The Case of the Red Hadjis

Religion may be the opium of the people, but to a Russian propagandist it can be a mighty handy gadget. Last week the Kremlin's latest piece of religious propaganda dropped right out of the sky over Turkey.

At Ankara airport landed a Russian transport plane, ostensibly out of fuel. Out popped 21 gaily clad Mecca-bound pilgrims, Communists all, yet Moslems to a man. Two of them, their passports showed, were Red army officers. While the prospective hadjis were still scattering affable salaam aleikums around the airport, Russian-embassy personnel arrived. Their eagerness was understandable : Russia is trying hard to woo not only its own Moslem population of about 30 million (which has often been rebellious and subject to purges) but the 310 million Moslems whose lands stretch in a strategic arc from Casablanca to the Sulu Sea.

At the airport, there followed 90 minutes of coffee and other nonalcoholic beverages, then up into the air soared the plane load of Red pilgrims, looking, said one Turk, "more like seasoned actors on a tour than believers going to the holy city."

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