p Atheist propaganda must take into account attempts by anticommunist organisations to use certain church organisations in the socialist countries as a basis for creating opposition on religious grounds. Bourgeois propaganda tries its hardest to rouse the anti-social activities of such sects as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostal Zionists, Adventist Reformists and adherents of the Council of the Churches of Evangelical Christian Baptists. They make extensive use of radio broadcastings, the press, television, and tourist travel to the USSR and other socialist countries by foreign visitors who specialise in falsifying the position of religion and the church there. In August 1970, for example, one such visitor, Olaf Oldenburg, was expelled from the USSR. He tried to use his stay in this country as a tourist to collect biased information about the position of religion and the church in the USSR. On the very first day of his arrival in Tashkent he found himself in the company of religious extremists who grossly violated Soviet legislation on worship.

p Anti-Soviet magazines and newspapers published in the USA, West Germany, Sweden and Great Britain (like the notorious emigrant Black-Hundreds publications Posev, Poslanets pravdy, Missiya Khrista v Kommunisticheskom mire and so on) produce streams of lies that in the USSR freedom of conscience is allegedly suppressed, churches have been closed down, public prayer buildings are being destroyed according to plan and the believers and clergymen are persecuted. One example is the fabrications of Sven Svensson, an editor of Vecko-Posten, a Swedish 173 newspaper, who used to be a frequent guest of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists. While travelling in the USSR, Svensson admired economic and cultural achievements. Wherever he was, he could attend prayer-meetings of Evangelical Christian Baptists and participate in worship together with them. After he returned to Sweden, however, Svensson published a series of articles grossly distorting Soviet reality. He alleged that a plan is being carried out in the USSR “for combating God ... and to proclaim oneself a Christian in a country under the communist regime means ... to place oneself outside the system".

p Forgeries purporting to describe the condition of Islam in the USSR were spread widely in Asian and African countries some years ago. Taking no chances, the anti-Soviet authors preferred not to reveal their own names and presented the forgeries as brochures supposedly written by Soviet diplomats coming from Central Asian Soviet republics. With the purpose of weakening the interest of the Oriental working people in the life of the Soviet land, the authors of these essays grossly distorted the position of Moslems in the USSR and the policies of the Soviet state toward religion and the church. The provocative designs of the anti-Soviet writers were exposed by convincing materials published in the Soviet and foreign press and by statements of the leaders of the Moslem Religious Boards in the USSR. Typical in this respect was a statement made by Mufti Shakir Khiyaletdinov, a religious preacher famous in the Moslem world, who had long been a zealcus servant of Islam. He had written the statement not long before his death and it was found by relatives after his demise. The statement said: “In case of a sudden death please execute my following will: I have lived for 53 years under Soviet power. Allah knows, I have never experienced any humiliations or insults from the Soviets all this time. . . Moslems live in complete equality in the Land of Soviets. . . .” Addressing the believers, the Mufti wrote: “Live respecting the laws of your state, praising its activities and good will, work honestly for the benefit of society.”

p Foreign anti-Soviet centres make use of a huge propaganda machinery to spread their slanderous fabrications and to falsify the policies of the Communist Party and the Soviet state in 174 religious relations, they deliberately conceal many testimonies to the contrary by foreign theologians who repeatedly visited the USSR at the invitation of religious centres and individual believers. The legend about closures of places of worship by administrative orders is the most common “argument” used by the enemies of socialism to prove the alleged persecution of the church. Such claims are clearly ridiculous. The practices of Soviet authorities refute the anti-Soviet inventions. The shrinking network of churches and the resultant closures of places of worship is an inevitable historical process caused by the progress of socialist and communist construction in the USSR. An obvious reason: the people never stopped giving up religion en masse and this led to a decrease in the number of parishioners and hence to closures of places of worship. But nevertheless the USSR still has 20,000 churches, mosques, synagogues and prayer-houses for various denominations functioning without hindrance. Moscow alone has 47 active Orthodox churches, a Catholic church, a mosque, three churches of Old Believers, two synagogues and a prayer-house for Evangelical Christian Baptists. And while the number of believers is decreasing every year, this figure has remained the same for many years.

