Tempering the Wind'?

The world's religious leaders got an official answer last week to a question which has puzzled them for months: Has the Soviet Government tempered its previous animosity towards religion?

Wrote the U.S.S.R.'s President Mikhail Kalinin in The Agitators' Guidebook, organ of Moscow's Communist Party: "We are often told that among our soldiers, especially those of older age, there are believers who wear crosses and recite prayers whom the younger people ridicule.

"We must remember that we do not persecute anyone for religion. We believe that religion is a misguiding institution and struggle against it by education.

"But since religion still grips considerable sections of the population ... we cannot combat it by ridicule. Of course, if some young people find it amusing, that is not so terrible. But we must not allow it to develop into mockery."

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