicals.24
Unquestionably many of the monks and nuns living in these cloisters entered them from purely religious motives. Indicative of this is the publication by Komsomolskaya pravda of a letter written by an indignant father whose daughter, Vera Kudinova, a student at the radio technical college, wanted to join the Kiev Pechera convent.25 But at the same time it is quite certain that certain of these men and women have no genuine interest in monastic life, and are simply MVD personnel.
Officially, in accordance with pre-war Soviet legislation, monasteries and convents as such cannot exist because religious organizations or associations are not legal bodies.- Now they are officially registered as collective economic. units or artels.
Eewards and Purges
The Soviet method of praising or damning persons who occupy responsible positions is also applied to leaders of religious denominations. The Roman Catholic bishops who did not submit to Soviet demands were accused of fantastic crimes, and sent to prison, deported, or simply liquidated.
Among the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Bolsheviks found faithful collaborators for whom their praises and rewards are unstinted. In addition to the large number of medals and orders distributed by the Bolsheviks among the clergy, a considerable number of bishops and priests received expensive robes, golden crosses, or even crosses set with diamonds. Officially this type of reward was distributed by the Patriarch of Moscow, but it seems clear from whom he received them.
Awards are always reported by the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii, which, however, never mentions purges and arrests among the clergy, although such events have taken place in the USSR on numerous occasions. In 1944 when the Germans retreated from the occupied territories, a large number of bishops of the Ukrainian Autonomous Church who recognized as their head the Patriarch of Moscow remained in the USSR. They were: Bishop Veniamin (Novitsky) of Poltava, the Bishop of Kamenets-Podolsk, Domanskim (Maliuta), Bishop Job (Kresovich), Bishop Nikodim of Vladimir-Volynsk, Bishop Pan-kratsii (Gladkov) of Belgorod, and Archbishop Simon (Ivanovsky) of Chernigov. Of these only one, Job (Kresovich), received a bishopric in 1945, and he is now Bishop of Kazan. Others were arrested or disappeared without trace.
It should be pointed out that the imprisonment or liquidation of these bishops took place in 1944, at a time when the Russian Church was very short of bishops for appointments to proposed bishoprics. This indicates that even then the Patriarch of Moscow and his real superiors were not looking for bishops as such, but in the first place for obedient tools to carry out Bolshevik plans.
Detentions in 1944 were carried out so quietly that only several years later was the news spread abroad, and for this reason in 1946 and 1947 six bishops of the Russian and Ukrainian hierarchy who were living abroad, believing the Soviet propaganda about the improvement of Bolshevik policy toward religion, asked to be repatriated to the USSR. Together with bishops released from prison and brought back from deportation they underwent a purge in 1948—1950. The purge started in the summer of 1948 in Siberia. Their Metropolitan Nestor (Anisimov), Archbishop of East Asia, was arrested at that time, and two other bishops were dismissed. In the following year, 1949, three bishops were arrested, loannikii (Speransky), Maksim (Bochinsky), and Mikhail (Postnikov), but it is doubtful that Mikhail was imprisoned, since he had previously belonged to the Renovation Church. During the same year seven other bishops were dismissed and some of them were arrested including Archbishop Emanuil (Lemeshevsky), and Bishop Feodosii (Karnevetsky) sometime between 1949 and 1953. Archbishop Daniil (Yuzviuk) was arrested in 1950, and Archbishop Anton (Martsenko) in 1951. Both had been repatriated in 1946.
Neither the Soviet press nor the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii said a single word about this purge, and thus little is known about it in the West. Only two periodicals and one newspaper abroad reported the imprisonment of Soviet bishops, the Belorussian monthly Bozym Slacham,26 which gives a detailed report of these detentions, and the monthly Irenikon,27 whose partial list covered only four cases of imprisonments. The fact that many Orthodox priests are now in Bolshevik prisons is reported by Rev. Peter Alagiani, who, in the spring of 1954, returned from the USSR, and who personally met imprisoned priests.
Underground Currents
In spite of their apparent loyalty to the Soviet authorities, there are apparently trends among the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church which obviously do not entirely agree with the intentions of Soviet policy toward religion.
The increase in the number of bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church reached its peak in 1948. In 1951 and 1952 not a single new bishop was consecrated, and at the end of 1952 there were only 60 bishops at their posts. After the death of Stalin, in 1953 alone, eight new bishops were suddenly consecrated. If such a rapid increase had agreed with Bolshevik plans it would have been continued, but in the following year there were only two consecrations. This indicates that in the future the number of bishops will probably decrease in accordance with the 1948 plan, and that the sudden jump in 1953 was an unusual occurrence and chronologically coincides with the death of Stalin.
An article entitled Khameleon, published in the Literaturnaya gazeta, shows that many priests in the Soviet Union, despite their apparent devotion to the regime, are trying to pursue their duties honestly. In this article A. Polo-vinnikov and H. Selivertsev, correspondents of the newspaper, expressed their indignation at the fact that Mikhail Dobrynin, an outstanding expert on Iran, who graduated from Leningrad University and worked in the Numismatic Department at the Leningrad Hermitage, and who passed his university examination in Marxism-Leninism brilliantly, was at the same time Deacon's Assistant at the Leningrad Cathedral. Another case, also in Leningrad, which aroused the fury of these correspondents concerned Veniamin Bogdanov-Berezovsky, a prominent biologist working at the Academic Institute of Gynecology and a member of the Communist Party since 1942, who refused to deliver a lecture on the subject of atheism, declaring publicly that he was a believer in God.28 Such a complicated attitude toward irreconcilable contradictions is not new to the hierarchy of the Russian Church. In the past, bishops to justify themselves, expressed the opinion that their humble submission to tsarist authority should be "treated as an ascetic act." 29
The chapter of the book on the Patriarch Sergei which tries to prove that the previous submission of the Russian Church to tsarist rulers was much worse than the present subordination to the atheist regime may be also interpreted as "self justification." Since the time of Catherine II it states, the "Church has feigned submission because it has been mercilessly persecuted in every respect." 30
The Believers
There is no data available to indicate how many believers there are in the USSR at the present time, and how many of the Orthodox faith are among them. To a question of a Reuter's correspondent in 1948 on this issue, the Patriarch Alexei replied that the records of believers are not kept at the parishes, and for this reason he could not give an adequate reply.
Before 1917, 65% of the population of the Russian Empire belonged to the Orthodox Church. It is much more difficult to determine the loss of believers since 1917. In the 1937 census, the majority of the population of the Soviet Union had the courage to state in their questionnaires that they believed in God. Although the results of this census were never published, according to unofficial reports about 70% of the people declared themselves to be believers. During the German occupation in 1941 the whole population attended church services and took communion, which indicates the temporary nature of the decrease in believers due to atheist propaganda. Visitors who have had an opportunity to visit the Soviet Union sometimes note their impressions of religion there today. Although such reports are always incomplete they all agree that the churches in Moscow are always well attended.
There is no reason to doubt that this is partly true, but it should be remembered that there are only 55 churches and chapels open in Moscow, most of them small, for 4,137,000 inhabitants. A similar situation exists in other towns. In the countryside after collectivization, churches became rare, even though the percentage of believers in rural areas is considerably higher than in the cities and towns. According to a statement of prelate Kolchitsky dealing with the administration of the Moscow Patriarchate, 50% of the children in Moscow are christened, but in other towns the figure is lower; in the countryside, on the other hand, the percentage is relatively higher.31
Apart from the percentage of children christened and the number of parishes, it is possible on the basis of Soviet press reports during the last two years to conclude that the recent religious revival is being felt throughout the whole territory of the USSR, and that this fact has provoked such an intensification of anti-religious propaganda, frequently verging on persecution, that the Central Committee of the Communist Party was obliged to mitigate it by its decree of November 10, 1954. Recently it was revealed that the reason for attenuating atheist propaganda was the sharp fall in output during the period of intensification of the campaign.
For Soviet leaders it was particularly unpleasant to note that interest in religion had increased considerably among youth, from whose circles the name of God has been banished since 1918, and where active anti-religious propaganda was at its height. Students of all faculties in Soviet universities are compelled to study and pass examinations in Marxism and Leninism. Nevertheless, there are a considerable number of believers among them.
From reports on the increase in the influence of religion among youth it may be worth quoting a few statements taken from the Soviet press whose veracity there seems little reason to doubt.