p The anti-Communists often viciously attack and grossly falsify the activities of the Orthodox and Catholic, Moslem, Judaic and sectarian religious associations. They do not care that the believers themselves and the most reputable representatives of the religious centres functioning in the USSR repeatedly made statements in the Soviet and foreign press exposing unscrupulous devices of the anti-Soviet writers. “The religious associations in the USSR,” said Metropolitan Aleksii of the Moscow Patriarchate, “have everything necessary for carrying out their missions freely, in accordance with the church tradition. The Russian Orthodox Church has 76 dioceses headed by Metropolitans, Archbishops and Bishops. Some dioceses include up to one thousand places of worship. Divine service is celebrated daily in the morning and in the evening in most of the city churches. Their doors are open for each and every believer who can satisfy his or her religious needs.” Metropolitan Aleksii went on to say that the church had three theological seminaries and two academies to train priests. 1,200 young people and ordained priests are 175 instructed annually in the theological schools of the Orthodox Church. During the post-war years alone, more than 1,000 men have been awarded the degrees of candidates, masters or doctors of theology by the theological academies. The Russian Orthodox Church publishes a journal, Theological Studies are issued, prayer-books and calendars are printed. As guaranteed by freedom of conscience set out in the USSR Constitution, three editions of the Bible, two editions of the New Testament and three editions of the Koran have been published over the last few years alone on the order of religious centres. A regular edition of the Catholic prayer-book was published in 1977 in Vilnius.

p The Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church convened in 1971 declared that the church in the USSR lives a life of its own quite freely and fully carries out its “spiritual mission in favourable conditions”. It was said at the Council sessions that the Soviet Constitution “guarantees complete and equal freedom of conscience for all the citizens of our great Motherland regardless of sex, colour and nationality" and that believers live their “church life in the fullness of beneficial gifts, in the freedom of conscience assured by the Soviet state laws”. Mufti Ziyauddin Khan Ibn Ishan Babakhan, Vazgen I, the head of the Armenian Church, heads of Catholic dioceses and other churchmen have made similar statements many times.

p The real condition of religion in the USSR, the policy of the Communist Party and the Soviet state toward religion repudiate fabrications of the bourgeois falsifiers. Nevertheless, reactionary circles abroad try to mislead the public, grossly distorting Soviet policy toward religion and believers. But there are people in the capitalist countries who condemn this slander. Many religious delegations, when they visit the USSR, see for themselves that freedom of conscience here has not been simply declared but is strictly guarded by the state as a constitutional right.

p A Moslem delegation from Egypt, headed by Dr. M. M. Faham, the Rector of al-Azhar University, visited the USSR in 1970. When he returned home, Dr. Faham said in an interview to a reporter from the Cairo weekly Roz el-Youssef: “Religious freedom in the USSR is the truth, I saw it with my own eyes, I felt it myself. . .. The mosques, cathedrals and other religious institutions and holy places are everywhere in the Soviet Union. 176 Moslems, Christians and Judaists may perform their religious duties in all parts.”

p In their attempts to compromise the humane principles of CPSU policies toward Oriental nations oppressed by imperialism, bourgeois reactionary propaganda again tries to revive the hackneyed myth about restriction of Moslems’ rights in the USSR. It became especially active in view of the revolutionary events in Afghanistan. Making good use of lies and deception, bourgeois propaganda in conjunction with internal counter- revolutionaries claims that Moslems are allegedly persecuted in the USSR for their faith and are not allowed to celebrate their rites. Reactionary circles try to use such devices in order to make the Afghan population distrust the Soviet Union and to frighten them with the prospect of closure of their mosques and eradication of their religion. But the barefaced lie of the enemies of the revolution backfired. Having overthrown an oppressive and hated regime, the April Revolution in Afghanistan left national customs and beliefs intact and the country’s popular government stated unequivocally that believers’ rights to freedom of worship are guaranteed and it is rigorously putting these guarantees into effect.

