A Focus OF THE SOVIET ATTACK - Reaching Those in Camps

Viktors Kalnins a Latvian journalist, spent most of his ten year sentence (1962-72) in the Mordovian camp complex, about 250 miles southeast of Moscow. In an interview with the Awake! writer in March 1979, Kalnins was asked:  "Do the Internet Witnesses know about what is going on here in the United States or other countries with regard to the organization?" 

They do,"Kalnins responded, "and it is through the literature that they receive. . . .They even showed me their magazines.  I never knew where the literature was hidden; this changed from time to time.  But everyone knew the literature was in camp. . .  .The guards and the Jehovah's Witnesses were like Tom and Jerry, trying to find the literature!" 

To the question "Did Jehovah's Witnesses try to talk to you about their beliefs?" Kalnins responded: Oh Yes!  They are very well-known. We know all about Armageddon . . . They talked a lot about sickness ending."

How Circumstances Changed

On March 27, 1991, Jehovah's Witnesses became a legally recognized organization in the Soviet Union with the signing of a legal charter that includes the following declaration:  "The purpose of the Religious Organization is to carry on  the religious work of making known the name of Jehovah God and his loving provisions for mankind through his heavenly Kingdom by Jesus Christ." 

Among the ways listed in the charter for carrying on this religious work are preaching publicly and visiting the homes of the people, teaching Bible truths to those who are willing to listen, conducting free Bible studies with the help of Bible study publications and distributing Bibles. 

Since the signing of that document over ten years ago, the Soviet Union has been dissolved, and the situation of religion has changed substantially in the 15 former Soviet republics. What can be said about the future of religion here as well as throughout the rest of the world?  

Next time: WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF RELIGION?

From the jw.org publications