of a different character are none the less
grievously affecting our beloved Cause. In Baku, the seat of the Soviet
Republic of Caucasus, as well as in Ganjih and other neighboring towns,
state orders, orally and in writing, have been officially communicated to
the Baha'i Assemblies and individual believers, suspending all meetings,
commemoration gatherings and festivals, suppressing the committees of all
Baha'i local and national Spiritual Assemblies, prohibiting the raising of
funds and the transmission of financial contributions to any center within
or without Soviet jurisdiction, requiring the right of full and frequent
inspection of the deliberations, decisions, plans and action of the Baha'i
Assemblies, dissolving young men's clubs and children's organizations,
imposing a strict censorship on all correspondence to and from Baha'i
Assemblies, directing a minute investigation of Assemblies' papers and
documents, suspending all Baha'i periodicals, bulletins and magazines, and
requiring the deportation of leading personalities in the Cause whether as
public teachers and speakers or officers of Baha'i Assemblies.

Guiding Principle of Conduct

To all these the followers of the Faith of Baha'u'llah have with feelings
of burning agony and heroic fortitude unanimously and unreservedly
submitted, ever mindful of the guiding principles of Baha'i conduct that
in connection with their administrative activities, no matter how
grievously interference with them might affect the course of the extension
of the Movement, and the suspension of which does not constitute in itself
a departure from the principle of loyalty to their Faith, the considered
judgment and authoritative decrees issued by their responsible rulers
must, if they be faithful to Baha'u'llah's and 'Abdu'l-Baha's express
injunctions, be thoroughly respected and loyally obeyed. In matters,
however, that vitally affect the integrity and honor of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah, and are tantamount to a recantation of their faith and
repudiation of their innermost belief, they are convinced, and are
unhesitatingly prepared to vindicate by their life-blood the sincerity of
their conviction, that no power on earth, neither the arts of the most
insidious adversary nor the bloody weapons of the most tyrannical
oppressor, can ever succeed in extorting from them a word or deed that
might tend to stifle the voice of their conscience or tarnish the purity
of their faith. Cling