The Persecutor

[Soldier4Christ]

   "Get the books," I shouted. We scoured the room, looking for Bibles and any torn-up literature they might have. I grabbed a handwritten child's exercise book, with scribbled Bible verses, from the hands of an old woman. She was partly conscious and kept moaning, "Why? Why?" It wasn't so much a question, but an outcry of agony, coming from deep within her soul. "Why?"

   "Get those two men!" I ordered, pointing to the two leaders who matched the description Nikiforov had given me. "Get them out to the truck." And while a couple of my men moved to obey, the rest of us went around the room taking identification papers from the Believers and noting them. I got the beautiful girl's identification card. I had a special interest in her. Her name was Natasha Zhdanova. After getting their names, we could find them any time we wanted.

   The job was done. It was time to go. I ordered my men out. As we left, I took one last look around at the scene we were leaving behind. The room was strewn with broken bodies, broken chairs, tables, dishes, all in a heap. Everything in the room was turned upside down. Blood spattered the walls. We had done our work well.

   On the way back to the police station, I began questioning the two men we had arrested. But first they had a question for us. "How did you know?"

   "Well, what do you think, you stupid fools? We have our people, our spies. You're the easiest people in the world to find." They didn't seem surprised.

   "You invite people to come to your secret churches, don't you?" I continued. "If you don't want to be found, why do you do that?"

   "You don't understand," the underground pastor said. "We know there are spies. We're not that foolish. But we have a great responsibility to invite people to come to God. How could we invite people to God and spread our faith and keep outsiders away? We know, of course, when we talk to people about God, some will be spies. We know the risk." He paused for a moment, and I thought he was through, but soon he began again. "But we feel that our responsibility to share with others is more important than our own safety."

   What stupid fools, I thought. How could our country be endangered by people like that?

   It didn't take long to get back to the station, and while the prisoners were being processed below, we rested in the waiting room and had a drink. Anatoly and Vladimir were laughing about the raid. "These people just don't last long enough," Vladimir remarked. "One tap and they're gone." I had seen Vladimir's "taps." I could understand why the Believers didn't last long. "It's too easy," he continued. "I wish they'd put up a fight just once and really give us some practice."

   But they never did. The Believers never fought back. Try to protect themselves, yes; but they never did fight back.

   "Great, my children! Great!" Nikiforov exclaimed, beaming as I reported the raid.

   Three days later eight members of my operations group and I were sitting around the waiting room, on duty in case there should be any calls. We did this standby duty once or twice a week. At about 7:00 P.M. Nikiforov's phone rang and seconds later he came hurrying out of his office, shouting, "Kourdakov, Kourdakov, get your men ready and take off right now!"

   "Where do we go?" I asked, smelling action.

   "Nagornaya Street." And he gave the house number. Either somebody had noticed something suspicious at that address or one of the spies had found the meeting in progress and reported it. At any rate, it was going on right now!

   I hurried my men out to the truck, then ordered Victor to drive off at high speed. Either Victor was the world's worst driver, taking so many unnecessary risks, or he was the world's best driver, proving it by his uncanny ability to miss all the traffic on the road by the smallest margin.

   "Cut the siren," I shouted, as we neared the target area.

   We roared up Nagornaya Street, jumped out before the truck stopped rolling, and rushed to the front of the house, crashing through the door. To our astonishment, they were all young people. Not a gray head there! We had found a secret young people's meeting in progress, catching them completely by surprise. We went right to work on them, grabbing them and swinging them about, slapping and shoving them.

   "That's him. Grab him," I said, pointing to the twenty-three-year-old youth who was their leader. Some of our men rushed him and began knocking him around. Some of my guys were punching the others around, using them playfully as punching bags. I quickly surveyed the room and saw a sight I couldn't believe! There she was, that same girl! It couldn't be. But it was. Only three nights before, she had been at the other meeting and had been viciously thrown across the room. It was the first time I really got a good look at her. She was more beautiful than I had first remembered — a very beautiful girl with long, flowing, blond hair, large blue eyes, and smooth skin, one of the most naturally beautiful girls I have ever seen.

   Victor saw her too and shouted, "She's back! Look, guys, she's back again!"

   "Well," I shouted, "it doesn't look like you did such a great job the last time, Victor. You failed to teach her a lesson. Now it's my turn!"

   I picked her up and flung her on a table facedown. Two of us stripped her clothes off. One of my men held her down and I began to beat her with my open hand as hard as I could, hitting her again and again. My hands began to sting under the blows. Her skin started to blister. I continued to beat her, until pieces of bloody flesh came off on my hand. She moaned but fought desperately not to cry. To suppress her cries, she bit her lower lip until it was bitten through and blood ran down her chin.

   At last she gave in and began sobbing. When I was so exhausted I couldn't raise my arm for even one more blow, and her backside was a mass of raw flesh, I pushed her off the table, and she collapsed on the floor.

   Leaving her, I looked around, almost exhausted, to see how the rest of our group was doing. The young Believers were lying around the wrecked room. There was no point in prolonging the job, so knowing we already had the leader, I shouted, "We've got our man! Get the names of those people now and let's get out of here."

   When we arrived at the police station, there stood Nikiforov at the door, greeting us with a smile. "Well, my children," he said, "I see that was quick work."

   "Here's your man," I said, shoving the twenty-three-year-old kid at Nikiforov, who had him taken downstairs immediately for interrogation. I began to look over the names of the other young people who were caught in the meeting. I could understand foolish old people who were infected with religion before communism. But young people believing in God! It was just too much for me to grasp. These were people my age, my generation. It baffled me.

[Soldier4Christ]

   But that one girl had certainly been taught a lesson. I chided Victor once more. "You just didn't have it, old boy," I said. "But I took care of her tonight. We'll never see 'Gorgeous' again."

   The next day when I reported back to the police station, I walked in on Nikiforov's interrogation of the youth leader whom we had arrested the night before. I listened, amazed at Nikiforov's skill as an interrogator. Alternating between brutal bullying and sudden kindness, he used both hard and soft tactics to soften up and confuse the young Believer. He was doing what he liked — closing in on a man.

   "Do you believe in God?"

   "Yes."

   Tell me, are you stupid, foolish, or just crazy?"

   The young Believer replied, "Well, sir, you can never understand why I believe what I believe, because what I believe is not something that I can completely explain. It's because God is alive that I believe in Him, and He lives in my heart."

   Nikiforov exploded in anger, "Why do you say I can't understand? Do you think I'm stupid? I also read this book," he said, pointing to the confiscated Bible. "Do you think I can't read?"

   The young man had been beaten up the night before and had been roughed up some in the prison cell as well, but he replied firmly, "You can read, perhaps, but you need eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to understand what the Spirit of God is saying in this Book." I listened in fascination. None of it made the slightest bit of sense to me.

   "If you read it only to attack it," the young Believer said, "you'll never know what it really says. Only God can open your eyes so you can see and understand what we believe and why we're ready to pay any price for holding to our beliefs."

   Then Nikiforov broke in. "I must admit there are some things I don't understand."

   The young Believer replied, "Well, sir, you've answered your own question. You don't understand because your eyes are closed to the truth. If you'd open your heart to God, if you'd open your eyes to understand His Word, it would become as real to you as it is to me and those other young people. Why don't you open your heart to God's Word. He'll change your life and —"

   "Shut up!" Nikiforov exploded. "Don't try to preach to me you fool, or I'll change your life — for good!" With that, Nikiforov shouted at the guards, and the young prisoner was taken back to his cell. He later was sent to a labor camp for several years. I had witnessed many such interrogations, and they never made any sense to me. These Believers never give up. They even try to convert the police!

   Nikiforov came back and said, "Those people are crazy." I nodded in full agreement.

   I was interested in finding out more about Natasha Zhdanova. Since the Youth League is responsible for young people, we keep a record of all the young people in our area. We know exactly who they are, where they were raised, where they went to school. We have all the information about them. I looked up Natasha's file and pulled it out.

   She was born in the Donets region of the Ukraine in a small village called Bachnaya. Her parents were workers on a collective farm in the Ukraine and were very poor. To get a better opportunity, Natasha had left the Ukraine when she was a little girl, to live with her uncle in Petropavlovsk. She had attended the schools here and graduated from the Maxim Gorky School Number Four, located in the First District of Petropavlovsk.

   After graduating at the age of eighteen, she became a proof-reader at the Petropavlovsk Pravda newspaper. As I searched her record, I was amazed to find that she had been a member of the Komsomol — our Communist Youth League — in school and had done well. The record showed plainly what had happened. When she got out of school, she fell into the clutches of the Believers and soon became one herself — a perfect example of how Believers catch people in their poisonous web.

   I then went to the offices of Petropavlovsk Pravda and asked about her and her colleagues. "She's a perfect worker," one of her superiors said. "We've never had any problem whatsoever. She's friendly, reliable, trustworthy, and an excellent worker." That kind of report always confused me. With other workers, we had problems of drunkenness, theft of goods, laziness, and inefficiency. But whenever I went to fill in one of these police reports on a Believer, the job report was always "perfect worker" or "very good record" or "most trustworthy" or "never drunk." One thing about Believers, they were serious and hard workers. I had wondered about that. But it wasn't my job to wonder. It was my job to act.