The Komsomolskaya pravda of February 20, 1953, indignantly reproved the youth in the village of Ivanovka for the fact that in connection with some sort of miracle in this village the general interest in religion had increased considerably. Even greater anger was expressed by the editorial board of this newspaper on July 9, 1953, because a girl student of the radio technical college had expressed a wish to join a convent. In the village of Staraya-Makeevka, Stavropol oblast, the Komsomol youth participated in a church wedding. The regional committee of the Komsomol conducted investigations in this case and found that no one there was interested in anti-religious propaganda, and that atheist literature was left untouched in the library.32
Last year a number of Soviet newspapers published reports on the increasing influence of religion. It would be superfluous to repeat them here, but on the basis of these reports it might be erroneously concluded that there is only an increase in the influence of religion in Russia proper, whereas in reality this phenomenon is to be observed throughout the whole of the USSR.
In 1953, S. Medvedev sharply criticized the Brest Regional Committee of the Komsomol for the mass increase in the influence of religion among youth in the Brest raion, at the same time blaming the priests for "striving to be very active among youth." However, he had to admit that in the David-Haradok raion the Komsomol participated in religious services. He said that "three members of the Komsomol in the kolkhoz called Molotov were married in church," and added that such "participation in religious services takes place in other areas as well." 33
A joint report from Gomel entitled "A Neglected Field of Work" stated that in the Dobrush raion, people do not work on church holidays, and two-thirds of the schoolchildren do not attend classes. "Here on any church holiday the labor routine is disrupted. On the Feast of the Assumption hardly any of the kolkhozniks went to work in the fields." Further; "There are cases where the engineering and technical workers of the local industrial enterprise (the paper mill in Dobrush) keep icons in their houses and christen their children in churches. For instance, N. Smirnov, a member of the Communist Party and foreman of the Sorting Department, and mechanic V. Losev of the Cutting Department recently christened their children in church."34 The Komsomol newspaper of the BSSR, Cyrvonaja zmiena, frequently complains about the influence of religion among Belorussian youth. On May 16, 1954, this newspaper criticized with particular acerbity the youth of the Gomel region because they frequented the houses of religious sects and churches and distributed religious publications. Speaking in general about the present state of religion in Belorussia, V. Petrov stated that "in a number of localities religious prejudices have even been revived." 35
Some Komsomol leaders realizing that there has been a general increase in the influence of religion throughout the USSR, have tried to find reasons for this development. At a Komsomol conference, there were complaints against solemn church weddings and services and assertions that Komsomol organizations offer nothing to their members to counteract these "attractions." 36
Another Komsomol leader saw the Church's power of attraction in well-organized .choirs, beautiful singing and good sermons of the priests.37 In his opinion the eloquent sermons "delivered by a priest with enthusiasm and conviction, without looking at his notes" are particularly dangerous to Communist youth.38
The causes of the growth of devotion to religion mentioned by the Komsomol leaders are entirely secondary, and the real causes go much deeper, but this aspect of the matter is not the subject of the present article. Here it is sufficient to stress the fact that despite prolonged anti-religious propaganda in the Soviet Union, the influence of religion is increasing there, and this is the main reason for the maneuvers of the Soviet leadership in their attitude toward religion.
The Financial Position of the Russian Orthodox Church
Before 1942 all clergy of all religious denominations in the USSR had to pay enormous taxes, and houses of prayer paid, in addition very high insurance premiums. If the believers were unable to pay these sums when due, the temples were closed and priests were frequently imprisoned. After 1942 the situation changed. We hear no more about exorbitant taxes, and only in some districts do priests apparently have difficulties of this type. There is no news of the distribution of taxes among various denominations, but reports are unanimous that the Russian Orthodox Church is not now burdened with taxes by the Bolsheviks. As a result the money which believers give to their priests is being used for the maintenance of the churches, the clergy and the hierarchy.
It is known that during World War II, believers, impressed by the opening of churches which had so long been closed down, gave generously to the Church. It is also true that at that time the value of the rouble was low. The appeal of the Patriarch of Moscow found a wide response, and large sums of money were collected to purchase a tank column for the Red Army. Although in this case it was not only believers who contributed, Soviet propaganda shouted the story to the whole world as an irrefutable proof of friendly relations between the Church and the Soviet regime.
After World War II, when the legal position of religious associations was stabilized, the financial position of these bodies also had to be determined. The new constitution of the Russian Orthodox Church places great stress on the keeping of accounts and their control. This means that the maintenance of parishes is placed upon the shoulders of the believers, and parishes can exist only where the generosity of the faithful can support the church and the priest with his family.
If we look deeper into the financial situation of the Russian Orthodox Church and particularly of its hierarchy, the problem becomes complicated. The Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii frequently reports on the generous contributions of the Patriarch of Moscow to various ecclesiastical delegations. It hardly seems necessary to explain that this prosperity of the Patriarch of Moscow comes from the Soviet state treasury. Bishops under the Patriarch of Moscow abroad, and all clergy, receive an official subsidy from the Patriarch. At home or abroad the bishops of the Patriarchate of Moscow receive their salaries from the Patriarch, but the source of these funds is uncertain, since officially every parish is obliged to send part of its income
for the maintenance of the hierarchy and theological colleges. According to unconfirmed reports published by the official periodical of the Greek Orthodox Church, the salaries of Soviet Orthodox bishops are very high:39 The Patriarch receives a monthly salary of 50,000 roubles, a Metropolitan—30,000 roubles, an Archbishop—20,000 roubles, a Bishop—12,000 roubles and an ordinary priest— 4000—5000 roubles.
This periodical does not quote its sources, but certain remarks in the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii would indicate that they are quite feasible. The decree of the Patriarch of Moscow on the retirement of the Metropolitan Serafim Lukianov, head of the West European Orthodox Church, stated that he was "granted a pension amounting to 10,000 roubles per month." 40 His pension is considerably lower than that of other retired metropolitans and the reason for its reduction was, it seems, very serious; he had disobeyed the Patriarch of Moscow. It should be pointed out that it is exceptional for the amount of a pension to be reported in a Moscow paper.
In general, pensions for retired clergy and their widows were low and insufficient. In 1944 they were "increased considerably,"41 though by an unspecified amount. With regard to the financial situation of the Russian Church, the testimony of the Jesuit father, Peter Alagiani, acquires considerable importance since he returned from the USSR quite recently. He stated that "the official Russian Church of the Moscow Patriarch has very little support from its believers." 42
IV. OTHER RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS
Variety of religions among the population of the USSR
Before the October revolution, there were in the Russian Empire representatives of all major religious denominations with the exception of Buddhism. There were also numerous sects. The majority of them still exist, at least officially. In 1949 the following religions were legally registered in the USSR: Russian Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Georgian Church, Dissidents, Old Believers, Monophysites, Roman Catholic Church, Protestants, Coverts, a clergyless sect—Bezpopovtsi (Pomeranians, Filipovites, Theodosians), Baptists, Evangelists, Menonites, Adventists, Non-Conformists, Puritans, Methodists, Piatidesyatniki. Molocanites, Yagvists, Khlysts, New Israelites, Jumpers (Skakun), Shtundists, Tolstoyists, Malevanites, Feodorovites, Mohamedans (Suniites and Shiites), Begoites, Ismailites, Judaists, Buddhists, Jamaists and Shamanists.43
Besides the above enumerated denominations, there were on the territory of the USSR before 1939 a number of unregistered sects of a clearly anti-Communist character, like the Black Christianites, Keepers of Silence,
Apocalypsites, Cropped Heads (Ostrizhniki), Cross Bearers (Krestovatiki), and certain extremist groups such as the Feodorovtsi and Ascensionists.44
Since every denomination has its own organizational discipline and other features, the attitude of the Soviet government toward each individual denomination was expressed in a different form based, however, on the same principles for all. The most outspoken expression of this varying treatment of different denominations is the singling out for privilege of the Russian Orthodox Church which has already been mentioned in a special chapter. Although in 1942 the Bolsheviks created a special soviet for the Russian Church, an analogous office for all other denominations was created only in 1944, when the so-called Soviet for the Affairs of the Religious Denominations was created under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
The Roman Catholic Church
The attitude of the Soviet authorities toward the Roman Catholic Church has been marked constantly by extreme hostility. After 1942 the situation, in fact, deteriorated.
