Walter Sawatsky. How the AUCECB taught the church to kill enemies of the USSR under oath

· Baptists, AUCECB, Persecution

Pro-militarist statements by the AUCECB (ВСЕХБ) gave the impression that Soviet Evangelical Christians had abandoned pacifist ideas. In reality, in the early 1920s, at least half of Evangelical Christians were committed pacifists.

According to Zhidkov, the protests of Evangelical Christians and Baptists against imperialist war—and sometimes against military service as such—were caused by the influence of Tolstoyans on them. The strength of this influence is usually underestimated. In southern Russia and the Caucasus, it was observed that Mennonites and Molokans refused military service. Anti-war sentiments, which became especially widespread after World War I and the Civil War and which are commonly explained by the traditional pacifism of Evangelical Christians, may have been prompted simply by careful reading of the Bible. Be that as it may, by 1920 pacifism had become the principled position of the Union of Evangelical Christians and the Baptist Union. During World War II, 837 people refused conscription into the active army, of whom 370 were Evangelical Christians and the rest Baptists. At the congress held by the Union in 1920, it was stated in part:

“Assessing … the participation of Evangelical Christians and Baptists in the shedding of human blood by any state system as a crime against conscience, as well as against the letter and spirit of Holy Scripture, and also recognizing it as impossible for Evangelical Christians and Baptists to bear arms for any purpose, especially military ones, or to master the art of war, which can be equated with direct participation in bloodshed, … we consider it our sacred duty to openly refuse military service in any form whatsoever.”

In 1919, the Soviet government by special decree permitted, as an exception, exemption from military service on religious grounds. According to some estimates, 40,000 pacifists took advantage of this right. Zhidkov himself, who was then a member of the editorial board of an evangelical magazine, gave Evangelical Christians who refused military service advice about their rights. But as the Soviet state grew stronger, it began to exert ever-increasing pressure on sectarians (to whom Evangelical Christians also belonged), forcing them to abandon the principle of pacifism. This served as a litmus test of loyalty to the authorities.

In 1922, the leader of the Evangelical Christians, Prokhanov, published an appeal to Christians around the world to take concrete steps so that from that time on no Christian would take any part in any war whatsoever. In 1923 he was arrested. Later, while he was in a Moscow pre-trial detention center, he was allowed a meeting with one of his assistants, A. L. Andreev. Andreev was not a convinced pacifist. He informed Prokhanov that the leaders of the Evangelical Christian movement who remained at liberty, after discussing the issue, had agreed in principle to recognize the Soviet state and, consequently, compulsory military service. Prokhanov gave in. The leaders of the Evangelical Christians prepared and signed a declaration confirming their loyalty to the authorities. However, no sooner had they published this statement in Izvestia than a wave of indignation arose among Evangelical Christians. The resolution adopted by the congress in October 1923 recognized universal military service as compulsory but left it to each Christian, in accordance with the dictates of his conscience, to determine the form of its fulfillment (service in the armed forces, in medical units, or in labor battalions).

The Baptist Union, headed by the pacifists Pavel V. Pavlov and Mikhail D. Timoshenko, was also under heavy pressure. Both unions appealed to the members of the Baptist World Alliance meeting in Stockholm in 1923, asking them to adopt a resolution in their support declaring “the refusal of Baptists around the world to perform military service.” However, the Baptist World Alliance rejected their proposal, leaving the decision on military service to the conscience of each individual Christian. Upon returning home, the delegation of Soviet Baptists tried in vain to obtain permission from the authorities to convene a congress. Finally, in December they managed to convince representatives of the country’s leadership that the congress would adopt a decisive declaration on the issue of military service. And indeed, although not unanimously, the resolution was nevertheless adopted:

“Recognizing war as the greatest evil and welcoming the peace-loving policy of the Soviet state, which calls all peoples of the world to universal disarmament, the congress leaves it to the conscience of each Baptist to decide on the fulfillment of universal military duty in accordance with his personal convictions.”

But even this compromise text was adopted only after the state security service arrested 12 delegates to the congress.

During the following three years, the issue of military service caused major internal conflicts in both unions, especially among the Baptists, until finally, at a congress held in 1926, both unions were forced to renounce their pacifism forever. The Baptists split into two roughly equal parts, and as a result, after all the debates, they adopted a compromise resolution—to reaffirm their old “statement of faith,” in which the attitude toward military service was expressed rather vaguely (Steeves shows the difference between the old and new Baptists through the example of a letter by P. V. Pavlov—pro-socialist and at the same time pacifist. Under pressure from the state, the leadership of the old Baptists had to maneuver. One of the leaders of this group, P. V. Ivanov-Klyshnikov, argued that by renouncing pacifism, they would retain the right to regularly hold their congresses. Ironically, the congress at which that declaration was made turned out to be the last officially permitted by the state). As for the congress of Evangelical Christians, the anti-pacifist resolution was adopted there by a majority of those who registered to vote on the issue; but these 224 delegates who voted “for” the resolution constituted less than half of the 507 delegates who had registered at the congress. Naturally, after this, some members withdrew from the unions, and in certain regions, such as Moscow, attempts were made to create independent associations of Evangelical Christians.