   "Why do you want to know?" they asked me as I was inquiring about Natasha.

   "We found her twice in secret meetings of underground churches. She's a Believer."

 

[Soldier4Christ]

  A gasp went up. The workers looked at each other. It was as though I'd said she was a leper or a mass murderer. "Well, now that you mention it," one of them said — then came a torrent of complaints. They suddenly switched and had only bad to say about her.

   I left a message at her office ordering her to report to me at a certain time at the police station. I knew a visit to the police station would frighten her. That was my purpose.

   She came in hesitantly and sat in the chair across from the desk I was using. I could see she was frightened. Such a beauty! And there she sits, with her head down, just staring at the floor. I asked why she was a Believer.

   "What should I be?" she replied. "An alcoholic? A prostitute?" Then she asked, "Did you find anything wrong in my work record?"

   "No, I didn't," I admitted.

   "Then why do you object to my personal beliefs? Am I causing any harm to others?"

   "No," I replied. "But somewhere you went wrong and are mixed up with people who are a great danger to our country." I lectured and warned her of real trouble if she continued her ways.

   Finally, I saw I wasn't going to shake her. I warned her once more that this was going on her record and she must never be found mixing with Believers again.

   Despite her apparent fear, she began to tell me why she believed in God. I had thought that the beatings, followed by the interview in the police office, would settle everything, and that Natasha Zhdanova would never give us any trouble again. But Natasha was a most remarkable girl.

   While we talked, I was conscious of the deep marks on her lower lip, where she had bitten herself as I beat her. What a pity. The scar marred her otherwise perfect face. If only we'd met in other circumstances. I could go for this girl!

   Once I had all the information I needed from her and had finished my lecture, I dismissed her abruptly and sternly. It was part of the intimidation. I congratulated myself on a job well done.

   About a week later we were called to police headquarters for another action against a secret church. I went through my routine procedures of finding the location on the map. This secret meeting was in a house on Pograshny Street. We roared off in the police truck. This time we were only six: Alexander Gulyaev, Vladimir Zelenov, Anatoly Litovchenko, Victor Matveyev, Nikolas Olysko, and myself.

   When we reached the meeting place, I posted guards again and blocked off the street. When all was ready, we burst in, swinging clubs wildly.

   The shocked, bewildered Believers began to scatter, trying to protect themselves from the rain of blows. The meeting room was small, and with eight Believers and six of us it was crowded. There was lots of noise — shouts and screams. This isn't going to take long. And then I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. I couldn't believe it! There she was again — Natasha Zhdanova!

   Several of the guys saw her too. Alex Gulyaev moved toward Natasha, hatred filling his face, his club raised high above his head.

   Then something I never expected to see suddenly happened. Without warning, Victor jumped between Natasha and Alex, facing Alex head-on.

   "Get out of my way," Alex shouted angrily.

   Victor's feet didn't move. He raised his club and said menacingly, "Alex, I'm telling you, don't touch her! Nobody touches her!"

   I listened in amazement. Incredibly, Victor, one of my most brutal men, was protecting one of the Believers! "Get back!" he shouted to Alex. "Get back or I'll let you have it." He shielded Natasha, who was cowering on the floor.

   Angered, Alex shouted, "You want her for yourself, don't you?"

   "No," Victor shouted back. "She has something we don't have! Nobody touches her! Nobody!"

   I had to break this up, and fast. Alex's violent temper would mean a fight. "Look Alex," I shouted, pointing to another Believer trying to get away. "Get him!" Distracted, Alex took off after him. I breathed a sigh of relief.

   Victor still stood with his arms out, protecting Natasha, daring Alex or anyone to take a step toward her. Natasha stood behind Victor, not understanding what was happening. This was not the kind of treatment she had come to expect from this group. I nodded to her, then motioned for her to get out. She turned and hurried out. I nodded a sign of approval to the guards.

   For one of the few times in my life, I was deeply moved. It was like the time my friend Sasha died back at Barysevo. Natasha did have something! She had been beaten horribly. She had been warned and threatened. She had gone through unbelievable suffering, but here she was again. Even tough Victor had been moved and recognized it. She had something we didn't have. I wanted to run after her and ask, "What is it?" I wanted to talk to her, but she was gone. This heroic Christian girl who had suffered so much at our hands somehow both touched and troubled me very much.

   Shortly afterward, Natasha left Kamchatka and returned to her home in the Ukraine. The ridicule and mockery from her co-workers at the newspaper made life all but unbearable for her.

   I sent her personal file to the Communist Youth League in her home village in the Ukraine, giving them a detailed record of her life as a Believer.

   I was strangely sad that she had left. I felt, for the first time, that the Believers may not be the fools and enemies I had thought they were. Natasha had shaken all my notions about Believers.

[Soldier4Christ]

Police Action

   May Day, the first day of May, is a great time of festivities, picnics, and parades throughout the Soviet Union. It is also a day in which people go to the cemeteries to visit the graves of their relatives and friends and place wreaths and flowers upon them.

   On May Day 1970, I received a phone call from Nikiforov. He had an odd request. "Kourdakov," he said excitedly, "get the academy band and go down to the cemetery south of town." The academy band to the cemetery? Had Nikiforov gone out of his mind?

   "What's up?" I asked, hoping my voice didn't give away my doubts.

   "It's the Believers. They've congregated there, several hundred of them, and they have an orchestra and band playing hymns."

   "What are we supposed to do? Join them?"

   "This is no time for joking, Kourdakov," Nikiforov said coldly. "Just get your band down there as fast as you can. Set up right next to the Believers and play as loud as you can."

   Oh, that's the idea! We were to disrupt their singing by outplaying them. It was crazy, but it sounded like fun. I couldn't help admiring the Believers. This latest stunt was really smart. A meeting in the cemetery on a busy day like May Day made a lot of sense. They knew they'd be surrounded by hundreds of people and that we wouldn't dare arrest them at that time. What an audacious bunch!

   I quickly called out as many members of our naval academy band as possible on short notice (I could locate only a few), loaded them into the truck Nikiforov had sent, and took off for the cemetery. When we arrived, we found a huge crowd of people had gathered around the Believers. Many were passersby, gathered on the edge of the crowd to observe the more than two hundred Believers. In the middle of the group, a few musicians were playing Christian songs on their instruments.

   We started pushing our band through. If it was music the people wanted, then music they would have! "Over here! Over here!" I shouted. "Let us through, move back," I said to the people as we pushed our way toward the Believers. We got as close as possible, and I told the band to strike up. They began playing military songs very loud. The instruments as well as the musicianship of the academy band were far superior to those of the Believers. "Louder," I shouted. "Louder! Drown them out!"

   We played "The Internationale" and other Communist and Soviet anthems, easily drowning out the Christian hymns.

   Once I got the academy band going, some of the police-operations squad who had come along with me took pictures of the Believers to record who they were. All the while, I stormed and fumed about, feeling helpless because we couldn't do anything to them with all these witnesses present. "Never mind, Sergei," Victor said, seeing my disappointment and frustration. "We'll settle the account later. We know who they are."

   But for now, we had to allow those irrepressible Believers to go on with their meeting in the cemetery. We couldn't go into action with the holiday crowd around. Finally, after all the Believers had been photographed, I ordered the band to pack up, determined we'd make sure they'd get what was coming to them.

   The opportunities came fast. One raid on secret churches followed another in rapid order, an average of one every four days.

   Several of our raids were conducted, not to interrupt meetings of the secret church, but to look for and confiscate secret Christian literature that had been sent into the country or had been handwritten illegally by the Believers.

   I often wondered, "How does this insignificant scribbling on a child's school exercise book constitute such a great threat to the Soviet state?" I couldn't see the danger, but Nikiforov kept telling me it existed.

   Well, if he wants the literature, we'll get him the literature. And we had found plenty of it. One piece we came upon frequently was a magazine-like booklet published on a hectograph machine somewhere in the Ukraine, several thousand miles away. It was sent to our part of Siberia for the Believers. When I first saw it, I thought, They're finally getting organized.

   The Believers in Kamchatka, through contacts and communications with other Christians in the Soviet Union, often obtained literature from them. Once Nikiforov picked up one of the hectograph magazines I brought back from one of the raids. He shook it violently and raved, "You see! They have links with Believers in Baku, the Ukraine, Kiev, Leningrad, everywhere! It's a nationwide conspiracy to destroy our way of life!" He raved on and on.

   Underground literature is a way of life in Russia. Not only is it secret, handwritten — samizdat — Christian literature; it also includes the works of famous writers who are not allowed to be published openly in Russia, such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Since all literature publishing is strictly controlled by the government, a great and thriving samizdat organization spreads hand copies or typed manuscripts of banned books, novels, and stories throughout the Soviet Union. Though strictly forbidden, they are particularly popular among some of the officers and cadets on the naval base. I had been aware of this and had even read some of these works myself. Solzhenitsyn's works passed from hand to hand among the cadets.

