Attacks on Religious Beliefs and Practices Flashcards
What were Lenin’s thoughts on religion?
It was an enemy of freedom and equality
Recognised: people who respected the teaching of the church would never fully embrace Communist ideology
SO
Communist policies tended to persecute the church
BUT
The communists were prepared to compromise with religious groups
What were the decrees lenin introduced that defined the relationship of the government and religion?
- 1917 Decree on Land: peasants had the right to seize land belonging to the church
- 1918 Decree Concerning Separation of Church and State: took away traditional privileges of the Orthodox Church
How did Lenin use the Cheka to terrorise the Orthodox Church?
- November 1917: Archpriest Ivan Kochurov murdered outside Petrograd
- January 1918: Metropolitan Vladimir tortured and shot in Kiev
- January 1918: Orthodox priests in Moscow massacred (following a Church decree excommunicating the Bolsheviks)
What was The Living Church?
1921 established by Lenin: a rival to the Orthodox Church.
Removed the church’s traditional leaders, had a decentralised structure —— hoped these reforms would make it hard for the new church to oppose the regime
BUT
It was not prepared to support the regime: the majority of Russians continued to believe in Christianity throughout the 20s
What was Lenin’s attitude / actions towards Islam?
Initially, Lenin backed attacks on property owned by Islamic institutions.
BUT this policy was quickly reversed:
Instead, the new government funded Islamic schools and encouraged them to join the party.
They were less antagonistic to Islam than the Russian orthodoxy because there had been no official link between Islam and Tsarism.
How was religion treated under Stalin?
His POLICIES often had religious IMPLICATIONS:
- Many Churches were closed and turned into grain stores as a result of collectivisation
- his terror destroyed Islamic groups: eg. Sufi groups on Turkestan were destroyed by 1936
what impact did ww2 have on religious policy?
S made a pragmatic alliance with the church
He asked church leaders to support the government’s WAR EFFORT
In return for:
• Ended censorship of church magazines,
• Ended anti-religious propaganda
• some churches allowed to reopen (414 during the Second World War)
What was Khruschev’s attitude to religion?
Abandoned compromise. He felt religion had no place in a socialist society.
His major anti-religious campaign started in 1958.
When did Khruschev’s major anti-religious campaign start and what did it include?
1958
- closure of churches reopened during and after ww2
- anti religious propaganda reintroduced
- placing Orthodox converts under surveillance
- refusing believers access to holy sites
How did Khrushchev use the Soviet space programme to attack religion?
Yuri Gagarin famously commented that he had travelled up to the heavens and found no god
Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space) also argued that her trip had led to the victory of atheism over “the mysterious heavens that used to mystify the imagination”)
What happened to religious policy 1964-85?
Brezhnev ended Khruschev’s anti-religious campaigns. He hoped a SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION would persuade the young that there was no god.
What was Brezhnevs ideas on Islam?
Under Brezhnev: the government started supporting anti-American Islamic groups in the Middle East:
established the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan (allowed soviet Islamic leaders and scholars to have limited contact with Muslims in other countries)
Brezhnev’s shift in policy led to a shift in communist ideology—
• Previous leaders: Islam is a “backward and barbarian” religion.
• Brezhnev: Islam is a “progressive, anticolonial and revolutionary creed”
