Soviets Drop Stance on Militant Atheism : U.S.-Moscow Dialogue Says Anti-Religious Strategy Fails

Soviet leaders apparently have decided that the best way to win converts to atheism is to grant greater religious freedom, according to Western participants in a dialogue between humanists and atheists in Moscow.

Delegates from the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the Soviet Institute for Scientific Atheism concluded that more than seven decades of militant atheism have been self-defeating in swaying Soviet believers from their religious faith.

“It’s my opinion the situation in Poland made the Russians aware that attacking religion may paradoxically support it,” Rob Tielman, a co-president of the humanist union, said by telephone from his home in the Netherlands. “By giving freedom to religion . . . the Russians hope atheism will develop in a more positive way.”

The July dialogue was the first in a planned series of meetings between Soviet atheists and Western humanists. A Soviet delegation has been invited to the 11th Humanist World Congress in Brussels, Belgium, next August.

They Stand for Freedom

Humanists distance themselves from doctrinaire atheism by saying that although they reject belief in God, they stand for human freedom, including religious freedom.

Paul Kurtz, also a co-president of the humanist union and a philosophy professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said he thinks the humanists receive “an insight others don’t get” into Soviet thinking since the Soviets view them as philosophical comrades because of the shared skepticism of religion.

Soviet attempts to supplant religion with atheism, ranging from persecution of religious people to the introduction of “naming celebrations” to replace baptisms, have failed, Soviet delegates told Western participants.

Under Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Tielman said, the Soviet Union has decided to take a more practical approach, recognizing that Soviet society needs less mistrustful citizens if it hopes to enlist them in rebuilding its shattered economy.

“They seem to be moving toward a policy of a neutral state, a neutral view of religion,” Kurtz said. “Atheism will no longer be the official doctrine.”

Kurtz said they were told by Soviet atheists that 2,000 churches have reopened in the last two years and that seven new seminaries will open in the fall. On a visit to Moscow, Kurtz said he even noticed that Hare Krishnas were being permitted to proselytize.

The new Soviet openness to religious practices has permitted unparalleled importation of Bibles and new religious appointments. In July, for example, the Vatican appointed a bishop in Byelorussia, a Soviet republic, the first bishop there since the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Several religious leaders have been elected to the new Soviet Parliament.

Import for Jews

For Jews, greater tolerance by the Kremlin has meant a rise in emigration--an eight-year high of 20,000 Jews departed in 1988--less harassment at Jewish holiday celebrations and the opening of a private Jewish museum and library in Moscow.

Within the Soviet Union, many still seek greater religious freedom. Last Sunday, tens of thousands of Ukrainian Catholics marched through the city of Lvov demanding legal status for their church.

The human rights organization Amnesty International said Soviet citizens still can be prosecuted for exercising freedom of religion.

But Tielman and Kurtz said the Soviets indicated that they learned a lesson from Poland, where an entrenched Roman Catholic Church prevailed over official attempts to limit its influence.

In Poland, Tielman said, “in a way, they forced people that were not sympathetic to the Communist Party into the church.”

The humanist leaders said Soviet atheists were particularly concerned about the growth of Muslim fundamentalism. As many as 50 million Muslims live in Soviet Central Asia.

The humanists advised the Soviets: If you want to beat the church, don’t turn atheism into a form of state religion.

“One of the reasons why atheism did not succeed completely is that it was identified completely with party politics,” Tielman said.

The humanist delegation encouraged the Soviets to allow people who do not believe in God to meet in private groups free of state control to promote atheism as an alternative to religion.

“We don’t believe the state should either promote theism or atheism,” Kurtz said. “The key point is the free mind. . . . Any effort by the state to repress it is going to be counterproductive.”