ABSTRACT
According to a study by Vladimir Beliaiev there were 75,556 Orthodox churches and chapels in the Russian Empire in 1909, 9.9 percent of them newly constructed. Mikhail Gorbachev, in his speech of January 8, 1987, at the conference of leading mass media personalities at the Party Central Committee headquarters, gave excellent proof of this, saying, “My za glasnost bez vsiakuw ogovorok, bez ogranichenii, no za glasnost v interesakh sotsializma”. What Gorbachev means is of course not the political and social doctrine of socialism, as adhered to by British Labour or West German Social Democrats. It is a religion, a dogma, which dominates the legal system, the internal and foreign policies, which is prescribed for every citizen by the Constitution and cannot be abolished or changed because it is the only legitimation of the further existence of the regime.
