A SOVIET ATTACK ON RELIGION/A Focus ON THE SOVIET ATTACK

Dramatic Increase Begins

In his book Religion in the Soviet Union, published in 1961, Walter Kolarz noted two factors responsible for this dramatic increase.  One, he noted, was that "the territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939-40" -Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Moldavia-had within them many  "active groups of Jehovah's Witnesses."  In addition, parts of eastern Poland and Czechoslovakia, which included over a thousand Witnesses, were also annexed by the Soviet Union, becoming part of Ukraine.  Thus, all these Witnesses were transplanted overnight, as it were, into the Soviet Union.

Further increase,  "unbelievable as it may sound," Kolarz wrote, came from  'the German concentration camps."  The Nazis had imprisoned thousands of Witnesses for refusing to support Hitler and his war of aggression.  Kolarz explained that Russian prisoners in these camps "had admired their courage and steadfastness of the 'Witnesses' and probably for that reason found their theology attractive."  As a result, many young Russians from these camps returned to the Soviet Union with a newfound faith in Jehovah God and his wonderful purposes for the earth. -Psalm 37:29; Revelation 21:33, 4. 

Because of such factors, there quickly came to be thousands of Witnesses in the Soviet Union.  By early 1946, there were at least 1,600 and by the end of the decade, well over 8,000.  This growth was observed  with alarm by the KGB, which, as noted before, was especially concerned about the "activities of those Christians over whom it had no direct control.

Next time: A SOVIET ATTACK ON RELIGION/A Focus ON THE SOVIET ATTACK -Attacks Are Initiated

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