Stalin and religion Flashcards
Stalin’s terror and religon
- Stalin’s religous policies were often driven by other priorities (he was pragmatic)
- Stalin orderd the closure of many churches in the country for for aiding resisstance to his policies
- oustide of Russia he set targets for the amount of religoius people from different ethnic groups he wanted purged
Stalins terror and Islam
- The NKVD attacked local priests and intellectuals in central Asia
- The NKVD attacked groups that had been set up to protect islam in the 20s, including the Jadids and Sufi groups who were dedicated to ‘saving Islam from Marxist pollution’
Reasons for Stalin working with the curch (WW2)
During WW2 Stalin made a pragmatic allicance with the Church, one of his war stragetgies was boosting patriotism. There was a number or reasons for this:
* Russian Othodox church was linked to russian identity, patroitism re-awoke it and provided comfort for thoose suffering.
* Soldiers found comfort in beilieving god would welcome them to heaven, one solider claimed thier was more inspiration in a few of Jesus words than in all of Marxs works
Stalins agreements with religion in WW2
Stalin worked with metropolitan Sergey the orthodox churches most senior figure.
* Sergey urged christians to fight for the motherland proclaiming Stlain as ‘gods chosen leader’
* anti religous propgoanda like Bezbozhnik (the godless) officially closed
* Stalin promised to end censorhip. He reopened 414 churches at the end of the war
Growth of religion after the war
The orthodox church grew after wartime easing of restricitons
* priesthood expanded from 9254 to 11827 in 1948
