Book Reviews : Church and State behind the Iron Curtain. Edited by VLADIMIR GSOVSKI. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger. 1955. Pp. xxxi, 311. $5.00.)

• Date: 01 March 1956
• Published date: 01 March 1956
• DOI: 10.1177/106591295600900125
• Author: William J. Rose
• Subject Matter: Articles

189
jective insights of the author, which otherwise are provocative and often
profound. Lord Lindsay hoped that some of his former associates would
read his book and become reconverted to rational empiricism. The dilemma
on which Lindsay has thus been caught is this: his sentiments and hopes
are not quite in step with his intellectual insights. But the book must be
credited for the insights, for they are important.
THURSTON GRIGGS.
Drew University.
Church and State behind the Iron Curtain. Edited by VLADIMIR GSOVSKI.
(New York: Frederick A. Praeger. 1955. Pp. xxxi, 311. $5.00.)
In this book we have a dispassioned and well-documented study of the
way the pagan state (less tolerant of religious aspirations than even ancient
Rome) proceeds ruthlessly to compel conformity; denying the right of any
man to loyalties of his own, and the right of voluntary associations even
to exist.
After a brief introduction on the tortuous course Soviet policy has
followed since 1918 in the U.S.S.R., we find four substantial chapters on
what the &dquo;exporting&dquo; of this policy means for Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Poland, and Roumania, respectively. Each is done by its own group of
experts; and if the others are as trustworthy as the two on which this
reviewer is better informed the book can be called a classic.
Under pretense of following Western examples in the separating of
church from state, those at the helm have set about a relentless enslaving of
mind and spirit to a single &dquo;party&dquo; line of thought and belief: not to some-
thing that enriches, but to a barren and scholastic materialism. These
policies had not been too successful in Russia itself: they are proving quite
unacceptable in countries that have experienced the Renaissance, the Re-
formation, and the two great &dquo;revolutions&dquo; of modern times. The result
is conflict and widespread unhappiness.
The west heard a good deal about the fate of Cardinal Mindszenty
in Hungary, and at least something of what...