Does”

"THE spearhead of the attack on

successful socialism as it is
evolving in Russia and Eastern
Europe is the old charge of “re-
ligious persecution.”

Wall Street and the Vatican cry
in chorus: “Communism persé-
cutes the churches.”

It is not true.

Contrary to popular belief, Com-
munism is opposed to the perse-
cution of religion altogether.

Defense of the rights of worship-
pers to worship, with penalties
upon all who hinder them, is writ-
ten in the constitution of all coun-
tries of Eastern Europe, just as
it is written in the Stalin Consti-
tution of Russia of 1936.

Nor does this ruling remain a
dead letter, I made a point when
visiting several republics of East-
ern Europe, as well as Russia, of
examining with care the religious
situdtion in each country.

In Russia, I interviewed the

Patriarch of Moscow; the Arch- .

bishop of Leningrad, the Patri-
arch of Georgia, the Metropolitan
of Kiev, the Catholics of Armenia,
the head of the Baptist churches
and of the Moslem world and
many more.

From one and all I learned that
worship was free and that the
churches were now enjoying many
amenities, including possession of
their own press for printing reli-
gious literature.

é ;

It was the same
Europe. tee /

I visited churches in Warsaw
and Cracow immediately after the
liberation. I lunched with the
Dean of Poland’s counterpart to
Canterbury.

In Czechoslovakia I visited the

in Eastern

head of the Czechoslovak Church

and the head of the Protestant
-churches. . ’

I received at Prague an honor-
ary degree of Doctor of Theology.

In Bulgaria I met three bishops,
the heads of the Free Churches,
and Exarch Stefan of the Ortho-
dox Church. P

In Rumania I met the head of
all the religious bodies, except
the Roman Catholic.

ommunism persecute
the churches?

The Archbishop of York, Dr. Cyril Garbett,
said last month that “the Church is being at-

tacked in many lands as it never has been since

the armies of Islam blotted out some of the
ancient churches of Christendom.’
ticle the DEAN OF CANTERBURY, the Very
Rey. Dr. Hewlett Johnson, explodes the myth of

religious persecution in the countries of so-

cialism.

i

In this ar-

Blessing Easter eggs and cakes
in the New Virgin monastery at
Moscow.

In Hungary I met several Pro-
testant bishops. I spent a morn-
ing with Cardinal Mindszenty.

The circumstances of each
church in each country naturally
differed; but some features were
common to all.

Trials of individuals, imprison-
“ments and heavy penalties had
not been uncommon. k

But in every case the charge
was for civil offences; in no sense
was it religious persecution,

Many clergy indeed objected
strongly to the new economic
changes, as many British clergy
would object to a thorough-going
socialism here.

Especially was this true of the
higher clergy, whose ties with the
wealthier and privileged classes
were close, and who had: suffered
with them the expropriation of
property.

Cardinal Minszenty, for ex-
ample was in his official capacity
one of Hungary’s largest land-
owners.

‘The lesser clergy, living as they
do in nearer contact with the
common people, were inclined to

sympathise with the new economy
which better met the needs of
their poorer parishioners.
e : ‘

In every country I visited free-
dom of worship was the law and

\
the practice.

Churches were open and func-
tioning. Blitzed churches were be-
ing rebuilt with government aid.

No anti-God campaign was
countenanced by the government.

No hindrance barred worship-
pers from divine service.

Individual priests; even priests
in high office, have been brought
to trial on charges of sabotage.
treason and war-time collabora-
tion with the Nazis.

Such prosecutions are, however,
no part of an anti-clerical cam-
paign.

In general I found no ban on
parochial schools. But where they
-are nationalized, as in Hungary,
full provision is made for the
right of entry for qualified priests
and others to teach religion in
school hours to the children.

In Poland religious instruction
in schools is compulsory, save on
conscientious grounds.

That it is not compulsory for
all is a sore point with the Cath-
olic church, a fact which throws

© ~

much light on charges of religious
persecution.

The whole position has been
bedevilled by. misrepresentation.
Western readers have never been
given. a true picture of realities.

Listen to reporters on the spot
in these Eastern lands. You will
hear again and again the same
tale,

“We cannot write straight
news. We must wrap it up,” said
one distinguished journalist con-
cerning a treason trial in East-
ern Europe. .

There was however one British
“witness at the most famous of
all these trials,

The Rev. Stanley Evans, an
Anglican priest, attended the
Minszenty trial from first to last.

Did the British national press
or the American press let Stanley
Evans bear witness to what he
had seen or heard? Not a word.

But Stanley Evans has written
an ample and valuable report
and embodied it in the story of

PEKING

Pengpu’s biggest gangster,

End of China’s gangs

ing his own fixed job. It cost
as much to unload goodg into

: S issuing its order abolish-
ing the gang system of labor
in transport the Chinese Peo-
ple’s government has determin-*
ed the fate of a centuries-old
feudal system which has caus-
ed untold misery to millions of
Chinese workers. 4

Records of the existence of
the gang system go back be-|
yond the beginning of the Man-
chu Dynasty, 300 years ago.
Gang kingdoms were founded
on sheer force and terrorism
and “offices” in the gangs pass-
ed down from father to son like
feudal privileges.

