my last communication to you I have attempted to depict the nature and
swiftness of those liberating forces which today are being released in
Persia by an enlightened regime determined to shake off with unconcealed
contempt the odious fetters of a long standing tyranny. And I feel that a
description of the very perplexing situation with which our brethren in
Russia find themselves confronted at present will serve to complete the
picture which responsible believers in the West must bear in mind of the
critical and swiftly moving changes that are transforming the face of the
East.

Persecutions in Russia

Ever since the counter-revolution that proclaimed throughout the length
and breadth of Czarist Russia the dictatorship of the Proletariat, and the
subsequent incorporation of the semi-independent territories of Caucasus
and Turkistan within the orbit of Soviet rule, the varied and numerous
Baha'i institutions established in the past by heroic pioneers of the
Faith have been brought into direct and sudden contact with the internal
convulsions necessitated by the establishment and maintenance of an order
so fundamentally at variance with Russia's previous regime. The avowed
purpose and action of the responsible heads of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics who, within their recognized and legitimate rights,
have emphatically proclaimed and vigorously pursued their policy of
uncompromising opposition to all forms of organized religious propaganda,
have by their very nature created for those whose primary obligation is to
labor unremittingly for the spread of the Baha'i Faith a state of affairs
that is highly unfortunate and perplexing. For ten years, however, ever
since the promulgation of that policy, by some miraculous interposition of
Providence, the Baha'is of Soviet Russia have been spared the strict
application to their institutions of the central principle that directs
and animates the policy of the Soviet state. Although subjected, as all
Russian citizens have been, even since the outbreak of the Revolution, to
the unfortunate consequences of civil strife and external war, and
particularly to the internal commotions that must necessarily accompany
far-reaching changes in the structure of society, such as partial
expropriation of private property, excessive taxation and the curtailment
of the right of personal initiative and enterprise; yet in matters of
worship and in the conduct of their administrative a