   Now I learned the Believers had organized in the same way. They distributed Bible verses, typed or copied by hand. We also found some pocket-size, new Bibles that had been printed by organizations abroad. Somehow they were getting into our country. I knew that one of the special divisions of the organization in Moscow was established to find ways to block the smuggling of such Bibles into the Soviet Union. I don't know what they were doing, but they weren't doing it very well.

   To me, all such literature was trash. I tried to read it but it made no sense to me at all. On one of the raids, I tried to grab a piece of literature from the hand of a tall, well-built man who was a Believer. If he had tried, he could have given me a hard time. I was sure I could lick him, though I knew it would be difficult. But there he was, clinging to those pieces of paper as though they were the most precious things in the world. I smashed him repeatedly in the face, but still he clung to them. Finally I hit him in the lower abdomen , and he doubled up, grabbed his stomach, and dropped the paper. I picked up the pages and looked at them. Why did the Believer value them so highly? To us, they were nothing.

   One day in 1970 I was called to the police station to see Nikiforov. "Look what we've got, Kourdakov," he said when we met. He pointed to an underground magazine which had been crudely printed on a secret mimeograph machine by Believers.

   "Where did this come from?" I asked.

   "It was given to us by one of our spies. And he gave us information about where we can find a lot more," he said, bubbling with excitement.

   Nikiforov, the manhunter, was always happiest on the trail of Believers. I didn't share all of his enthusiasm for the job. I was building a record with the party, making good money and, in the process, slowly becoming attracted to the life of a police officer. The police officer's life seemed a little more attractive than a career as an officer in the military.

[Soldier4Christ]

   "Come over here, Kourdakov," Nikiforov said. "Let me show you something."

   We walked up to the map and he told me, "This is where it is." He pointed to 64 Partisan Street.

   "Whose house is that?" I asked.

   "A Believer lives there. A widow named Annenchenko. She has a younger daughter living with her. An older daughter named Maria, around twenty-two years of age, is somewhere else. We think the widow's got it all stored either here," he said, jabbing at the map, "or in her daughter's place."

   "When do you want us to go?" I asked.

   "Tomorrow afternoon."

   "How many men shall I get?"

   "Just four. We've got to watch our budget you know," he said, letting out a laugh.

   The procedure for the literature raids was a little different from that for breaking up the underground churches. To preserve the appearance of legality, we had a uniformed police officer go to a home he was about to search. Near the target house, he would stop three or four "comrades" in the streets, and these "disinterested passersby" would join him and observe him during his investigation and search. They were there as "disinterested citizens" watching the work of the investigating officer, so no one could say later that the officer stole anything. To us, this was a big joke. But we had to observe the formalities. We had conducted many raids, searching for literature, and we followed this same procedure in all of them.

I met the police officer who was in uniform and would lead this "search." The policeman was merely a front, for I was the one held responsible by Nikiforov. The officer and three of my men and I got into the police truck and drove not far from the corner of Pogranichnaya and Partisan streets, high up on a hill overlooking the bay. It is an area of many small, white-walled houses. At the corner we all hopped out of the truck. We innocent "passersby" stood out on the street. The police officer pulled up in front of the house and knocked on the door. A woman about forty-five years old answered his knock.

   The officer said, "I'm here to search your house. We understand that you have illegal literature." Then he turned, pointing to us. "These are citizens who were passing by on the street and I have asked them to witness the search according to the law."

   We walked into her house and looked around. It was a typically small house with poor furnishings, typical of the homes of the Believers. It was easy to understand why Believers lived so poorly. Once a man was known as a Believer, he was treated like a leper and could only get the worst jobs, ones that paid almost nothing.

   "Look over there, men," he said, as now we had ceased to pretend to be innocent passersby and joined him in the search.

   "Are you a Believer?" I asked the lady of the house.

   "Yes, I am," she said. "I believe in God. But I have no literature, if that's what you're looking for."

   "We'll determine that! I said sharply.

   "Well," she went on, "I'm a Believer. Arrest me if you want to." She said it almost defiantly.

   I looked at the woman. Some spirit! Then we began our search. We tore up the closet, scattering the clothes around. We opened suitcases, ripped the pillows, cut mattresses open, and ripped the house apart room by room. After that, we broke the scattered furniture that remained. I called out, "Well, it's not here." Then I thought maybe she had hidden it under the floor, just as I had once hidden one of the zip guns back at Barysevo.

   The officer was prepared with a crowbar and ax, and we began prying up the boards of the floor, one by one. Soon the poor woman's floor was half ripped up. One of the group jumped down into the huge hole and searched thoroughly with his flashlight.

   "Nothing's down here," he called out at last.

   "Come on," I shouted. "There's nothing here. Let's go!" We stalked out angry and frustrated, leaving the home completely wrecked inside. Let her fix it.

   That treatment was normal and was repeated in most of the literature raids we made. We didn't care. These people were nothing to us. What could they do, complain to the police? We were the police. Go over our heads to the higher authorities? Of course not, we were there at the orders of the higher authorities! They couldn't do anything, and we knew it — and acted accordingly.

   Soon we were back at the police station reporting to Nikiforov. While we talked, he kept looking into the air and tapping his fingers on the table. "I wonder," he send pensively. "I know she has something to do with that supply of literature to the Believers. I just wonder if it could be her daughter, the one who lives away from home."

   "But she'll be alerted by her mother by now," I said.

   "Of course," Nikiforov agreed, "and she'll be on guard . . . . I've got it!" he said after a moment. "You two," and he pointed to Victor Matveyev and me, "you two lay a trap. Drop by the daughter's house; pretend you're fishermen or sailors, in from the sea. Strike up a conversation and casually let it drop that you want to know about God. These stupid Believers will tell anybody about God if they think they're going to convert you."

   "Maybe it'll work!" I exclaimed, excited by the prospect of a little dramatics in our police work.

   Nikiforov referred to his file and seconds later said, "Her name is Maria Annenchenko." He gave us her address and more information. "She works at a grocery store and finishes at six o'clock every day. You take it from there . . ."

   Victor and I left the police station about 4 P.M. We had two hours to plan how we would go about trapping Maria Annenchenko. At about half-past five we went to the bus stop where she would be getting off the bus in about thirty minutes, on her way home from the store.

   "Now listen," I told Victor, "we're supposed to be fishermen home from the sea. We almost drowned out there, and this experience caused us to begin thinking about God and we're here to ask her to help us find God by showing us some literature. That'll get her! When she pulls out the literature, we arrest her. It's that easy."

   "Terrific," Matveyev said, responding warmly to our acting roles. "But don't go into that line too fast, or she'll get suspicious."

   We lounged around near the kiosk where Maria would soon get off. A few minutes later the bus pulled up and a girl, easily recognized from the photograph Nikiforov had shown us, stepped off and started walking in the direction of her home. "Let's go," I said to Victor.

   We walked up behind her and in moments were walking with her stride for stride. To make our performance as seamen more convincing, we had taken a few nips of vodka and as we walked beside her, one on either side, I said cheerily, "Hello, beautiful! May we walk along with you?"

   "No, thank you," Maria said coldly.

   I took a good look at her. She was not unattractive, though rather plain, with a serious air about her. Victor joked, put his arm around her shoulder, and said, "Come on, baby, how about going to your place for a drink and then let's go dancing afterward. We could have some fun."

   As we continued walking with her, she became more embarrassed and said, "No, thank you. I don't drink and I don't want to go anywhere." She tried every way to discourage us, but we kept walking with her.

 

[Soldier4Christ]

  "All we need is some talk, some drinks, and some fun. We've been out to sea for seven months on the fishing boats. We just want to talk and relax a little bit."

   She was by now ill at ease. "It looks like you already had a little too much to drink," she said.

   I replied, thinking this was an opening, "We know we have a problem with drinking. But we don't know how to stop. Besides, why should we stop? What else is there in life?" We were giving her an opening to talk about God, but she wasn't taking the bait. We went on. "We've been seamen all our adult lives. Our parents and our grandparents, all of them were Believers. We once thought about God ourselves, but vodka is a seaman's best friend."

   She turned and looked us over, as if to assure herself that we really were just fishermen. By then we had reached the front door of a ramshackle little house. "This is where I live," she said. "I'll have to go in now." She paused at the door, as though waiting for us to leave.

   "Couldn't we just come in for a quick drink and another little talk?" we said, standing close beside her. "What's your name?"

   "Maria," she replied. She opened the door to go in and we walked in with her, uninvited. Inside, we sat down in a tiny, clean, two-room house.

   "Who knows about questions of life?" I said, pretending to be drunker than I was. "Questions about God, about these big questions and all? They're beyond a simple fisherman." She had busied herself with something. I looked at Victor quickly and shook my head as if to say, "She's going to be a hard one!"

   We had been carrying a bottle of vodka and now Victor put it on the table in front of us. "Bring us some glasses, Maria," I said. She brought them over, set them down, and we poured our drinks from our bottle. When she left the room for a minute, I leaned over to Victor and whispered, "She's a smart one — a very smart girl. We're going to have to do better than this if we're going to trap her. Do you think she knows we're police?"