All Soviet publications of a general ideological character which occasionally refer to Catholicism invariably do so with rancor. Here are some typical assertions about Catholicism taken from the second edition of the Soviet Encyclopedia: "The Vatican is the residence of the head of the Catholic Church, the Pope of Rome, one of the main centers of international reaction and obscurantism ... hatred of democracy and Communism, of the USSR and countries of the People's Democracy, underlie the whole activity of the Vatican, which is the ally and tool of the most aggressive imperialist forces."45 "Catholicism was the most irreconcilable enemy of the great October revolution ... the organization of the Catholic Church is an active element in the plot of American imperialists against the USSR and the countries of the People's Democracy." 46 "The activities of the Vatican, and the great majority of Protestant missionaries are subservient to American imperialism." 47
Theoretically certain other denominations may, through their activities, be just as unpleasant to Bolshevism as the Catholic Church, but in practice the Communist can paralyse their forces more easily.
In the USSR the Bolsheviks have suceeded in infiltrating their agents into the leadership of other churches, but they were long unable to penetrate the ranks of the Roman Catholic Church, thanks to the centralized administration of the Church and the disciplined life of its priests. It is true that there were exceptions, but they were so quickly exposed that the Bolsheviks finally declared the Catholic clergy a "closed caste."48
In the satellite countries, no efforts are spared even now to draw the priests into pro-Communist organizations of the so-called progressive, patriotic clergymen, and to oppose these organizations to the Roman Catholic hierarchy. However, thanks to its organized spiritual life, the Catholic Church remains an impregnable fortress of freedom against totalitarian power. In anti-religious Bolshevik literature which appeared after 1945, the majority of books, articles and periodicals are directed exclusively against the Roman Catholic Church.49 In this respect bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate actively assist the Bolsheviks. Nearly every issue of the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii carries articles of an anti-Catholic character. It should be emphasized that the Roman Catholic Church has always been considered a foreign religious denomination in Russia. There were no Catholics of Russian nationality in Russia before 1917, because Orthodox Russians were strictly forbidden to join any other denomination.
The distribution of the Catholic population on the territory of the USSR is very uneven. Consequently a flexibility of tactics is needed in dealing with Catholicism in various republics of the USSR.
The Bolsheviks are most belligerent toward the Eastern (Byzantine) Catholic Church. There are two reasons for this. First, the Eastern Catholic Church represents a real threat to the Russian Orthodox Church. The Soviet religious leaders say that "the Uniate Movement constitutes a declaration of war on the whole Orthodox world." 50 Second, and more important, the Eastern Catholic Church "aims at breaking the religious bonds of the Ukraine and Belorussia with Moscow." 51 For this reason, now when dynamic imperialism dominates Bolshevik policy, the Soviets are ruthlessly combating the Eastern Catholic Church, hiding their offensive under the cloak of the Orthodox Church.
In five years the Bolsheviks liquidated the whole Eastern Catholic hierarchy, and its believers were forced to join the Orthodox Church. A number of so-called "Unification Synods" were staged, on March 8—10, 1946, in Lvov (Lemberg), on October 21, 1948, in Alba-Julia, Romania, on August 28, 1949, in Mukachev, Transcarpathian Ukraine, and on April 28, 1950, in Czechoslovakia, to preserve an appearance of voluntary junction with the Orthodox Church. In Belorussia and Bulgaria there were only a few Eastern Catholic parishes which were liquidated without formality. In China all clergy of the Eastern Catholic Church were arrested and then deported to the Solovetskie Islands. The one country where the Eastern Catholic Church has not yet been formally liquidated is Hungary, probably because the only Orthodox parish in Hungary is still in the experimental stage. Special attention should be given to Bolshevik attempts to create some sort of Latin Orthodox church under the Moscow Patriarchate, on the model of the French Orthodox parish (Latin rite), and a similar monastery in Paris which, at the end of World War II, recognized the authority of the Patriarch of Moscow. A number of efforts were made to influence Roman Catholic clergy in the USSR to join the Orthodox Church. One such case is reported by Rev. Nikolai from Odessa. The Bolsheviks promised to leave him and his followers in peace on condition that they join the Orthodox Church.52 However, no^ a single Roman Catholic priest in the USSR accepted this proposal.
In 1920 there were about a million and a half Catholics on Russian territory, but, as we have seen, all of them were of non-Russian nationality. It is difficult to give an estimate of the percentage of the Catholic population in the different parts of Russia, because at that time no breakdown was provided. There were in Russia, Catholics of the following nationalities: Poles, Belorussians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Germans, and French. In 1917 the first small groups of Eastern Russian Catholics appeared in Petrograd and Moscow.
After the reorganization in 1925, the Catholic Church had four apostolic administrative centers, in Moscow, Leningrad, Kazan and Vladivostok, and an Eastern Catholic bishopric in Moscow. All the bishops at these posts had either been imprisoned, liquidated or expelled from the country before World War II. In 1945 there were only three Catholic parishes left on the whole territory of the USSR, in Moscow, Leningrad, and Odessa. Now there is only one left, in Moscow, at the Church of St. Louis.
However, there were reports that as a result of mass deportation during the collectivization of Lithuania, Latvia, and western Belorussia in 1948, groups of deported Roman Catholics appeared in Siberia, and allegedly Lithuanian priests were permitted to organize several parishes there, but it is, of course, impossible to verify these reports.
Over the ethnographic territory of Belorussia, which has a population of about 15,000,000, 17.7% are Catholic. The administrative division of the Catholic Church on this territory bears traces of the difficult history of Belorussia. There were two metropolis, one in Mogilev, and another in Vilno, and only two bishoprics, one in Minsk and one in Pinsk. In 1940 the Belorussian bishopric of the Eastern Catholic Church was organized. All these posts are vacant today. Before 1939 there were two theological seminaries in western Belorussia, both under Polish control. Today they are closed down. All monasteries and convents have been shut as well. Only a few parishes are left in western Belorussia.
In Belorussia the Bolsheviks encountered favorable conditions for the liquidation of Catholicism. Before 1917, Catholic religious life was polonized to such an extent that the Catholic Church was popularly called the "Polish denomination," and a number of imprisoned priests were accused of being Polish spies. When, after World War II, Poland had difficulty in colonizing its newly acquired territories, about half a million Belorussian Catholics voluntarily declared that they were Poles and went to Poland, thus depleting many Catholic parishes in Belorussia. A continuous, hostile campaign is still being waged against the few Catholic priests who remain in Belorussia. A young writer, Janka Bryl, in a book which was awarded a Stalin prize, calls the Catholic Church "a nest of snakes." He writes further: "More than any others, the hands of the priests are stained with blood. They do harm to us and will continue to do harm until they die." 53 In order to justify this hostility toward the Catholic clergy he tells how the brother of a priest of the Eastern Catholic Church participated in guerilla warfare against the Bolsheviks.54 Another young writer, A. Carnysevic, in his story Susiedzi (Neighbors), accuses a Catholic priest of hiding a guerilla paratrooper.55
The Soviet press reports that in those districts where there are Roman Catholic churches still left intact they are visited not only by the older generation, but also by youth,56 and this fact greatly displeases the Communists. It irritates them even more that "many students of the Grodno Agricultural Institute are not sufficiently aware of the reactionary essence of religion, particularly of the Roman Catholic Church and its center, the Vatican, as a direct agency of American imperialism." 57
In the Ukraine, as in Russia, members of the Catholic Church were not of Ukrainian nationality, but believers of the Eastern Catholic Church were the most conscious section of the Ukrainian nation and the Church even became their national Church. Today the hierarchy of both Catholic Churches in the Ukraine no longer exists. Dioceses in Lvov, Lutsk, Kamenets-Podolsk, Zhytomir, Tarnopol and Kharkov, as well as eastern ritual dioceses in Lvov, Stanislavov and Peremysl, are without bishops. All theological seminaries and the Academy of Lvov have been closed down as well as all monasteries and convents of both rites. Of a total of 3,470 Eastern Catholic priests who refused to join the Orthodox Church, the majority have been imprisoned.58
All the Byzantine Catholic parishes (numbering 3,040) were forcibly incorporated into the Russian Orthodox Church. It is only in some large towns of western Ukraine that a few Roman Catholic parishes still remain for the benefit of the local Polish population.
