"The New York Times," April 11, 1919, published the following special cable despatch concerning the religious persecution:
"London, April 10.--The Chronicle publishes an article by R.
Courtier Foster, a British Chaplain at Odessa and Russian ports of the Black Sea, describing the religious persecution practised by the Bolsheviki following upon their former capture of Odessa. He says:
""Committees were held on board the ships of the Black Sea Fleet, among the dockers in the port, in the towns and villages on every hand, which pa.s.sed resolutions reading:
"""We abolish G.o.d." In Odessa Cathedral, when the Archbishop of Kherson was celebrating the Holy Mysteries, an uproar occurred with cries of "Down with the priests!" "Down with the Church!" At a fete in the town gardens one saw a soldier of the Red Army, amid the guffaws of his fellows, spit on the Russian holy picture of the face of Christ, then tear it into fragments and stamp it into the dust.
""The Bolshevist conception of religious toleration is considerably more elastic and far-reaching than the ideas of any mediaeval inquisition. In this matter the Bolsheviki pride themselves on being far in advance of our effete western thought. They have murdered Vladimir, the Metropolitan of Kiev, twenty bishops, and many hundreds of priests. Before killing them they cut off the limbs of their victims, some of whom they buried alive in the Kremlin. The Cathedrals in Moscow and those in the towns of Yaroslav and Simferopol have been sacked. Many nuns were violated and churches defiled.
""The ancient and historical sacristies and famous libraries of Moscow and Petrograd were pillaged and countless sanctuaries profaned. In Cronstadt Cathedral the great figure of the Crucified Christ was torn down and removed, and a monstrous and appalling pagan form placed in its stead, symbolizing "Freedom of Mind."
""It is not against any one particular form of religion that the terrors of the new Freedom are hurled. Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Lutherans alike have been tortured, mutilated, and done to death under the aegis of the Holy Revolution which appeals to the proletariat of the whole world to join its forces.
""The Revolutionary Government is subjecting the Christian religion to persecutions as great and brutal as anything the world saw during the first three centuries of the Christian era. Moral disintegration and ruin spread their tentacles on every side. Any restraint on sinful impulse or covetous desire is laughed to scorn.
The Bolsheviki publicly encourage outrage and looting. The propaganda for freedom of mind is essentially nihilistic. It is based on negation and denial of the existence of G.o.d, denial of the authority of any moral law, denial of all rights of conscience, denial of all religious liberty, denial of all freedom of the press, denial of any liberty of speech.
""One officer remarked despairingly to me: "In Russia now there is no G.o.d, no Czar, no law, no property, no money, no food--only freedom." And in that travesty of liberty, which the whole civilized world may well shudder at, all mercy, pity and toleration are alike scorned. And it is this new and wonderful equality of man which by means of torture, outrage and a.s.sa.s.sinations proclaims the "freedom of mind and body" to the devastated Russian nation.""
In an a.s.sociated Press despatch, from London, that appeared in "The New York Times" on April 19, 1919, we are informed that of the 300 priests in the Perm diocese, 46 have been killed; moreover, that two monasteries were pillaged.
A very interesting and enlightening article on religion in Russia and the att.i.tude of the Bolsheviki towards it appears in "The Proletarian,"
Detroit, April, 1919. The author is Ernest Greenburg and we shall quote the greater part of his article:
"The resolution adopted by the Socialist Party of Michigan at its recent State Convention that, "It shall be the duty of all agitators and organizers upon all occasions to avail themselves of the opportunity of explaining religion," caused a storm of indignation to arise among certain "Socialists." Clinging to the old fallacy that religion should be left alone, they point to the Russian Const.i.tution and the works of the Bolshevik leaders who say "Religion is a private matter." But they fail to understand that the interpretation of the term "Religion is a private matter," has a different meaning here than it has in Russia.
"The slogan, "Religion is a private matter," is not of Russian origin. It has been and is one of the battle cries of the Revolutionary working cla.s.s in all countries in which the Church and the State are combined. Different conditions account for different understandings of the terms "Private Matter" here and in Russia.
