An exiled Russian minister who spent eight years in Soviet labor camps delivered his hard-hitting message of religious persecution in the Soviet Union.

Through a translator, Baptist Pastor Georgi Vins spoke to a crowd of 200 people Thursday in the Holmes Student Center's Carl Sandburg Auditorium.

The Soviet Union is conducting "a hidden and open war against the Bible—against God," Vins said. Although religious toleration has become better since the Soviet government adopted the "glasnost" policy, the 1929 Stalinist legislation allowing persecution has not changed.

"Last year, in November and December, all religious prisoners were released. Praise the Lord," Vins said. He added, however, that the government could return to imprisoning worshippers at any time.

Vins explained the term "glasnost" as "a little bit of openess, like a crack in a door." "Perestroika", he said, was the Soviet term for economic restructuring.

"I have to admit I don't believe in that ‘perestroika'. It is another attempt to deceive the West," Vins said.

The Soviet Union has economic, political and ecological problems, Vins said. The people "depend on alcohol to a great extent" and some Soviet youths are involved in crime and narcotics, Vins said.

The problems are "a result of rejecting God. Even Soviet newspapers admit the country has hit a dead end," he said. The Soviets are disillusioned with Marxism and Leninism, and with "glasnost", the Soviet Union is "trying to decorate it a little bit, to make it look different," he said.

The audience watched at 45-minute movie, filmed secretly in the Soviet Union, before Vins lectured. The film showed how Christians in the Soviet Union thirst for religion and cope with government persecution.

The film showed scenes of worshippers holding services in private homes and forests, at the risk of being reported to the KGB, the Soviet Union's equivalent to the United State's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). "To be baptized in Russia is to choose the path of suffering rather than enjoy comforts," the film's narrator said.

The film was a good tool to show the religious persecution, said Ross Parse, a senior majoring in political science. "You never picture things like that happening," he said.

Drew Parlee, director of The Navigators, organized Vins' visit. "I'm really sorry we didn't get more people who hold opposing views to attend," he said. Parlee said he sent about 400 invitations to faculty in the sociology, philosopy, history, political science and ecomonics departments, but the audience was "a partisan crowd."

Parlee added that America perceives religious worshippers as "wimps," especially men. Most of the religious groups on campus have more women than men, Parlee said.

Vins fielded questions from about 30 audience members during the program and spoke with a crowd after the two-hour lecture.