The annual anti-religious campaign during the period of the main Jewish holidays has been initiated with an article in the Emes, giving the main points of the present campaign and the slogans under which it is to be carried out.
“War Against Religion is War for Socialism!” the Emes declares. “The present anti-religious campaign will be carried on with the aim of strengthening the Socialist structure, and will be carried on, day by day, with the utmost vigor.”
Instructions are given to conduct a warlike anti-religious mass attack on Jewish clericalism and “counter-revolutionary chauvinism.”
“The class war has never been so sharp as at present,” the paper goes an to declare. “What is new about it this year is that the enemies of Socialism have become more careful and are conducting a disguised and hidden fight. Under these circumstances the anti-religious campaign gains a special significance and importance.
“The present anti-religious campaign coincides with the end of the harvest and with various operations connected with it. The success of these operations depends on the industry of the peasants and workers and on their revolutionary class consciousness. This must be borne in mind in conducting the anti-religious campaign.”
The slogans for this year’s campaign are to be, firstly, “the strengthening of the defences of the national resources” and, secondly, “the strengthening of the weapons of Bolshevistic mass agitation.” The first is to be achieved by brigades of workers, peasants, clerks, school-children and students, together with representatives of the State and the Army, who are to make flying visits to all the towns and villages, and inspect the warehouses, wheat elevators, freight stations and all other places in which State property is stored, in order to see how the property and resources of the State are looked after. “The inspection is to be particularly rigid during the Jewish holidays,” the Emes continues, “because on these days the services draw the workers from essential work and distract their attention from the collective property of the State.”
The second aim is to be achieved by organizing collections among the Jewish workers on New Year’s Day and on the Day of Atonement for the propaganda squadrons now being built, that are to be named after Maxim Gorky. This squadron, part of which is already making propaganda flights over various parts of Russia, is also to include an aeroplane named “Birobidjan”, which is to be built with funds collected from Jewish workers.
In connection with this suggestion, the Soviet committee dealing with the construction of this squadron has issued an appeal to the Jewish masses to support the suggestion of the “Emes” and to contribute funds for the construction of the propaganda squadron. “The Committee is sure,” the appeal continues, “that the Jewish masses will support the ‘Emes’ suggestion and will collect funds for the construction of the aeroplane during the period of the anti-religious campaign. They will thus prove that they have cut their religious ties and that they are fighting together with all other workers, for the up-building of a classless Society”.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