The gangs operate as secret
societies. The gang leaders de-
cide whether a Man may work
in the industry they control
and how much he must pay for
the privilegé. In addition to
most gangsters doing” double
duty’ as Kuomintang secret
agents, they control feudal
superstitious societies, Taoist |
and Buddhist. secret societies
and a host of ‘other organiza-
tidns: a! ee Hype

-Gang rivalry led to endless , -.
feuds and bloodshed. Such was
the power of. life and death of
gangsters over their underlings, —
that any man whose. name was”
drawn must kill or be killed at
his bosses’. orders.

x

hang Yun-shan, had a private
courtroom in his home, in
which workers who offended
him were brought to trial and
flogged, tortured and sometimes
killed. :

Workers» in the power of
gangsters generally had no
knowledge of the amount of

\their earnings which ‘went to

their masters. At Peking sta-
tion, gangsters received $600
from merchants for transport
of goods and spent only $200 in
hiring labor. The chief gang-
ster in Swatow grabbed 55 per-
cent of the total income, the
smaller fry took 33 percent and
the remaining 12 percent was

divided among the laborers Who.

did all the work. :

But even these small earn-
ings were too much. The gang-
sters commonly set up gambl-

ing dens, opium bars, brothels, ;

and encouraged laborers to use
them on credit so that when
pay day came along they had
nothing to draw. :
All cities were carved up by
gangsters, each with an abso-
lute power in his own district.

In Pengpu, one of the worst .

hot spots of gangs, unloading
eargo from a barge to a ware-
house had to go through the
hands of 18 laborers, each do-

warehouses at Hankow as it
did to transport them from
Shanghai to that city. Trans-
port costs thus ranged at fan-
tastic levels and constituted an
enormous and cumbersome im-
pediment to the development
of transport and flow of goods.

This was the general picture
of any city at the time of its
liberation: Workers, however
anxious to get out of the grip
of gangs, are held in their
power by terrorism. The first
task is to help workers break

away from the gangs and gain

their confidence in the govern-
ment’s ability to protect them
from gangsters.

In Shanghai, riddled with
gangsterism perhaps more than

any other Chinese ‘city, the:

self-imposed trade union leader,
Chen Yao-chu, set up a fake
transport workers’ union two
days hfter liberation of the
city. Guards and goon squads
held 3,000 unwilling “members”
in line. -

‘The genuine transport union,
however, was able to win over
a majority of workers and even
of Chen’s muscle men. He was
eventually taken before a meet-

ing of the workers to settle .

‘

accounts, and forced to return
over two million dollars to
them.

After hearing of such ex-

periences, other workers pluck-
ed up their courage and the
movement developed like a
snowball. :

It is common enough. for
these gangsters to set up fake
trade unions to delude workers
and try to trick the govern-
ment. This also happened in
Peking, where recently 29 ring-
leaders of a highly organized
gang which preyed on porters
and passengers at Peking rail-
way station were arrested by
public security: forces. :

Church and State in Eastern
Europe (published by the New

Central European Observer, 35
Pont Street, London, S.W.1, 3d.).
* j

In this most readable pamphlet
which all who seek a truthful
picture of religion in Eastern
Europe should possess, Stanley
Evans discusses the legal position
of the churches in Poland, Czech-
oslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria.

He describes the relationship of
the various churches to the new
social order, and draws certain
conclusions and asks certain ques-
tions.

First, there is no persecution
of religion. That is a fundamental
conclusion.

And here is a question. The
mass of the people of Eastern
Europe, having chosen their fu-
ture as one of cooperation and
common ownership; what is the
attitude of the church?

Is it cooperative, or futilely en-
deavoring to stem the tide of pro-
gress in alliance with anti-Semit-
ism, illiteracy and landlordism?

. The majority of the churches
and religious people have chosen
the former course; a minority,
inspired by the Vatican, are choos- :

. ing the latter.

“They will lose. Their only hope
is war. : >

“And would they win even
then?” We have only to remem-
ber what the two last wars have
brought forth.

World War I saw one-sixth of

the world turn socialist. World
War II saw a vast extension into
Eastern Europe of the socialism
which had been so successful in,
the Soviet Union. ;
- It also saw the triumph of
socialism in China, and today a
block of 600 million or more is
Jearning to practise the new social-
ist way of life.

World War III would undoubt-
edly see the end of capitalism
and prove disastrous to those
churches which had pinned their
faith to a decaying order and
turned their backs on the new and
very Christian quest of freedom
and equality for all peoples. -

aS

A 300-year-old system of gang labor in transport ends in China, —

With gangsters out of the
way, rates for handling goods
have fallen sharply at the same
time as workers’ living stand-
ards have risen. Tientsin is a
model town, where a steady
and successful war against
gangsterism has gone on since
January, 1949. Now transport
workers have their own coop-
eratives, the hated tipping sys-
tem and the feudal division of
docks, wharves and stations
has gone. Tientsin Transport
Company “has a unified trans-
port system, and trade unions —
have united the workers.

Gangsterism has not yet been
ended, but its days are-number-

7

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 19, 1950 — PAGE 3