   Before he could answer, she came back into the room, and I said, "Oh look, Maria, we're out of vodka. Be a good girl, won't you, and go down to the store and get us another bottle? Please, Maria," I begged, smiling. By this time I think she had swallowed our story that we were seamen. She agreed to go, and I gave her some money.

   The minute she left, we jumped up and started searching for literature. We looked in the closets, under the beds, in every place were we thought it could have been hidden. If she had any, it was certainly well concealed. We were careful to put everything back in place so she wouldn't be suspicious. I much preferred doing it the way we did at her mother's, but here we wanted to keep our real purpose hidden. Victor kept a watch at the window, while I searched and ransacked everything. But there was no literature anywhere. "Sit down, Sergei," Victor said, "here she comes."

   A few minutes later, she entered, walked across the room, and set the vodka bottle down on the table. I could see she had relaxed a little, and I felt sure she believed our story. I winked at Victor. Now we began drinking from the bottle straight, and I began telling how we had sailed to Japan, to Vietnam, off the coast of California, Canada, and Hawaii. I made a great story with all the details vivid and alive. Victor sat there, hardly able to keep from smiling as he listened to my wild, made-up story. Then he began to tell about his seven months at sea. His story wasn't too bad, but I thought mine was better.

   Nikiforov, with his usual foresight, had given us a big wad of money to show, as though we'd just got off the boat with several months' pay in our pockets. Now we pulled out the money to make sure she saw it. "Come on," I said. "We got money burning a hole in our pockets and all we want is a nice time. Come on, let's go drink and eat."

   Then I began another story how at sea one time I fell over the side of the ship and almost drowned. When I faced death, I told her, I realized there had to be more in life and I began to think about God. But how to find Him — that was the big question on my mind. As I got more and more into my story, a total lie, Victor had a hard time keeping a straight face.

   "When our ship docked," I said, "I decided I had been given a warning and I had to find God." I turned, looking at her with all the sincerity I could muster, and said, "We looked everywhere. But nobody can tell us about God. Do you know about Him? Maybe you have some books or magazines or something that would help us find our way to God?"

   Now the question was out. How would she respond? She was no fool. "If you're so serious about God, why are you drinking now? Why are you living with alcohol?"

   She sure had me there! Smart girl! But no woman was going to get the best of me. So I answered, "Vodka's good company when you're lonely. But if I could find God, I know I wouldn't need this anymore, would I? But how to find God?" I shrugged. "It seems nobody knows."

   On and on I went, giving her every opportunity to break in and say that she was a Believer, or to give me literature. Finally I finished my emotional story, saying, "If only I could find somebody who would show me how to find God or give me literature to show me the way, I'd give my right arm."

   I waited. Victor and I looked at her. She stirred. Was she going to take the bait? This is it. We've got her! The minute she'd get the literature out, we'd arrest her and take her off to Nikiforov and regale him with the story of how we tricked her.

   "Well, I have no literature," she said. "But I think if you both keep searching, somewhere you'll find God."

   Victor and I looked at each other. We knew we had lost the battle. And knowing we had lost, we realized we might as well get out of there. Drunkenly saying, "Good night," we thanked Maria for talking to us and walked out.

   Once we were out on the street, Victor said, "Sergei, that was a tremendous story. You almost had me convinced you were a Believer. You're lucky I didn't arrest you!"

   I laughed, then cursed and said, "What are we going to tell Nikiforov?" He had told us, "I have two prison cells waiting for mother and daughter. Just bring me one piece of literature, and we'll pick them both up and get rid of them!" Nikiforov's cells were going to stay empty. We knew he would be furious.

   When we got back to the police station, we hesitantly told him our story. At first Nikiforov fumed quietly, then suddenly exploded. "Outsmarted by a stupid woman!" he yelled. It was incredible to him that such a thing could happen.

   Mrs. Annenchenko and her daughter Maria had escaped Nikiforov that night. But they would not remain free. Eventually they were arrested on some grounds or another and sent to the women's prison at Magadan.

[Soldier4Christ]

   "Kourdakov," Nikiforov said one day, "your operations squad is one of the finest. I can tell you, from information I've received from headquarters, you're doing a better job here than most of the groups anywhere in the country. You have one of the leading groups."

   I was pleased with those words, because this commendation, added to my successful leadership of the largest Youth League division in the province, was great for my career. Anyone wanting to get ahead in the Soviet Union has to build a consistent, strong record. That's what I was attempting to do. Nikiforov's encouragement sparked my determination to excel, and I redoubled my efforts. And the men responded by becoming more brutal.

   One night in a home on the southern outskirts of Petropavlovsk, we attacked a group of Believers who had somehow had a few moments' advance notice that we were coming. When we got there and burst through the door with our clubs swinging, three had already managed to escape, and the others were trying to. We attacked them viciously, knocked them to the ground, and began beating them. One was an older, white-haired man who couldn't move very fast. Alexander Gulyaev caught up with him, whirled him around, and said, "All right, grandpa." The old man's lips began to move, muttering a few words of prayer, I supposed.

   "So you want to talk to God!" Maybe you want to go to God right away!" He shook him violently, gave him a hard knee in the stomach, and hit him with a karate chop on the back of the neck. Three days later, the old man died of his injuries.

   Our squad also developed refinements in its brutal procedures. We used what we called our "quick technique" if we wanted to get the raid over with fast and get the prisoners back to the police station in a hurry. Or if we wanted to play around and have fun, we used our "slow technique," toying with the Believers, getting some boxing or judo practice.

   On the way to the raids, Victor would ask me, "What's it going to be, Sergei, quick or slow?" I'd mull it over a minute and give what I thought should be the answer. Sometimes the fellows agreed, but sometimes not. "No, let's get it over with faster," they would often suggest. "Let's get done and have some fun with the girls at the club."

   The quick technique consisted mostly of karate chops and judo throws, with Vladimir and Victor, our boxers, using their own fast punches, knowing just where and how to hit, so that one blow per Believer would finish them off. After subduing everyone, we would drag the leaders out into the truck, pull out the identification cards of the others, record them, and take off for the police station to dump our load. As soon as possible, we would then rush off to a bar or club.

   It was the quick technique that resulted in the most severe injuries to the Believers. Two women died from their injuries after one of the raids. I learned of their deaths when I was summoned to testify in a court case for a woman who refused to allow her daughter to wear a special Youth League insignia. The mother was accused of being a counterrevolutionary, an enemy of the state. The judge asked her to explain her behavior. In response, she told how her aunt had died from injuries after being beaten in one of the secret church meetings which had been raided by a "kind of police hooligan group," as she described us. She went on, "I have decided that if my aunt died for her faith, the least I can do to honor her is to take a stand for my own faith, and I will not let my daughter wear the emblem of those who killed my aunt." It had to be my group which killed her aunt. We were the only ones operating.

   The court hushed this up, and the report did not get out. But it was another indication that several died from the beatings they suffered at our hands. Sometimes we injured them more than we had planned to, resulting in violent death or permanent incapacity. Sometimes Sergei Kanonenko's knife did the job.

   But we felt no remorse. The bloodier the raids, the greater the congratulations from Nikiforov. Each raid was followed by a detailed report given to Nikiforov, and he often came along with us when we investigated the people who had been in the meetings we raided. Reports of resulting injuries and deaths were sent to Moscow, and we never received one word of reprimand. It can't be said that we were gangs of hooligans and anarchists who were exceeding our authority. Every step was known to Nikiforov, our superior officer, as well as to the Gorkom and to Moscow. We had proof that Moscow took notice of these reports, because often some official in Moscow singled out something from them for comment.

   The raids increased in intensity and violence as time went on. It was especially bad for the older people, who were hit hard or thrown about like pieces of furniture. We made no distinction between women and men. Nikiforov often said, "Is a woman murderer any less dangerous than a man murderer?" By that, we understood that all were the same. We were sinking, degree by degree, into amorality.

[Soldier4Christ]

   I began to realize that this brutalization process was not confined to compartments of my life. It was making its mark upon my every thought and activity. I began to sense the difference in the way I ran the Youth League and in my relationships with the officers and cadets under me. Even some of my men became conscious of the change. One of them remarked to me one day, "Sergei, you're getting hard. What's happened to you?"

   His question stopped me in my tracks. Sergei, what has happened to you? The cruel, uncaring feelings that characterized me on the raids had permeated every area of my life. I found I could not isolate them or turn them off after I had been on duty with the operations group.

   The change in my life was perhaps most noticeable in my job as Youth League director. Whereas before I would try to help the young cadets and use my position to cover many of their errors so they could continue their career, now I had little concern whether a man was dismissed or not or if his career was wrecked forever. At the time these changes first began taking place, I was unaware of them. Later, however, I noticed a sense of general uneasiness in my life, but so ill defined that I couldn't put my finger on it. There was little time for reflection about it. The raids had to go on.

