Hewlett Johnson

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The Very Reverend Hewlett Johnson (1874-1966), was an English clergyman, Dean of Manchester and later Dean of Canterbury, where he acquired his nickname The Red Dean of Canterbury for his unyielding support for the Soviet Union and its allies.

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[edit] Life

Born in Manchester, the third son of Charles Johnson, wire manufacturer, and his wife Rosa, daughter of the Reverend Alfred Hewlett, he graduated from Owens College, Manchester in 1894 with the geological prize but later attended Wadham College, Oxford and was ordained in 1904. An avowed Christian Marxist, Johnson was brought under surveillance by MI5 as early as 1917, when he spoke in Manchester in support of the October Revolution. His political views were unpopular but his hard work and pastoral skills led to him becoming Dean of Manchester in 1924. He was appointed Dean of Canterbury in 1929 by Ramsay MacDonald.

He shot to public prominence in the 1930s when he contrasted the economic development of the USSR under the First Five Year Plan to Britain during the Great Depression. He toured the Soviet Union in 1934 and again in 1937, reporting on each occasion the health and wealth of the average Soviet citizen and that the Soviet system protected the citizens' liberties. He collected his articles in the book "Soviet Power", published in 1941, and with a preface by the renegade Brazilian Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa. His observations and views have drawn extensive criticism from commentators who believe that the Soviet Union in the 1930s was an oppressive totalitarian society with few or no redeeming features. Yet Johnson defended his positive accounts of life in the Soviet Union, emphasizing that he had visited "five Soviet Republics and several great Soviet towns", that he had wondered on foot "many long hours on many occasions and entirely alone", and that he saw "all parts of the various towns and villages and at all hours of day and night." [1]

During the period of the operation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Johnson continued to support the Soviet line despite the fact that Britain was at war with Germany and he was accused of spreading defeatist propaganda. However, in line with the Soviet line, he supported the war effort after Hitler invaded the USSR in 1941, although his MI5 file reports that it was judged "undesirable for the Dean of Canterbury to be allowed to lecture to troops". [2]

Johnson was arguably the most prominent of a number of Western church leaders during the Second World War, which is said to have persuaded Stalin to restore the Moscow Patriarchate. Stalin was successfully convinced that such a move would improve his relations with the Western Allies. "It was not the vanity of a former seminary dropout that moved the Soviet leader," Volkogonov concludes, "but rather pragmatic considerations in relation with the Allies." [3]

After the war, Johnson continued to use his public position to propound his pro-Soviet views. From 1948, he was the leader of Great Britain-USSR Friendship Organisation. At the end of the war Johnson was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, in recognition of his "outstanding work as chairman of the joint committee for Soviet Aid", and in 1951 received the Stalin International Peace Prize. However, his influence began to wane, particularly after public sympathy for the USSR in Britain declined dramatically after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.

The Headmaster of the King's School, Canterbury, Fred Shirley, manoeuvred against him. One year Johnson put up a huge blue and white banner across the front of the Deanery which read "Christians Ban Nuclear Weapons". By way of riposte, some of the boys put up a banner on one of the school's buildings which read "King's Ban Communists".

Johnson's adversaries have called Johnson's endeavours to unite Christianity and Marxism-Leninism a "heretical teaching concerning a new religion".[4] Johnson denied these accusations and argued that he knew very well the difference between religion (Christianity) and politics (Marxism-Leninism). Johnson's religious views were in line with mainstream Anglican Christianity. His support for Marxist-Leninist politics was derived, in his own words, from the conviction that "[capitalism] lacks a moral basis" and that "it is the moral impulse [of communism] ... which constitutes the greatest attraction and presents the widest appeal."

[edit] Citations on USSR

“The ideal held out to a child differs entirely from that still too common here (England) – ‘Work hard and get on’.” (p.195).

“Education from first to last is provided for all without monetary payments, from the excellently equipped nursery-schools right up to the university course.” (p.185).

“There is no financial difficulty which hinders a ... student from entering the university or institute for higher education.” (p.207).

“Technical institutes await children (of workers) free of charge.” (p.237).

“What has the Soviet Union done for its youth and what is it doing?...On his seventeenth birthday and not before, he can enter industry.” (p.205)

[edit] Bibliography

  • The Secrets of Soviet Strength, 1943
  • Christians and Communism (London, 1956).

[edit] External links