attacks on religious beliefs and practices

The Russian Orthodox Church

• The Bolsheviks saw religion and its institutions as a threat to the imposition of socialist ideology

• To the Bolsheviks, the Church provided an alternative ideology to that of Marxism.

• Christianity's emphasis on the rights of the individual contrasted with the collective mentality of socialism

• The Bolsheviks were atheists who dismissed religion as little more than superstitious nonsense

• Lenin had a particular hatred for priests and this informed the pace and tone of Bolshevik policy

• There was a concern that the power and influence of the Russian Orthodox Church as an instrument of social control posed a threat to the imposition of socialist values and government control

• The Russian Orthodox Church had been tied closely to the old order; the tsar had been its head and the majority of the population took the word of their spiritual leaders seriously

• Therefore, it was a large task the Bolsheviks set themselves when they aimed to destroy the Church and the influence of religion in general

• There was to be no 'opium of the masses' other than communism

Measures introduced to limit the power and influence of religion: Lenin

• In 1918, the Decree on Freedom of Conscience separated the Orthodox Church from the state and it lost its privileged status.

• The Church was deprived of its land without compensation, its publications were outlawed and all religious education outside the home was banned.

• A large number of churches were destroyed or converted to other purposes. The government closed all monasteries and by the end of 1918 the head of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Tikhon, was under house arrest.

• During the famine of the civil war, attacks on the Church increased and valuable objects were seized to help pay for food supplies. Priests were deprived of the vote, denied rations during the civil war and suffered as victims of the Red Terror of 1921-22.

• By 1923, 28 bishops and more than 1,000 priests had been killed.

• In 1929, the League of the Militant Godless was established by the Bolsheviks as part of a propaganda campaign against religion.
  It launched events to disprove the existence of God which included taking peasants for plane rides to show them heaven did not exist in the sky. Weeping icons were ridiculed, with demonstrations of how they could be operated by rubber squeezers.

• Religious rituals were attacked and there was a campaign to replace baptisms with 'Octoberings, New names, such as Revolyutsiya and Ninel (Lenin spelt backwards), were encouraged.

• The scale of the attacks led many Church leaders to seek an accommodation with the regime and Patriarch Tikhon's death in 1925 opened the way for Metropolitan Sergei of Moscow to call on Church members to support the government. Most refused, but the new tone resulted in less strident attacks by the government against the Church

• Nonetheless, by the end of 1930, four-fifths of all village churches were either no longer operating or had been destroyed.

Bolshevik actions had severely restricted the Orthodox Church but failed to stamp out its influence. Surveys of the peasantry in the mid-1920s revealed that 55 percent were still active Christians.

Changes to religious policy under stalin

• campaign of religious repression accompanied Stalin's policy of collectivisation

• More churches were closed and village priests were labelled as 'kulaks' and deporte

• Further attacks followed during the Great Purge of 1936-39, and by 1939 only 12 out of 163 bishops were still at liberty

• It was not until the German invasion of the USSR in 1941 that policy changed

• The Church supported the war effort and this prompted an accommodation between Church and state

• Stalin took a more liberal approach to the Church; the patriarchate was re-established, some churches reopened and new seminaries were set up to train priests

• There was some acknowledgement that religion could play a beneficial role in sustaining morale during the hardships of war

Khrushchev anti religious campagin

• Khrushchev was fervently anti-religious and pursued a programme of active repression similar to that of Stalin before the Second World War

• In 1958-59 Khrushchev launched a harsh anti-religious campaign that continued until his removal from office in 1964

• The role of the priest was limited to one of spiritual advice only, Parish councils were placed under the control of Party officials who often took action to dismiss priests on the grounds that they were no longer needed

• Within four years, 10,000 of the existing churches were closed. Surviving priests were often harassed by the secret police

• Baptists and Jews also suffered from severe restrictions on their right to congregate and worship.

Brezhnev's policies towards the Church

• With the fall of Khrushchev in 1964, active persecution of the Church declined

• Brezhnev was aware that stories of religious persecution did not go down well in the West and had a damaging impact on the USSR's attempts to conduct foreign policy

• Brezhnev was therefore happy to allow the Church to act within its defined limits

• The government used the Council of Religious Affairs to monitor religious services and clergy were classified according to loyalty to socialism

• The Orthodox Church was expected to stick to formal church services and support Soviet policies, especially social policy where the Church could provide facilities, such as help for the poor

• Not all Church members were satisfied with this submissive attitude to the state

• In 1976, a group of Orthodox priests set up the Christian Committee for the Defence of Believers' Rights to draw attention to human rights abuses

• This was a step too far for Brezhnev: its leader, Father Yakunin, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for anti-Soviet propaganda in 1979

• Those religious groups, such as Jews and Baptists, who were more likely to be critical of the regime were treated with less tolerance

• Their evangelical activities of preaching to gain converts were restricted

• Prayer meetings were broken up and members dismissed from their jobs

• Nonetheless, unregistered congregations continued to meet and distribute prayer books.

The influence of Islam

• The majority of the population were members of the Russian Orthodox Church, but other religions were of significant influence

• The Central Asian regions of the Soviet Union contained a sizeable Muslim community

• Dealing with Islam was a more difficult task for the Bolsheviks as it was more engrained into a distinct way of life and integrated within its community

• The Bolsheviks feared that Islam's links to national minorities within the USSR might threaten the social cohesion of the state

• In recognition of the hold of Islam, the Bolsheviks initially made little attempt to reduce the influence of sharia law courts, schools and mullahs.

• t was not until the mid-1920s that the government felt confident enough to attack Islamic institutions and rituals.

• Religious endowments of land were prohibited, making the upkeep of mosques more difficult.

• Most mosques were closed down.

• Sharia courts were phased out.

• Mullahs were removed as part of the collectivisation process, often forced to publicly admit to being deceivers of the people.

• The campaign against the veiling of women was launched on International Women's Day in 1927 when huge gatherings of women took part in a ceremony. They cast off their veils and threw them onto a bonfire.

• Ramadan fasting was condemned as interfering with work discipline.

• Polygamy was prohibited on the grounds of its subjection of women.

These measures resulted in a series of violent revolts in 1928-29, during which the Chechens of Southern Russia were particularly active. The unrest was only crushed through the use of Soviet armed forces. Many Muslims attempted to observe obedience to the state in public while retaining Islamic customs in private.

Others joined underground brotherhoods, known as tarigat, to continue the fight for Islamic rights.

Results of religious policy

• As in the case of the Orthodox Church, the impact of the Communist Party's attacks on Islam was to reduce the numbers engaged in active worship

• A survey commissioned by the government during the 1980s found that only 25 percent of the population believed in God; far fewer were engaged in any religious worship

• The influence of formal religious structures had declined considerably, but for those who remained faithful the actions of the government seemed to have intensified their religious commitment

• An underground network of support developed that often provided sustenance to those whose needs were not met by the government