In Lithuania, only the Rt. Rev. Kazimer Paltarakas. 80-year-old Bishop of Ponevezha, is left of the previous nine Catholic bishops. Where formerly there were 1,600 priests, only 380 were still free in 1948. Such physical extermination would seem inconvenient for the more current needs of Soviet propaganda, and for this reason in March, 1954, the Lithuanian Communist press published the "pastoral letter" of Bishop Paltarakas, which stated, inter alias, that there are 688 churches left open in Lithuania, with 741 active priests, and that there are 74 students in the Kovno theological seminary. However, the wording of this "pastoral letter" and its propagandistic style make its authenticity very dubious, as the Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano correctly remarks. It is true that the Roman Catholic seminary still exists in Kovno, but it has a very limited enrollment. At the beginning of the curent school year there were only 52 students. Soviet authorities continue to create a number of difficulties, and interfere with their studies. This year, for instance, 25 of them were conscripted for military service. It should be emphasized that this is the only Roman Catholic theological seminary in the USSR. Very recently TASS reported that, with the consent of the Vatican, Bishop Paltarakas consecrated two new bishops in Ponevezha on September 11, 1955: Rt. Rev. Petras Nazilis as the Bishop of Telshany and Rt. Rev. Julienis Stephanovich as the Bishop of Sventsiany.
However, it should not be concluded that this is the beginning of an improvement in the Bolshevik attitude toward the Catholics, since all other Catholic monasteries, convents and religious organizations are still banned.59
In Latvia, where there were 4 bishops, only one, the Rev. Anton Spryn-govich, 79-year-old Arfchbishop of' Riga, remains- free. Some time ago his name was quoted in the Soviet Encyclopedia as the "highest Catholic hierarch" in the USSR.60 Roman Catholics in Latvia constituted 24.4°/o of the total population of two million, and had 200 priests for their religious needs. Today there are only about 10 elderly priests. The theological seminary in Riga and all monasteries and convents have been closed down.
In Estonia, only 19% of a total population of one million were Roman Catholics. Apostolic Administrator Edward Profitlikh was head of the Catholic Church there, but in 1945 he was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks.
In Armenia, the majority of the population belongs to the Armenian Mono-physite Church. However, a certain section of the population follows the Catholic Armenian Church. Since a number of Armenians live dispersed outside the borders of their country, administrative centers of the Armenian Catholic Church were established abroad. There was an Apostolic Administration in Tbilisi and a diocese in Lvov. Now both centers are vacant and the parishes no longer exist. In 1945 there were reports of one Armenian Catholic parish in Leninakan, but nothing further has been heard of it since.
Such is the general picture of the state of the Catholic Church on the territory of the USSR.81 It shows that, even from strictly tactical considerations, the Soviet regime has not in any respect changed its hostile attitude toward religion as such. Its atheist propaganda was powerless against the Catholic Church, and obviously the only method of struggle left was direct force. Although in 1942 they changed their tactics toward the Orthodox Church, and to a certain extent toward other denominations, the Bolsheviks did not dare amend their strategy vis a vis the Catholic Church in the USSR.
The Georgian Orthodox Church
About 2 million Georgians of a total population of 2,300,000 belong to the Orthodox Church. The characteristic feature of this church is an independent leadership, with a Patriarch called the Katolikos. Services are conducted in Georgian. From 1917 to 1943 the Georgian Church was in conflict with the Patriarch of Moscow because the latter did not recognize the proclamation of its independence. In 1943, on instructions of the Soviet authorities, the Georgian Katolikos Kalistrat (Tsintsadze) reconciled with the Patriarch of Moscow, or, more correctly, submitted to him. Today the Georgian Church has 5 bishops, and is headed by the Katoiikos Melkhiseded (Pkhaladze). In internal affairs it has preserved a certain degree of autonomy, retaining the Georgian language in its liturgy, and it has its own theological seminary in Tbilisi.
The Old Believers
Various groups and sects of Old Believers have survived in the USSR. They have been toughened by a three century `Old struggle for existence, and up to the present time have succeeded in preserving even those groups which have not been legalized by the Soviet authorities. The Old Believers, have a properly organized hierarchy consisting of Archbishop Flavian (Slesarev) of Moscow and All Russia, Bishpo Veniamin of Klincy and Nbvozybkovo, Bishop Inokentii of Donets, Don and Caucasus, and Bishop Josip (Martakov) of Kishinev, Odessa and Chernevtsy. In 1945—1947 they were permitted to print their own Church calendars, and to open a school of church music. There is a movement among other groups of Old Believers, including the Bezpopovtsy and Beglopopovtsy to join the main group, which provoked the "fraternal encouragement" of the Patriarch of Moscow.62 Apparently the Patriarch's intervention discouraged further unification of Old Believers, and subsequently the wooing of the Moscow Patriarchate was discontinued.63
The Armenian Church
This Church adheres to the Monophysite teaching. It has more than a million members in Armenia proper and about 100,000 outside Armenia. It has an orderly administration and a hierarchy consisting of 5 bishops headed by the Patriarch of All Armenians, the Katolikus, who resides in Echmiadzin.
The Armenian emigrants have an even better developed church administration than those in Armenia itself. There are an Armenian Monophysite Patriarch in Beirut, two autonomous administrative centers of this church in Istanbul and Jerusalem, and bishoprics in Bulgaria, Iran, Romania, western Europe, North and South America. All these centers keep contact with their Katolikos in Echmiadzin and help to support him financially. To judge from the number of administrative centers abroad, the Armenian Katolikos has more bishops and probably more believers abroad than the Patriarch of Moscow. In 1945 the Armenian Church was permitted to open a theological academy and authorized to publish a periodical in Armenian entitled Echmiadzin. It may also organize congresses in Echmiadzin with the participation of representatives of the Armenian hieraitchy from Armenia proper and from abroad.64 In return for all these privileges the Armenian bishops in the USSR and the Katholikos personally must support the Soviet propaganda of "peace organizations" and "peace conferences," and on the occasion of various Soviet anniversaries must send greetings to Soviet authorities with pledges of loyalty and support.
Lutherans
Prior to 1939 in the Baltic countries, a considerable number of Lutherans were active: 800,000 in Estonia and 600,000 in Latvia. Little is known about their activities at present. However it is believed that they still function, have their own pastors and were in fact invited to participate in the "conference for peace" in Zagorsk in 1952,
…………….
Now there are very few Jews in the towns which were under German occupation, and only in large cities is there a sufficient number for them to organize their own school and keep open their synagogue. There are no reports of the number of synagogues and rabbis in the USSR. Neither is there a central Jewish organization. Two Jewish delegations attended the conference in Zagorsk: one from Moscow headed by Rabbi S. M. Schliefer, and the other from Kiev headed by Rabbi I. G. Schechtman.67
Rabbis are permitted no activities other than praying in the synagogue. Circumcision and the ritual slaughter of animals were prohibited in 1927, and these prohibitions have not been revoked;68 therefore Jewish religious life is almost completely paralyzed.
Islam
The number of believers in Islam on the territory of the USSR is given as 20 to 30 million. The majority of them are Sunnites. There are also representatives of various Muslim sects, the Nizaritsk Ismailites, followers of Ali-Ilali, Kizbakhs and Bogaites, but only the Sunnites and Shiites are registered as official. It is characteristic that regardless of the centralizing tendencies of the Soviet regime, the leadership of Islam in the USSR is not centralized. It may be supposed that in this particular case it is avoided in order to make believers in Islam at home and abroad less conscious of their strength.
At the present time the Sunnites have three administrative centers: 1. The Spiritual Leadership of Muslims of the European part of the USSR and Siberia in Ufa (Bashkiria), headed by the Mufti Shakir ibn Sheik Udju-Islam Khjale-dinov; 2. the Spiritual Leadership of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, with a residence in Tashkent, headed by the Mufti Ikhand Babakhan ibn Abt al-Madjud, who has four deputies: in Kirgisia, Kazakhstan, Tadjikistan, and Turkmenia; 3. the Spiritual Leadership of Muslims of Dagestan and the Northern Caucasus, with a residence in Bunaiysk (Dagestan), headed by the Mufti Mohamet Khadji Khurbanov. The Shiites have a' Spiritual Leadership of the Muslims of Trans-Caucasia, with an administrative center in Baku, headed by the Sheik Ali Zade Akhund Aga Djavad Ogly.