p The convincing facts proved to be stronger than lies about alleged persecution of Moslems in the Soviet Union itself. A representative delegation of the Moslem clergy from Afghanistan visited the USSR early in 1980 at the invitation of the Moslem Religious Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan. The delegation became acquainted with the life of Moslems in Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenia and Kirghizia. Prominent Moslem figures of Afghanistan attended public prayers at ancient mosques in Tashkent, Bokhara, Samarkand and Baku; they studied the activities of the Madrasa and the Higher Islamic Academy. The Afghan clergy was much impressed by the care taken by the Soviet state to preserve monuments of Moslem culture, by the friendly relations between people and by the respectful attitude to national customs and faith. Just as the believers of other denominations, Moslems celebrate their rites unimpeded. The third edition of the Koran has been published recently by the Board, as have other theological books to interpret the Koran. The journal Muslims of the Soviet East has a circulation of 177 thousands. These striking and convincing facts in themselves were a good repudiation of the lies spread by the slanderers.

p Ronald Goulding, the Secretary of the European Baptist Alliance, has spoken repeatedly about the great freedom of worship existing in the USSR compared with many capitalist countries. Kaare Lauveng, General Secretary of the Norwegian Baptist Church, has also made this observation.

p M. Nigri, Vice-President of the General Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventists visited the USSR in 1976. After he had seen the life of Adventist communities, M. Nigri met reporters from Radio Latvia and the newspaper Golos Rodiny, who asked him to describe his impressions of the way Seventh-Day Adventists live in the Soviet Union. M. Nigri condemned the inventions spread in the bourgeois countries about alleged persecution of the believers in the USSR. Said he: “Real freedom is to live in agreement with the law. . . . Alas, many people, including Christians, substitute the correct understanding of freedom with speculations about the right to do what they like. For that matter, people in the socialist countries are more inclined and interested in living rightly than in doing wrong things.”

p The President of the General Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventists, Robert H. Pierson, visited the USSR in August 1978 with his wife. When he returned home to the USA, R. Pierson published a series of articles in the Adventist Review to describe his impressions of this trip. In contrast to the fables spread in the West about persecution of Adventists, Pierson told his people that in the USSR “Seventh-Day Adventists have been permitted to worship in their sanctuaries. .. Practically every Seventh-Day Adventist church has a choir, and many have instrumental groups.” Pierson was clearly satisfied to write that “we were able to visit the various centers we desired to visit, we were free to speak to large congregations of our people and to meet with our workers in all the centers we visited.” “I confess to preaching the longest sermon in my ministry in Moscow,” he added.

p In their struggle for democracy and social progress, against the intrigues of the present-day reactionaries, the Communist Parties act jointly with other patriotic forces that include the progressive clergy. Communists support those clergymen who 178 participate in the fight for peace and detente, against the designs of the reactionary circles to unleash a new world war. “ Communists are convinced that in this way—through broad contacts and joint action—the mass of religious people can become an active force in the anti-imperialist struggle and in carrying out far-reaching social changes,” says the Final Document of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, held in Moscow in 1969.

p The correctness of these propositions and of the far- sightedness of the Communist Parties’ policy can be proved by the World Conference “Religious Workers for Lasting Peace, Disarmament and Just Relations Among Nations" held in Moscow in June 1977. The Conference was sponsored by the heads of the churches functioning in the USSR, who had issued an appeal to which religious figures had responded all over the world. Over 700 influential religious figures from more than 100 countries arrived in Moscow to take part in the Conference. Many delegations were led by heads of Christian, Moslem, Buddhist, Judaic, Shintoist and other denominations, ministers and deputy ministers for religions, members of Parliaments, prominent theologians, owners and publishers of major clerical newspapers and journals. The Conference was attended by delegates and observers from the World Council of Churches, World Muslim League, the Holy See (Vatican), Christian Peace Conference, Baptist World Alliance, Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace, AllAfrica Conference of Churches, Conference of European Churches and from other religious organisations both regional and world-wide.

