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I recently participated in an inauguration of a new Center for Inquiry at Moscow State University, cosponsored by the newly formed Russian Humanist Society and the International Academy of Humanism. Accompanying me were Timothy J. Madigan of the FREE INQUIRY staff and Jan Eisler of the St. Petersburg (Florida) Humanist Society. I have been to Russia four times in the past eight years, but this was my first trip since 1992. I was impressed by the many changes that were going on in Russia.
The first efforts to build democratic institutions and a market economy are evident as Russia emerges from the long dark night of totalitarian communism. Boris Yeltsin is the first democratically elected president in Russian history, and the legal right of opposition, a free press, and the rule of law are now recognized. Unfortunately, the Russian economy is in shambles as it struggles to privatize its state-owned industries. Although there are many criticisms of the process, and a new class of mafia or robber barons has emerged, nonetheless, the former stagnant state economy is being replaced by a dynamic entrepreneurial system, and the first signs of a revived market economy can be seen in Moscow, where there is a strong building boom, if not elsewhere in Russia.
I was especially intrigued by the question, What place does humanism have in the new Russia? Will it have a chance to gain ground in the former Soviet Union, which had attempted to indoctrinate atheism and had brutally suppressed religion for over seven decades? Although humanists are nontheists, they deplore efforts to impose atheism or to deny freedom of conscience.
Russia today...