   As the summer months of 1970 came on, the Believers tried to protect themselves by splitting into smaller groups of eight or ten, rarely more. This tactic forced us to conduct more raids to reach the same number of Believers. The Believers were becoming wiser in other ways as well. They began placing guards on the outside, often children, to warn them upon seeing anything suspicious outside. At their signal, the Believers would quickly hide their Bibles and other literature, and the tape recorders on which they recorded foreign religious radio broadcasts. On some occasions, the Believers had so much advance warning from guards they had stationed somewhere that by the time we got there, all had disappeared from the meeting place.

   Word of our campaign was getting around the city and the province. With only 250,000 people in all of Kamchatka, and with the devastating and brutal effects of the raids we were conducting, even the general public was beginning to talk. This notoriety enraged Nikiforov, who had warned us repeatedly to keep the people from knowing what we were doing and to prevent word from getting around that the Soviet Union didn't have religious freedom. Orders began coming from Moscow that no news of our activities should be allowed to get out.

   Another wearying aspect of our work was that the more vigorously we attacked the Believers, the more rapidly their numbers seemed to grow. Nikiforov had estimated that there were 30,000 Believers in the province, out of a population of only 250,000 people. And from what we had seen, he might have been right! In the more than 150 raids I led, rarely did we see the same faces twice. In many of the raids we saw new converts, living evidence of the ability of these Believers to infect others with their religious poison.

   To crush them required a greater number of raids, and a severe scheduling problem was created for us. Nikiforov had to put up a special schedule board on the wall, on which we would map out the raids to come. I conducted many conferences with him, standing before that board as we discussed each raid to take place. Often I would say, "Well, we can't do both of these tonight. We'll have to hold this one for next week."

   Of course, the multiplicity of meetings was great for us. We got our twenty-five rubles per raid whether there were eight people present or twenty.

   Another thing we noticed in 1970 was that more and more of the Believers were turning out to be young people. In some of the meetings we found even small children. Moscow was alarmed by the trend. They regarded it as a dangerous "phenomenon" that must be stopped.

   This great upsurge of religious interest among youth bewildered me. I was a youth specialist and thought I understood Soviet youth. But larger and larger numbers of young people were inexplicably and constantly popping up in the secret churches, knowing full well what it would mean to them, their careers, and their future if they were discovered. They were creatures of our Communist state, and here they were, turning to religion in great numbers! I really wondered about this religious appeal. Natasha kept coming back to my mind. She was one of "us," a Soviet youth. What did she see in religion? What did she find in God that caused her to be willing to take those vicious beatings?

   The young people's great interest in God also touched a nerve in Moscow. Leaders of the antireligious organization in Moscow flew out to Kamchatka and conducted special seminars, instructing us on how to oppose this "highly dangerous trend." From their talks, we gathered that the same "dangerous trend" was evident in all other parts of the Soviet Union as well.

   I couldn't help comparing and contrasting these young Believers with the youths I dealt with in the Communist Youth League. My young people had been raised in the Communist way of life, just as I had, being taught its doctrines from the earliest grade on, believing in it and plunging in to serve its cause with all their hearts. But now they were beginning to see life as it really is and to note the contradiction between the promises and the reality, and they were becoming cynical and hard. Often they turned to alcohol as a way of escape.

   I compared this empty, sterile life of hard cynicism with the life of the young people who had turned to belief in God. The contrast was glaring, and it began to create gnawing doubts and questions in my mind.

[Soldier4Christ]

Haunting Words

   In July 1970, I sat in the police station waiting room along with Anatoly Litovchenko, Vladimir, Victor, and two or three others of my men. We were on regular watch duty at the station, waiting for news of Believers' activities to come in so we could take off immediately. Our time was now divided between answering emergency calls and putting in regular hours of duty at the police station. We often had to spend many hours on duty, for which we drew regular pay.

   On this day, Nikiforov came into the waiting room and said, "Kourdakov, I want you and one of your men to go burn some of that junk that's been piling up downstairs."

   The raids had become so frequent that we had quickly accumulated great piles of the confiscated Believer's literature. It was worthless and rather pathetic when you looked at it. It was written on very cheap paper, but was characterized by the most precise hand lettering I had ever seen. I once exclaimed, looking at a pile of the stuff, "How do they have time to do anything else except copy this junk?"

   "I bet they get writer's cramp!" exclaimed Victor, and we laughed.

   All kinds of oddities could be found in that box downstairs. There were some stories, lettered by hand, telling about God in simple terms that children could understand. These were for the children's meetings.

   I called Vladimir Zelenov to come with me. We walked around to the stairwell and down to the cold sobering room below. There were no drunks in the cell that day. Over to the side, close to the big metal stove, were three deep, wooden boxes. Two of them were piled to the brim with confiscated literature. "Start the fire," I said to Vladimir, and he threw in some of the literature, lighted a match, and got the blaze going.

   Leaving the iron fire door open, we began slinging the copies of handwritten literature into the fire. Even with the fire blazing, the room was cold, and I wanted a drink to warm me up. I asked Vladimir to go get us a drink. I continued throwing literature into the fire, a handful at a time, watching it go up in flames and thinking a fire was all this stuff was good for.

   What did young people see in this trash? I thought of Natasha again. A sense of deep curiosity suddenly came over me. Often I had taken a quick look at the literature, out of curiosity before, while riding on the truck back to the police station. I had tried to read it but it never made any sense to me. All I found were histories of somebody or other. To me it was just like any other history book, only far less interesting. But now, alone, while Vladimir was gone after the vodka, and overcome by curiosity as to what Natasha and the other young people saw in it, I picked up one booklet and began to read.

   It was a handwritten portion of the Gospel of Luke, around chapter 11. Some verses were missing. I supposed it was written from memory and the writer didn't recall all the verses and left gaps to be filled in later. As I read, several words caught my eye. They were some kind of prayer or something. Then, as I was looking, I heard Vladimir's footsteps as he returned with the vodka. Quickly, I ripped out a couple of pages from the child's notebook it was written in and shoved them into my pocket.

   "Here it is," Vladimir announced as he came downstairs with the vodka. We took a few sips, threw the rest of the samizdat Christian literature into the fire, then closed the door to the stove and started back upstairs.

   That night, at the first opportunity I had, lying in my bunk at the naval academy, I opened up those pieces of paper and began to read them again. Jesus was talking and teaching someone how to pray. I became more curious and read on. This certainly was no antistate material. It was how to be a better person and how to forgive those who do you wrong. Suddenly the words leaped out of those pages and into my heart. I read on, engrossed in the kind words of Jesus. This was exactly the opposite of what I had expected. My lack of understanding, which had been like blinders on my eyes, left me right then, and the words bit deeply into my being. It was as though somebody were in the room with me, teaching me those words and what they said. They made a profound impact on me. I read them again and again, then sat thinking, my mind lost in the wonder of it all. So this is what Natasha believed.

   The words grabbed my heart. I was somehow frightened and uneasy, like a man walking on unfamiliar ground. I read the words and reread them and put them down, and still they came back to my mind again and again. Those words were leading Natasha a to be a better person and help others. They haunted me. It was a feeling totally new to me.

   Through the days and weeks ahead, those words of Jesus stayed with me. I couldn't shake them, hard as I tried. I wished I hadn't read them. Everything had been so organized in my life, but those disturbing words had changed something. I had feelings I never had felt before. I couldn't explain or understand them. I kept those pages, reading and rereading them during the next several weeks. I could only comprehend it up to a point, and then my understanding broke down into confusion. It was like standing on a shore, in the midst of a swirling cloud, and reaching out. You know there's something beyond, something somewhere to be touched, to be reached, to be known. But it escapes you. All you see is the swirling cloud.

   Something deep within me, some tiny ember of humanity, was still alive somewhere inside me. The life I was leading was not the life that I had wanted to lead. Beating old women was not the kind of life I had dreamed of long ago in my early childhood. My first religion, communism, I believed in wholeheartedly and gave myself to it without reserve. It was the first thing I had to believe in when I discovered it in Barysevo. But that belief was gone now, shattered by the realities of life as I had seen them. Nothing satisfactory had replaced that belief I once held.

   It was while I was in this confused state of mind that the time for my next military leave came up, in late July. I flew out of Kamchatka, heading eastward toward Novosibirsk, and on that flight I made up my mind that I could not continue my way of life. I had no idea what I would be changing to, only what I had to change from. I decided to escape from Russia and get away from this life. Something was driving and compelling me.

[Soldier4Christ]

   I went to Novosibirsk and there reported to the police headquarters, giving them an address where I could be reached within twenty-four hours in the event of a military emergency. Then, without authority, I boarded a plane for Moscow. When I got there, I went to visit that sacred place I had visited before, the tomb of Lenin. As I stood in line before the tomb in the great, sprawling Red Square. I thought of the last time I had been there, when I was seventeen and on my way to Leningrad at the start of a promising new career as a naval officer. I had stopped, full of optimism, and bowed my knee at the bier of Lenin. I had prayed, asking Lenin for guidance and direction for my life, for wisdom to be a success, and for obstacles to be removed from my way. I had walked out refreshed and confident, looking eagerly to the future.