There is no reliable data concerning the number of mosques and mullahs in the USSR. In 1942 the Soviet press reported that there were 1,312 mosques with 8,052 mullahs on their territory.69 Although these figures are very low in relation to the Mohamedan population of the USSR, there are serious reasons for believing that they are still exaggerated. According to more reliable data, there are only 300 mosques in Soviet Central Asia. Only one college (Medresh) has been authorized for the training of Muslim priests. In 1953 it had an enrollment of about 100 students. The program of studies is spread over seven years. Students must have reached the age of 28 years before they are admitted. The Tashkent Spiritual Leadership publishes a periodical in the Uzbek language, and calenders.70
Officially the Soviet authorities assert that they permit pilgrimages to Mecca and even provide certain facilities for these journeys. However, their assertions coincide with the beginning of the intensified Soviet flirtation with the Arab countries. The Soviets' policy toward Islam, like their attitude toward other religions, strives first and foremost to achieve political aims.71
Buddhism
Most of the Buddhists in the USSR were either Burats (237,000) or Kalmyks (130,000), but the latter were liquidated in 1945. Smaller Buddhist groups can be encountered among the Tuvimtsy, Evinks and Koreans. Very little is known about Buddhist religious life in the Soviet Union. The official Soviet press mentions their existence occasionally. It is known that the religious leader of the Soviet Buddhists is Hobdju Dormaiev Lobzon Nima. The Soviet Encyclopedia says that "the majority of the followers of Buddha in the USSR have liberated themselves from religious superstitions;" however, this statement is immediately followed by an attack on the "reactionary leadership of the Buddhist Church" and the Buddhist monasteries.72 In connection with the Soviet policy of looking for allies in the Far East, and its efforts to make a good impression in India, the question of Buddhism in the USSR has acquired particular significance and is naturally attracting attention.73 Despite this, reports of Buddhist religious activities are very few.
Less Known Religious Groups
There are also in the USSR several interesting religious groups whose following is not numerous. Little is known about them and even a well-informed center like the "Documentation Francaise" in its publication on the religious question in the USSR,74 has only printed general information about various sects and religious groups, based on reports prior to 1939.
V. THE AIMS OF THE NEW POLICY TOWARD RELIGION
There was a great stir over the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of November 10, 1954, signed by N. Khrushchev entitled "On Mistakes in the Conduct of Scientific-Atheistic Propaganda among the Population." 75 In essence, however, Khrushchev said nothing new, since he only criticized religious persecution and administrative abuses, because they "consolidate religious prejudices," a statement which has been repeated again and again in Communist programs in order "to carefully avoid hurting the religious feelings of believers, for this leads only to the consolidation of religious fanaticism." 76 At the conclusion of this decision, Mr. Khrushchev says openly that, "the correction of mistakes committed in anti-religious propaganda should not lead to the weakening of scientific-atheistic propaganda which is an essential part of the Communist education of the working people."
The titles of certain recent articles of an ideological character will serve to illustrate that the Communist Party's attitude to religion is far from indifferent: S. Khudiakov, Vazhny Vopros Otnositelno Nauchno-ateisticheskoi Propagandy (The Important Question of Scientific-Atheistic Propaganda),77 Nauchnoe i religioznoe mirovozzrenie (The Scientific and Religious Outlook);78 and F. N. Oleshchuk, Religioznye Perezhitki i puti ikh Preodolenia (Religious Survivals and Ways of Overcoming them).79 A number of similar articles were published in the periodical Nauka i Zhizn (Science and Life), and a particularly large number in the Literaturnaya gazeta, Komsomolskaya pravda, and Pravda.
When Bolshevik tactics toward some denominations changed during the war, even though their basic principles remained anti-religious, a sort of NEP was created, conditioned by the international situation, which was: however, in complete agreement wTith Lenin's statement that in such circumstances "atheist propaganda can become superfluous and even harmful... from the point of view of the real progress of the class struggle." 80 Despite an enormous quantity of anti-religious literature and atheistic propaganda, the people remained faithful as they have always done. The saying of F. Curnont the Belgian historian (1868—1947) that, "the devotion of the masses is immovable, like water in the depths of the sea which cannot be stirred or warmed by surface currents," 81 was thus graphically confirmed.
While the Bolsheviks did not however resign from atheistic propaganda, they abstained from it during World War II and for a certain period afterwards, but it was not very long before the antireligious campaign was resumed. Instead of the Union of Militant Atheists which was dissolved in 1942, a new organization, the so-called All-Union Association for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge, was established on July 7, 1947. Here the word "atheist" is no longer used, and atheist propaganda does not occupy first place in the activity of the association.
A. I. Oparin, President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, was appointed chairman of this association. Nearly all the staff of higher educational establishments of the USSR joined the association. They began to publish the periodical Nauka i Zhizn (Science and Life) as their official organ. However, it is also characteristic that not every number of this periodical publishes articles of a militant atheistic character. At the end of 1954 it was announced that at the beginning of 1955 a militant atheist periodical would appear entitled JSlauka i Religia (Science and Religion), but in March, 1955, the subscribers were informed that it would not appear. It is also indicative that a large number of books of an anti-religious nature leave the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Other publishing organizations such as Goskult-prosvetizdat (The State Cultural and Educational Publishing house), Molodaya Gvardia (The Young Guard), The All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge, and some of the union republics print mainly atheistic pamphlets.
The level of recent Soviet anti-religious publications remains so low that even Soviet critics have condemned a number of them. One example is P. Pavelkin's work Religious Prejudices and their Harmful Effects, which was given wide publicity in the USSR. In 1954 the Bolsheviks decided to publish the German translation of this book;82 in the opinion of the German public, however, its contents were so crude that it disappeared from the market without delay. Even in the USSR, anti-religious literature probably meets with no better reception. It is not without significance that Komsomolskaya pravda attacked a librarian who permitted anti-religious pamphlets to disappear under a thick layer of dust.88
All welfare activity on behalf of the Church is also prohibited. In this connection it is officially stated that:
The Soviet government adheres to the principle, founded on the teaching of various religions themselves, that the Church should deal only with religious services. Any kind of propaganda, moralizing or educational activity extending beyond the limits of the defined religious communities is outside the scope of the church as a congregation of believers.84
The teaching of religion to children below the age of eighteen is prohibited. Point 4 of Paragraph 122 of the Soviet Penal Code, which provides that: "The teaching of religion to youth who have not yet come of age, in national and private schools, is prohibited under penalty of imprisonment for a period of not less than one year," was never amended. It is true that in 1947, Patriarch Alexei stated that nowadays priests are not penalized for such offences; nevertheless the law remains in force.
Since the Orthodox Church in Russia became the national Russian Orthodox Church, it has been in the service of government policy, carrying out measures which have nothing to do with religion. Rev. losif Volotsky even invented a special expression for such justifications, "The divine wisdom of the tsar's artfulness." S5 After the reform of Peter the Great, the Russian Orthodox Church developed particularly strong bonds with the secular authority, and it was not without reason that even the Russian historians themselves called the Church "the mainstay and tool of Moscow imperialism." 86
In reality, the Russian element of the Orthodox Church comprises only 62°/o of its membership, and the remainder of its followers are: Ukrainians—26%, Belorussians—8%, and 4% of various other nationalities (Abkhaz, Burats, Koreans, Karelians, Komi, Mordva, Udmurs, Chuvash, Yakuts, and others).
As their program shows, the Bolsheviks are still dreaming of a Communist revolution throughout the world, and are continuing the appropriate preparatory work. Since the end of World War II the activities of Soviet agents abroad have been intensified. The Russian Orthodox Church abroad is entrusted with the task of energetically participating in these activities. Every issue of the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii, publishes several articles on the "Peace Movement" as do all other periodicals published by the bishoprics of the overseas Moscow Patriarchate, as well as the Autocephalous Churches in the satellite countries.
Delegations from the Russian Orthodox Church headed by the Metropolitan Nikolai Krutitsky, participate in all international congresses and conferences of this pro-Soviet "Peace Movement." Krutitsky's speeches at these conferences have been published in a special book printed in Russian, French, English and German. In 1952 the Moscow Patriarchate organized a special "Conference of all Churches and religious denominations in the USSR devoted to the question of the defense of peace." In 1949 there were rumors that 3000 agents were trained in the USSR and dispatched to the West as priests,87 but no reliable proof whatever was given to confirm them. The importance of refugees from the Soviet Union as a source of information about the real situation in the USSR is properly understood by the Bolsheviks, and therefore they spare no effort or expense to paralyze the activities of such refugees.
In this work Soviet priests are sent where Soviet diplomats have no access. In 1945 the much advertized mission of Metropolitan Nikolai Krutitsky went to Paris, when the Metropolitan Nikolai transferred the allegiance of his bishopric from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople to that of the Patriarch of Moscow. The next year, three Orthodox bishops of Czechoslovakia were repatriated to Moscow. In 1947 another, this time unsuccessful, mission of the Metropolitan Gregorii (Chukov) went to the USA in connection with the so-called American metropolis of the Orthodox Church. In 1954 the Archbishop Pitirym (Svirydov) of Minsk made an. appeal to Belorussian emigrees by radio and through pro-Soviet newspapers in the USA.
However, such missions and appeals are propaganda events and have little effect. For this reason the Moscow Patriarchate has created several bishoprics to do systematic work among emigrees: 1. West European, headed by Bishop Nikolai Eremin, who has his parishes in Great Britain, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Morocco, Germany and France; 2. United States of America, headed by Archbishop Boris (Vik): The American Government has refused a visa for this ecclesiastic, and his post is temporarily vacant; 3. Argentinian and South American, at the head of which is Bishop Feodor (Tekuchev); 4. Chinese, headed by Archbishop Victor (Sviatin), who takes care of Russian and Chinese Orthodox followers.
The number of parishes and believers in these bishoprics is very small, but their publications bear testimony to the large-scale propaganda campaign being carried out by them. Here is a list of their periodical publications:
Prikhodskoi Vestnik (Parish News) published in Great Britain since 1952, and the monthly Vestnik Pravoslavia (Orthodox News) (mimeographed), and Orthodoxis (Orthodoxy), printed in Dutch in Holland; the monthly Edinaya Tserkov (The Unified Church) in the USA; the monthly Kitaiskii Blagovestnik (Chinese Church News) in China; the monthly Golos Pravoslavia (The Voice of Orthodoxy), published from 1952—53 in Germany; the bi-monthly Vestnik Russkogo Zapadno-Evropeiskogo Patriarshego Ekzarkhata (Bulletin of the Russian West-European Patriarchal Exarchate) in 1947, and the Khronika Zhizni Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi v Zapadnoi Evrope (Chronicle of the Life of the Russian Orthodox Church in Western Europe), a bi-monthly, mimeographed since 1950.
Propaganda among church leaders in the West is even more important for the Bolsheviks than propaganda among refugees, and in this particular case the Russian Orthodox Church is entrusted with a very important task, that of winning the sympathies of the Eastern Patriarchs and Protestant leaders for Bolshevik policy. Large and small delegations have been leaving Moscow one after another to visit all corners of the world. This stream of delegations was started by the Patriarch Alexei personally when he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt between May 28 and June 26, 1945. In June of the same year he was followed by the Metropolitan Nikolai Krutit-sky, who visited London; in October, Metropolitan Gregorii (Chukov) visited Finland; Archbishop Fotsii (Topiro) visited Austria and Czechoslovakia; during the same period a small delegation visited Germany; at the end of October, a special delegation was dispatched to the Far East. Since then delegations from the Patriarch of Moscow to various countries and the reciprocal delegations of representatives of various churches to Moscow have become increasingly frequent.
The results of these mutual visits were even better than the Bolsheviks expected: Alexander III, Patriarch of Antioch, became 100% pro-Soviet and visited the USSR twice. On these occasions he received very generous gifts. Christopher II, Patriarch of Alexandria, became strongly pro-Soviet, and Timothy, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who until 1952 had been very reserved in his relations with the Patriarch of Moscow, after receiving very generous gifts from Moscow agreed*to comply with the requests of this ecclesiastic. On October 29, 1952, he issued a decree to his subordinate clergy that they should sever relations with those Russian clergy who were banned by the Patriarch of Moscow, which meant the Russian clergy in exile. The Protestant clergy and completely foreign secular delegations who receive permission, or even invitations, from the Soviet government to visit the USSR, now, as a rule, pay a visit to the Patriarch of Moscow. These visits to the Patriarchate became so frequent that in 1954 the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii started a new column on its pages, Inostrannye Gosti v Moskovskoi Patriarkhii (Foreign Guests in the Moscow Patriarchate), showing that any such visit is fuel to the fire of Soviet propaganda.
Since 1945 nearly every issue of the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii has carried lengthy anti-Catholic articles in which the terminology of Bolshevik agitators is employed. At the so-called "peace conferences," delegations of the Patriarch of Moscow, usually headed by the Metropolitan Nikolai Krutitsky, lose no opportunity to insult the Vatican. At a gathering on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the establishment of the Autocephalous Russian Orthodox Church, an entire day, September 9, 1948, was devoted to anti-Catholic lectures in which speakers repeated in all possible forms, the Bolshevik accusations against the Pope, and finally insisted that the "Orthodox Church should organize and consolidate its united anti-Catholic front." 88 For his anti-Catholic attack, officially called "an analysis of falsehoods propounded by the Roman Catholic Church and a revelation of the political activities of the Vatican,"89 Bishop Germagen (Kozhyn) received an honorary doctorate from the Moscow Theological Academy, apparently as an incentive to further intensify such propaganda.
Attacks of the Moscow Patriarchate on Rome are accompanied by the renewed propagation of the XVI century Russian religious-political idea, which may be briefly formulated as "Moscow is the Third Rome." Such propaganda is quite acceptable to the Russian Communists because it stimulates their national ambitions. It is not without reason that the famous expression of the monk Filafei in his address to Tsar Vasilii III, that "Moscow is the Third Rome, but there will be no Fourth Rome," has been included in the history of the USSR for secondary schools.90 At the anniversary gathering in Moscow in 1948 the Bulgarian Metropolitan Stefan said: "Moscow became the Third Rome by occupying the place of the First in its confession of Christ's truth." 91 The correspondent of the Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii even exclaimed: "Is it not true that today white-walled Moscow, the heart of mighty Soviet power, has become the champion of peace and progress, whose sacred flame glows brightly throughout the world for all progressive mankind?" 92
With regard to the convocation of the Universal Orthodox Synod, Moscow leaders are exploiting the circumstance that this matter has already been discussed on several occasions and that certain concrete steps in connection with pre-Synod discussions have been taken. At the present time the Moscow leaders have in hand the matter of calling further preliminary discussions, but they demand first that the Patriarch of Constantinople should recognize all the new centers established by the Patriarch of Moscow.93 Apparently it is planned that the initiative for calling the preliminary gathering should come from the pro-Soviet Patriarch of Alexandria. This is implied in the words of the Patriarch Alexei to the Patriarch of Constantinople: "We consider it our fraternal duty to inform Your Holiness that together with your message, we have received and are today studying the message of His Eminence, Kristofor, the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and of all Africa, which concerns the preparation for the convocation of the pre-Synod gathering, and states that he plans to inform Your Holiness of his intention." u During the discussions and exchange of correspondence between the Patriarchs, Moscow is rehearsing the staging of the future Universal Orthodox Synod. In connection with the elections of Patriarch Sergei and Patriarch Alexei, and the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the establishment of the Autocephalous Russian Orthodox Church, large gatherings of representatives of Soviet and pro-Soviet heads of autocephalcms churches were organized. At the same time the Patriarch of Moscow introduced the practice of sending messages on certain occasions to heads and representatives of autocephalous Orthodox churches, thus exploiting the ancient tradition of mutual festival greetings.95 Together with this propaganda, suitable articles are published on these occasions, including appeals that only the Russian Church can unite all churches around it.96 .
The exaggerated nationalist character of the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church has already been mentioned. Despite the multi-national composition of believers in the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church, future priests in the theological seminaries and academies are given instruction in Russian only (in addition to the classical languages and one modern foreign language). Moreover, even in places where before 1944, languages other than Russian were used in religious life, these have been progressively or immediately eliminated.
In the theological course for the Orthodox clergy in Belorussia, side by side with the general pro-Soviet course, special attention has been devoted to the Russian language.97 Since then, it has never been reported that sermons are preached in Belorussian in the Orthodox churches of Belorussia. In the theological seminary of Zyrovicy, all subjects are taught in Russian. In the Ukraine, the Ukrainian language is still used in the former Greco-Catholic parishes and a religious periodical is published in Ukrainian in Kiev. However, certain steps have been taken with a view to changing this state of affairs. The theological seminaries on Ukrainian territory (in Kiev, Lutsk, and Odessa) differ in no way from Russian seminaries.
While providing limited possibilities for religion to exist in the USSR, the Bolsheviks have changed neither their program nor their aims. However, their measures constitute really a step backward in their struggle against religion. Bolshevik propaganda tries to represent them as a progressive move, toward a higher stage of the struggle. The Soviet Encyclopedia says that: "The construction of socialism in the USSR has not liquidated the task of anti-religious propaganda. On the contrary, it has lifted this task onto a higher plane. Under socialist conditions a real opportunity has appeared for the final and complete liquidation of religious prejudices."98 This attitude is a clear revelation of the real aim of Bolshevik religious policy and of all measures taken with regard to religious denominations in the USSR.
The Curzon Line and Territorial Changes in Eastern Europe
M. VOLACIC
Introduction
The recent publication by the U. S. State Department of the Yalta documents has drawn the attention of the whole world to the secret agreements of the USA, Great Britain and the Soviet Union in 1945 which became the basis for the present configuration of the political map of Europe. One of the important decisions of that conference was the establishment of the eastern frontiers of Poland and the western frontiers of Belorussia along the so-called Curzon Line, with amendments from 5 to 8 kilometers in favor of Poland.
If the Soviet Union alone had been responsible for the delimitation of these frontiers, as an aggressive power who arbitrarily establishes the frontiers of its own political creations like the Belorussian, Ukrainian and other Soviet republics, it would have been considered a Soviet affront to individual nations.
However, the Curzon Line has an entirely different history. Although it was skillfully exploited by Stalin during the Yalta discussions on the demarcation of the eastern frontiers of Poland, this line is not a Soviet invention, but was, in fact, the creation of Great Britain, France, and the United States, at the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919. For this reason particular attention should be paid to this line, especially since, after 25 years of "non- existence", it was revived, not in the form of a proposal, but as an approved decision of international importance, in the establishment of the new political complexion of Europe after World War II, a fact, which could become an unfortunate precedent in the future, when the real delineation of frontiers takes place between eastern and western European nations.
West European,1 as well as Soviet2 literature maintains that the Curzon Line agrees with the ethnographic frontiers between Poland, Belorussia and the Ukraine. With regard to Belorussia, this certainly is not the case. During the delimitation of frontiers between Poland, the Ukraine, Russia and Lithuania by the Central Powers and the Entente in 1918—1920, only Poland, the Ukraine, Lithuania and Soviet Russia were taken into account. The Belorussian National Republic, which existed at that time, and the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, created later by the Bolsheviks, were not an object of interest at the Peace Conference of Brest Litovsk and Paris, and the Belorussian territories were treated as a no-man's land to be partitioned by their neighbors at will in accordance with their political interests. Thus, for instance, at Brest-Litovsk, Belorussia was partitioned between the Ukraine, Lithuania and Soviet Russia, and in Paris between Poland, Lithuania and Soviet Russia.
The Belorussian people through their national representation which was the Rada of the Belorussian National Republic, sharply protested against this injustice and the violation of the sovereign rights of Belorussia in their third Legislative Act of March 25, 1918, by proclaiming Belorussia an independent and integral state within its ethnographic frontiers and repudiating the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and other agreements concluded to the detriment of the Belorussian people; notes of protest were also delivered to the Central Powers and the adherents of the Entente.
The aim of this article is to give a general survey of the historical events which led to the creation of the Curzon Line, named after Lord Curzon, a former Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, as the eastern frontier of Poland after World War I and its practical application after World War II. Such a survey will help to explain why the Curzon Line is a strictly political creation detrimental to the interests of the Belorussian people.
The historical and ethnographic western frontier of Belorussia
Since time immemorial,3 the western frontier of Belorussia descended from East Prussia along the Pisa river to the Narva river, along the latter to its extreme eastern bend, thence overland to the river Bug near Malkinya upstream along this river to the town of Drahichyn, and thence southward toward the town of Parchov along the rivers Belka and Tysmienica. From this spot it turned East to the river Valadauka, and continued along it to the river Bug, thus including PadlaSsa.4 This was not only the historic Belorussian state frontier with Poland but also the linguistic and cultural boundary between the two peoples.5
The partitioning of Poland and the Great Duchy of Lithuania in 1795 between Russian, Prussia and Austria introduced certain changes in the previously stabilized delimitations by natural frontiers (the rivers) between the Polish and Belorussian population. In the so-called Third Partition, on the basis of the agreement of October 24, 1795, the borders of the occupying powers were as follows; The Austro-Hungarian Empire took over Padlassa, drawing its frontier along the river Bug; Russia also established its western frontier along the Bug up to Nemirov .{where the frontiers of all three occupying powers met), then North to the Narva river, thence eastward to the river Svisloch, along the latter to Krynki, and then westward to Kuznitsa; from Kuznitsa, in the neighborhood of Novy Dvor, it curved northeast to the river Neman, leaving the town of Grodno on the Russian side, and finally, further North, it followed the course of the Neman to the old Prussian frontier. The Belorussian territory to the West of this border was annexed to the territory under the occupation of the Prussian; state. In this way Padlassa was annexed by Austria, Belostok and Suvalki by Prussia and the remaining Belorussian territory by Russia. The 1795 border merits special attention since it became the basis, with very few amendments, of the Curzon Line.
Naturally in the 1795 partition, as in previous partitions, the occupying powers did not consider ethnic principles but solely and exclusively their own economic and strategic interests.
After the first partition of Poland and the Great Duchy of Lithuania in 1772, the Russian politicians6 had a plan to create a buffer state from the remnants of the Crown and Lithuania which would have separated Russian from Austria and Prussia. However, the Polish proclamation of the Constitution of May 3, 1791, and the previous conclusion of the accord with Prussia of March 29, 1790, which was openly directed against Russia, foiled the Russian plans. Then Russia suddenly ended the war with Turkey and with the support of the party known as the Targovitsa Confederation, forced the Second Partition, having in view that the liquidation of the pro-Prussian party would give Russia the opportunity to subordinate the remaining territories of the Crown and Lithuania to her own interests. However, these expectations were dissipated completely by the Kasciuska uprising.
After the suppression of the uprising, Poles and Belorussians tried to obtain the political support of France, which led to the accord between Russia, Austria and Prussia and to the Third Partition. The Belostok and Suvalki regions were the indispensable strategic frontier belt for Prussia, because they divided the latter directly from Russia. For this reason Russia had to surrender this Belorussian: territory in favor of Prussia and for the same reason Padlassa was incorporated by Austria as a strategic border along the Bug.
Thi situation changed in 1807. Napoleon's advance against Austria and Prussia, and his victories at Jena, Oerstedt and Friedland led to the signing of a peace treaty on June 25, 1807, in Tilsit, where Russia as the ally of Austria was compelled to accept peace on the terms of the ultimatum. According to these terms, a Great Duchy of Warsaw, under a French protectorate, was created from the Polish lands under Prussian and Austrian occupation. Russia as a compensation for the imposed alliance with France against Britain, received the Belostok region and part of Avgustov, whereas the Suvalki region, the district of Lomzha and Padlassa were incorporated into the Great Duchy of Warsaw. By the inclusion of these Belorussian lands into Poland, Napoleon hoped to appease somewhat Polish claims to Belorussian territory.7
The border between Poland and Belorussia established at Tilsit by Napoleon remained unchanged until 1921, i. e. until the date of the Riga Peace Treaty between Poland and the Soviet Union. This frontier did not coincide either with the historical state border of Belorussia or with the Belorussian ethnographic frontier in the West. It followed the Nemen river to Grodno, descended the Lasosna westward to the Bobra, continued along it to the Narva thence along to Lapy; from Lapy the border turned southeastward to the Nurets and followed it to the Bug, whence it came to the Austrian frontier.8
The incorporation of the Suvalki and Padlassa regions as well as the district of Lomzha into Poland contributed considerably to the polonization of the Belorussian Catholic population in these parts.9
Despite these losses as a result of Napoleon's delimitation of the western border of Belorussia, it should be stressed that as compared with all other occupying powers of eastern Europe, Napoleon proved to be best acquainted with the ethnic problems of these territories. For instance, although strong pressure was exerted by these Poles to establish a Polish state jointly with the Great Duchy of Lithuania,10 he did not agree to this, and incorporated only small parts of Belorussian territory into the Great Duchy of Warsaw. When he entered Vilna, by the decree of July 3, 1812, he reestablished the Great Duchy of Lithuania exclusively on Belorussian territory, excluding Zhamojdz (Lithuania proper) and the Ukraine.11 The western border of the newly created Belorussian state was in accordance with the Tilsit treaty.
