Old Bolshevik pressing Eastern church to show mercy (8)
I believe the answer is:
lenience
'mercy' is the definition.
(lenience is a kind of mercy)
'old bolshevik pressing eastern church' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'eastern' could be 'e' and 'e' is found within the answer.
'church' could be 'ce' (abbreviation for Church of England) and 'ce' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
'to show' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lenience that I've seen before include "Quality of mercy in awarding punishment" , "indulgence" , "Tolerance" .)