Post-war
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. Johnson's Communist activities were especially troublesome for the British government, since foreigners tended to confuse Johnson the Dean of Canterbury with the Archbishop of Canterbury . According to Ferdinand Mount, "What infuriated his critics, from Gollancz on the left to Fisher on the right, was that there was no evidence that Johnson had made any but the most superficial study of the issues that he spouted on with such mellifluous certainty, from famines in the 1930s to germ warfare in Korea."
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". 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 " lacks a moral basis" and that "it is the moral impulse ... which constitutes the greatest attraction and presents the widest appeal."
Read more about this topic: Hewlett Johnson
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