"Probably in no other country have religion and the church played such an important role in the affairs of the state as in Russia up to the very present time. Truly, it was not so much the force of arms as that of ignorance which kept up the Czardom for hundreds of years. The Feudal aristocracy realized the advantages to be derived from keeping the minds of its slaves in darkness and superst.i.tion.
One of the most powerful weapons in the hands of aristocracy was the Church, whose n.o.ble duty it was to sow and to propagate ignorance. The Church was officially a part of the state. People were forced to go to church; school children[10] were taught the "Holy Law of G.o.d," attacks against the church were punished as attacks against the Czar.
"Religious ignorance of the ma.s.ses was the greatest enemy of the Socialists in their propaganda work; at every step they had to meet and to combat the authority of G.o.d, in whose name the church servants consecrated the yoke of the Czar and the landlords. It was necessary to pull this poisonous tooth out of the jaws of the state. Hence came the demand: "Religion is a private matter,"--private as opposed to state. It meant that the Church should be separated from the state and be deprived from its protection. It was a demand which, put to the Czarist government, if granted would only facilitate the struggle against this very religion.
"Similar demands have been put in the Socialist platforms of Germany, Austria, and other countries which were confronted with conditions like those in Russia. One of the immediate demands of the French revolutionists of the nineteenth century was of this nature.
"The November Revolution put the Russian workers in possession of the machinery of the church. As a weapon of ignorance, it could not be used against the exploiters; nor could it be destroyed by force.
Then the Russian workers declared religion a private matter, thereby depriving it of State protection and forcing it under the blows of scientific criticism, which will rapidly do away with the reminders of the decrepit superst.i.tions.
"In America religion always was "a private matter." It had never been officially related to the state, but just the same it is now being employed by the ruling cla.s.s against the workers. If it is not yet as influential here as it was in Russia during the reign of the Czars--it is becoming so. Its destructive work cannot be neglected any longer. It must be fought....
"German Socialists understand that by destroying the holy alliance between the Church and the State their task would not be completed.
After that "We must wage unrelenting war against the Church," says Bebel, "because she foments civil war among the workers--because it is the only reactionary force which has any strength and which keeps us in voluntary slavery."
"By separating the Church from the State and thereby enforcing their demand, "Religion is a private matter," the French Socialists were not yet satisfied. They went on fighting religion, and their Belgian comrades worked in accord with them. Says E. Vandervelde, "We are bound to admit that both in philosophy and in politics there must be war between Socialism and the Church."
"This att.i.tude of the French and Belgian Socialists was approved by the international Congress at Amsterdam, 1904.
"The position of the Russian Socialists is very clear. They fully understand that "Religion is a private matter" signifies only the first stage in the war against mental slavery. "Religion is a private matter," says N. Boucharin (The Church and the School), "but it does not mean that we must not fight it by persuasion."
Further on he emphasizes that it is a "private matter" only as much as forceful protection or forceful destruction is concerned.
Beyond the gates of the State"s protection, religion is not considered to be a private matter in Russia. It is fought there in schools and educational inst.i.tutions by "Propaganda, explanation and education."
"In this question American Socialists must not be misled by the seeming contradiction in terms."
In the April 19, 1919, number of "Struggling Russia," Dioneo gives some interesting information relative to the destruction of education under the Bolshevist regime:
"The lower and secondary schools are ruined. The villages have their Soviets, their premises for meetings, but no lower schools.
As regards secondary schools, the Bolshevist reformers are of the opinion that, in general, such inst.i.tutions are not wanted and are just as unnecessary as the intermediate stage between nascent capitalism and the extreme form of communism.
"The Bolsheviki have only acknowledged the universities. At first, the reformers made such experiments on the latter as, for instance, the appointment of a porter to the post of inspector of the Technological inst.i.tute, or of a cook as head-mistress of the Higher Courses for Girls. Then the Bolsheviki decided that no certificates were necessary for matriculation at the university.