With the defeat of Nopoleon in Moscow and Leipzig in 1813, the Great Duchy of Lithuania was unable to survive. However, the eastern frontier of Poland established by Napoleon remained unchanged. The peace treaty concluded at the Congress of Vienna on June 3, 1815, established a Polish Kingdom with those frontiers which were established !by Napoleon between the great Duchy of Warsaw and the Great Duchy of Lithuania.
As a result of the Polish uprisings of 1830, 1846, 1848, and 1863, and the attempts of the Poles to expand their territory toward the East, it is known that reprisals were made against the Polish revolutionary forces and that certain restrictions were imposed on the autonomy of the Polish Kingdom. Nevertheless, until the beginning of World War I, it was not suppressed altogether, which contributed considerably to the Polish renaissance. As we have seen, the Belorussian western border, except for slight amendments, remained unchanged for at least 1,000 years, and there is no proof whatever that to the East of this border, Poland had any genuine ethnic territories. The Belorussian Catholic population was only partially polonized by the Polish clergy and schools, and the Orthodox population of the most exposed districts in the West, as, for instance, the Padlassa region and the districts of Lomzha, Bielsk and Suvalki, even now retain their Belorussian character.
From August 1914 to February 1917
The outbreak of World War I awakened the hopes of liberation of the subjugated peoples of Europe. Poland became the first target of political propaganda, because some of its lands were in the hands of Russian and others of Germany and Austria.
On August 14, 1914, Duke Nikolai, the Commander in Chief of the Russian forces, issued an appeal to the Poles which promised the unification of Polish ethnographic territory, freedom of religion and language, and territorial autonomy in federation with Russia.12 These Russian offers at least created favorable conditions for beginning the realization of the idea, long mature in Polish circles, of restoring the Great Polish State within the frontiers of 1772, or at least 1793.
By the end of September, 1915, the front line had pushed the Russian frontier far to the East, leaving Poland, Lithuania proper, Kurland, and Western Belorussia under German occupation. The Germans had been planning since 1915 how to link the occupied territories with Germany and German interests. The basic idea was expressed by Chancellor Hollweg, in his spech to the Reichstag, when he underlined that: "Countries liberated from Russia will never return to the Moscow yoke." 13. Finally, a plan supported by the supreme German military comand, which had, in fact, the decisive voice in all these matters, decided that the regions of Lomzha, Suvalki, and Kurland should be annexed for the time being, and that the regions of Kovno, Vilna, Grodno and Belostok should be progressively formed into a satellite state linked with Germany by a monetary, customs, economic and military system under German Baltic leadership.14
Although the majority of its population was Belorussian,15 Vilna and its region were included in the military administrative region of "Litauen". The western border of the region Belostok-Grodno coincided with the border denned by the Tilsit treaty of 1807; the districts of Suvalki and Lomzha were incorporated into East Prussia. With regard to Poland, German-Austrian policy was expressed in a joint proclamation of November 5, 1916, calling for the reestablishment of the Polish Kingdom within the previous frontiers.16
The front line which divided Belorussia into two parts was unfavorable for that country. The Germans had no definite policy prepared in advance toward the Belorussian people, whom they had actually encountered for the first time; however they began to study and support to a certain degree the Belorussian national movement.17
Had it not been for the Russian revolution and the consideration of the German High Command that a peace treaty should be concluded with Russia, !t is possible that German policy toward the Belorussian question might have assumed a more definite form. The difficulties on the Western Front, the entry of America into the war, and the economic blockade by the Entente powers, all dictated the further policy of the Central Powers, not to surrender the occupied territories but at the same time not to create new misunderstandings with Russia.
In 1922, Anton Luickievic, an active participant in the Belorussian liberation movement, described its position, before the revolution in the following words:
The war brought upon Belorussia not only economic calamities but also the intensified oppression of the tsarist regime. Vilna was occupied by the Germans. The majority of educated people went to Russia, where they were unable to continue their national work because even the name of Belorussia was banned from their daily vocabulary. Under German occupation the economic situation was more difficult, but the political situation was better. Work started again, and previous ideas had to be revised and reconsidered. Consequently a new concept was created. Belorussians realized the attitude of the tsarist government toward themselves and they came to the conclusion that it was possible to establish a kind of Piemonte in the western part of Belorussia, which later would attract eastern Belorussia.18
Knowing the intentions of German policy in eastern Europe, leaders of the Belorussian movement considered that the most suitable form of Belorussian Piemonte would be a revived Great Duchy of Lithuania. For this purpose Belorussians, with the collaboration of Lithuanians and Poles created the Confederation of the Great Duchy of Lithuania toward the end of 1915.
However, the concept of the restoration of the Great Duchy of Lithuania, including the Lithuanian and Belorussian peoples, was soon abandoned, because it was not convenient to the Lithuanians and Germans, particularly after the beginning of the Russian revolution. The Lithuanians were afraid that as a small nation in a joint state they would fall under Belorussian domination, as they had in the past. Before the revolution, when the Belorussian movement was prohibited on the other side of the front, the concept of a joint state between two ethnographic ally equal forces was attractive to the Lithuanians. However, after the revolution, when a great wave of Belorussian nationalism surged over the whole country, the concept of the Great Duchy of Lithuania seemed dangerous.
The February revolution in Russia
The February revolution in Russia in 1917 produced radical changes in the national question. The destruction of the tsarist regime was a signal for the national revolution of all peoples subjugated by tsarism, which resulted in self-determination and the establishment of independent states. The national upsurge greatly influenced the further development of international policy, territorial changes, and the nationality policy of the Bolsheviks. Until the revolution, tsarist Russia was an empire which was treated by her allies as a single entity in whose internal affairs no one interfered. Now within this empire, decentralizing tendencies appeared which exploded it into independent parts, striving to decide their own fate and become partners in the international arena.
The Western Powers did not immediately realize the consequences of the revolution in Russia, namely, the right to self-determination and self-government of the formerly subjugated peoples. They saw, or wanted to see, only the formal change of power, from absolute to democratic rule, which seemed to them even better for the consolidation and strengthening of their interests in Russia. This view was clearly stated by President Wilson.
Lloyd George in his telgeram of March 24,19 greeted Prince Lvov as head of the Provisional Government in a similar spirit. The Allied Powers were interested in only one thing, that Russia should respect the treaty of September 5, 1914, on the joint conduct of the war against the Central Powers without trying to conclude a separate peace, and to this the Provisional Government agreed.20
The meaning of the revolution was also misunderstood by the Provisional Government of Prince Lvov, and later by Kerensky, who treated it as a transition from despotic to democratic forms of government which would bring certain relaxations to non-Russian peoples in the form of cultural autonomies but at the same time would preserve the unity and integrity of the old tsarist empire. This view found its expression in the propagandists proclamation of the Provisional Government to the Poles on March 30, 1917, with the object of wooing them into a union with Russia by declaring their intention to establish an independent Polish state over the whole territory where the majority of the population was Polish,21 and on June 30, 1917, in an appeal to the Ukrainians promising them only local self-government and cultural autonomy.22
Germans and Bolsheviks gave entirely different interpretations to the meaning of the Russian revolution. The Germans immediately exploited the revolution for their own ends, i. e., for the defeat of the Russian army and the conclusion of a separate peace which would enable them to transfer their army from the Eastern to the Western Front. The Germans treated Bolshevism as a disease which would finally destroy Russia. For this reason, on April 8, 1917, they brought Lenin and 31 members of his staff in a sealed train to Russia.
The principal aim of German p