Russia against Heaven
November 6, I929 COMMONWEAL THE 6 graduate school studying history, literature, mathe- in glove with a Senate committee. If he had been, matics or anything else would be of more real worth...
...The Catholic Church stands cently that the Soviet Union has expended vast sums for that feeling...
...Membership in boys' and religious faith...
...But when the recent dis- THE HUNDRED PERCENTERS extravagant political value it has been credited with...
...Panait Istrati's source being placed on the government payroll...
...He L'Affaire Roussakov, while it does not treat directly now believes that a senator requiring advice and in- of religion under Leninist rule, confirms our worst formation on tariff problems should seek out the ex...
...But all the while ferocity subsisted, finding one ists...
...Leningrad has opened, the news despatches ful...
...Today ribaldry and obscenity, of secret violence and public matters are virtually the same, even though atheism abuse, was instituted to compel all clerics, other than is now official and the Church disorganized...
...Still more odious, and upon the indifference of the peasant...
...Anyone who can detect any note of the Orient in this, any overtone how remote soever, deserves a prize...
...and cruel stories are told in the memoirs of pose one of these groups to the other...
...right religious education, dispensed with something It is true that occasional voices of official protest like the same intensity with which Soviet ideologies are were raised, chiefly because of the bad impression now peddled, but with genuine charity...
...Americans of the godless" is more feverishly active in Russia now may be anything you please, but they are still too than it was in I923 . Though sample copies of the fundamentally Christian to face without loathing the Atheist at Work have come to the notice of European prospect of an official sanction, for the sake of gain, scholars during the past several years, it is only re- of a war upon the spirit...
...These last have prevailed...
...Hubbard there is not much choice...
...Kipling's metrical axiom, if only for the purpose of affirming contrarily that, in this case, the twain have met...
...November 6, I929 COMMONWEAL THE 6 graduate school studying history, literature, mathe- in glove with a Senate committee...
...for the other ninety-five, it is still for educating the youth...
...Even while Vatican, in the interests of what seemed to be its own Stalin was advocating reform, others were devising advantage, would merely endorse the campaign against systems of propaganda, from public shows libeling all religion in which Moscow is permanently engaged...
...countries, whose knowledge of Russia is first-hand...
...F IERHAPS lobbying investigations a not unhappy is the result revenge of the thus Senate's taken closures ago, it may are taken be that with the the word oil "business" scandals of will a few lose years the upon a system which has often made life burdensome to senators...
...But after reading the interview which Yee Ben Wee gave the papers, Between the apologetic shipbuilders and the wellsatisfied Mr...
...Let there be no open vio- must be is, therefore, plain...
...one feels that they have met only in the intimate and special sense in which the lady and the tiger met when out for a ride...
...convince reporters, editors and publishers, a long and tiresome business...
...I do not approve of the Here one of the most important documents we have practice of having someone receiving pay from another seen is likewise by a Frenchman...
...in particular the faith of the Catholic Church, how stubborn, and, to say the least, ungracious, since has lately started so many people guessing that some Mr...
...tions regarding which M. Goyau's book has so much During I923, the congress of the party resolved "to to say...
...If the force however, than these deeds of ferocity was the pro- were broken, the whole "ideal" would collapse into cedure against the lower clergy and their followers...
...I probably made a mistake...
...So great have the expenditures involved become ing this crusade by accusing the clergy of rebellious that costs are now divided between the central and the intentions...
...At present the storm is merely blowing harder respect henceforth the religious sentiment of the faith- than ever...
...In the past Russia has been a land wherein divorce their wives so that these could earn something spiritual currents mingled strangely with great, slugwith which to nurture the children...
...If he had been, matics or anything else would be of more real worth possibly, he would not have lost his job...
...The country needs the help of western science in bringing her power into dynamic We are glad that the Senate is turning on its harriers, being...
...Shearer's...
...One may affirm that his conclusions are tion's paid representative, as his secretary, and ad- supported in the main by Communists resident in other mitting him into the Tariff Committee's secret sessions...
...That they and many like them have a certain felt, may be one explanation for the bewildered and often contradictory courses that our Congress follows...
...True a few martyrs, into moral and social bondage of the progress can come only through a gradual spread of worst sort...
...and since the author perts of the Tariff Commission...
...So long as Senator Bingham relied upon him so absolutely for advice, he had little worry as to what anyone else thought about Connecticut's tariff demands...
...Kipling should cancel his poem...
...Hubbard of the Connecticut Manufacturers' As- further attention to the matter seems permissible...
...Per- when the Moslem and Jewish residents threatened to haps the most blood-curdling tale on record is Father rebel if their usages were interfered with...
...others were put into prison...
...The public proceeded with a ferocity which all the world knows...
...Both were willing to influence legislation in underhanded ways, and neither could justify it afterward...
...What the Chinese will make of Yee we do not know...
...Or perhaps they are all like this too, by now...
...A program of gish waters of superstition and indifference...
...of God shall have passed from the stones...
...This sociation has endorsed the Bingham-Eyanson entente...
...glad that in doing so it has further undermined the reputation of American business as the only twentiethcentury treasure-house of efficiency and honesty...