Any half-educated person might become a student of any faculty. The professors were at a loss to know how to lecture on higher mathematics to students ignorant of the multiplication table, or how to explain spectral a.n.a.lysis to persons hardly able to read.
Then the Bolsheviki decided that there was no necessity for the professor to have a diploma either. It was only necessary that he should be a supporter of the Bolshevist platform. That is all! And celebrated Professors were obliged to leave the universities which they had made famous....
"National education--elementary, secondary, and higher--has been completely ruined by the Bolsheviki. Lately, they have apparently decided that Bolshevism ought to give the world a new type of university, quite different from that of the bourgeoisie. And with that in mind, the Munic.i.p.al Council of Voronezh has thought of a "Street University." This is how the "Izvestia" describes this curious inst.i.tution of higher education: "Each of the princ.i.p.al thoroughfares of Voronezh is now a faculty--of law, economics, history, literature, science, etc. The walls of the houses are placarded with posters, containing portraits and brief biographies of men distinguished in one or another branch of knowledge and brief items of information concerning the respective subject."
Thus comments the organ of the Bolshevist Government: "Every citizen, instead of spending years at a university, can pick up a general knowledge of the princ.i.p.al educational subjects as he goes along." ...
"Russia"s school system is ruined. Education reforms exist only on paper. And at the same time the Bolsheviki, wishing to show that they value knowledge very highly, have announced that a geographical university such as the world has "never yet seen" is going to be opened in Petrograd. It is interesting to know what professors will lecture in this new university, and who will form their audience?"
CHAPTER XI
RUSSIA RED WITH BLOOD AND BLACK WITH CRIME
Socialists have for many years boasted of the perfect peace and harmony which would prevail when once they had established their state.
Bloodshed, civil discord and strife of every kind would cease when the Marxian workers ruled the land, for, as they said, privately owned property, and exploitation of workers are the source of wars and the fundamental cause of the oppression of the people. Bolshevist Russia, however, the first Socialist country, appears to be an exception.
Perhaps no nation has ever witnessed such scenes of violence, bloodshed, murder and cruelty, perpetrated by a government, not against a foreign foe, but against its own people, and this not after an existence of a hundred or several hundred years, but constantly from its very birth. So far only a few pages, comparatively speaking, of the history of the terrible outrages are opened to us, but from these we can form some slight idea of the dreadful condition of the land that is truly red, but red princ.i.p.ally from the rivers of blood that flow in abundance over every section of the country.
The "Izvestia," an official Bolshevist publication, on October 19, 1918, published the following news item under the heading, "The Conference of the Extraordinary Commission:"
"Comrade Baky threw light on the work of the District Commission of Petrograd after the departure of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Moscow. The total number of people arrested by the Extraordinary Commission amounted to 6,220. Eight hundred people were shot."
The "Northern Commune," another official Bolshevist publication, in its issue of September 10, 1918, stated:
"In the whole of the Jaroslavl Government a strict registration of the bourgeoisie and its partisans has been organized. Manifestly anti-Soviet elements are being shot; suspected persons are being interned in concentration camps; non-working sections of the population are being subjected to compulsory labor."
The same edition of the "Northern Commune" publishes the following despatch:
"Tver, Sept. 9.--The Extraordinary Commission has arrested and sent to concentration camps over 130 hostages from among the bourgeoisie. The prisoners include members of the Cadet Party, Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right, former officers, well known members of the propertied cla.s.s and policemen."
From the September 18, 1918, edition of the "Northern Commune" we learn that in Perm, in retaliation for the a.s.sa.s.sination of Uritzky and for the attempt on Lenine, fifty hostages from among the bourgeois cla.s.ses and the White Guards were shot.
"Struggling Russia," March 22, 1919, supplies us with other details of Bolshevist rifle rule:
"We know a great deal about the terror in Petrograd, and considerably less about Moscow. The reason is plain. We find the curtain dropped on the activities of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission which had its seat in Moscow. In a report of the meeting of the Executive Committee of the Moscow Soviet, which took place on October 16, we read: