Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

sed their feelings is remarkable, but it also makes understandable why many of the printed comments can be dismissed as safe affirmations of the status quo. The General Secretary Reports - At each of the congresses in 1968, 1966, and 1969, the general 204 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il secretary Alexander Karev delivered a major report. Its style, comprehen- siveness, and length are reminiscent of the reports read by the general secretary at Communist Party congresses. At this first congress, Katev had to compress the data, since he needed to report on activities during the past nineteen years. For most of the conference participants, this was also a first introduction to the AUCECB structure in general. Karev explained that the three-member presidium usually met several times a week and that AUCECB members I. I. Motorin and A. N. Karpov, who were resident in Moscow, as well as the chairman of the revision com- mission, A. I. Mitskevich, usually took part in these meetings, Major ques- tions were considered at expanded sessions of the presidium and relevant persons were invited to participate. Most presidium meetings held recently had focused on relationships with the Pentecostals, although there had also been meetings of the AUCECB council to hear annual, or sometimes bian- nual, reports on activities. It was also apparent that the members of the AUCECB had almost all been co-opted by the council itself, and those few who could claim to have been elected in 1944 had gained or lost in in- fluence without a congress having confirmed this. Karev also reported that there were now forty-two senior presbyters with five assistants, and listed them." Informed listeners may have remembered that at the time of the fortieth jubilee in 1957, there had been fifty-three senior presbyters, which meant there had been a loss of 20 percent.'? In addition, the 1968 lists in- cluded other new faces because of the numerous shifts in senior presbyters that had taken place during the turmoils of the past five years, Karev also announced that the central office was divided into six de- partments: (1) correspondence with congregations, (2) foreign relations, (3) typing department, (4) editorial office of Bratskti Vestnik, (5) bookkeeping, and (6) administration. Most of these departments had been functioning since the beginning, although, until 1960, foreign relations had been Karev's personal responsibility. In 1968 there were sixteen employees in the office. A major section of his report then listed the achievements of recent years. One could evaluate these in one of three ways, he said. One could say either that they had done very much, or that they had done very little, or that they had done what was possible to do. Karev left it to the delegates to make their own evaluation but asserted that the presidium supported the third alternative, namely that they claimed to hav