...Recently he enrolled in the Holmes airport in Queens and has now become a solo flyer...
...It will reach the end it seeks--the upon disseminating this sheetmnow enjoying, we are ultimate sanctification of all in Russia who possess told, a circulation of 7o,ooo--among all classes of the good-will--not through some fantastic political maneupeople...
...Zarianov: "Since the priest is the kind of animal he is, How utterly inconceivable any rapprochement beit behooves us to tear out his claws and his teeth, and tween the Catholic Church and the Soviet government if necessary to slay him...
...Eyanson could attack his problem more directly...
...Apparently than a term in the specialized writing courses, where he was a successful lobbyist, but for the most part his encouragement is the biggest thing to be had...
...None of them have shown themselves the sort of men whom we should be very anxious to have in power in this government...
...a heap of ugly ashes in a week...
...Thus progresses the cannot be suspected of reactionary tendencies, his education of Senator Bingham...
...And by a special governmental decree, the Sunday Leninlsm by the United States will meet with success of its representative formulas in this maxim by Ivan has been abolished...
...Nothing more extreme in the way of gross cari- ver but through waiting for the hour when the grist cature and vicious colportage can well be imagined...
...Apparently the "cult so long as the present situation continues...
...How much less astute and how much more ridiculous we consider the lobbying interests since the great steel and ship men have confessed that they were RUSSIA AGAINST HEAVEN W HAT Soviet Russia intends to do about religion, fooled by Shearer, and that he put one over on them...
...work was done through the newspapers...
...Yee Ben Wee was born in an Orient...
...writing everywhere bears the stamp of harrowing Mr...
...Stalin's depends upon a change, not yet within sight, of condideclaration, as quoted, is the quintessence of these...
...This remark seems as Unfortunate Russian priests, compelled to pay rents true in the domain of religion as in that of social ecowhich they could not possibly muster, were driven to nomics...
...China's vast undeveloped power, however, and are able to make its pressure areas," says Yee Ben Wee, "constitute a tremendous latent power...
...Boston, but he has visited China often, and it became the dream of his life to assist in its development by means of the airplane...
...Senator Bingham is not nearly so sure that the available evidence in a very depressing but informhe did the right thing in using Eyanson, the Associa- ative book...
...Well, if they are, the East has stopped existing, and Mr...
...kiewicz, who was shot down for the pleasure of an Despite all the efforts of Moscow, Communism remains officers' club on Good Friday, after having been tor- a theory dependent upon bureaucratically wielded force tured in an unspeakable fashion...
...For five Russians in a thousand, that ideal Even more effective, however, is the system employed is Communism...
...One is told that two final sion of faith rather than any merely political security measuresman edict prohibiting the clergy from living that the evidence mutely offered by a host of Victims in Moscow, and another making any kind of religious soon became overwhelming...
...But their aim was so clearly the suppres- departmental governments...
...Prior to this eye-witnesses regarding the fate of little ones who had time, the campaign against the Orthodox Church had the temerity to visit a church for prayer...
...impressions of what is occurring...
...And it would be politically absurd as girls' clubs is dependent upon renouncement of belief well as criminally forgetful of Soviet principle to op- in God...
...Shearer, whom everyone was taking a kick at truth...
...With an easier job and a more reliable salary, his lot was more fortunate than Mr...
...the most sacred objects of religion to journals incul- Nor do we feel that any steps toward recognition of cating a materialist philosophy...
...Any concession by the lence, but nevertheless let there be death...
...Some prominent Communists, notably Jaroslav- say, the first atheist university, the special purpose of sky, harangued against the "tendency to make mar- which is to be the training of anti-religious propagandtyrs...
...So judicious a mixture of East and West justifies the citation of Mr...
...schools are likewise institutionalized cradles of atheThe adjutants of Lenin made some pretense of justify- ism...
...Shearer was out to save the nation...
...is now relatively simple, because M. Georges Goyau, "I approve of what Senator Bingham has done Ioo the French historian and academician, has summarized percent...
...During the last fifteen years it has not been hard to sell the country on the notion that business should control public office the assumption being that a straightforward sort of government would then be provided, with no under-cover dealings...
...And all this which Communist persecutors had left abroad...
...Edmund Walsh's account of the death of Bishop Bud- Here some interesting facts interpose themselves...
...He had to WHEN Yee Ben Wee, the former Mort Street laundryman, took up flying with the object of bringing air-mindedness to the Orient, it was Is There inevitable that there should have arisen here and there murmured paraphrases of Kipling...
...The crisis in Russia's attitude toward religion was, a few weeks ago, was never lucky enough to work hand THE COMMONWEAL November 6, I929 , , n perhaps, the moment during 1928 when Stalin made The one complaint seems to be that, owing to a shortthe following declaration: "Nobody can live without age of paper, the work of enlightenment is hampered l an ideal...
...Some of the metropoli- reading a punishable offensemwere forestalled only tans were executed...
...And so far he has escaped with less blame than the naval expert, even though he was out to save the Connecticut manufacturers, where Mr...
Vol. 11 • November 1929 • No. 1
