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The Southern Israelite Page 5 y Views on the Present Situation in Rmssia By JULIAN MORGENSTERN i'h is article by Julian ,rgenstem, president of i, Hebrew Union College, is the nature of a reply and • statement cm the now nous Morgenstem Rich- correspondence which :lied forth considerable dis- irbance in Jewish circles nghout the United States. This statement was pre- «red for the Jewish Tele- ruphic Agency who first mode public the controversy by publishing the original rrespondence which started it. In a general way we know what iitions in Russia are today. No t the reports which we receive considerable exaggeration misrepresentation. But even with proper discount for this, un questionably conditions there are un- ;ipy and alarming in the extreme. A ruthless campaign against religion ing conducted. Its goal is the iction of all religious belief and practice, primarily in Russia, eventu ally throughout the world. Its ar- t is that religion is a thing of ast, a delusion, a fallacy, con- to reason, which acts as an upon men’s minds and lulls into a state of semi-insensibil- md passive submission to condi- of social and economic inequal ity! oppression such as existed in ist Russia, and such as, accord- g to Bolshevik theory, obtain in all untries and under all governments t»t their own. From this tyranny a nslavement the Bolsheviks would the human race by destroying i n utterly. Manifestly this is a aign of the masses, and partic- of the younger and more ag- e radical element among them, fstly, too, it is supported by "viet government. It is directed Christianity, Judaism and alike, and also against the mi- octs of Protestantism and other which have gained a weak ■ Id in Russia. doubtedly, too, Judaism is af- by this anti-religious cam- more than any other religion, n the main they are matters of and ritual practice and con- while Judaism is all this something more, something r . a way of life. It is there- ca.c fur he entire life of Judaism and of ew m Russia which is affected i; langered. The situation could be worse. And yet it is worse, infinitely worse and more and horrible by the sad fact ie most bitter persecutors of and of the Jews who con- r seek to conform to it, are •emselves, the Yevseks, and e V see *n to take a fiendish de- the persecution of their fel- ' s and in the desecration of all , vhich they, or at least their • once held sacred. Certainly our feelings are outraged by these conditions, this program and this manner of carrying it out. For all this fanaticism and persecution we can have only unqualified con demnation and infinite loathing. 1 am sure that not even my most eager and bitter critics will now misunder stand me or fail to comprehend and to admit where my strong sympa thies lie. The question is, what can be done; or explicitly, what can we do, we Jews, here in America, living in social and political security, and in comparative ease, comfort and eco nomic abundance. The first impulse is to protest, to protest against these wrongs and in iquities, all the more iniquitous be cause committed in the name of free dom of thought and of human salva tion, to protest against the Soviet government which can condone, and even approve, these iniquities, to pro test as Jews and as Americans, and to employ all possible pressure to bring our American fellow-citizens and our American government to pro test with and for us. Unquestion ably to protest in this manner is the most natural and instinctive thing to do. And not impossibly something is to be gained from public opinion thus aroused—something, perhaps; but I fear not much. I have in mind the nation-wide protest-campaign last fall after the Palestine atrocities and the meagre and pitiful results there from. Nevertheless, it is not at all improbable that I would have joined in a general, representative, dignified and formal protest, had I been in vited to do so—which I was not. But I must admit that I would have had serious misgivings. I have little faith in protests, and least of all in the present case. On the one hand, I fear that a protest now, no matter how general and vigorous, even one into which our government might be drawn, can help but little. And on the other hand, I fear that it might even make matters worse for our brethren in Russia, that it might only irritate the Soviet government and the Yevseks and encourage them in their stubborn adherence to their vic ious program. Even more, I have the feeling that a protest such as this, a protest of which we may be fairly sure in ad vance that it will have a little helpful effect, is not much more than a ges ture, a grandiloquent and self-satis fying gesture, by which we relieve ourselves of pent-up feelings of in dignation and salve our consciences by saying, “Now we have protested, what else remains that we can do?” Finally, I must say frankly that I am suspicious of this general protest and of the various local protest meet ings scheduled to follow. I have had one good lesson in Jewish politics by a very competent teacher, and I have learned a great deal in this one les son. Protesting publicly and for mally, with resolutions all drawn up in advance, and the guileless public, just as naive as I was myself two months ago, expected, after the speeches are all mnde, to