Uncle Cornpone Greets the Press

the Monte Cassino of the Russian world, was still in operation a year ago last spring. But in the summer of 1963 the monks were arrested, cruelly beaten up and deported. Nobody knows where they now are. This wanton act of brutality is a sign of the fury (and frustration) of the Communist fanatics in the face of a hard core which has shown itself irreducible by normal means. Communism also has failed satisfactorily to replace Christian belief with a working morality. Atheistic manuals are numerous as are ethical pamphlets which try in vain to teach Christian morality without a Christian foundation. Crime is as rampant. Big-crime syndicates put American gangsters and mobs to shame. They operate everywhere. In Stalin’s time they even controlled entire sectors of concentration camps which the guards could enter only with the aid of armored cars. Stealing in the factories has reached the level of a popular art arid is a standard phenomenon. They tell you in the USSR that Mao Tse-tung once offered Khrushchev the services of one of his Chinese magicians. “I don’t need such aid,” Mr. K. countered, “I have over two hundred million sorcerers.” “How come?” “Well, my average subject earns 100 rubles a month and spends 300.”

The men in the Kremlin, especially the “ideological policemen” among them, are afraid of Western religious infiltration. A physicist like Einstein is a considerable headache for them as are other Western physicists, biologists, and philosophers whose ideas penetrate the borders and invite a radical revision of dialectical materialism. Among university students the feeling that Christianity has something to offer is exceedingly strong. A university professor of philosophy, teaching in the western USSR, mentioned in veiled words his spiritual despair. His parting words to me were: “When you return to your country remind the people that we are a race of limitless patience and of an endless capacity for suffering. We can wait as no other nation has waited. Do not despair in us.” I shook his hand, saying “Do Svidanye—good bye.” He, however, replied: “Sbogom—with God.” It was fully evident to me where he stood and what gave him his strength.

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William F. Gavin

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the Monte Cassino of the Russian world, was still in operation a year ago last spring. But in the summer of 1963 the monks were arrested, cruelly beaten up and deported. Nobody knows where they now are. This wanton act of brutality is a sign of the fury (and frustration) of the Communist fanatics in the face of a hard core which has shown itself irreducible by normal means. Communism also has failed satisfactorily to replace Christian belief with a working morality. Atheistic manuals are numerous as are ethical pamphlets which try in vain to teach Christian morality without a Christian foundation. Crime is as rampant. Big-crime syndicates put American gangsters and mobs to shame. They operate everywhere. In Stalin’s time they even controlled entire sectors of concentration camps which the guards could enter only with the aid of armored cars. Stealing in the factories has reached the level of a popular art arid is a standard phenomenon. They tell you in the USSR that Mao Tse-tung once offered Khrushchev the services of one of his Chinese magicians. “I don’t need such aid,” Mr. K. countered, “I have over two hundred million sorcerers.” “How come?” “Well, my average subject earns 100 rubles a month and spends 300.”

The men in the Kremlin, especially the “ideological policemen” among them, are afraid of Western religious infiltration. A physicist like Einstein is a considerable headache for them as are other Western physicists, biologists, and philosophers whose ideas penetrate the borders and invite a radical revision of dialectical materialism. Among university students the feeling that Christianity has something to offer is exceedingly strong. A university professor of philosophy, teaching in the western USSR, mentioned in veiled words his spiritual despair. His parting words to me were: “When you return to your country remind the people that we are a race of limitless patience and of an endless capacity for suffering. We can wait as no other nation has waited. Do not despair in us.” I shook his hand, saying “Do Svidanye—good bye.” He, however, replied: “Sbogom—with God.” It was fully evident to me where he stood and what gave him his strength.