   This time, in July 1970, I stood in line again, still with a sense of respect for Lenin. He was a brilliant man. He had many good teachings. He had many good goals: the equality of all men; the brotherhood of all people; the helping and lifting up of the little people. Those were the goals that had attracted me and caused me to be such a dedicated Communist. As I mused, the line was moving forward, and before I knew it, I was only a few feet away from the corpse. Where had all those visions of equality of men gone, as Lenin taught them? Was it equality of men when I beat an old woman so severely she died within a few days? What is equality when a beautiful young girl was twice beaten horribly? Where had all those early dreams and visions of a better life gone wrong? I stood there silently for several minutes as the storm raged inside. Comrade Lenin, where have men strayed from your teachings? What has gone wrong?

   An agony was taking place inside me as I asked, again and again, what had happened to the promises. What has gone wrong with the future we live for? How could men have so twisted Lenin's good teachings? I hoped that, somehow, being close to Lenin would help me understand and calm the storm inside my heart. But I felt no different.

   "Move along," someone was whispering, and I turned and walked out of the tomb of Lenin for the final time.

   Down through the streets of Moscow I wandered, lonely, disillusioned, distraught. I was in a state of total confusion, but I decided one thing. I would leave Russia and get as far away as I could. I can't say why I wanted to leave Russia. I only know that I was deeply disillusioned and desperately unhappy, that something was terribly wrong.

   I went on to Lvov and stayed there with one of my Ukrainian friends whom I had met in Petropavlovsk. I bought an aqualung on the black market and made plans to go to the border of Russia and Hungary, to the River Tiza, and swim underwater into Hungary. Then I would make my way through Hungary to a river which flows from Hungary into Austria, put on my aqualung again, go back into the water, and come up on the other side in Austria. I had Hungarian currency and was ready to go. It was a crazy plan, but I had to escape.

   Leaving my friend in Lvov, I went to one of the small towns on the Hungarian border. I took a driver in a car and explained to him that I had seen the Far East end of Russia in Siberia. Now I would like to see the West end of Russia here. It made sense to him, so he drove me to the border and left me. I told him I'd find my way back. I could see across to the Hungarian side, and even though it was a Communist country, the border was tightly patrolled. I told myself that border wasn't there to keep the Hungarians out of Russia!

   After taking one look at the scene, the constant patrolling, and the guard stations, I knew that my plan to escape across the river was impossible. It sounded good from far away; but being here, I saw it was impossible. Something said to me, "Don't go!" I gave up that try, got rid of the aqualung, and soon was aboard a train on my way back to Lvov.

   I devised another plan, flying first to Baku, then to Yerevan, the capital of Armenian Russia. Upon arriving in Yerevan, I took a bus into the countryside, heading toward the villages near Turkey. Soon I reached a small village at the end of the bus line and began walking toward the Turkish border. I hid during the day and walked at night until I found myself very close to the Turkish frontier. I could see the soldiers on the other side of the border, in a small Turkish town. But Russian soldiers were everywhere on the Soviet side. All night I waited and watched, but still the border was heavily patrolled. There was no getting across here either. My two attempts to start a new life had failed.

   Since my military leave was about over, I boarded a plane to Novosibirsk and from there took another flight back to Petropavlovsk to report to the naval academy again. My mind was in turmoil.

[Soldier4Christ]

The Last Raid

   "Welcome back, Kourdakov," Nikiforov exclaimed as I walked into the police station for the first time after my return from my military holiday.

   If he only knew what I have been up to, I wonder how welcome I would be.

   "Glad to see you back," he said. "We've got lots of work lined up for you. We will soon have you back in business again. I bet you could use the money, huh?"

   Quickly I was back at the raids. The small groups of Believers consisted largely of young people. During interrogations, they reported that they had recently become Believers. Nikiforov was very concerned, and the deluge of directives from Moscow continued, with alarm.

   There was no easing up or sympathy from me during these raids. In fact, because I was dissatisfied and ill at ease I was testier than ever. I was sharp and curt with my men and with the Believers. The last raids I led were the most vicious of all. Something was compelling me, driving me. I did not understand what it was, and I took out my frustrations and hostilities on any who crossed my path.

   One Friday afternoon in October 1970, I got a call from Nikiforov. "Kourdakov," he began, "I want you to be here at half-past twelve on Sunday. Get as many men as possible."

   I called my men, telling them to be sure to be in their rooms at noon on Sunday and I would be around with the police truck to pick them up.

   On Sunday at 10 A.M., I went to the police station for a briefing with Nikiforov and to get the location of the meeting place. "How many do you think will be there?" I asked.

   "Fifteen or sixteen," he replied.

   I was surprised. It had been a long time since we had found that many together in any underground meeting. But I had ten men I could count on, in addition to myself, and there would be no problem.

   "I want you to handle this one a little differently, Kourdakov. According to our informants, the Believers are going to meet to pray from noon till two o'clock and then start their regular meeting. I want you to get a man there early with a tape recorder, so we can record their prayers and find out what they're praying about." The police were concerned, he said, thinking that possibly the Believers might be using their praying to cover up plans to overthrow the government.

   If Nikiforov wants a tape recording of their prayers, he'll get one.

   I told Yuri to get out there at half-past twelve, thirty minutes after the prayer meeting was scheduled to begin. Equipped with a small, battery-operated recorder, he was to get as close to the meeting place as possible and secretly tape everything going on inside. The Believers would be meeting in a large bathhouse, built in the yard of a small home, backed up against a hill. There were no houses behind it and no windows in the back wall of the bathhouse. Inside it would be impossible to spot anyone approaching from over the hill, from the rear.

   Having dispatched Yuri, I made the rounds to pick up my other men. I had no inkling that this raid would be my last.

   At two o'clock we quietly approached the neighborhood in which the prayer meeting was taking place and parked the unmarked police van out of sight some distance away. We got out and began walking over a hill, to approach the house from the rear. I stationed two men in front in the street to keep away anyone attracted by the screams.

   As we came over the hill and approached the house from the back, we could see the bathhouse now closed up tightly. Coming closer, we found Yuri at work. His tape recorder was running and he had taped the muffled voices of other Believers in prayer during the past ninety minutes. These prayers would be heard again and again in Moscow. They would help the state study the Believers' attitudes and thoughts, in order to oppose them more effectively.

   I looked at poor Yuri kneeling there, making the recording. I'll bet that was the first prayer meeting he had ever attended — and on his knees for almost two hours! Quietly we walked single file toward the building.

   At the door we paused briefly, my men beside me, waiting for the starting signal. Suddenly I shouted, "Now!" and the raid was on. The door was unlocked — obviously they weren't expecting us — and we burst in on them. As the informant had predicted, there were fifteen or sixteen Believers present, packed in tightly and sitting close together. We had caught them in the middle of prayer.

   Vladimir Zelenov reached and grabbed a Bible from a Believer, ripping it apart. One of the women cried out, "Why? Why do you do that?" It was a hurt, deep cry, but it irritated Vladimir, and he smashed her full in the face. It was a professional, well-aimed blow that would have flattened any man, much less a frail little woman. She flew back against the other Believers and crumpled to the floor, her face bleeding.

   Screams split the air as my men went to work. I pushed the lever on my club, reducing it to its shortest length so it was more useful in this cramped room. Clubs and fists were already flying, and the cries of the Believers were enough to break one's eardrums, some screaming in fear, others screaming as they were smashed.

   I saw an old woman near the wall, fear on her face, lips trembling in prayer. I couldn't hear what she was saying because of the noise. Her praying infuriated me and I raised my club to hit her. She suddenly saw me poised, ready to strike, and she prayed loudly. I listened for a second to her prayer, more out of curiosity than anything. As my arm was raised, ready to lower my club on her defenseless head, I heard her words: "God, forgive this young man. Show him the true Way. Open his eyes and help him. Forgive him, dear God."

[Soldier4Christ]

   I was stunned. Why doesn't she ask help for herself instead of me? She's the one about to be finished off. I was angered that she, a nobody, would be praying for me, Sergei Kourdakov, a leader of the Communist Youth League. In a flash of rage, I gripped my club tighter and prepared to smash it against her head. I was going to hit her with all my might, enough to kill her. I started to swing. Then the strangest thing happened to me. I can hardly describe it. Someone grabbed my wrist and jerked it back. I was startled. It was hurting. It was not imaginary. It was a real squeezing on my wrist until it actually hurt. I thought it was a Believer, and I turned around to hit him. But there was no one there!

   I looked back. Nobody could have grabbed my arm. And yet, somebody had grabbed me! I still felt the pain. I stood there in shock. The blood rushed to my head. I felt hot as fright swept over me. This was beyond me. It was confusing, unreal. Then I forgot everything. Dropping my club, I ran out, with the blood rushing to my head and a hot, flushed feeling in my face. Tears began flowing down my cheeks.

   Since I was four years of age I had cried only once that I could remember. Even during the most brutal beatings from Uncle Nichy in the children's home, I never cried. I was too tough to cry, I thought. No one will ever make me cry, I had vowed. Crying was a sign of weakness. But now, as I ran from that nightmare scene, I was crying. Real tears were coursing down my cheeks. I was bewildered, lost. Things were happening that I did not understand. I ran and walked, then ran some more, not remembering a thing. Hours passed. I can't recall anything beyond running and crying. I don't know how long I walked, nor where I walked. But when I came to myself, it was dark.

