LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: COMMUNISM BEATEN BACK

To the Editor:

President Yeltsin fired a few rounds of artillery shells into the Russian White House (Parliament building) because Rutskoi did not want to disband his representatives. They were communists, voted in still under Breshnev and other grim despots. They sabotaged all his endeavors to change the economy from government rule to private enterprise.

They did not want to leave the building. They would rather fight. They had smuggled in a great amount of weapons -- and a fight ensued. Rutskoi and his gang fought hard to get the radio and TV stations in their hands, to reach the masses, to stir them up into a mighty second communist revolution. The implication of a possible victory? They would have rushed to get the nuclear weapons in their hands. They would have taken horrible revenge on their hated adversaries of communism, the Christian churches.

What they did they do to them after the first revolution? Here is an example: On a trip to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, I felt a desire to look into the church buildings. The Orthodox were locked all around. I wandered to the Catholic cathedral; that magnificent red brick building (standing lofty on a wide avenue heading south, perhaps straight to the Black Sea) was a fine house of worship under the czar. But its portal too was locked. A Ukrainian motioned to enter from the rear. There was no door; it was torn out.

Looking into the sanctuary, I started trembling. The devastation in that house of worship gripped my heart; the interior resembled a giant dark hole. The pews, windows, floors, altar, pulpit and organ were torn out. The KGB whisked through the streets in the dead of the night dragging people off to labor death camps. The bishop as well as his priests -- like other denominations' priests and pastors -- were shot long ago.

Knowing and seeing all this did not let me remain calm. And there the strength. The waters of the Christian religion relieved themselves in that Catholic House of God. And I was sure in many other houses of worship happened the same. And now a combat raged around the White House in Moscow and on the streets nearby. Old Bolshevik's march and wave the old discarded red flag with hammer and sickle. And Rutskoi and his men fight on. And should the second communist revolution win, then woe to the human race.

And there Rutskoi appears, calling the Russian air force for help. But in the darkest moment of humankind, cannons begin their play. Yeltsin's ranks fire into the parliament building and soon people rush out waving white flags. And there, Rutskoi and his faithful appear and are arrested.

A calamity of a great magnitude has been averted. Communism can not again kill people at will. In Russia alone, there are 60 million in gulags all over the land ... and worldwide 100 million. No, the atheists cannot repeat their destruction thanks to a few fine cannon balls.

Herbert Hirschfeld

Cape Girardeau