Some believers, devoted to the principles of pacifism, joined the Pentecostals. But they too were under intense pressure from the authorities, and in 1927 were also forced to adopt a declaration testifying to their loyalty to the state, and to issue a statement that all those evading military duty would be regarded as persons deliberately seeking to spoil the relations of the Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals) with the Soviet state. Moreover, the statement said that there were no grounds for refusing to serve in the Soviet Army, either in the “statement of faith” of the Pentecostals or in the Gospel.

Of all the Evangelical Christians, only the Mennonites did not come forward with an assurance of loyalty to the Soviet state. They were convinced and consistent pacifists, continuing to refuse military service under Soviet rule just as they had done under the tsar. The sole exception (which the Soviets always held against them) was a year and a half during the civil war, when an armed self-defense league was formed to protect against anarchist bands. True, the error of that decision soon became apparent, and the believers again leaned toward those preachers who called on them to remain faithful to the principles of pacifism. However, after 1929, the authorities’ failure in their attempts to force the Mennonites to officially renounce pacifism lost its significance. After the arrest of missionaries, the closure of churches, and under direct threat of personal arrest, almost all illegal Mennonites consented to perform compulsory military service.

This became the decisive factor that allowed the authorities to break the Mennonite church. At least, that is the view of one prominent Soviet sociologist. Since adherence to the principles of pacifism had become not only a distinctive feature but also a kind of “talisman” for the Mennonites, apostasy on this issue drove people away. And yet, even in this situation, the Mennonites did not surrender, for even in the 1960s, official Soviet sources reproached them for dissuading young people from serving in the army. Soviet authors accused them of hindering the class struggle with this “preaching of love.” However, despite the forced official declarations, the true feelings of the Evangelical Christians remained unchanged. As for the AUCECB (All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists), it had already tried to “rewrite” the history of the Evangelical Christians during the war, removing from it all mention of pacifism. Zhidkov sought to present Prokhanov as a supporter of military service and even attributed to him utterances of this kind: “Carefully read the history of religious movements and you will see that many religious trends, extremely dynamic at their inception—like the Quakers and Mennonites—faded away only because they followed the doctrine of non-resistance, which shackled their activity. Other religious groups, such as Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, who soberly assess their relations with the government, have expanded their influence and have every prerequisite for further flourishing.”

The AUCECB has been unable to rest on this topic to this day. In 1970, its deputy general secretary, Mitskevich, felt it necessary to write a whole article, renouncing pacifism over six pages. In that article, he quoted the official statements of Baptists, Evangelical Christians, and Pentecostals, made in 1926 and 1927, asserting that the Mennonites, who had by that time joined the AUCECB, share this point of view.

However, although this is not documented anywhere, there is evidence that the sentiments of ordinary believers were still imbued with pacifism (the author has encountered such attitudes in many regions of the USSR, especially in Ukraine and Central Asia). From time to time, people continued to refuse military service out of personal conviction. Over time, the state began to respond in two ways. According to law, a conscript refusing mandatory service can be criminally prosecuted and sentenced to four years of imprisonment. Beginning in 1976, the Council of Prisoners’ Relatives, endorsed by the reform Baptist movement, officially recognized those imprisoned for refusing military service as prisoners of conscience, suffering for their faith. They compiled a list containing thirteen names. But many young Mennonites who refused military service elicited a different reaction from the state. Because they all professed to be Christians, they immediately became suspect in the eyes of the state, and to avoid dealing with them any more than necessary, they were assigned to serve in a “construction battalion” where they had no contact with weapons. Many witnesses have assured the author of these lines that this practice is widely used by Baptists belonging to the AUCECB.

On the whole, not all Christian churches adhere to the principles of pacifism, yet in recent times leading theologians increasingly agree that the entire New Testament teaching is imbued with the spirit of pacifism, both in personal and in public life. Most theologians and church figures do consider, however, that the evangelical approach is too idealistic. But the Union of Russian Baptists, which fundamentally rejects any innovations and insists on strict and unconditional devotion to the Bible as the source of truth, following this logic, uncompromisingly rejects the justification of militarism offered by Zhidkov and Mitskevich.

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