   Then I slowly made my way back to the police station. It was about 9 P.M. No sooner had I entered than Nikiforov exploded, "Kourdakov, where have you been?" It was more of a challenge than a question.

   "I had to think things over," I replied, "and I've come to a decision to quit this kind of work."

   A worried look came over Nikiforov's face, replacing the look of anger. He sized me up for a few moments and said, "Sergei," his voice a little less harsh now, "you're just tired out. Go get some rest."

   "But I'm not, I've — "

   He cut me off, saying, "You're tired. Go rest and we'll talk about it later."

   A few days later Nikiforov called me at the naval academy to lead another raid on a secret church. I stammered, searching for a way out, and said, truthfully, "I'm very busy in my studies. We've got tests coming up. I can't do it tonight." Nikiforov hesitated. This was the first time I had turned down a raid. He said no more, then hung up.

   A few days later Nikiforov was on the phone again, telling me to report that evening with some of my men.

   "I can't make it. I have a Communist Youth League meeting to prepare for," I replied. Several days later he called again, and I told him, "I have my navy studies. I'm graduating soon and I have all my duties as leader of the Youth League. I just don't think I have enough time to continue with the police."

   "I'll talk to you later," he said and hung up. I felt relieved. Maybe I was out. I hoped so, very much. I had led more than 150 raids on the secret churches in the past two years, an average of one every five or six days.

   I realized I was carrying a heavy psychological load which I cannot explain. It was as if my heart had been replaced by a heavy rock, pressing me down. There was something very wrong with life, with me. But I told no one.

   About two weeks later, around November 1, it was time for the regular meeting of the Communist party in Petropavlovsk, at which I was to give a report to the senior Communist party members on my work as head of the Youth League. I had a good report to give. I had plunged into my Youth League work strenuously, and my organization really was the best in the province. I cited facts, figures, and plans for the coming months. I had good reason to expect compliments. But instead, I got a surprise. The minute I finished speaking, a comrade got up and asked, "Comrade Sergei, why have you stopped working with the police?"

   Someone exclaimed aloud, "He's not working with the police! Where did you hear that?"

   The first man replied, "A little bird told me." As they laughed, I realized Nikiforov had staged all this to pressure me back into the police operations.

   The chairman, with mock surprise, leaned over and said, "I can't believe this! It's such a great job with short hours, good money. Is this true, Comrade Sergei?"

   "Yes, it is," I replied.

   "That little bird also told us you refused to beat the religiozniki," the first man said.

   "Is that also true?" the chairman asked.

   "Yes, sir, it is," I replied.

   "Well," he answered, "I think anyone refusing a good job like that is a little crazy to quit. Why?" he demanded.

   This unexpected sniping at me, following my excellent Youth League report, was getting to me and I let my guard down and blurted out my feelings, something I had been trained never to do.

   "Comrades," I said, "I have been an activist and leader since the Octobrianiks at age eight. I have served the party well and will continue to serve it well. But I have studied the party guidebook and the constitution of the USSR. It says we are brothers with all men. So I can't beat them. No, I did not beat the religiozniki last time. According to our teaching, they are my brothers. How could I beat my brothers? How can I continue doing that? Of course, we have a problem with these Believers, but it does not direct us to beat and cripple them — "

   The chairman cut me off sharply. "Comrade Sergei," he said, "you have been the finest youth leader to pass through the naval academy in years. You are still very young with much to learn. These religiozniki are not our brothers! They are like murderers. They kill the spirits of our children. They cripple people with their poisonous beliefs. We must rid our country of these people. This seeming pity for these people is an infection, nothing less! These Believers are the ones who are disturbing our people and causing troubles. They force our government to spend huge amounts of money fighting them, money which should go toward building our country and helping our people. These people working from the inside can hurt us by undermining the faith of our people in communism and replacing it with a faith in some imaginary Jesus Christ."

   He went on, his voice increasing in shrillness. Then quickly his voice softened. "You are a Communist youth leader. When we are rid of these people, this kind of work will not be necessary." The way the Believers speak their faith to others, I''ll be dead and in my grave first!

   "Our Central Committee and the Politburo have given us this work to do and we must do it," the chairman told me.

   "If it must be done," I replied, "get someone else to do it — not me."

   In the tense silence that followed, someone shouted, "Let him go. He's young and green. His record is perfect. Give him time. He'll come around." So they agreed to release me from police action and let me continue my work as head of the Youth League at the naval academy.

   I left hurriedly. Behind me I heard the comments, "He's young. He's got a great future ahead of him. Give him time. He'll see it our way. . . ."

   My actions would normally have drawn suspicion and I would have been put under surveillance, but to my knowledge this did not happen. Possibly, it is because they realized that I was, in fact, extremely busy. Also, my record was without blemish.

   I returned to my studies, which were now nearing completion. Soon I would be commissioned as a Cadet Second Lieutenant of the Soviet Navy. I continued my work as head of the Youth League, but it was with a growing dissatisfaction and unhappiness inside me.

   Around December 1, I received an order to go see Nikiforov at his office. When I arrived, Azarov, the KGB major who had first recruited me, was also there. I said to myself, "I'm in for something now!"

[Soldier4Christ]

   "Have a seat, Sergei," Nikiforov said, trying to create a relaxed atmosphere. "Sergei, you are really crazy!" he said. "Here you are, with a great career in the police before you, and you are rejecting it to go to sea. Don't you know you'll spend half your life at sea with the fish? What future is there in that?"

   Then adopting a warm, friendly tone, he said, "If you'll just listen to reason, you'll have a great career here with the police. You've done excellent work for us. You have all the qualities we are looking for." As he spoke, I looked at Azarov. I was sure that he had ordered this conversation.

   "You're just the kind of man we need. The police needs you more than the navy. Here's what we are prepared to do," he said, nodding to Azarov. "We'll jump your rank from second lieutenant to full lieutenant now. We'll send you to the party police academy in Tomsk." This was a famous, elite, KGB academy. Most of Russia's top police officers came from there. Graduates of Tomsk were marked for the highest positions in the Soviet police system.

   Nikiforov went on, citing my "special experience" with Believers and saying that at Tomsk I would be trained as a specialist in dealing with Believers. I well knew what that meant. My head was spinning. The Tomsk Academy! Only a Russian knows what a career advancement that was. Just look at Azarov. Only around thirty and already a major in the KGB! And I could do even better than Azarov. I knew that. After a year at Tomsk I would be graduated and upgraded from lieutenant to captain, then from captain to major. By the time I was twenty-five, in four years, I knew I could easily be a major in the secret police, in charge of dealing with Believers. From there, there was no limit to how high I could go. Life can be very good for people who blindly serve the system. I had already seen that. I could have a car, a cottage, plenty of money.

   All that flashed through my mind as Nikiforov continued talking. The state needed people like me, Nikiforov was saying again, and it knew how to reward them well.

   Azarov then spoke for the first time. "We know your record, Comrade Kourdakov. It is perfect for this work. It is spotless. You've had excellent experience with the Believers. We need specialists for that work. You will be marked to go far."

   Well, if they look at my record, it is spotless. But if they could look into my heart, they would see great dissatisfaction.

   I heard them out, then thanked them for the wonderful offer and asked for a few days to think it over, since it would decide my career from that time on.

   "We understand," Nikiforov said. "I'll talk to you again soon."

   "Comrade Kourdakov," Azarov said ominously and slowly, "the state has a big investment in you — a big investment — and we expect much from you. Don't forget it!" I knew what Azarov was saying. I was on the hook and would never get off. I thanked them both again and left. I went back to the naval academy, lost in thought.

   Most career officers would have given their right arm to get the offer I just had. For nearly all my life, my driving motto had been, "Go ahead! Go ahead!" Now here was the greatest break of my life. But it seemed hollow. I knew in my heart I could never be a servant of the system which had killed my father and turned me into a hardened animal, beating women and harmless Believers.

   If I said yes, I would be a tool of the state to persecute the Believers. Nikiforov had already made it clear that I was marked for that kind of work. There was no question. I couldn't do it.

   A few days later, I told Nikiforov my decision. He sputtered and said, "Go get a few months of life at sea with the fish; and when you get back, we'll have another talk."

   I then realized the KGB wouldn't leave me alone until I agreed. "When you get back . . . " Those words rang in my ears. I knew in my heart I would not be coming back — not to that.

   With my decision firmly made, I went back into my studies and duties as chief of the Youth League, eagerly waiting the time I could go to sea.

   A month later, in January 1971, I graduated from the naval academy as a radio officer and was commissioned Cadet Second Lieutenant Sergei Kourdakov of the Soviet Navy. I was assigned immediately to sea duty and shipped out aboard a Soviet destroyer.

   After one and a half months at sea on the destroyer, we returned to the naval base for two weeks. I went to see a friend of mine who worked in the office where naval officers received their orders. I asked to be assigned to a ship operating off the coast of the United States. I told my friend, "I am trained as a radio officer but I need a lot more experience. I want duty with the fleet off the United States coast, where this is constant activity in radioing information back from America, and I could get a lot of experience quickly." That sounded reasonable enough.

