ABSTRACT
On November 17, 1987, on the Soviet television program “Religion and Politics,” A. Belov, an official anti-religionist, declared that sending religious literature to the USSR from abroad is an”ideological diversion and the action of militant anti-communists in league with militant clerics.” Freedom of thought, conscience and religion not only immediately follow from the natural human freedoms, but they are also the foundation of all other rights and of the human rights movement itself as a whole. In the USSR there are no “religious extremists who demand unlimited freedom of action for themselves,” since everyone who speaks out for freedom of religion recognizes from the outset the limitations which are necessary in any democratic society. The processes of glasnost and perestroika developing in our country, which are associated with the furthering of democratization and humanization of our society, make it possible for believers to hope for state review of the obsolete and archaic Stalinist dogmas concerning religion.