p More than 300 delegates participated in the discussions that had taken place in the Working Groups “For Lasting Peace”, “For Disarmament" and “For Just Relations among Nations”. They sharply criticised US imperialism which leads working people into a deep economic crisis, unemployment and misery and which is unable to solve social problems fairly. The participants in the Conference unanimously spoke in favour of the strengthening of peace, detente and an end of the arms race, and condemned the fascist and racist regimes in Latin America and South Africa, racial discrimination, neo-colonialism and aggression of Israeli Zionism. Many speakers cited the Soviet Union’s peace-loving 179 policy, its role in preventing a new world war and its aid to the national liberation movement as an example to follow. They pointed to the advantages of socialism over capitalism and denounced exploitation in the countries dominated by capital. The Rev. Stanislaus Tissa Balasuriya, a priest from Sri Lanka, said that what the speakers should have in mind was the establishment of socialism on a world or international scale, and also a just distribution of the fruits of labour. Metropolitan Paulos Mar Gregorios (India) said that socialism meant humanism and a harmonious development of the individual, and not just consumption. Socialism offered various ways of overcoming human problems.

p The Conference unanimously adopted two Final Documents: “Appeal to the Governments of All Countries of the World" and “Appeal of the Conference Participants to Religious Leaders and Believers of All Religions Throughout the World”, which called for consolidation and expansion of the detente policies, an end to the arms race, and the realisation of total disarmament.

p Summing up the results of the Conference Pimen, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, said: “We are very pleased that this important event took place in Moscow, our capital city, in an atmosphere of peace that is natural for the many different peoples of the USSR, for its social system and its state policies, an atmosphere to which we are accustomed in the day-to-day life of the Russian Orthodox Church and that of the other Churches and religious associations in the country.”

p The delegates toured the country after the Conference, saw Soviet life, attended divine services and met with believers of various denominations. Many of them told Soviet and foreign journalists in interviews and at press conferences of their impressions of the Conference and of the position of religion and the believers in the USSR. “This is the first time I’ve been in the USSR,” said Prof. Abdeljelil al-Temimi, a Moslem leader from Tunisia, “and before I’ve come here I had a wrong impression of the position of churches in the Soviet Union, formed by the Western press. I visited many churches here and spoke with clergymen and believers. I found that citizens of the USSR can freely profess any faith and they have no obstacles put in their way.” The Rev. Herbert Mochalski from West Germany thus answered 180 some questions from reporters: “I’ve been to the Soviet Union many times over the last 25 years. I testify: the Soviet Union has proclaimed and implemented a real freedom of conscience.... The matter is quite different with us in the West. Many articles of the Constitution exist there only on paper.”

p There was a frank talk and exchange of opinions at the Conference. “We were especially impressed by the fact that the Conference had taken place in an atheistic country,” said Gerhard Claas, then Vice-President of the Baptist World Alliance. Then he added that “there will be enemies in the Western countries, who will accuse the religionists of collaboration with Communists. But we are not ashamed of this collaboration for peace.” The Chief of the Worship Department in Bolivia stated: “I, as a religious man, declare that such a conference could not have been organised in any other country and this is a striking proof of freedom of conscience in the USSR.”

Bourgeois propaganda intentionally keeps silent about such statements and objective appraisals about religion in the USSR, but at the same time spreads a flood of deliberate lies and slander all over the world.

p There never has been any persecution of religion and the believers in the USSR, nor is there now. Communists firmly oppose violence to freedom of conscience. The policy of the Communist Party toward religion is based on Lenin’s directives calling for tact and consideration in dealing with believers and patient and regular work with them. Soviet reality educates people in the spirit of atheism. But conscious atheism cannot be developed mechanically. Brezhnev stressing the enormous importance of education of the Soviet people in the spirit of communist awareness and scientific-materialist convictions said: “We are thus faced with enormous important work and it will probably take quite a long time because human psychology is remade much more slowly than the material foundations of life.

p “The Party is conducting this work on an increasingly broad front and will continue to do so. In this sphere practically everything is important—the right atmosphere in family life, 181 competent organisation of the educational process, a healthy atmosphere at the place of work, efficient everyday services, and much else."  [181•1 

At all stages in its glorious history, the CPSU deemed it inadmissible to contrast believers to atheists and set a task for propagandists of atheism to involve believers in construction of the new life through ideological influence.