Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

gency. He had conducted tours through Eastern Europe many times. This time the border crossing in Czechoslovakia took longer than usual. The suspicious guards fi- nally discovered the secret compartment in the bus containing nearly 3,000 Bibles. Tour leader David Hathaway was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison. ! This incident is probably one of the most famous of many similar in- cidents, many of which remain unreported. The business of Bible-smug- gling continues, however, because apparently most of the smuggled Bibles are not discovered, Hathaway, for example, calculated that he had brought 150,000 pieces of literature into Eastern Europe before he was stopped. Smuggling also continued because the appeals for Bibles continue, The Bible hunger is greater in the Soviet Union than in any other East European country.? This is because it is the largest country where evangel- icals in particular urgently appeal for the Book that is the basis of their movement. The Soviet Union has also been stricter than other countries in limiting the production and import of Bibles. They have permitted only a very limited amount to be printed or legally imported.3 Customs officials regularly insist that it is forbidden to bring Bibles as gifts. No published So- 390 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il viet legislation forbidding Bibles exists, but then, Soviet policy has never been that dependent on legislation. During the past decade the impact of Bible smuggling and other at- tempts to import religion have obviously caused the Soviet authorities great concern. In 1974, 200,000 copies of a book with the strange title Diversion Without Dynamite was published. A second expanded edition appeared in 1976. This attacked a long list of missions to Eastern Europe and radio sta- tions. By means of religion these were trying “to impair and weaken the moral-political unity of our people, to undermine the power of the world so- cialist system.” Most of the religious centers, the writers claimed, were part of the anti-communist front that was trying to overthrow the Soviet system. But Leonid Brezhnev at the 25th Communist Party Congress had said that: In the struggle of two world views there can be no place for neutralism and compromise. Here the highest political vigilance is needed, active, effective and convincing propaganda work, while at the same time rebuffing harmful, ideological diversion.® Westerners appear unsure which propaganda to believe. Is there really an underground church? Should one smuggle Bibles? Do the underground missions help or hinder believers? Nature of Soviet Charges Soviet writers tend to regard any expression of criticism as anti-com- munist. The Diversion writers, A. Belov and A. Shilkin, developed a whole series of charges to illustrate that once the possibility of direct overthrow of the communist regime ha