A not entirely enthusiastic participant last week was Dictator Joseph Stalin at the celebration by massed Communist delegations from all over Russia of the tenth anniversary of the founding in Moscow of the Union of the Militant Godless. This unprecedented Jubilee of Godlessness could only be compared to that celebrated by Bolsheviks in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Legalization in Russia of Abortion.
When it comes to religion Joseph Stalin is somewhat wistful. Although never actually ordained a priest, he was a theological student in his youth. He is the only Dictator alive today with a thorough knowledge of the contents of the Bible. Instead of being cremated, as tradition decrees for Communists, the Dictator's beloved second wife lies buried by his order in the consecrated ground of a historic Moscow convent (TIME, Nov. 21, 1932). Although active profession of atheism is the badge of a Communist, Joseph
Stalin has uttered officially such lukewarm words as these: "The Party cannot be neutral toward Religion because Religion is something opposite to Science."
In the U. S. the affiliate of Soviet Russia's Greek Orthodox Church is headed by young Archbishop Nicholas John Kedroff, Dean of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Manhattan. Said the Archbishop last week: "In some ways the Church has more freedom in Russia now than it had under the Tsars. Then the Church was the means through which the Tsars ruled, indirectly at least. The preaching of the clergy was censored by edict of the Tsar and nonconforming prelates were imprisoned in dank and frigid Solovetsky Monastery on an island in the White Sea. The clergy in Russia today are not so poor as you might think. Not long ago I received a letter from a priest who wanted some new parts for his Buick."
The prosperity in Russia of even one priest able to require new parts for his Buick drives the League of the Militant Godless into tantrums. Their Jubilee last week was devoted to exhortations and alarms over what they consider a "New Menace": priests in various parts of Russia have now nimbly inserted Bolshevism into their creed and are preaching what seems to peasants a harmonious blend of Communism and Christianity. The Godless bitterly complained last week that priests have identified themselves so closely with Joseph Stalin's pet collective farms as to announce sternly from their pulpits that peasants who refuse to join the collective cannot receive the ministrations of Mother Church. There is also a great deal of climbing up and down painting the crosses on Soviet churches a brilliant Bolshevik red with the beaming acquiescence of the clergy. In the city of Izhevsk, according to the vexed Godless last week, young Soviet workers in the automobile plant now down their tools during working hours for brief but intensive periods of Bible reading. The Godless reported in several regions "mass baptisms of adults and even youths of Communist Youth age."