   He said, "Well, it is not normal, but for you, Sergei, we can do it."

   After two weeks in port I was assigned as the radio officer on board a Soviet submarine heading for duty off the coast of the United States. As I boarded the submarine that raw morning of March 4, 1971, I saw the last of my beloved homeland. I would either be dead or free, but I would not return to serve the system or be another Nikiforov. A normal man has other choices. He can live in Russia and ignore the system as much as possible and live as decent a life as he can. But mine was not such a case. I was part of the system; it had its hands on me.

   If I returned from sea, I would have to serve the police fully. Azarov and Nikiforov had made that clear. And seeing what this system had done to my people and my country, I could never serve it. I am Russian. I love my country, I love my people, who are great and warm and generous. Those conflicting thoughts weighed on my mind very much as I left.

[Soldier4Christ]

   Our submarine cruised the coast of Korea and Japan, then started across the vast expanse of the Pacific toward the United States. I was honored, in one sense, to be picked as a submarine officer, for they are the elite, the most carefully chosen of all Soviet naval officers. Only those with spotless records are chosen. They have access to military secrets and handle nuclear weapons which could start a war. Even so, submarine duty was not what I wanted. I couldn't accomplish my plan to escape from a submarine.

   As the weeks and months passed, I hoped and waited, faithfully performing my duties in the meantime. Then in mid-June 1971, I was told that the Soviet trawler Ivan Sereda was nearby and needed a radio officer. My captain informed me I was to be transferred in mid-Pacific to be the Ivan Sereda's radio officer. I could hardly contain my joy. Things were beginning to go well. We surfaced near Hawaii on June 25, and I transferred to the Ivan Sereda.

   I was on the surface now. We cruised past Hawaii, heading directly toward San Diego, where we came close to shore. We then continued northward along the California coast to a point off Los Angeles. Now everything seemed ready for my flight to freedom. We were just outside the territorial limit. Late in the evening, I gathered several pieces of wood and tied them together into a makeshift raft. My plan was to use this as flotation, and when night came, to go overboard carrying some food and water. I would then swim into United States coastal waters and hail a passing United States yacht or other vessel. My raft was ready and hidden.

   In the far distance the lights of Los Angeles could be seen on the horizon. Freedom was so close. But I had to stand duty one more shift as radio operator. That night, as my mind was mostly on the freedom which lay only a few miles away, I routinely carried out my duties. Soon I received radioed notice that we were about to receive a message from Moscow, which would be transmitted shortly. With a pencil I began taking the message. It startled me. I could hardly write it down accurately, due to its impact on my plans. One of our Soviet fishermen, the message said, a young Lithuanian named Simas Kudirka, had jumped from a Soviet fishing vessel onto an American ship off the coast of New England on November 23, 1970. The message said that Kudirka had committed treason against the Soviet Union by his attempt for freedom and had been sentenced to ten years in prison.

   Of course. What a fool I was to forget Kudirka! When his escape attempt had happened, I had heard about it. But in the rush now, I had forgotten. Now the comment on his sentencing on the very eve of my escape brought it all back to me with shocking fear. I remembered we were told at the time: "The United States government cooperated fully with the Soviet Navy and promptly handed Kudirka back to us. He is now in our custody."

   All Soviet seamen were told that his turnover to Soviet authorities was part of a new agreement between the United States and Russia, whereby the United States would hand back any Russian seaman trying to escape, as they had handed back Kudirka. At the time I had wondered what kind of free country is this America which makes an agreement to give back anyone who tries to find freedom?

   Suddenly I was angry with myself for forgetting Kudirka and almost repeating his mistake. Remembering the little raft which, if found, would give me away, I ended my duty in a state of anxiety. The moment I was finished, I headed directly for the spot in which I had hidden the raft. To my relief, I saw it not been discovered. I disassembled it and scattered the pieces of wood. That night I stood by the railing, looking at the glow of the lights from Los Angeles, and wondered why the Americans would turn back a man fleeing to freedom. (Later I learned that an American admiral had handed Kudirka over without government approval and this was not the American government's policy.)

   I looked down at the waters, so warm, so inviting. Now it had to be Canada. It couldn't be America.

[Soldier4Christ]

Search For a New Life

   We sailed north to a point off Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast. Shortly afterward, I received word that I was being transferred to be radio officer on board the Kolivan, another Russian trawler, in the large Soviet fleet off the United States coast.

   As the days passed and July slipped into August, I thought several times of Simas Kudirka and what he faced: ten years of imprisonment at best. Once his trial was over, the Soviets knew the world would forget Kudirka and he could be kept in prison forever or have an "accident" in prison.

   If such was the fate of a genuine fisherman, what would happen to me, a navy officer, a Communist youth leader? I knew what would happen. I would be dead before I reached Russia if I were caught or handed back.

   As the coast of Canada came closer each day, I was coming nearer to the point of life or death. There would be no turning back for me. We crossed into waters off the coast of Canada and remained, for a short time, off the city of Vancouver. Then our ship was ordered to rendezvous with the Soviet trawler Shturman Elagin, and I was informed I was again being transferred, now to the Elagin, as its next radio officer. The transfer was completed off the coast of Vancouver, and the Elagin immediately set off for Amchitka Island off the coast of Alaska, which was to be the site of the American underground nuclear test blasts.

   When I say "trawler," I use the term the Soviet Navy uses. Actually, these trawlers moved too swiftly for catching fish; fishing was not our mission.

   During these days at sea the greatest pleasure I had was tuning in briefly to the Voice of America and hearing what was happening in the world. I had listened to it many times back in Russia and knew that most of the Russian people and many of the naval cadets did the same. It was dangerous, and if caught, one could receive severe punishment. But sometimes the thirst for news and truth is greater than the fear of discovery. These broadcasts of the Voice of America and religious broadcasts in the Russian language from missionary stations helped strengthen me for the ordeal ahead.

   Toward the end of August 1971, the Elagin was ordered to head back toward the Canadian coast. For the past several weeks I had spent several hours daily lifting weights and doing exercises to build myself up. I would need enormous stamina and strength when my time came. Several of my shipmates joked about my physical fitness work, saying, "Hey, are you going to try to be Mr. World?" But I kept at it. Only I knew why.

   The Elagin had 110 men on board and an officer for every ten men. I found the captain to be a fair, honest man of the sea whom I admired very much. We passed away many hours talking and playing chess.

   One day as I radioed material to Russia, I received word of an incoming message and started copying it down. It was a message concerning me. In five days the Soviet ship, the Maria Ulyanova, named for Lenin's sister, was due to rendezvous with the Elagin and resupply it. I was to be transferred to the Ulyanova, which would then be due to head straight back to Russia.

   After acknowledging receipt of the message, I mulled it over with alarm. I had been at sea for almost six months. Five more days on the Elagin, and then back to Russia, perhaps never to be near free shores again. I had had a great chance of freedom off Los Angeles, but I couldn't take the chance of being handed back.

   Further communications came over the radio saying that my papers promoting me had been processed and awaited me back in Petropavlovsk. But that was the last thing I was interested in now.

    I was gripped by a sense of desperation. As thoughts crowded into my mind, our ship was encountering fierce head winds and heavy seas. We were soon caught in a cyclone. We fought our way forward with every man and machine straining to the fullest. Several of our ships were having difficulty in the storm, and I spent extra hours in the radio cabin transmitting messages back and forth. Above me was a wall calendar which I glanced at often. Time was slipping away; those few remaining days were like the sands of my life running out before my eyes.

   "Sergei," the captain ordered, "radio Canadian authorities. Ask for permission to ride out this storm inside their territorial waters."

   "Yes, sir," I replied routinely. Then the importance of that message hit me! Inside Canadian waters!

   That was it! If we went that close to shore, which we could never do otherwise, I might be able to make it. I had planned to go into the water as our ship lay just outside territorial waters, twelve miles offshore, and use some wood as flotation to get me in. But I knew the water temperature and well knew I might die of hypothermia before I made those twelve miles. But now we were going inside Canada's waters! The idea filled me with renewed hope and energy. But whatever happened, I had made up my mind: I would not go back to Russia on the Ulyanova in five days. I would not go back to that life.

   Making the final decision to go under any circumstances and conditions cleared my mind to focus on one thing — my moment of escape. And it was to come during the furious height of the storm. Around 10 P.M. on September 3, 1971, I plunged into the black, heaving waters. After five hours in the freezing waters, I reached a large rock and climbed its 200-foot cliff. Then plunging down a ravine, I was cut, bruised and battered. My body was shaking uncontrollably and bleeding all over. Jumping off the rock, I then swam halfway across a bay that separated me from a village. Then my head began to swirl. I was too cold, too exhausted. I had lost too much blood. I looked up moments before a wave of dizziness swept over me, and the last thing I remember seeing or thinking, was the lights of a tiny village on the coast. I must make it. I must make it. Then the lights of the village flickered out.

   I can't remember what happened afterward. Everything is fuzzy. But later I was told the story.