Religion Flashcards
Why did Religion need targetting
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. ‘Opium of the masses’
Example of targetting orthodox church under Lenin
A large number of churches were destroyed or converted to other purposes. The government closed all monasteries.
victims of the Red Terror of 1921-22.
By 1923, 28 bishops and more than 1,000 priests had been killed.
Religious rituals were attacked.
by the end of 1930, four-fifths of all village
churches were either no longer operating or had been destroyed
Stalin religion
A campaign of religious repression accompanied Stalin’s policy
of collectivisation.
More churches were closed and village priests
were labelled as kulaks’ and deported. Further attacks followed
during the Great Purge of 1936-39, and by 1939 only 12 out
of 163 bishops were still at liberty.
Khrushchev
Khrushchev was fervently anti-religious and pursued a programme
of active repression
In 1958-59 Khrushchev launched a harsh anti-religious campaign that continued until his removal from office in 1964. 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.
Less intense under Brez but
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.
Jews and Baptists
Prayer meetings were broken up and members dismissed
from their jobs.
