Soviet Union -- Biography; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
One can hardly over-estimate the importance of the new Mohammedan
unity, that new patriotic energy which has taken the place of the
former lethargy and which already reaches out far beyond the borderland
of the Faithful. The Mussulman world is reviving after a long sleep.
And not only Mohammedans are uniting but the entire East and Middle
East. Aside from Japan, a significant harmony is rapidly taking place,
a harmony which evolves itself into a tremendous power. This power may
decide the world’s destiny before another generation.
Enver and Kemal Pasha, being aware of the purport of beginning that
great concord by interwoven treaties with Russia, read the stars well.
There must come a day also when that great sleeping giant, China, will
be part of this alliance. And the seeds of that friendship have also
been planted. The Chinese official delegations which came to Moscow
were not only well received by the Russians, but they hob-nobbed with
the Mohammedans like brothers.
TIKON AND THE RUSSIAN CHURCH
There are two points of importance in regard to the Greek Orthodox
Church and the Russian revolution. First, that the church has
maintained itself and second, that it has issued no frantic appeals
for outside help. While certain priests have allied themselves with
counter-revolutionists, officially the church has never taken sides.
Even at the present moment when a bitter conflict is on, the quarrel
remains a family quarrel.
Tikon, the Patriarch, by remaining unruffled through the barricade
and blockade days, proved himself a strong leader in a time when only
strong leaders could survive. If he had been frightened or hostile
in the Denikin or Kolchak days he might have shared the fate of the
Romanoffs; if he had taken part in counter-revolutions, the church
itself might have been badly shattered. But until recently, Tikon has
been as placid as his ikons and as interested in the great change going
on about him as a scientist. And therein lay his strength. “Don’t
let any one pity me,” he said last winter when I talked to him, “I am
having the most interesting time of my life.”
Much nonsense has been written about anti-church propaganda in Soviet
Russia. Dozens of writers have discussed a certain rather obscure sign
in Moscow which reads: “Religion is the opiate of the people.” This
sign, about three feet across, is painted high up on the north side of
the Historical Museum building near the entrance to the Red Square.
No one in Russia seems to be much interested in it and certainly
it attracts less attention than any one of our million billboard
advertisements. I tried for a year to find out who had put it up and
what group it represented, but could never discover. It was a cab
driver who said the wisest thing concerning it. “If somebody took it
down,” he said dryly, when I asked him what he thought of it, “no one
would notice.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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