Attacks on religon Flashcards
What did Lenin believe about the church?
It was an enemy of freedom and equality
People who respected teaching of church would never fully embrace communist ideology
Communist policies tended to persecute church
What decrees did Lenin create against religion
1917 Decree on Land - peasants right to seize land belonging to the church
1918 Decree Concerning operation of church and state took away traditional privilege of the Orthodox Church
How did Lenin use Cheka to terrorise Orthodox Church
Nov 1917 Archpriest Ivan Kochurov murdered outside Petrograd
Jan 1918 Metropolitan Vladmir tortured and shot in Kiev
Jan 1918 Priests in Moscow massacred after church decree excommunicated Bolsheviks
What is the living church?
1921 established to rival Orthodox Church
Removed Church’s traditional leaders and had a decentralised structure
Lenin hoped that these reforms would make it hard for the new church to oppose the regime
Lenin and Islam
1st Lenin backed attacks on property owned by islamic institutions
Policy reversed and gov funded islamic schools
Encouraged muslims to join party
Less antagonistic towards muslims because no direct link between islam and Tsarism
What was religion like under Stalin?
Many church’s closed = into grain stores as a result of collectivisation
Stalins terror destroyed islamic groups, Sufi groups in Turkestan destroyed by 1936
What compromise did Stalin have with religion
During WW2 pragmatic alliance with church
Stalin asked for church leaders to support gov war effort
Stalin ended censorship of church magazines and anti religious propaganda
414 churches reopened during WW2
What did Khrushchev believe?
Religion had no place in socialist society
What did Khrushchev do?
ABANDONED COMPRIMISE:
- Closure of churches reopened during WW2
- Anti-religious propaganda reintroduced
- Refusing believers access to holy sites
Howe did Khrushchev use space program as anti religious propaganda
Yuri Gagarin famously commented that having travelled up to the heavens, he found no god
Religion under Brezhnev?
Ended Khrushchevs anti religion campaigns.
Gov supported American Islamic groups in Middle East
Described Islam as ‘progressive, anticolonial’
what is Spiritual board of Muslims?
ntroduced Spiritual board of Muslims of Central Asia allowed Soviet Islamic leaders and scholars to have limited contact with muslims in other countries