sign on the dotted line, and then go home and sit quietly and ask no questions, but to feel proudly that it has expressed its united will and now something must happen, all this is no doubt good poli tics, yes—but is it statesmanship? And again I ask, in the present tragic situation confronting our brethren in Russia, Palestine, Poland and other lands, do we not need, not Jewish politics, but Jewish statesmanship, statesmanship of the highest order? I myself make no pretense to statesmanship. I have as yet had no lesson in that. Nor am I authorized, nor do I presume, to speak for any Jewish wing, group, organization or institution. Let this be clearly and unequivocally understood. I speak only for myself and voice only my personal views. And before I can formulate my thought upon any sub ject or situation I must first endeav or to analyze is, to understand its causes and effects. A careful diag nosis must always precede even the most modest and hesitating sugges tion of a cure. In the present situation in Russia this is not difficult—for those who truly wish to understand it. Let me say once more and in advance, so that my views and sympathies may not be again misunderstood and misrep resented, I condemn the Yevseks un qualifiedly and am horrified by the fiendishness of their policies, their program and the methods by which they seek to carry this out. But I may no more indulge myself in the opiate of joining with the present mass hysteria against them than may the physician dealing with a dread and loathsome disease. On the con trary, I think I can understand them quite well, not sympathetically, of course, but objectively, even as the physician studies and understands disease. They are fanatics, bigots in the ex treme, as are all their Bolshevik com rades. But why not? Conditions have made them such, and they could not well be aught else. Centuries of oppression, of denial of human rights, of enslavement of body, mind and soul by a selfish, tyrannical govern ment and an equally selfish, tyranni cal church made the masses of the Russian people what they were up to fourteen years ago, ignorant, super stitious, callous, culturally backward, a powerful, lumbering creature in chains, a Golem perhaps, exploited cruelly by its master and hating this master bitterly, gradually growing more and more conscious of its power and of its superiority to its master in this respect, and cherishing wild ideas of the destruction of its master and of all that government and so ciety which this master seemed to typify. What little real knowledge came to this creature was gathered in the main surreptitiously and was, of course, ill digested and resolved itself into crude, extravagant, fan tastic theories of radicalism, anarch ism, nihilism, destruction and even tual reorganization of life, society and government upon a new scale and in accordance with a new principle and standard. At last the creature arose in its power and crushed its cruel master completely; and then, feeling itself no longer a creature, but now a man, it proceeded to real ize its dreams, its ideals, its theories. The result we see before us, a revo lution like, yet infinitely more vast, more cruel, more fanatic, more hor rible than the French Revolution— and the end is not yet. And, now with a change of figure, we on the outside are powerless to interfere, to check the course of the conflagration. Our puny, distant ef forts to extinguish the fire will but fan the flames still higher. He can only watch, with fear and fellow-suf fering snatching at our hearts, watch and wait until the raging fires of fa naticism should have burned them selves out, and hope and pray, and perhaps have faith in the lesson which history, repeating itself, might suggest, that something may survive to salvage, something which may even again eventuate in a precious boon for mankind, a new and higher and better social order. Certainly we dare not hope for the complete and speedy failure of the experiment and the overthrow of the Soviet govern ment; for that might well mean the restoration of Czarism, something in finitely worse. Then the whole strug gle would in time have to be fought through once more. We can only hope and pray that very speedily ex perience, common sense and growing, tested knowledge may come into their own, and the present era of destruc tion and ruin yield to one of con struction and social progress. Within this peculiar setting we can readily understand the Yevsek move ment, if we will. Doubly the victims of oppression, Judaism and the Jew stood practically still culturally for four hundred years. His language, his dress, his habit of thought, his outlook upon life and the world, his conception and practice of religion experienced but a minimum of change and advance during all these centu ries. A significant reform move ment, healthy in its foundations and rich in its promise, began in Russia a little over a century ago. Had it been allowed to evolve naturally and nor mally it would undoubtedly have achieved much, and Judaism and Jewry in Russia and adjacent lands would have experienced its full, bene- nomic stability shall come to Russia, then fanaticism and persecution will cease automatically, and a new era of freedom and progress for all, our brethren included, will begin. Per- (Continued on Page 15)