A Focus OF THE SOVIET ATTACK/Why the Focus of Attack?

Simply put, Jehovah's Witnesses were the chief focus of the Soviet Attack because they imitated Jesus' early followers.  In the first century, the apostles were ordered  "not to keep teaching upon the basis of [Jesus'] name." Yet, later their persecutors complained:  "Look! you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching."  The apostles did not deny that they had been preaching despite orders not to, but instead they answered respectfully:  "We must obey God as ruler rather than men." -Acts 5:27-29.

Jehovah's Witnesses today also take seriously Jesus' command  to his followers "to preach to the people and to give a thorough witness."  (Acts 10:42) In his book The Kremlin's Human Dilemma, Maurice Hindus explained that it was the Witnesses' "irrepressible zeal for evangelizing" that made them "particularly onerous to Moscow and [brought] them  into continual clash with the Soviet police." He added:  "There is no stopping them. Suppressed in one place, they bob up in another."

"As far as I know," wrote Russian historian Sergei Ivanenko, "the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses was the only religious organization in the USSR that increased in numbers despite the ban and persecution."  Of course, other religions also continued to function, including the most prominent of all, the Russian Orthodox Church. You will find it interesting to learn how the church and the Witnesses were both able to survive the Soviet Attack.  

Next time: A Focus OF THE SOVIET ATTACK - HOW RELIGION SURVIVED

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