The newspapers have announced the news of the signing of a treaty between the Papacy and the Soviets. However distressing this might be, it didn’t surprise me too much. I knew that the Church was making great efforts to penetrate Russia and that since the fall of czarism it considered the country as a vast prey it must grab…

So this is what revolutions are good for! In Russia, like in Germany and as in the past in France, they are always used by the church, thanks to its unlimited powers of adaptation and penetration.

Why did the Soviets do this? Are they so overwhelmed that they are reduced to accepting all concessions, all humiliations?

Do they share the error, so widespread among Marxists, that the religious question is of no interest? A dangerous error…

Here at “L’Idee Libre” we have always supported with sympathy the difficult work of the Soviets. But now, if the Bolshevik-papist treaty is real, we have to declare that the Bolsheviks have committed a great, a very great mistake.

May the Russian people, debased by so much superstition, not pay too dearly for this error.

And you, anti-religious friends, see how necessary our work is, how strong the church is, and how we must redouble our efforts.