religion

• Lenin - religion


  Opium of the people as it caused false happiness and was the tool of oppression, therefore, it was necessary for immediate eradication
• 1918 decree


  1. Separation between the Church and state

  2. Allowed freedom of religious worship

  3. Destroyed much of the 'earthly' power of the Russian Orthodox Church
• Actions against the Russian Orthodox Church


  • Church lands seized
  • Priests persecuted
  • Circulation of atheistic propaganda
• State atheism

  Outlawing religion within a country to suppress religious freedom
• Stalin

  Believed the 'new socialist man was an atheist one, free from religious constraints'
• Direct attacks on Orthodox Church


  • Religious schools closed down
  • Forbade teaching of religious creeds
  • Physically destroyed or deconsecrated churches
  • 1929-40 Holy Day Sunday abolished
• Criminalisation

  • 1935 anti-religious campaign
  • 1936 Constitution - publication or organisation of religious propaganda is illegal
  • Regained rights of priests voting and priests supported by voluntary donations
  • Priest victims of purges
  • Large numbers sentenced to gulags
• Actions against Islam


  • Soviet Muslims' property and institutions were seized
  • Sharia courts abolished
  • 1935 banned pilgrimages to Mecca
  • Wearing a veil forbidden
  • Muslim priests were imprisoned and executed
• Actions against other religions

  • Jewish schools and synagogues closed
  • Attacks on Buddhist institutions and Armenian & Georgian Churches
• Emblems of Church and practices of religious devotion were banned and became less prominent
• Islamic institutions seizure reduced number of mosques in USSR – internally faithful but unable to publicly practice it
• Abolition of Sharia courts divided Islamic Church as the 'New Mosque' movement became more pro-Soviet
• Frequency of prayers, fasts, feasts reduced
• Stalinism in Islam faced backlash in central Asian Muslim communities where traditionalists murdered followers of Soviet injunctions
• 1941 40,000 Christian churches and 25,000 Muslim mosques closed and converted into schools, cinemas, clubs, warehouses, museums and grain stores
• Still strong religious beliefs despite closure of religious institutions
• 1937 census = over 500,000 Soviets as religious believers – evidence of regime's difficulty in killing off religious belief and observance
• 1941 only 1 in 40 churches were working as a church
• 152 of 168 bishops killed or incarcerated
• Jewish and Islamic culture persecuted