Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

mproved. Most of the Baptist leaders were by then - either dead or in prison. Michael Orlov and Alexei Andreev were able to visit the Baltic coun- tries in 1940. As a result of the Soviet-German pact of 1939, the Soviet Union had annexed these independent countries, Immediately thereupon there seemed to follow a pattern whereby the absorption of the local civil administration was followed by the absorption of the local religious administration. Considering general wartime travel restrictions, only state sponsorship could account for the trip undertaken by Orlov and Andreey. With the invasion of the Soviet Union by Hitler in 1941, wartime propaganda began to include identification with old Russian heroes, includ- ing religious ones.8! The Orthodox leader Sergei appealed to fellow believ- Beginnings and Patterns 49 ers to sacrifice everything in defense of the motherland. The Orthodox raised large funds for the war effort. Michael Orlov on behalf of the Evangelical Christians became equally active in the patriotic war effort. He conducted a large patriotic meeting in Moscow immediately following the invasion and as a result many of the groups such as Pentecostals and Mennonites, their only chance for official survival after the war appeared to be in joining the new evangelical union, nesses it is still a reality and constitutes an admonition to separatist evangel- icals in the West to get together. 50 ~ Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II By then it was apparent that the persecution of one generation of evangel- icals did not frighten the next generation. Baptist secretary Vasili fyehoye Klyshnikov was not that unique with his record of 31 imprisonments. The movement had grown despite persecution, perhaps because of it. Yet the facts of nearly uncontrolled growth during the decade of Soviet tolerance cannot have escaped the notice of state officials, . With eased restrictions, the evangelicals had deliberately organized for expansion through evangelism. They employed a large corps of full-time evangelists. There were tent missions. Others debated with atheists in large assembly halls with considerable success. Bible schools and an intensified literature program sought to provide guidance and depth to the movement. It was apparent that the evangelicals could not be used by the communists as had been hoped and so the policy of toleration was abandoned. Most of the evangelicals’ techniques for growth were explicitly forbidden by law in 1929. In their resurrected form after the war, the new Soviet evangelicals therefore could not rely on these patterns, although their memory served as motivation for fashioning substitutes. Renewed attempts to eliminate the evangelicals after the war have made persecution into a hereditary pattern. The Vins family which has known “three generations of suffering” is in essence not unique. There were also